Then there is the saddler. I know that the formation of our new armies has produced many anomalies, but it is my conviction that our saddler is unique. To start with he is a grandfather! He is a little wizened old man with a nose like a bird's beak and he wears huge thick spectacles. He is sixty-two, and how he got into the service is a mystery. He has never done a parade in his life, but when it comes to leather-work (again I quote the Child) "he's a tiger." The battery was newly formed and living in billets in North Wales when he joined it. His original appearance caused a mild sensation, even amongst that motley and ununiformed assembly. For he wore check trousers and a pair of ancient brown shoes, a tweed tail-coat from the hind pocket of which protruded a red handkerchief, and—most grotesque of all—a battered top hat of brown felt! And in this costume he served his country, quite unconcernedly, for two months before the authorities saw fit to provide him with a khaki suit. It is his habit, no matter where the battery may find itself—in barracks, camp or billets, to seek out a secluded spot (preferably a dark one), to instal himself there with his tools and a tangle of odd straps, threads and buckles, and proceed to make or mend things. For he is one of those queer persons who really like work.
I was not fortunate enough to see him in his civilian garb, but I have a vivid recollection of his first appearance after being issued with a "cap, winter, overseas, with waterproof cover." This cap, though practical, does not tend to add to the smartness of the wearer, even if the wearer is in all other respects smart. But the saddler went to extremes. He managed to put on the cover so that the whole, pulled well down over his ears, resembled a vast sponge bag or an elderly lady's bathing cap, beneath which his spectacles gleamed like the head-lights of a motor-car. The wildest stretch of the imagination could not liken him to any sort of soldier. Nevertheless, after his fashion, he is certainly "doing his bit."
It is, of course, impossible to describe them all. Equally is it impossible to understand them all. I wish I could, for therein lies the secret to almost everything. The sergeant-major, for instance, who is the personification of respectful efficiency—what does he think of this infant unit? From the dignified way in which he says, "Of course in my battery we did so and so" (meaning, of course, his old "regular" battery), I gather that his prejudices are strong and that he harbours a secret longing to go back whence he came. And I sometimes wonder whether he finds himself quite at home in the sergeants' mess. But he shows no outward sign of discontent and he allows no discord: his discipline is stern and unbending. He knows all about every man and every horse, he is always to be found somewhere in the lines, and he is extraordinarily patient at explaining to ignorant persons of all ranks the "service" method of doing everything—from the tying of a headrope to the actual manœuvring of a battery in the field. Last, but by no means least, he is six foot three and broad in proportion, and his voice carries two hundred yards without apparent effort on his part.
The quartermaster-sergeant—I learnt this only a day or so ago—is a revivalist preacher in quieter times; the ration orderly, besides his faculty for wheedling extra bacon out of the supply people, has a magnificent tenor voice; the great majority of the rank and file are miners. It is only comparatively recently that they have really settled down to take a pride in themselves and an intelligent interest in the reputation of their unit. For we are not Ki. We are nearer to being Kv or VI, and we were not amongst the first to be equipped and trained. We got our guns, our horses and our harness late in the day, and we were, perhaps, the least bit rushed. Consequently we were slow to develop, but we are making up for lost time now at an astonishing pace. I can remember a time when, on giving the order "Walk—march" to any given team, there was always an even chance that drivers and horses would disagree as to the necessity for moving off. I can also remember a time (and not so very long ago either) when our gunners had but the smallest conception of what a gun was designed to do and (I know this) rather shrank from the dread prospect of actually firing it. But now we drive with no mean attempt at style; a narrow gateway off a lane is nothing to us, and our horses, artistically matched in teams of bay or black, are prepared to pull their two tons through or over anything within reason with just a "click" of encouragement from the drivers they know and understand. And we open the breech as the gun runs up after the recoil, we call out the fuzes and slap in the next shell with more than mere drill-book smartness; we're beginning to acquire that pride in our working of the guns which is the basis of all good artillery work. In fact we have reached a stage where it would be a wholesome corrective to our conceit to be taken en masse to see the harness, the horses and the gun-drill of some regular battery that has borne the brunt of things since Mons. Then we would go home saying to ourselves, "If the war lasts another two years and we keep hard at it, we'll be as good as they are."
But in the meanwhile we are quite prepared to take on the Hun, moving or stationary, in trenches or in the open, at any range from "point-blank" to six thousand. And we have had it dinned into us, until we yawned and shuffled our feet and coughed, that it is our rôle at all times to help our infantry, whose life is ten times more strenuous than ours, and by whom ultimately victory is won. We know the meaning of the two mottoes on our hats and we are distinctly optimistic. Which is as well....
To-day I visited "the Front." We rode up, a subaltern and I, to see the battery to which our men are at present attached and which we will eventually relieve. It is a strange experience for the uninitiated, such as I am, this riding along the flat and crumbling roads towards the booming of the guns and the desolation of "the line." The battery position, we found, was just on the borderland of this zone of desolation. One would never have suspected the presence of guns unless one had known exactly where to look—and had gone quite close. A partially ruined house on the road-side had its front and one gable end entirely covered with a solid wall of sandbags, but these were the only obvious indications of occupation. This house, however, was the mess and officers' quarters, and the Child was there at the door to welcome us.
"We've had quite a busy morning," he said gaily. "They've been putting four-two's and five-nine's into ——" (—— is a village about a quarter of a mile up the road). "I was just going out to look for fuzes: but perhaps you'd like to see round the position first."
We crossed the road and entered a small orchard. The Child led me up to a large turf-covered mound which had a deep drain all round it and a small door at the back.
"This," he said, rather with the air of a guide showing a visitor round a cathedral, "is No. 4."