Kitcheners Mob | Page 7

hotel-keepers
who made and were granted absurd claims for damages done to their
property by billeted troops. But with vast new armies, recruited
overnight, it is not strange that there should be mismanagement and
friction at first. As the months passed, there was a marked change for
the better. British efficiency asserted itself. This was made evident to
us in scores of ways--the distribution of supplies, the housing and
equipping of troops, their movements from one training area to another.
At the last, we could only marvel that a great and complicated military
machine had been so admirably and quickly perfected.
* * * * * *
Meanwhile our rigorous training continued from week to week in all
weathers, even the most inclement. Reveille sounded at daybreak. For
an hour before breakfast we did Swedish drill, a system of gymnastics
which brought every lazy and disused muscle into play. Two hours
daily were given to musketry practice. We were instructed in the
description and recognition of targets, the use of cover, but chiefly in
the use of our rifles. Through constant handling they became a part of
us, a third arm which we grew to use quite instinctively. We fired the
recruit's, and later, the trained soldier's course in musketry on the rifle
ranges at Hythe and Aldershot, gradually improving our technique,
until we were able to fire with some accuracy, fifteen rounds per
minute. When we had achieved this difficult feat, we ceased to be
recruits. We were skilled soldiers of the proud and illustrious order
known as "England's Mad-Minute Men." After musketry practice, the
remainder of the day was given to extended order, company, and
battalion drill. Twice weekly we route-marched from ten to fifteen
miles; and at night, after the parades for the day were finished, boxing
and wrestling contests, arranged and encouraged by our officers, kept

the red blood pounding through our bodies until "lights out" sounded at
nine o'clock.
The character of our training changed as we progressed. We were done
with squad, platoon, and company drill. Then came field maneuvers,
attacks in open formation upon intrenched positions, finishing always
with terrific bayonet charges. There were mimic battles, lasting all day,
with from ten to twenty thousand men on each side. Artillery, infantry,
cavalry, air craft--every branch of army service, in fact--had a share in
these exciting field days when we gained bloodless victories or died
painless and easy deaths at the command of red-capped field judges.
We rushed boldly to the charge, shouting lustily, each man striving to
be first at the enemy's position, only to be intercepted by a staff officer
on horseback, staying the tide of battle with uplifted hand.
"March your men back, officer! You're out of action! My word! You've
made a beastly mess of it! You're not on church parade, you know! You
advanced across the open for three quarters of a mile in close column of
platoons! Three batteries of field artillery and four machine guns have
blown you to blazes! You haven't a man left!"
Sometimes we reached our objective with less fearful slaughter, but at
the moment when there should have been the sharp clash and clang of
steel on steel, the cries and groans of men fighting for their lives, we
heard the bugles from far and near, sounding the "stand by," and friend
and enemy dropped wearily to the ground for a rest while our officers
assembled in conference around the motor of the divisional general.
All this was playing at war, and Tommy was "fed up" with play. As we
marched back to barracks after a long day of monotonous field
maneuvers, he eased his mind by making sarcastic comments upon this
inconclusive kind of warfare. He began to doubt the good faith of the
War Office in calling ours a "service" battalion. As likely as not we
were for home defense and would never be sent abroad.
"Left! Right! Left! Right! Why did I join the army? Oh! Why did I ever
join Kitchener's Mob? Lor lummy! I must 'ave been balmy!"--

became the favorite, homeward-bound marching song. And so he
"groused" and grumbled after the manner of Tommies the world over.
And in the mean time he was daily approaching more nearly the
standard of efficiency set by England's inexorable War Lord.
* * * * * *
It was interesting to note the physical improvement in the men wrought
by a life of healthy, well-ordered routine. My battalion was recruited
largely from what is known in England as "the lower middle classes."
There were shop assistants, clerks, railway and city employees,
tradesmen, and a generous sprinkling of common laborers. Many of
them had been used to indoor life, practically all of them to city life,
and needed months of the hardest kind