Kitcheners Mob | Page 5

no waving of
handkerchiefs, no clapping of hands. Nursemaids, who are said to have
a nice and discriminating eye for soldiery, gazed in amused and
contemptuous silence as we passed. Children looked at us in wide-eyed
wonder. Only the dumb beasts were demonstrative, and they in a
manner which was not at all to our liking. Dogs barked, and sedate old
family horses, which would stand placidly at the curbing while fire
engines thundered past with bells clanging and sirens shrieking, pricked
up their ears at our approach, and, after one startled glance, galloped
madly away and disappeared in clouds of dust far in the distance.
We knew why the nursemaids were cool, and why family horses

developed hysteria with such startling suddenness. But in our pride we
did not see that which we did not wish to see. Therefore we marched,
or, to be more truthful, shambled on, shouting lusty choruses with an
air of boisterous gayety which was anything but genuine.
"You do as I do and you'll do right, Fall in and follow me!"
was a favorite with number 12 platoon. Their enthusiasm might have
carried conviction had it not been for their personal appearance, which
certainly did not. Number 15 platoon would strive manfully for a
hearing with
"Steadily, shoulder to shoulder, Steadily, blade by blade; Marching
along, Sturdy and strong, Like the boys of the old brigade."
As a strictly accurate historian I must confess that none of these
assertions were quite true. We marched neither steadily, nor shoulder to
shoulder, nor blade by blade. We straggled all over the road, and kept
step only when the sergeant major doubled forward, warning us, with
threats of extra drills, to keep in our fours or to "pick it up!" In fact,
"the boys of the old brigade," whoever they may have been, would
have scornfully repudiated the suggestion that we resembled them in
any respect.
They would have been justified in doing so had any of them seen us at
the end of six weeks of training. For, however reluctantly, we were
forced to admit that Sergeant Harris was right when he called us "a raw
batch o' rookies." Unpromising we were not. There was good stuff in
the ranks, the material from which real soldiers are made, and were
made; but it had not yet been rounded into shape. We were still nothing
more than a homogeneous assembly of individuals.
We declined to accept the responsibility for the seeming slowness of
our progress. We threw it unhesitatingly upon the War Office, which
had not equipped us in a manner befitting our new station in life.
Although we were recruited immediately after the outbreak of war, less
than half of our number had been provided with uniforms. Many still
wore their old civilian clothing. Others were dressed in canvas fatigue

suits, or the worn-out uniforms of policemen and tramcar conductors.
Every old-clothes shop on Petticoat Lane must have contributed its
allotment of cast-off apparel.
Our arms and equipment were of an equally nondescript character. We
might easily have been mistaken for a mob of vagrants which had
pillaged a seventeenth-century arsenal. With a few slight changes in
costuming for the sake of historical fidelity, we would have served as a
citizen army for a realistic motion-picture drama depicting an episode
in the French Revolution.
We derived what comfort we could from the knowledge that we were
but one of many battalions of Kitchener's first hundred thousand
equipped in this same makeshift fashion. We did not need the repeated
assurances of cabinet ministers that England was not prepared for war.
We were in a position to know that she was not. Otherwise, there had
been an unpardonable lack of foresight in high places. Supplies came in
driblets. Each night, when parades for the day were over, there was a
rush for the orderly room bulletin board, which was scanned eagerly for
news of an early issue of clothing. As likely as not we were
disappointed, but occasionally jaded hopes revived.
"Number 15 platoon will parade at 4 P.M. on Thursday, the 24th, for
boots, puttees, braces, and service dress caps."
Number 15 is our platoon. Promptly at the hour set we halt and
right-turn in front of the Quartermaster Stores marquee. The
quartermaster is there with pencil and notebook, and immediately takes
charge of the proceedings.
"All men needing boots, one pace step forward, March!"
The platoon, sixty-five strong, steps forward as one man.
"All men needing braces, one pace step back, March!"
Again we move as a unit. The quartermaster hesitates for a moment;
but he is a resourceful man and has been through this many times

before. We all need boots, quite right! But the question is, Who need
them most? Undoubtedly those whose feet are most in