III.—AN ODD MUSTER.
THE SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION.[ToC]
A corporate body is always a great mystery. Before very long it always develops a spirit which is something more than the sum of the individual spirits which compose it. And no man can quite say how it comes into existence. It may be a greater spirit than that of any individual. Sometimes it is not so great as that of its members.
And Battalions are no exception to this rule. Each brings forth a spirit, and by that spirit the members are henceforth profoundly influenced. It is not the spirit of the Colonel, or of any particular member. It is the spirit of the Battalion, something compounded by the subtle alchemies of the spiritual world out of the individual souls of officers and privates alike.
Of the spirit of the 17th H.L.I. it may at once be said that the outstanding characteristic was high-hearted youth. Most of the members of the Battalion were young, but the Battalion itself had the qualities of youth more truly than any of them. It was essentially gay. It did its work to the accompaniment of a fine hilarity. It could laugh even on the eve of battle. It could even be uproarious and exuberant as only the really young can.
And yet it was very efficient youth. To a man these soldiers took their work seriously, and because they brought to it a fine quality of intelligence, the Battalion rose to efficiency with astonishing rapidity. Many men read eagerly in text books about training and tactics and so forth, and the Battalion from end to end was intolerant of slovenliness. If it resembled a young man, it was a young man who meant business.