“Come away,” said a voice behind. “They’ve chucked the best farrier between Hull and Dewsbury. Think they’ll take you an’ your potty quick-firers?”
The speaker turned on his heel and swore.
“Oh, damn the Guard, by all means!” said Sergeant Purvis, collecting his papers. “D’you suppose it’s any pleasure to me to reject chaps of your build and make? Vote us a second Guard battalion and we’ll accommodate you. Now, you can come into Schools and watch Trials if you like.”
Most of the men accepted his invitation, but a few walked away angrily. I followed from the smoking-room across a wide corridor into a riding-school, under whose roof the voices of the few hundred assembled wandered in lost echoes.
“I’ll leave you, if you don’t mind,” said Burgard. “Company officers aren’t supposed to assist at these games. Here, Matthews!” He called to a private and put me in his charge.
In the centre of the vast floor my astonished eyes beheld a group of stripped men; the pink of their bodies startling the tan.
“These are our crowd,” said Matthews. “They’ve been vetted, an’ we’re putting ’em through their paces.”
“They don’t look a bit like raw material,” I said.
“No, we don’t use either raw men or raw meat for that matter in the Guard,” Matthews replied. “Life’s too short.”
Purvis stepped forward and barked in the professional manner. It was physical drill of the most searching, checked only when he laid his hand over some man’s heart.