A TERRITORIAL IN INDIA.
I.
My dear Mr. Punch,—We take special pride in the fact that we were the very first Territorials ever to land in India. As our battalion swung through the streets of Bombay before the critical eyes of the assembled natives, this knowledge enabled us to preserve an air of dignity despite the rakish angle of our unaccustomed topees. When you first march at attention with a rifle and a very large helmet you discover that the only possible position for the latter is well over the right ear. Later on you realise that this is a mistake, like most of the discoveries made during the first few days' residence in India.
On that memorable day, of which our battalion poet has written—
"O day of pride and perspiration,
When, 'scaping from the dreary sea,
We marched full blithely to our station
And filled ourselves with eggs and tea—"
we were eight hundred strong, having spent thirty-two days in a transport and passed through all the salutary trials of inoculation, vaccination and starvation with considerable éclat. Now, alas! we are decimated. Decimated, did I say? Far, far worse than that. We are practically wiped out.
No, there has not been a second Mutiny, concealed by the newspapers. We have not perished of malaria. Nor have we been eaten by white ants. Even the last-named would be a glorious, an inspiring end compared with the fate which has overtaken us.
You remember how, many years ago, you used to sit with your infantile tongue protruding from the left-hand corner of your mouth and write in a fair round hand, "The pen is mightier than the sword." At that time you disbelieved it. But you were wrong. It is true, sadly true.
A few days after our arrival we were reviewed by the G.O.C. In eloquent words he told us that we were not in India for garrison work, but to be trained speedily for the Front, to be fitted to play our part on the great battlefields of Europe. Inspiring visions of military glory rose before us. Later in the day they began to evaporate. They have been evaporating ever since.
Owing to the departure of the Expeditionary Forces there has been a great shortage of soldier clerks in India, and the luckless Territorials who had the misfortune to arrive first have been called upon to fill the vacancies. Ichabod.
When the announcement that clerks were required was made to us my blood ran suddenly cold. I remembered how, centuries ago, when in camp on Salisbury Plain, I had been requested to fill up a form giving, among other particulars, my occupation, and light-heartedly and truthfully I had written "Clerk." It is a great mistake to be truthful in the Army. How I wished I had described myself as an agricultural labourer. Or a taxidermist—surely there is no demand, for taxidermists in the Indian Army.
In a vain attempt to remedy the mistake I preserved a stony silence when we were asked who had had clerical experience, who could do type-writing, who possessed a knowledge of shorthand. With a single lift of my right eyebrow I disclaimed all acquaintance with office stools. With a faint pucker of the brows I made myself appear to be wondering where I had once heard that word typewriter. But my fatal incriminating declaration was too great a handicap.
By threes and fours our brave fellows melted away. They went as clerks; they went as typists; they went as telephone operators; they went as telegraphists. To the Battalion Orderly Room they went; to the Brigade Headquarters Office; to the Embarcation Office.
Then came a lull, and I thought, after all, I had escaped. I arose happily at 5.30 a.m. I did many various and strenuous fatigues. I swept the barrack floor singing and peeled potatoes with a joyful heart. I polished my equipment incessantly and greased my mess tin with the greatest care. In short, I was rapidly becoming a soldier.
And I obtained leave and went into the town, where I saw much that cheered me while the clerks were at their labours. I read a sign in a restaurant window, "Breakfast, tiffin, tea, dinner and all kinds of perfumery." I saw six coolies running along a main street with a grand piano balanced on their heads. I was very happy while it lasted.
And then the blow fell. We had thought that surely every possible office had been filled with clerks, but we were wrong as usual. As I was going to bed one night there came a peremptory order that I was to be at the Divisional Staff Office, four miles away, sharp at eight o'clock next morning.
In conformity with my instructions I went forth next morning to take up my new and peaceful avocation in full marching order, with rifle, side-arm and twenty rounds of ball ammunition.
Being a soldier clerk in India is very different from being a civilian clerk in England. Here I work in shirt-sleeves, khaki shorts and puttees, pausing occasionally to brush off the ants which crawl affectionately over my knees. At home—well, I can imagine the Chief's face if a clerk (or an ant) ventured into his office with bare knees.
Also the methods adopted here are not like our impetuous English ways. Operations are carried out with a leisured dignity befitting the immemorial East. Take a telegram for example. At home the Chief says rapidly, "Send a wire to So-and-so telling him this-and-that." A harassed clerk snatches off the telephone-receiver, and in two minutes the message is dictated to the post-office and the incident is closed.
Not so here. A document comes out of the Records Department three days old, having been duly headed, numbered, summarised and indexed. The clerk to whom it is handed thinks it advisable to wire a reply, so he writes at the foot, "Wire So-and-so, telling him this-and-that?" initials it and sends it to the Chief. The Chief writes, "Yes, please," initials it and sends it back. The clerk then drafts the actual telegram, initials the draft and sends it to the Chief, who, if he approves, initials it and sends it back. The draft is next handed to a second clerk, who, after due consideration, types two copies and initials them. These are taken to the Chief, who signs them and sends them back. One copy is filed and the other goes to a third clerk, who enters it verbatim into a book and has the book initialled by clerk No. 1, after checking. Then it goes to a fourth clerk, who numbers it, makes a précis in another book, and hands it, with explanations, to a patli wallah, who takes it outside to an orderly, who conveys it (with unhasting dignity) to the post-office.
More of this, if you can bear it, in my next.
Yours ever,
One of the Punch Brigade.
British Tommy (returning to trench in which he has lately been fighting, now temporarily occupied by the enemy). "Excuse me—any of you blighters seen my pipe?"
"BEHIND THE GREAT WESTERN BATTLE LINE."
Daily Chronicle.
We always thought the Great Western claimed to be the Holiday Line.