Now, Beefy had hardly worked his lips when he made the remark, but the eagle eye of that S.M. had caught the culprit.
‘Squad—halt!’
We stopped in terror, and poor old Beefy began to perspire with fright.
‘Now, I’ll have no talking on the march, and no back-answers.... Discipline is discipline! If you can’t keep your mouth shut on the square, you’ll jabber on a night attack.... I’m the gramophone in this business.... I can read your thoughts and see your brains.... To me you’re all as plain as a pikestaff.... I’ve only seen you ten minutes, but I’ve ticked off the lame, the lazy, the insubordinate, and the mad.... I’m Sherlock Holmes, I am. By the right—quick march!... A full step now! Shoulders square.... Heads erect.... March like the Guards.... Left—right—left.... Left.... Left—right—left.... Right—form!... Slowly now—slowly!... Swing round like a gate! Get back, that man with the nicotine on his fingers and the brilliantine running down his neck.... Forward—by the right!
‘Keep your dressing, there. By Gawd! I could get the Chinese Militia or the Boys’ Brigade to beat you at this game. Heads up, or you’ll drop your eyeballs.... Straighten your legs like sticks, and don’t double your backs like dudes in Bond Street. About turn!... By the left.... Keep your hands down.... Never mind the sweat on the brow.... Let the flies lick it off.... Keep up. Keep up.... You’d never make a show at Buckingham Palace or Hyde Park.... If you can’t drill, you can’t beat the Germans.... Keep your dressing, there!... When the Brigade of Guards went into action at Ypres, they marched by the right and filled the gaps of the dead to keep a straight line.... When I fought at Belmont and Graspan, my company marched into action with whiskers, eyeballs, and tummies all in line.... That’s the thing to put the fear of God into the enemy. Squad—halt!... Not a move!... Order—arms!... Stand at—ease! As you were! Who said “easy”?... None of your infantry dodges here. That’s all right for an armed mob—not for me. Squad—stand easy!’
‘He’s the ruddy limit,’ said Beefy.
‘Yes. This isn’t a school. It’s a bally penitentiary,’ I said, wiping the perspiration off my brow. My shirt was sticking to my back, and I felt beastly uncomfortable. At the moment I hated Sergeant-Major Kneesup, but yet in my real heart I admired him. He was a man’s man, hard as nails, merciless to the inefficient, but the A and the Z of that wonderful system which has made the Brigade of Guards a terror to every despot in Germany. As we looked at him walking up and down the square he resembled a true-born aristocrat, and yet he was once a ploughman. A wonderful product of a hard, yet marvellous, system.
‘Squad—shun!... Stand—easy! Now, come round here, boys. I’m going to talk with you.’
The term ‘boys’ melted our fears, and we gathered about him.
‘It’s like this! A lot of you imagine when you get knocked about that it’s a sort of punishment; for I know your thoughts. I’ve been through all this. When I joined the Guards we did the old-fashioned slope. They used to stick you close to a wall, and if you were not smart the wall tore all the skin off your fingers when you chucked the rifle up. That has been done away with, but the old-fashioned discipline remains. Some of you may think it brutal, but, believe me, it gets results. It makes men smart. It makes them obey. It turns them into gentlemen. I used to be a ploughman—now I’ve got a pension, a little pub, and a farm. I wouldn’t call the Kaiser my cousin, and I learned everything in the Guards.’