THE ADJUTANT.
In that great Room which military error
Has miscalled Orderly (for it is not,
But full of tumult and debate and terror,
And worried writers growing rather hot,
For ever floundering in seas of chits
And forms and counterfoils and wrathful writs),
Alone unfevered mid the storm he sits
And tells them all exactly what is what.
Who so alert to solve the frequent riddle,
To judge if Jones should have his train-fare free,
Whether the band requires another fiddle,
And which is senior, Robinson or me?
Who shall indite such circulars as his
To Officers Commanding Companies
About their musketry, or why it is
So many men take sugar in their tea?
And when at times he shuns the sacred table
And like some eagle swoops upon parade,
Men mark his coming and there bursts a babel
As with new zeal the subalterns upbraid,
Lecture and illustrate, and on the right
Form sullen squads, and hope they're being bright—
Save those white-livered ones who at the sight
Hide their commands in some convenient glade.
For he is terrible; and few folk relish
The words of doom which shake his diaphragm;
Yet is the heart of him not wholly hellish,
But in his playing-hours he's like a lamb;
And who'd have said that one so skilled to strafe
And, when I err, too truculent by half,
Could own so rich, so rollicking a laugh,
Would see so well how humorous I am?
Yet if with leave unasked I quit the barrack,
Ever behind I dread that he will call,
Speed up the street in some avenging Darracq
Or on the Underground retrieve his thrall;
Nor in my home can quite escape the spell
But freeze with horror at the front-door bell,
For fear the parlour-maid may speak my knell,
May knock and say that he is in the hall.
And, sleeping, still I have to brook his blusters;
A monstrous Adjutant is always nigh
At dream-reviews and endless dreamy musters,
Laden with lists and schemes and syllabi;
And, though he find no failing anywhere,
But all are present and correct and fair,
I never fail to make the fellow swear,
I always seem to catch his horrid eye.