Leaves from a Field Note-Book | Page 5

been merely nodding at each other across a space of some twelve yards, and it was hot work and tedious. The sweat ran down their faces, which glistened in the sun. "Now I'm going to give you the butt exercises"; they brightened visibly.
"I am pointing--so!--and 'ave been parried. I bring the butt round on 'is shoulder, using my weight on it. I bring my left leg behind 'is left leg. I throw 'im over. Then I give the beggar what for. So!" The words were hardly out of his mouth before he had thrown himself upon the nearest private and laid him prostrate. The others smiled faintly as No. 98678 picked himself up and nonchalantly returned to his old position as if this were a banal compliment. "Now then. First butt exercise." One rank advanced upon the other, and the two ranks were locked in a close embrace. They remained thus with muscles strung like bowstrings, immobile as a group of statuary.
"That'll do. Now I'll give you the second butt exercise. You bring the butt round on 'is jaw--so!--and then kick 'im in the guts with your knee." Perhaps the section, which stood like a wall of masonry, looked surprised; more probably the surprise was mine. But the corporal explained. "Don't think you're Tottenham Hotspur in the Cup Final. Never mind giving 'im a foul. You've got to 'urt 'im or 'e'll 'urt you. Kick 'im anywhere with your knees or your feet. Your ammunition boots will make 'im feel it. No!"--he turned to a young private whose left hand was grasping his rifle high up between the fore-sight and the indicator--"You mustn't do that. Always get your 'and between the back-sight and the breech. So! The back-sight will protect your fingers from being cut by the other fellow. Now the third butt exercise."
As we turned away the Major thoughtfully remarked to me, "There isn't much of that in the Infantry Manual. But the corporal knows his job. When you're in a scrap you haven't time to think about the rules of the game; the automatic movements come all right, but in a clinch you've got to fight like a cat with tooth and claw, use your boots, your knee, or anything that comes handy. Perhaps that's why your lithe little Cockney is such a useful man with the bayonet. Now the Hun is a hefty beggar, and he isn't hampered by any ideas of playing the game, but he's as mechanical as a vacuum brake, and he's no good in a scrap."
We returned to the orderly room. The orderly officer had a pile of letters on his right impressed with a red triangle, and contemplated the completion of his labours with gloomy satisfaction. "But it's very interesting--such a revelation of the emotions of battle and all that," I incautiously remarked. "Oh yes, very revealing," he yawned. "Look at that"; and he held out a letter. It ran:
DEAR MOTHER--I'm reported fit for duty and am going back to the Front with the new drafts. I forgot to tell you we were in a bit of a scrap before I came here. We outed a lot of Huns. How is old Alf?--
Your loving son, JIM.
The "bit of a scrap" was the battle of Neuve Chapelle. The British soldier is an artist with the bayonet. But he is no great man with the pen. Which is as it should be.

III
THE WILTSHIRES
"You talk to him, sir. He zeed a lot though he be kind o' mazed like now; he be mortal bad, I do think. But such a cheerful chap he be. I mind he used to say to us in the trenches: 'It bain't no use grousing. What mun be, mun be.' Terrible strong he were, too. One of our officers wur hit in front of the parapet and we coulden get 'n in nohow--'twere too hot; and Hunt, he unrolled his puttees and made a girt rope of 'em and threw 'em over the parapet and draw'd en in. Ah! that a did."
It was in one of the surgical tents of "No. 6 General" at the base. The middle of the ward was illuminated by an oil-lamp, shaped like an hour-glass, which shed a circle of yellow radiance upon the faces of the nurse and the orderly officer, as they stood examining a case-sheet by the light of its rays. Beyond the penumbra were rows of white beds, and in the farthest corner lay the subject of our discourse. "Can I talk to him?" I said to the nurse. "Yes, if you don't stay too long," she replied briskly, "and don't question him too much. He's in a bad way, his wounds are very septic."
He nodded to me as I approached. At the head of the bed hung a case-sheet and