The First Hundred Thousand | Page 7

Ian Hay
optimist in the rear
rank. "He micht walk doon the line."
"Walk? No him!" replied Private M'Slattery. "He'll be awa' hame in the
motor. Hae ony o' you billies gotten a fag?"
There was a smothered laugh. The officers of the battalion were
standing rigidly at attention in front of A Company. One of these
turned his head sharply.

"No talking in the ranks there!" he said. "Sergeant, take that man's
name."
Private M'Slattery, rumbling mutiny, subsided, and devoted his
attention to the movements of the Royal motor-car.
Then the miracle happened.
The great car rolled smoothly from the saluting-base, over the
undulating turf, and came to a standstill on the extreme right of the line,
half a mile away. There descended a slight figure in khaki. It was the
King--the King whom Private M'Slattery had never seen. Another
figure followed, and another.
"Herself iss there too!" whinnied an excited Highlander on M'Slattery's
right. "And the young leddy! Pless me, they are all for walking town
the line on their feet. And the sun so hot in the sky! We shall see them
close!"
Private M'Slattery gave a contemptuous sniff.
The excited battalion was called to a sense of duty by the voice of
authority. Once more the long lines stood stiff and rigid--waiting,
waiting, for their brief glimpse. It was a long time coming, for they
were posted on the extreme left.
Suddenly a strangled voice was uplifted--"In God's name, what for can
they no come tae us? Never heed the others!"
Yet Private M'Slattery was quite unaware that he had spoken.
At last the little procession arrived. There was a handshake for the
Colonel, and a word with two or three of the officers; then a quick
scrutiny of the rank and file. For a moment--yea, more than a
moment--keen Royal eyes rested upon Private M'Slattery, standing like
a graven image, with his great chest straining the buttons of his tunic.
Then a voice said, apparently in M'Slattery's ear--

"A magnificent body of men, Colonel. I congratulate you."
A minute later M'Slattery was aroused from his trance by the sound of
the Colonel's ringing voice--
"Highlanders, three cheers for His Majesty the King!"
M'Slattery led the whole Battalion, his glengarry high in the air.
Suddenly his eye fell upon Private Mucklewame, blindly and woodenly
yelling himself hoarse.
In three strides M'Slattery was standing face to face with the
unconscious criminal.
"Yous low, lousy puddock," he roared--"tak' off your bonnet!" He
saved Mucklewame the trouble of complying, and strode back to his
place in the ranks.
"Yin mair, chaps," he shouted--"for the young leddy!"
And yet there are people who tell us that the formula, O.H.M.S., is a
mere relic of antiquity.

V
"CRIME"
"Bring in Private Dunshie, Sergeant-Major," says the Company
Commander.
The Sergeant-Major throws open the door, and barks--"Private
Dunshie's escort!"
The order is repeated fortissimo by some one outside. There is a clatter
of ammunition boots getting into step, and a solemn procession of four
files into the room. The leader thereof is a stumpy but enormously

important-looking private. He is the escort. Number two is the prisoner.
Numbers three and four are the accuser--counsel for the Crown, as it
were--and a witness. The procession reaches the table at which the
Captain is sitting. Beside him is a young officer, one Bobby Little, who
is present for "instructional" purposes.
"Mark time!" commands the Sergeant-Major. "Halt! Right turn!"
This evolution brings the accused face to face with his judge. He has
been deprived of his cap, and of everything else "which may be
employed as, or contain, a missile." (They think of everything in the
King's Regulations.)
"What is this man's crime, Sergeant-Major?" inquires the Captain.
"On this sheet, sir," replies the Sergeant-Major....
By a "crime" the ordinary civilian means something worth recording in
a special edition of the evening papers--something with a meat-chopper
in it. Others, more catholic in their views, will tell you that it is a crime
to inflict corporal punishment on any human being; or to permit
performing animals to appear upon the stage; or to subsist upon any
food but nuts. Others, of still finer clay, will classify such things as
Futurism, The Tango, Dickeys, and the Albert Memorial as crimes. The
point to note is, that in the eyes of all these persons each of these things
is a sin of the worst possible degree. That being so, they designate it a
"crime." It is the strongest term they can employ.
But in the Army, "crime" is capable of infinite shades of intensity. It
simply means "misdemeanour," and may range from being unshaven
on parade, or making a frivolous complaint about the potatoes at dinner,
to irrevocably perforating your rival in love with a bayonet. So let party
politicians, when they discourse vaguely
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