“Once inside an Area you must look after yourself; but I tell you that a fight which means that every man-Jack of us may lose a week’s pay isn’t so damn-sham after all. It keeps the men nippy. Still, in the long run, it’s like whist on a P. & O. It comes out fairly level if you play long enough. Now and again, though, one gets a present—say, when a Line regiment’s out on the ‘heef,’ and signifies that it’s ready to abide by the rules of the game. You mustn’t take head-money from a Line regiment in an Area unless it says that it’ll play you; but, after a week or two, those clever Linesmen always think they see a chance of making a pot, and send in their compliments to the nearest I. G. Then the fun begins. We caught a Line regiment single-handed about two years ago in Ireland—caught it on the hop between a bog and a beach. It had just moved in to join its brigade, and we made a forty-two mile march in fourteen hours, and cut it off, lock, stock, and barrel. It went to ground like a badger—I will say those Line regiments can dig—but we got out privily by night and broke up the only road it could expect to get its baggage and company-guns along. Then we blew up a bridge that some Sappers had made for experimental purposes (they were rather stuffy about it) on its line of retreat, while we lay up in the mountains and signalled for the A.C. of those parts.”
“Who’s an A.C.?” I asked.
“The Adjustment Committee—the umpires of the Military Areas. They’re a set of superannuated old aunts of colonels kept for the purpose, but they occasionally combine to do justice. Our A.C. came, saw our dispositions, and said it was a sanguinary massacre for the Line, and that we were entitled to our full pound of flesh—head-money for one whole regiment, with equipment, four company-guns, and all kit! At Line rates this worked out as one fat cheque for two hundred and fifty. Not bad!”
“But we had to pay the Sappers seventy-four quid for blowing their patent bridge to pieces,” Devine interpolated. “That was a swindle.”
“That’s true,” the Boy went on, “but the Adjustment Committee gave our helpless victims a talking to that was worth another hundred to hear.”
“But isn’t there a lot of unfairness in this head-money system?” I asked.
“Can’t have everything perfect,” said the Boy. “Head-money is an attempt at payment by results, and it gives the men a direct interest in their job. Three times out of five, of course, the A. C. will disallow both sides’ claim, but there’s always the chance of bringing off a coup.”
“Do all regiments do it?”
“Heavily. The Line pays a bob per prisoner and the Militia ninepence, not to mention side-bets which are what really keep the men keen. It isn’t supposed to be done by the Volunteers, but they gamble worse than anyone. Why, the very kids do it when they go to First Camp at Aldershot or Salisbury.”
“Head-money’s a national institution—like betting,” said Burgard.