WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
I had the luck to meet a Sergeant-Major, who was the Sergeant-Major of one’s dreams. He had just had sure information that the kilts for his battalion were coming in a few days, so, after three months’ hard work, life smiled upon him. From kilts one naturally went on to the pipes. The battalion had its pipes—a very good set. How did it get them? Well, there was, of course, the Duke. They began with him. And there was a Scots lord concerned with the regiment. And there was a leddy of a certain clan connected with the battalion. Hence the pipes. Could anything be simpler or more logical? And when the kilts came the men would be different creatures. Were they good men, I asked. ‘Yes. Verra good. Wha’s to mislead ‘em?’ said he.
‘Old soldiers,’ I suggested, meanly enough. ‘Rejoined privates of long ago.’
‘Ay, there might have been a few such in the beginning, but they’d be more useful in the Special Reserve Battalions. Our boys are good boys, but, ye’ll understand, they’ve to be handled—just handled a little.’ Then a subaltern came in, loaded with regimental forms, and visibly leaning on the Sergeant-Major, who explained, clarified, and referred them on the proper quarters.
‘Does the work come back to you?’ I asked, for he had been long in pleasant civil employ.
‘Ay. It does that. It just does that.’ And he addressed the fluttering papers, lists, and notes, with the certainty of an old golfer on a well-known green.
Squads were at bayonet practice in the square. (They like bayonet practice, especially after looking at pictures in the illustrated dailies.) A new draft was being introduced to its rifles. The rest were getting ready for evening parade. They were all in khaki, so one could see how they had come on in the last ten weeks. It was a result the meekest might have been proud of, but the New Army does not cultivate useless emotions. Their officers and their instructors worked over them patiently and coldly and repeatedly, with their souls in the job: and with their soul, mind, and body in the same job the men took—soaked up—the instruction. And that seems to be the note of the New Army.