Underhill had, by that time, been promoted to Temporary Captain, for good services, and became Adjutant, and Captain Kendall, of the 4th Warwickshire Regiment, who, after a course at the School, had become attached to the Royal Flying Corps as Intelligence Officer, took over the intelligence duties and map reading at the school. Lieut. W.B. Curtis, of the 31st Canadian Infantry, became scouting officer: he had had nearly two years’ experience between the lines, and had been decorated on three occasions.
Our N.C.O.’s, too, were the very pick of the Army. There was Armourer-Staff Sergeant Carr, Sergeant Slade, of the Essex Yeomanry, Sergeant Hicks, of the 1st Rifle Brigade, and Sergeant Blaikley, of the Artists’ Rifles. All these N.C.O.’s became in time amazingly proficient at their work. I have never heard a more clear exposition of the compass than that given by Sergeant Hicks, who, while one squad was firing, would sit down under the bank with the other, and explain to them all the mysteries of the magnetic North.
The physical training of the school was in the hands of Sergeant-Major Betts (Coldstream Guards), one of Colonel Campbell’s magnificent gymnastic staff.
Sergeant Blaikley, who had drawn for Punch from time to time, was invaluable as an artist, and it was he who drew our Christmas card—“Der Sportsmann”—depicting a German gassing stags on a Scottish deer forest. This picture, which was very widely circulated, certainly obtained the flattery of imitation, as the same idea was used in most of our comic papers a month or two afterwards.
Captain Kendall was a trained surveyor, and an artist of no ordinary merit. Whatever conundrum was brought up by officers—and a great many were brought up—Kendall, in his own department, was certainly unassailable.
Der Sportsmann.
Christmas Card (1917) of the First Army School of S.O.S.
Drawn by Ernest Blaikley.
Besides the officers and sergeants, we had another member of the staff who did splendid work. This was Corporal Donald Cameron of the Lovat Scouts. Lord Lovat had visited the school, and had expressed his satisfaction at the way in which we were teaching observation and the use of the telescope. I asked him if he could get me a really good stalker to assist me, and he very kindly promised to do so. As one of his own men could not come, he sent me Corporal Cameron, who showed the greatest keenness, and had, I think, a peculiar affection for the last man over the stile. If ever there was a weak member in learning the compass, Cameron would seek him out and explain it. The results were wonderful, and certainly saved several privates from failure. Cameron, when I asked him his age on his joining, gave it as “offeecially forty-one.” He was a very skilful glassman, and as such was of continual assistance to me. I remember one day when we were trying some aspirant reinforcements for Lovat Scouts Sharpshooters, and were looking through our glasses at some troops in blue uniforms about six thousand yards away, most of the observers reported them as “troops in blue uniform;” but Cameron pointed out that they were Portuguese. His reasoning was simple. “They must be either Portuguese or French,” said he, “and as they are wearing the British steel helmet, they must be Portuguese.”
On my establishment, when it finally came along, there were apportioned to me three scouts among the eleven privates to the services of whom the school was entitled. I remember these eleven privates parading for the first time, and I remember also attempting to pick out, with Capt. Underhill, the three “scouts.” One of the scouts was a Salvation Army musician, an excellent fellow, but quite unfit for his duties. Another was an ex-barber of the White Star line, and the third had for years been unable to break into a double. As the work of scouts with an Army School is of supreme importance, since one uses them to personate the enemy in scouting schemes, the employment of such men as these was quite impossible. Good fortune here, however, came to our aid, for some performing scouts from G.H.Q., who were giving demonstrations, came to demonstrate to us, and were afterwards attached to the school. These were boys under nineteen, and the three I kept ended up as past masters of their work. By Armistice Day they had been at the school for some eighteen months, were first-class shots, knew every detail of the course, and could pass an examination equal to any officer. At the physical training and ju-jitsu, which they had almost every day, they were really young terrors. In fact, I remember a commercial joy-rider who was visiting the school, and whom I was showing round, on seeing two of the boys doing ju-jitsu, saying with infinite tact: “’Ere, where do you live when you are at ’ome? I’ll keep clear o’ your street on a dark night.”