from
The First Hundred Thousand
by
Ian Hay
(Major John Hay Beith)

“Mind me: on the command ‘form fours,’ odd numbers will stand fast; even numbers tak’ a shairp pace to the rear and anither to the right. Now —— forrm fourrs!”

The squad stands fast, to a man. Apparently — nay, verily, — they are all odd numbers.

Still, we are getting on. Number Three Platoon (which boasts a subaltern) has just marched right round the barrack square, without —

(1) Marching though another platoon.

(2) Losing any part or parts of itself.

(3) Adopting a formation which brings it face to face with a blank wall, or piles it up in a tidal wave upon the verandah of the married quarters.

They could not have done that a week ago.

“ You’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road —— ”

On we swing, full-throated. An English battalion, halted at a cross-road to let us go by, gazes curiously upon us. “Tipperary” they know, Harry Lauder they have heard of; but this song has no meaning for them. It is ours, ours, ours. So we march on. The feet of Bobby Little, as he tramps at the head of his platoon, hardly touch the ground. His head is in the air. One day, he feels instinctively, he will hear that song again, amid sterner surroundings. When that day comes, the song, please God, for all its sorrowful wording, will reflect no sorrow from the hearts of those who sing it — only courage, and the joy of battle, and the knowledge of victory.

By a “crime” the ordinary civilian means something worth recording in a special edition of the evening papers — something with a meat-chopper in it. Others, more catholic in their views, will tell you that it is a crime to inflict corporal punishment on any human being; or to permit performing animals to appear upon the stage; or to subsist upon any food but nuts. Others, of still finer clay, will classify such things as Futurism, The Tango, Dickeys, and the Albert Memorial as crimes. The point to note is, that in the eyes of all these persons each of these things is a sin of the worst possible degree. That being so, they designate it a “crime.” It is the strongest term they can employ.

But in the Army, “crime” is capable of infinite shades of intensity. It simply means “misdemeanor,” and may range from being unshaven on parade, or making a frivolous complaint about the potatoes at dinner, to irrevocably perforating your rival in love with a bayonet. So let party politicians, when they discourse vaguely to their constituents about “the prevalence of crime in the Army under the present effete and undemocratic system,” walk warily.

“Well, take my tip,” continued Kemp, “and avoid amateur ministering angels, my son. I studied the species in South Africa. For twenty-four hours they nurse you to death, and after that they leave you to perish of starvation. Women in war-time are best left at home.”

The Olympus which controls the destinies of “K(1)” differs in many respects from the Olympus of antiquity, but its celestial inhabitants appear to have at least two points in common with the original body — namely, a childish delight in upsetting one another’s arrangements, and an untimely sense of humour when dealing with mortals.

So far as our researches have gone, we have been able to classify Olympus, roughly, into three departments —

(1) Round Game Department (including Dockets, Indents, and all official correspondence).

(2) Fairy Godmother Department.

(3) Practical Joke Department.

The outstanding feature of the Round Game Department is its craving for irrelevant information and its passion for detail.

For instance, in the case of the machine-gun washers — by the way, in applying for them, you must call them Gun, Machine, Light Vickers, Washers for lock of, two. That is the way we always talk at the Ordnance Office. An Ordnance officer refers to his wife’s mother as Law, Mother-in-, one — you should state when the old washers were lost, and by whom; also why they were lost, and where they are now. Then write a short history of the machine-gun from which they were lost, giving date and place of birth, together with a statement of the exact number of rounds which it has fired — a machine-gun fires about five hundred rounds a minute — adding the name and military record of the pack-animal which usually carries it. When you have filled up this document you forward it to the proper quarter and await results.

The game then proceeds on simple and automatic lines. If your application is referred back to you not more than five times, and if you get your washers within three months of the date of application, you are the winner. If you get something else instead — say an aeroplane, or a hundred wash-hand basins — it is a draw. But the chances are that you lose.

Olympus will not disgorge your washers until it has your receipt. On the other hand, if you send the receipt, Olympus can always win the game by losing the washers, and saying that you have got them. In the face of your own receipt you cannot very well deny this. So you lose your washers, and the game, and are also made liable for the misappropriation of two washers, for which Olympus holds your receipt.

Truly, the gods play with loaded dice.

On the whole, the simplest (and almost universal) plan is to convey a couple of washers from some one else’s gun.

But if you can manœuvre your helpless pawns into Mudsplosh Camp, you receive ten whole points, with a bonus of two points thrown in if you can effect the move without previous notice of any kind.

We are in Mudsplosh Camp to-day. In transferring us here the Department secured full points, including bonus.

However, once he has attached this outfit to his suffering person, and has said what he thinks about its weight, the private has no more baggage worries. Except for his blanket, which is carried on a waggon, he is his own arsenal, wardrobe, and pantry.

Not so the officer. He suffers from embarras de choix. He is the victim of his female relatives, who are themselves the victims of those enterprising tradesmen who have adopted the most obvious method of getting rid of otherwise unsaleable goods by labelling everything For Active Service — a really happy thought when you are trying to sell a pipe of port or a manicure set. Have you seen Our Active Service Trouser-Press?

[....]

All the sender of this impassioned missive has to do is to delete such clauses as strike him as untruthful or over-demonstrative, and sign his name. He is not allowed to add any comments of his own.

Most of them begin in accordance with some approved formula, such as —

It is with the greatest of pleasure that I take up my pen —

It is invariably a pencil, and a blunt one at that.

Crosses are ubiquitous, and the flap of the envelope usually bears the mystic formula, S.W.A.K. This apparently means “Sealed with a kiss,” which, considering that the sealing is done not by the writer but by the Censor, seems to take a good deal for granted.

“Na pooh!” is a mysterious but invaluable expression. Possibly it is derived from “Il n’y a plus.” It means, “All over!” You say “Na pooh!” when you push your plate away after dinner. It also means, “Not likely!” or “Nothing doing!” By a further development it has come to mean “done for,” “finished,” and in extreme cases, “dead.” “Poor Bill got na-poohed by a rifle-grenade yesterday,” says one mourner to another.

The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language will have to be revised and enlarged when this war is over.

Further forward still, half-right, another isolated trench was being held by a portion of the Highland Brigade. These were suffering cruelly, for the German artillery had the range to a nicety, and convenient sapheads gave the German bombers easy access to their flanks. It is more than likely that this very trench had been constructed expressly for the inveiglement of a too successful attacking party. Certainly no troops could live in it for long. “A” Company were to go forward and support.

Captain Blaikie, passing word to his men to be ready, turned to Bobby.

“I’m a morose, dour, monosyllabic Scot, Bobbie,” he said; “but this sort of thing bucks me up.”