The First Hundred Thousand | Page 6

we find ourselves "oot
there." Silently we resolve that when we, the first of the Service
Battalions, take our place in trench or firing line alongside the Old
Regiment, no one shall be found to draw unfavourable comparisons
between parent and offspring. We intend to show ourselves chips of the
old block. No one who knows the Old Regiment can ask more of a
young battalion than that.

IV
THE CONVERSION OF PRIVATE M'SLATTERY
One evening a rumour ran round the barracks. Most barrack rumours
die a natural death, but this one was confirmed by the fact that next
morning the whole battalion, instead of performing the usual platoon
exercises, was told off for instruction in the art of presenting arms. "A"
Company discussed the portent at breakfast.
"What kin' o' a thing is a Review?" inquired Private M'Slattery.
Private Mucklewame explained. Private M'Slattery was not impressed,
and said so quite frankly. In the lower walks of the industrial world
Royalty is too often a mere name. Personal enthusiasm for a Sovereign
whom they have never seen, and who in their minds is inextricably
mixed up with the House of Lords, and capitalism, and the police, is
impossible to individuals of the stamp of Private M'Slattery. To such,
Royalty is simply the head and corner-stone of a legal system which
officiously prevents a man from being drunk and disorderly, and the
British Empire an expensive luxury for which the working man pays

while the idle rich draw the profits.
If M'Slattery's opinion of the Civil Code was low, his opinion of
Military Law was at zero. In his previous existence in his native
Clydebank, when weary of rivet-heating and desirous of change and
rest, he had been accustomed to take a day off and become pleasantly
intoxicated, being comfortably able to afford the loss of pay involved
by his absence. On these occasions he was accustomed to sleep off his
potations in some public place--usually upon the pavement outside his
last house of call--and it was his boast that so long as nobody interfered
with him he interfered with nobody. To this attitude the tolerant police
force of Clydebank assented, having their hands full enough, as a rule,
in dealing with more militant forms of alcoholism. But Private
M'Slattery, No. 3891, soon realised that he and Mr. Matthew M'Slattery,
rivet-heater and respected citizen of Clydebank, had nothing in
common. Only last week, feeling pleasantly fatigued after five days of
arduous military training, he had followed the invariable practice of his
civil life, and taken a day off. The result had fairly staggered him. In
the orderly-room upon Monday morning he was charged with--
(1) Being absent from Parade at 9 A.M. on Saturday.
(2) Being absent from Parade at 2 P.M. on Saturday.
(3) Being absent from Tattoo at 9.30 P.M. on Saturday.
(4) Being drunk in High Street about 9.40 P.M. on Saturday.
(5) Striking a Non-Commissioned Officer.
(6) Attempting to escape from his escort.
(7) Destroying Government property. (Three panes of glass in the
guard-room.)
Private M'Slattery, asked for an explanation, had pointed out that if he
had been treated as per his working arrangement with the police at
Clydebank, there would have been no trouble whatever. As for his day

off, he was willing to forgo his day's pay and call the thing square.
However, a hidebound C.O. had fined him five shillings and sentenced
him to seven days' C.B. Consequently he was in no mood for Royal
Reviews. He stated his opinions upon the subject in a loud voice and at
some length. No one contradicted him, for he possessed the straightest
left in the company; and no dog barked even when M'Slattery said that
black was white.
"I wunner ye jined the Airmy at all, M'Slattery," observed one bold
spirit, when the orator paused for breath.
"I wunner myself," said M'Slattery simply. "If I had kent all aboot this
'attention,' and 'stan'-at-ease,' and needin' tae luft your hand tae your
bunnet whenever you saw yin o' they gentry-pups of officers goin'
by,--dagont if I'd hae done it, Germans or no! (But I had a dram in me
at the time.) I'm weel kent in Clydebank, and they'll tell you there that
I'm no the man to be wastin' my time presenting airms tae kings or any
other bodies."
However, at the appointed hour M'Slattery, in the front rank of A
Company, stood to attention because he had to, and presented arms
very creditably. He now cherished a fresh grievance, for he objected
upon principle to have to present arms to a motor-car standing two
hundred yards away upon his right front.
"Wull we be gettin' hame to our dinners now?" he inquired gruffly of
his neighbour.
"Maybe he'll tak' a closer look at us," suggested an