MILITARY DIALOGUES
III
HOW IT SHOULD NOT BE DONE
Interior of a dreary room in the War Office. A tired-looking young officer, in mufti, sits at a table with great piles of papers, each bundle tied with red tape and ticketed with labels of different colours, on one side of it ready to his hand. Another pile of papers, which he has already dealt with, is on the other side of the table. He is an official and has many letters, the first two being D. A. after his name. The gas has just been lighted. A clerk brings in another fat bundle of papers.
The Officer (patting the smaller pile on the table). These can go on, Smithers. That question of sardine-openers must go back to the commissariat, and the General commanding the Central District must be authorised to deal on his own responsibility with the matter of the fierce bull in the field where the recruits bathe. What have you got there?
The Clerk. It is the correspondence, sir, relative to that false tooth requisitioned for by the officer commanding the Rutlandshire Regiment for the first cornet of the band. The Medical Department sent it back to us this morning, and there is another letter in from the Colonel, protesting against his regiment being forced to go route marching to an imperfect musical accompaniment.
The Officer (groaning). I thought we had got rid of that matter at last by sending it to the doctors.
The Clerk. No, sir. The Surgeon-General has decided that "one tooth, false, with gold attachment," cannot be considered a medical comfort.
The Officer (taking a précis from the top of the papers). I suppose we must go into the matter again. It began with the letter from the Colonel to the General?
The Clerk. Yes, sir, here it is. The O. C. the Rutland Regiment has the honour to report that the first cornet player in the band has lost a tooth, and as the band has become inefficient in the playing of marching music in consequence, he requests that a false tooth may be supplied at Government expense.
The Officer. And the General, of course, replied in the usual formula that he had no fund available for such purpose.
The Clerk. Yes, sir; but suggested that the regimental band fund might be drawn on.
The Officer. Where is the Colonel's letter in reply. (It is handed to him.) Ah, yes. Band fund is established, he writes, for purchase of musical instruments and music, and not for repair of incomplete bandsmen, and refuses to authorise expense, except under order from the Commander-in-Chief.
The Clerk. The General sends this on to us with a remark as to the Colonel's temper.
The Officer. And we pass it to the Quarter-Master-General's people, suggesting that under certain circumstances a false tooth might be considered a "necessary," and a free issue made.
The Clerk. A very long memo, on the subject, in reply, from the Q.-M.-G., sir. He points out that though, under exceptional circumstances, a pair of spectacles might be held to be a sight-protector, a false tooth could not be held to be either a fork, a spoon, a shaving-brush, a razor, or even an oil bottle.
The Officer. We wrote back suggesting that it might pass as a "jag"—our little joke.
The Clerk. Your little joke, sir. The Q.-M.-G.'s people didn't see it.
The Officer. No? Then the correspondence goes on to the Ordnance Department, with a suggestion that a false tooth might be considered an arm or an accoutrement.
The Clerk. The Director-General replies, sir, that in the early days of the British Army, when the Army Clothing Department's sole issue was a supply of woad, a tooth, or indeed a nail, might have reasonably been indented for as a weapon, but that, owing to the introduction and perfection of fire-arms, such weapons are now obsolete and cannot be issued.
The Officer. And now the Medical Service refuse to help us.
The Clerk. Yes, sir. They cannot bring the fixing of it under the head of surgical operations, and the Surgeon-General points out very justly, if I may be permitted to say so, sir, that a seal-pattern false tooth could hardly be considered a "medical comfort."
The Officer. What are we to do? The Colonel of the regiment is evidently furious.
The Clerk. We might send the correspondence to the Inspector of Iron Structures. He may be able to do or suggest something.
The Officer. Very well; and will you send off this telegram to my wife saying I have a long evening's work before me, and that I shall not be able to get back to dinner to-night? (Exit the Clerk.) Whenever will they trust a General Commanding a District to spend for the public good on his own responsibility a sum as large as a schoolboy's allowance, and so take some of the unnecessary work off our shoulders?
[He tackles wearily another file of papers.
