The First Hundred Thousand | Page 5

M.P. who, in return for our vote and suffrage,
informs us that we are the backbone of the nation, and that we must on
no account permit ourselves to be trampled upon by the effete and
tyrannical upper classes. Finally, we are Scotsmen, with all a
Scotsman's curious reserve and contempt for social airs and graces.
But in the Army we appear to be nobody. We are expected to stand
stiffly at attention when addressed by an officer; even to call him
"sir"--an honour to which our previous employer has been a stranger.
At home, if we happened to meet the head of the firm in the street, and
none of our colleagues was looking, we touched a cap, furtively. Now,
we have no option in the matter. We are expected to degrade ourselves
by meaningless and humiliating gestures. The N.C.O.'s are almost as
bad. If you answer a sergeant as you would a foreman, you are
impertinent; if you argue with him, as all good Scotsmen must, you are
insubordinate; if you endeavour to drive a collective bargain with him,
you are mutinous; and you are reminded that upon active service
mutiny is punishable by death. It is all very unusual and upsetting.
You may not spit; neither may you smoke a cigarette in the ranks, nor
keep the residue thereof behind your ear. You may not take beer to bed
with you. You may not postpone your shave till Saturday: you must
shave every day. You must keep your buttons, accoutrements, and rifle
speckless, and have your hair cut in a style which is not becoming to
your particular type of beauty. Even your feet are not your own. Every
Sunday morning a young officer, whose leave has been specially
stopped for the purpose, comes round the barrack-rooms after church
and inspects your extremities, revelling in blackened nails and gloating
over hammer-toes. For all practical purposes, decides Private
Mucklewame, you might as well be in Siberia.
Still, one can get used to anything. Our lot is mitigated, too, by the

knowledge that we are all in the same boat. The most olympian N.C.O.
stands like a ramrod when addressing an officer, while lieutenants
make obeisance to a company commander as humbly as any private.
Even the Colonel was seen one day to salute an old gentleman who
rode on to the parade-ground during morning drill, wearing a red band
round his hat. Noting this, we realise that the Army is not, after all, as
we first suspected, divided into two classes--oppressors and oppressed.
We all have to "go through it."
Presently fresh air, hard training, and clean living begin to weave their
spell. Incredulous at first, we find ourselves slowly recognising the fact
that it is possible to treat an officer deferentially, or carry out an order
smartly, without losing one's self-respect as a man and a Trades
Unionist. The insidious habit of cleanliness, once acquired, takes
despotic possession of its victims: we find ourselves looking askance at
room-mates who have not yet yielded to such predilections. The
swimming-bath, where once we flapped unwillingly and ingloriously at
the shallow end, becomes quite a desirable resort, and we look forward
to our weekly visit with something approaching eagerness. We begin,
too, to take our profession seriously. Formerly we regarded outpost
exercises, advanced guards, and the like, as a rather fatuous form of
play-acting, designed to amuse those officers who carry maps and
notebooks. Now we begin to consider these diversions on their merits,
and seriously criticise Second Lieutenant Little for having last night
posted one of his sentry groups upon the skyline. Thus is the soul of a
soldier born.
We are getting less individualistic, too. We are beginning to think more
of our regiment and less of ourselves. At first this loyalty takes the
form of criticising other regiments, because their marching is slovenly,
or their accoutrements dirty, or--most significant sign of all--their
discipline is bad. We are especially critical of our own Eighth Battalion,
which is fully three weeks younger than we are, and is not in the First
Hundred Thousand at all. In their presence we are war-worn veterans.
We express it as our opinion that the officers of some of these
battalions must be a poor lot. From this it suddenly comes home to us
that our officers are a good lot, and we find ourselves taking a queer

pride in our company commander's homely strictures and severe
sentences the morning after pay-night. Here is another step in the
quickening life of the regiment. _Esprit de corps_ is raising its head,
class prejudice and dour "independence" notwithstanding.
Again, a timely hint dropped by the Colonel on battalion parade this
morning has set us thinking. We begin to wonder how we shall
compare with the first-line regiments when