Fighting with French: A Tale of the New Army

by Herbert Strang

"Oh, stow it!" cried Ginger. "What did you 'list for if you're going to grouse all the time? The worst of it is, you can't resign: we shall have to put up with you, I s'pose, unless you mutiny, or strike your superior officer, or do something else to get dismissed the army. Come on, boys; let's go and see the pictures. We'll be back in time to draw some soup from the cook-house, 8.30 to 9."

That is a fair sample of the day's work during the next two or three months. It was monotonous, but, during the dry autumn, healthy. When the rainy weather set in, hardship began to be felt. The men often got drenched to the skin; their temporary boots, as Ginger had foretold, became pulp. The factory was bleak and draughty, in spite of its gas stoves. There was a certain amount of sickness, and an increase in the number of offenders to be dealt with every morning by the colonel. But the men were well fed, and cheered by presents of tobacco and cigarettes from kindly townsfolk; and many wet, dull evenings were enlivened by concerts and entertainments got up by friends of the officers.

Kenneth and Harry steadfastly declined offers of promotion as N.C.O.'s, but owing to their knowledge of drill they were made right and left guides of their platoon. They bought a football, and got up inter-company matches in which No. 3 Company distinguished itself. Indeed, both in work and play No. 3 Company became the crack company of the battalion. The captain, an old army man who had been retired some years and was some little time picking up the details of the new drill, was a good sportsman and a hard worker, and by the end of January the company was thoroughly efficient and knit together by that esprit de corps which is the soul of fighting men.

Then came vaccination and inoculation. Stoneway was the ringleader of a little group that declined the doctor's attentions, to the disgust of Ginger and the majority.

"You're a traitor, that's what you are," said Ginger to Stoneway when the latter flatly declined to be poisoned, as he put it. "You'll go and catch some rotten disease or other and give it to us."

"This is a free country," retorted Stoneway. "And as to you, you're a turncoat. Weren't you always spouting against the war? Didn't I back you up? Who caved in as meek as a lamb?"

"Well, you followed along with the other sheep, didn't you? What you joined for goodness only knows. You're always grousing about something or other. Bacon's too fat, then it's too lean; cheese is dry, then it's damp; you pick out little bits of lead out of the pear gravy, and spread 'em round your plate and put on a face like a holy martyr. You sit at lecture with a snigger on your ugly mug; the pianner's out of tune; nobody can sing for nuts; you take jolly good care you don't do nothing to amuse the company. Nothing's right; you always know better 'n anyone else; lummy, I believe you think you ought to be capting, if not commander-in-chief. What did you join for, that's what I want to know. I tell you straight, we've had enough of your grousing. Why don't you take your grumbles to the officers? 'Any complaints?' says they when they come round inspecting; why don't you speak up like a man? No fear; you ain't got a word to say. All you can do is to growl when they ain't by, and try to make yourself big before all the dirty swipes of the regiment. Why, look at the other night, when they gave the alarm, and we was all confined to barricks: what did you do then? When all those nice young ladies came with their fiddles and things and sang and played to us proper, gave us fags all round, too, you must get up in a corner with your dirty lot and make such a deuce of a row we couldn't hear a word of 'Dolly Grey'--my favourite song, too! If I'd been colonel I'd have given you a good dose of clink straight away, and so now you know it."

Ginger had fairly let himself go, and the applause that followed his speech showed that he voiced the opinion of the majority. Stoneway made no reply, but gradually edged away.

This was the culmination of an estrangement which had been developing between the two men ever since the company was formed. Whatever had brought them together previously, their enlistment had sundered them completely. Ginger, whose backing Stoneway had been wont to count on in any attack on authority, was now the most orderly as well as the cheeriest man in the company. He passed off with a jest every hardship of that trying winter. "Think of those poor chaps in the trenches," he would say, if someone complained of the cold or a wetting. Stoneway clearly resented his change of spirit, though it was a puzzle to the better disposed among the men why he could have expected a display of insubordination from these enthusiastic recruits in the New Army.

It must be admitted that Ginger took no pains to conciliate his old companion. He did not launch out again into invective, but assumed the still more irritating airs of a humorous observer. From time to time he let fall a jesting word that had a sting, and took a delight in chaffing Stoneway in the presence of other men. And since Stoneway himself turned out to be no match for Ginger in these little bouts of wordy war, and Ginger always managed to keep his temper, Stoneway became more and more furious, and fell to meditating reprisals.