"Now you can go, sir; don't let it happen again—understand!"
"Yes, sir," said Longlegs, saluting and marching out.
As the door shut, the colonel, with a subdued twinkle in his eye, remarked—"Useful man that, eh?"
"Yes, sir," replied the adjutant.
[pg 132]
CHAPTER XII.
THE GENERAL STAFF.
The General Staff is improving. Red Tape is being killed; common-sense is beginning to triumph. It took exactly two hundred and fifty years for our General Staff to realise that soldiers cannot be expected to skirmish in busbies, or entrench a position in crimson tunics and skin-tight trews. This admission, you will agree, is evidence of awakening, so the British public need not be alarmed. Years ago, generals received their rank through the influence of their wives, or somebody else's wife. Now, a general is expected to have the brains of Wellington and the sauce of the Kaiser. He is promoted for his efficiency, not for his glass eye or double-barrelled name. Indeed, it is only a brave man who would be a general, for he is supposed to know [pg 133] everything, from the weight of a soldier's socks to the number of men that can be killed by a shrapnel shell. And he is the generator of all schemes for the training of His Majesty's men. When the G.O.C. speaks, all are expected to show that they have a wholesome fear and awe of this almighty personage. The correct reply to a general, on all occasions, is "Yes, sir." Woe unto the man who would dispute the theories of the G.O.C., for "Death or such less punishment" lies in the hollow of his hand. A general who is keen of C.B.'s, knighthoods, and a baton, is always careful in the selection of his Staff. Up till fifteen years ago the young bloods of Mayfair were chosen because of their lineage, cash, and ability to ride a hunter at a five-barred gate. Now, a general seeks for an aide who can work twenty-three hours out of twenty-four, and possessed of all the knowledge that the Staff College can bestow. It is pleasant to note that many clever aspirants can be found, and that is the reason for the success of our arms to-day. If Wellington had had men of this type, he, like Hannibal and Napoleon, might also have conquered the Alps. But Wellington had to deal with aides who [pg 134] were simply British gentlemen with a passion for fox-hunting and a primitive thirst for blood. The modern Staff officer can secure the maximum of efficiency with the minimum of friction. He can inspire the training of a thousand muddling amateurs, and in six months can procure veterans of the type that conquered at Waterloo. Nothing is too much for him. He can make transports out of mud barges; bridges from milk carts; impregnable redoubts from biscuit-boxes, rubble, mud, and sand. In the midst of a most crushing reverse, he will collar a thousand retreating men, stick them in hen-houses, mills, and churchyards, and thus delay the advance of several army corps. He is tireless, persistent, sometimes dogmatic, but ever tactful and cheerful. Haking has instilled into him that soldiers are mainly human, and, in certain instances, fools, hence his ever cheerful charm, his pertinacity and human understanding. Of course there are a few of the old Peninsular type still left on the Staff. When you find them, Heaven help you! Their skulls are as shallow as the aborigines, and their tongues as cutting as a circular saw. They swear by The King's Regulations, and meet [pg 135] every problem by a precise reference to para so-and-so, section something, of the supplement to His Majesty's manuals of military muddles and laws. They terrify the simpleton by the fierceness of their dogmas, and ruthlessly crush the intellectual by thundering adjectives and cries of—insubordination and arrest. Thoroughly honest, thoroughly patriotic, but equally incompetent. They are tolerated for the simple reason that a shell or the age limit will eventually pass them out.
Now, in the Division to which the Glesca Mileeshy belonged there was a G.O.C. of the modern school. He was as big as a Cossack, and as cute as an Oxford Don. Common-sense was his theme; regulations he abhorred. He cursed everything which savoured of stupid obedience and ignorant obstinacy. Yet he had the faculty of humour, and in the midst of a fierce castigation would soothe ruffled pride and vain dignity by a funny yet kindly touch. This G.O.C. was nicknamed "Sunny Jim." Somehow his parents had missed the way to the Peerage and 'Who's Who?' Still, his worthy folks had produced an abnormal and interesting type. In a kindly family [pg 136] atmosphere "Sunny Jim" imbibed the true belief that love is the only philosophy to secure happiness and success. In a good public school this genius developed his amazing brain, and at the same time hardened his strong arms. Tin soldiers was his early game. Boy soldiers followed next. He armed his little army with mops, brooms, and carving knives, and, playing on an old frying-pan, marched them out to war. This was the beginning of great things. And from these boyish battles "Sunny Jim" moved into Sandhurst. And in Sandhurst "Sunny Jim" learned the more noble idealism of arms and the bedrock of those things which can be summed up as the chivalry of war. When he joined his regiment he created a stir. He was unorthodox. For example, he upset the tradition of three hundred years by ordering a sentry to stand under a verandah out of the wet; while he shocked his brother officers by eating an apple on the line of march. "It isn't conventional," his captain remarked. "Oh, hang convention!" was his tart reply. And so he progressed, upsetting all of the portly seniors, who declared that the Army was going to the dogs. While these old gentlemen [pg 137] went off to shoot grouse, "Sunny Jim" went forth to every sort of man-hunting expedition. His sword within ten years had been inside the paunch of many Dervishes, Afridis, hillmen, and negroes. His breast of ribbons told all the tale of days of hardship and of daring. In every scrap he was always "Sunny Jim." That was why he got the charge of the famous "Mixed Division." It was very mixed—twenty thousand gentlemen and scallywags, with little knowledge of war, but a terrible thirst for blood. Jim had to train them.
"Get them fit," he ordered.
"How, sir?" said the A.A.G.