Over Here: Impressions of America by a British officer

by Hector MacQuarrie

I want to tell you about an interesting race of people called "inspectors." If you are merely a footslogger, and know nothing about guns and carriages, I had better give you a slight idea of the things that happen to a simple gun and carriage before it reaches the comparative rest of the battlefield.

Now the word "inspector" at once suggests someone who inspects. I've had to inspect my men in order to prepare myself and them for the visitation of the major, who in turn awaits the colonel. But the inspection of a gun is a very different matter. As a mere person who is responsible for the firing of the thing, and also the unwilling target of the people who desire to destroy the gun and its servants, I was always wont to call the whole thing, including the wheels and all the mechanism, a "gun." But this showed remarkable inaccuracy. The gun is just the tubes of steel, with the top or outside one termed the jacket, that form what a layman would call the barrel, and a properly trained recruit "the piece." All the rest is the carriage. If you are dealing with inspectors be very careful about this. They are generally awfully good at mathematics, and can dictate letters by the yard without winking. They can work out fearful things called curves. I believe this has something to do with strain, and suggests to my unmathematical mind the dreadful thing I had to draw in order to get through my "little go."

Now the manufacturer of a gun and carriage doesn't just make the thing, and then after a few trial shots hand it over to the inspector saying: "Here's your gun. Now go and shoot the Germans, I don't think it will burst during the first preliminary bombardment and kill a few men." No sir! The inspector is responsible to his government, that every inch of that gun and carriage is according to specification. I should think that on an average each complete gun and carriage requires at least five pounds of correspondence, three lesser arguments, four greater arguments, two heated discussions and one decent fight. I have been present at a fight or two and have come to the wholesome conclusion that both sides were right—so what can you do?

Now inspectors can be easily divided into two classes—the thorough mechanic who knows more than the manufacturer about the production of the piece he is inspecting, and the other. The first chap only requires to use the five pounds of paper, and seldom or never has the arguments, unless he lacks a sense of humour. I know an inspector of whom a shop foreman boasted: "That ther koirnel could condemn every bit of woirk in the shop without making a single enemy." Now in these times of stress the fellow above described is a rare blessing, so the men on the job have got to do their very best. Still inspectors are strange and interesting people.

Before I came out here, I toured all the great munition factories in England. I had a wonderful time, but never met an inspector. Now that I come to think of it, I do remember having seen sitting at the table at lunch one day some gunner officers, but I thought that they were anti-aircraft fellows. They must have been inspectors.

In peace time, I suppose the job is an entirely different proposition. The firm that manufactures artillery and shells probably gets an order for half a dozen equipments and I suppose the contract time is liberal. Then the inspector's job and the manufacturer's is simple. The inspector must have rigid attention to specifications, and the manufacturer, possibly, only has his best men doing the work. I should think then that things would run smoothly.

In these days of stress the contract time is cut down to the shortest possible, and instead of getting orders by the dozen, a manufacturer gets them by the hundred, sometimes by the thousand. The result is that all his men are on the job. Also many other munition firms are doing the same sort of work and really good workmen become scarce. Then again the inspection staff is multiplied tremendously, and it naturally takes years to make a really good inspector. Still the fellows I know do their very utmost to make things go smoothly. But let me tell you just a little about things as I see them, and of course I see them through inexperienced eyes.

A manufacturer decides to make a gun and some money, thereby proving himself to be an optimist. Of course, he may succeed in making the gun. Poor fellow! He ought to be allowed to make the inspector, too. But he cannot, and so commences a strife in comparison to which the great war is a mild performance.

An inspector is ordered to inspect the production of guns at a given munition plant. He arrives, and meets the officials of the company, and the first hour is spent in social amenities. But the inspector is not deceived. He knows that all manufacturers are nice villains, so he must be on his guard. If, however, he is a villain himself, and I deny, of course, the existence of villainous inspectors, the matter should be easy and simple; the whole process is delightful and the manufacturer will make much money and his optimism will be justified. If the manufacturer is an honest gentleman and, strangely enough, all the manufacturers I have met are honest gentlemen, a villainous inspector will have a hectic time. Some honest manufacturers are comparatively intelligent, and of course the villainous inspector, if he existed, would soon leave a rope behind him upon which he could be safely hanged. Upon an occasion like this if it should happen, I, as a Briton, would sing "God Save Our Gracious King," and an American would doubtlessly sing "The Star Spangled Banner," if he could only remember the words and had a voice of sufficient mobility. However, the whole position is difficult. There are boundless opportunities for an inspector to develop "frightfulness."

But let us trace the history of a simple gun and carriage. Its opportunities for frightfulness and a frightful mess end only when it reaches the firing line. It has really reached paradise or Nirvana when it is issued to the battery.