At 7.25 A.M. this unseemly procession arrived in Menin-le-Château. In the far distance Corporal Jones espied the Regimental Sergeant-Major. The latter was a man whom every private considered an incarnation of the devil! The junior N.C.O.’s feared him, and the Platoon Sergeants had a respect for him founded on bitter experience in the past, when he had found them wanting. In other words he was a cracking good Sergeant-Major of the old-fashioned type. He was privately referred to as Rattle-Snake Pete, a tribute not only to his disciplinary measures, but also to his heavy, fierce black moustachios, and a lean, eagle-like face in which was set a pair of fierce, penetrating black eyes.
“If,” said Corporal Jones loudly, “you all wants to be up for Office you’ll walk. Otherways you’ll march! There’s the Sergeant-Major!”
The sick parade pulled itself together with a click. Collars and the odd button were furtively looked over and done up, caps pulled straight, and no sound broke the silence save a smart unison of “left-right-left” along the muddy road. The R.S.M. looked them over with a gleam in his eye as they passed, and glanced at his watch.
“’Alf a minute late, Co’poral Jones,” he shouted. “Break into double time. Double ... march!” The sick parade trotted away steadily—until they got round a bend in the road. “Sick!!!” murmured the R.S.M. “My H’EYE!”
A little way further on the parade joined a group composed of the sick of other battalion units, some fifty in all. Corporal Jones handed his sick report to the stretcher-bearer Sergeant, and was told he would have to wait until the last.
In half an hour’s time the first name of the men in his party was called—Lance-Corporal MacMannish.
“What’s wrong?” asked the doctor briskly.
“’A have got a pain in here, sirr,” said MacMannish, “an’ it’s sair, sorr,” pointing to the centre of his upper anatomy.
“Show me your tongue? H’m. Eating too much! Colic. Two number nine’s. Light duty.”
Lance-Corporal MacMannish about-turned with a smile of ecstatic joy and departed, having duly swallowed the pills.