‘It isn’t really a bad show. The first time I saw it, it looked a penitentiary; and when I spotted all you toughs dropping in, it promised to be a Hades. But it’s panned out fairly well. There’s a great lack of intellectual meat—a few of the instructors ought to go back to school—but still, we’re cleaner, we’re smarter, we know a few things, and we’ll make at least half-decent subs. And I think we ought to be very thankful, considering that the fellows who received commissions at the beginning of the war got no training at all, but had to go straight to the trenches and find things out. And we have been lucky to have such a good old sport for a “com.,” as well as that priceless chap, Cheerall. He’s the backbone of the school. There has also been a moral improvement. Ginger has had a wash, Beefy doesn’t go out after cooks, Nobby has ceased to pray for Asquith, and Tosher has suddenly become respectable. I think we ought to leave with no grouse, and it’s up to us to give thanks to the commandant and his staff. They’ve treated us well, and done their best.’
‘I second the motion,’ said Nobby. ‘The school is a useful institution, and on the whole has done good work. They have certainly paid attention to our bodies. We are all healthier, heavier, hardier, and therefore more fit for our job. The great defect is, as John Brown says, a lack of brain-power. But there is this idea in the military system: “A man of action cannot be an intellectual.” And all these old fellows argue, “If they want us to be butchers, they cannot expect us to be professors.” To me this is simply an excuse for mental sloth, and adherence to pre-war pleasure-loving ways. War is a science and a conflict of ideas. The army which is most scientific and has the greatest number of ideas is bound to win. This country of ours is packed with ideas; but we are so conservative, so cursed with classical ways, that it is a crime for a hustler to start pushing his ideas to the front. We’re tied up to seniority, “form,” and rotten old traditions, which simply choke good fellows off. Reverses have improved us, and disasters have helped things on. But why wait for disaster? Why not let every mother’s son contribute some ideas to the war-machine, and so help to end the war?
‘The soul is certainly sound, as Captain Cheerall says; but what’s the good of a soul if you haven’t got push-and-go? Certainly, we have improved since 1914, and we are going to win this war all right. Still, I am not so sure that youth is having its chance. There are too many old fellows knocking about. What I want to see is all those young G.S.O.’s getting the jobs, and then we’ll have a good time. Look at Cheerall! He’s an absolute treat! There are hundreds of men like him in the Old Army and the New Army. We fellows, who are new to the business, don’t give a tinker’s damn whether an instructor or a staff-officer is a Cecil or a Henderson. We want the goods. We’re willing to learn. We’d pawn our boots to go and hear men like Allenby, Robertson, and Wilson; but we’ve got a contempt for all those old blighters who sneer at us, who think we’re not gentlemen, and regard us simply as cannon-fodder. The army isn’t democratic enough. It’s a close preserve, and we Liberals are going to shake it up. All the same, I don’t dislike this school. As John says, the commandant is a dear old father and a gentleman. If it weren’t for men like him, we’d all get fed up. As for the sergeant-major, he’s a terror, but he does know his job, and he has taught us a lot. These men are all right. It’s the system that’s all wrong. Yet I’m sorry to go, for I have had a good time with you fellows here. One thing the army does teach, and that is friendship. I wouldn’t have been out of this job for a fortune, and when we part I’ll be a sorry man.’
‘Hear, hear!’ roared Beefy.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Ginger, rising, ‘you’ve just heard my honourable friend, the member for the Manchester School, heave things off his chest. Having done so, he’s perfectly happy, for the great secret of keeping such a person in order is to let him talk—talk hard and talk long. He’s a most terrible Radical, and should he be the Secretary for War in the next Government, it will be necessary for me to remove him with a BOMB.’
‘Keep to the point,’ said Nobby.
‘Very well, the point is the school. Much of what Nobby has said is true. Now and again we’ve been terribly bored with the “padding” some of these fellows stuff into their lectures. The majority are afraid to be original. Still, on reflection, I think it fair to say that many never expected they would have to be schoolmasters. Again, nearly all of them were brought up under the old system, when thinking was very bad form. Still, they have worked hard. They have treated us well. The defects which exist are due to the system, and not to the men. Unfortunately a few imagine we are Tommies who have never been to school. They import into their lectures a lot of stuff which is pure bluff and part nonsense. We have seen the defects of the General Staff, and we are prepared to realise all their difficulties, as well as to note their triumphs. But it is sheer nonsense to paint them as supermen. That is a good enough stunt when talking to a platoon who cannot reason things out, and who, if told of little things, would expand them into big things and commence to grouse. But if we are going to be officers, then we want to know all the wrinkles. As Cheerall insists, study where we failed, why we failed, and how we might have avoided failure. It’s no good cloaking things. We were at Loos. We were at Cambrai. But it is frequently forgotten that we can see things, for many of us are educated. We’re not here for fun; we’re here for business.
‘What is always forgotten by military mandarins is that the nation is in arms. Again we are fighting for our very lives. But I don’t think we can apply Nobby’s sweeping reforms in the middle of a war. Remember Russia! There they abolished the salute. What happened? The army became a mob, and Russia was sold to Germany. The defection of Russia is the condemnation of Democracy—at least, of Lenin’s Democracy. And I, for one, am up against all Bolsheviks. Nobby, of course, doesn’t mean all this. Still, it takes an Oxford man to balance his impetuous moods and keep the ship right.’
‘Don’t swing the lead, Ginger,’ cried Nobby.
‘I am not swinging it, old chap. Your political strategy is one-sided, and sometimes lacks vision. Frequently you throw out constructive ideas, but you want to achieve them by destructive methods. You can’t do that; or, at least, if you do there will be chaos. You keep shouting for Democracy, but you’ve had it for three hundred years. You really want the moon. I’m with you, heart and soul, when you talk about brains, but I’m up against your method of reform. Go slow, old man. Work your reforms one by one, without creating panic and disorder. There are tremendous forces at work to-day. Unreason and anarchy are rampant. Give the mob its head and this old Empire will tumble like a pack of cards. You condemn Oxford, you curse the classics, you tilt at the historical and true political instinct, and you fail to note that the old system made us what we are—the greatest Empire, the greatest people, one of the most democratic on the earth.’