Thus, the Regular came to admire—nay, to love the Territorial. He admitted him into the inner circle of his esteem and affection, where hitherto only the navy and the Royal Flying Corps, of our combatants in this war, have had a place. If the New Army prove themselves hardy fighters, imbued with those soldierly qualities which are the sole criterion by which the army in the field judges men, then they, too, shall find ingress into that jealously guarded preserve, the heart of the Regular.
When he gives you his friendship, the British soldier is a good friend. Between some Regular and Territorial battalions bonds of the closest affection have been formed in the field. Thus, the gallant Hertfordshire Territorials, who wear the Hart badge of the Bedfordshire Regiment, are sworn brothers to the Guards, by reason of their being brigaded with the Guards in the famous Guards Brigade—the only non-Guards battalion in the Brigade—for many months. The army calls them “The Herts Guards,” and right proud the Hertfordshires are of the title.
War has rounded off many edges in the Territorials, yet, to the inexperienced eye, there is still a marked difference between the Regular and even the most seasoned Territorial. A Territorial battalion is far more of a family gathering than a Regular battalion. Your Territorial regiment recruits, as a rule, from one more or less restricted area, so that there are all kinds of bonds of family, business, and speech between its men. To the Regulars of our old standing army war has ever been a business: to the Territorial it is much more of a prolonged foreign holiday—“the most glorious change of air and scene I have ever had,” is how a member of the H.A.C. referred to his service at the front.
This homogeneity of interests in a Territorial battalion also applies to trades. Thus, you will find, in the case of Territorials from the North, whole battalions of miners, of cotton operatives, of gillies. I heard of an entire company of a certain Territorial regiment formed out of hands from a well-known brewery, who had joined en masse.
I imagine that our Territorial regiments resemble more closely than any other formations we have in the field to-day the bands of archers who, in the Middle Ages, as Froissart tells, followed their feudal Barons to France and fought over the very fields where the war is being waged to-day. Like our Territorials, these bands must have been united within themselves by countless home associations, led, as they were, by their home leaders, speaking their home speech, swearing by their home shrines. The tie that welds Regulars together is the spirit of the regiment; home is the uniting bond of the Territorials.
The Regular generally marches in silence. If he sings it is as often as not one of those soldier songs of obscure origin like “The Song of Shame,” which I have often heard sung but have never seen in print. It deals with the misfortunes of a lass that loved not wisely, but too well, and beginning,
“She wuz pore but she wuz honest,”
continues through any number of more or less unprintable strophes.
The Territorial, on the other hand, hates to march in silence. If he is not singing, he is whistling. His range of songs is extensive. He will sing anything, from doggerel set to hymn tunes to Grand Opera. He will carol from Poperinghe to Ypres, from Lillers to Béthune, that familiar marching ditty which goes to the tune of “Here we go gathering nuts and may”:
“Nobody knows how dry we are,
Nobody knows how dry we are,
Nobody knows how dry we are,
And nobody seems to care-oh!”