The Amateur Army | Page 2

that I felt I was in reality a soldier.
Here we were to learn that there is no novelty so great for the newly enlisted soldier as that of being billeted, in the process of which he finds himself left upon an unfamiliar door-step like somebody else's washing. He is the instrument by which the War Office disproves that "an Englishman's home is his castle." He has the law behind him; but nothing else--save his own capacity for making friends with his victims.
If the equanimity of English householders who are about to have soldiers billeted upon them is a test of patriotism, there may well be some doubts about the patriotic spirit of the English middle class in the present crisis. The poor people welcome to their homes soldiers who in most cases belong to the same strata of society as themselves; and, besides, ninepence a night as billet-fee is not to be laughed at. The upper class can easily bear the momentary inconvenience of Tommy's company; the method of procedure of the very rich in regard to billeting seldom varies--a room, stripped of all its furniture, fitted with beds and pictures, usually of a religious nature, is given up for the soldiers' benefit. The lady of the house, gifted with that familiar ease which the very rich can assume towards the poor at a pinch--especially a pinch like the present, when "all petty class differences are forgotten in the midst of the national crisis"--may come and talk to her guests now and again, tell them that they are fine fellows, and give them a treat to light up the heavy hours that follow a long day's drill in full marching order. But the middle class, aloof and austere in its own seclusion, limited in means and apartment space, cannot easily afford the time and care needed for the housing of soldiers. State commands cannot be gainsaid, however, and Tommy must be housed and fed in the country which he will shortly go out and defend in the trenches of France or Flanders.
The number of men assigned to a house depends in a great measure on the discretion of the householder and the temper of the billeting officer. A gruff reply or a caustic remark from the former sometimes offends; often the officer is in a hurry, and at such a time disproportionate assortment is generally the result. A billeting officer has told me that fifty per cent. of the householders whom he has approached show manifest hostility to the housing of soldiers. But the military authorities have a way of dealing with these people. On one occasion an officer asked a citizen, an elderly man full of paunch and English dignity, how many soldiers could he keep in his house. "Well, it's like this--," the man began.
"Have you any room to spare here?" demanded the officer.
"None, except on the mat," was the caustic answer.
"Two on the mat, then," snapped the officer, and a pair of tittering Tommies were left at the door.
Matronly English dignity suffered on another occasion when a sergeant inquired of a middle-aged woman as to the number of men she could billet in her house.
"None," she replied. "I have no way of keeping soldiers."
"What about that apartment there?" asked the N.C.O. pointing to the drawing-room.
"But they'll destroy everything in the room," stammered the woman.
"Clear the room then."
"But they'll have to pass through the hall to get in, and there are so many valuable things on the walls--"
"You've got a large window in the drawing-room," said the officer; "remove that, and the men will not have to pass through the hall. I'll let you off lightly, and leave only two."
"But I cannot keep two."
"Then I'll leave four," was the reply, and four were left.
Sadder than this, even, was the plight of the lady and gentleman at St. Albans who told the officer that their four children were just recovering from an attack of whooping cough. The officer, being a wise man and anxious about the welfare of those under his care, fled precipitately. Later he learned that there had been no whooping cough in the house; in fact, the people who caused him to beat such a hasty retreat were childless. He felt annoyed and discomfited; but about a week following his first visit he called again at the house, this time followed by six men.
"These fellows are just recovering from whooping cough," he told the householder; "they had it bad. We didn't know what to do with them, but, seeing that you've had whooping cough here, I feel it's the only place where it will be safe to billet them." And he left them there.
But happenings like these were more frequent at the commencement of the war than now. Civilians, even those of the conventional middle class,