I laughed, but the major managed to remain calm.
The American captain departed after tea, and the major and I sat and bored each other till the Harvard professor and his illustrious companions returned. They told me I missed a very interesting trip. That’s the kind of trip one usually misses.
At dinner we resumed our enlightening discussion of Chinese, but it was interrupted when the major was called to the telephone. The message was from the captain who was supposed to meet Mr. Gibbons and Mr. O’Flaherty and take them to the trenches to spend the night. The captain reported that his machine had broken down with magneto trouble and he’d been unable to keep his appointment. He requested that the major have Mr. Gibbons and Mr. O’Flaherty located and brought home.
This was done. The disappointed correspondents blew in shortly before closing time and confided to me their suspicion that the trouble with the captain’s machine had not been magneto, but (the censor cut out a good line here).
To-morrow we are to be shown the main British training school and the hospital bases.
Friday, September 7. With the British.
We left the château at nine and reached the training camp an hour later.
We saw a squad of ineligibles drilling, boys under military age who had run away from home to get into the Big Game. Their parents had informed the authorities of their ineligibility, and the authorities had refused to enroll them. The boys had refused to go back home, and the arrangement is that they are to remain here and drill till they are old enough to fight. Some of them are as much as three years shy of the limit.
The drill is made as entertaining as possible. The instructor uses a variation of our “Simon says: ‘Thumbs up’.” “O’Grady” sits in for Simon. For example, the instructor says: “O’Grady says: ‘Right dress.’ Left dress.” The youth who “left dresses” without O’Grady’s say-so is sent to the awkward squad in disgrace.
Out of a bunch of approximately two hundred only two went through the drill perfectly. The other one hundred and ninety-eight underestimated the importance of O’Grady and sheepishly stepped out of line. The two perfectos looked as pleased as peacocks.