The Official Style.
Extract from an Indian Service register:—
"Service Order 41 of 1914, dated 16-10-14. He was appointed acting Forest Guard and posted to Surumoni beat, in place of Chowdri Zaicko, Forest Guard, who was devoured by a tiger with effect from the forenoon of 16th Oct. 1914."
AT THE BACK OF THE FRONT.
Here where the world is quiet except for the noise of the rain trickling into one's valise through the nooks and crannies of one's rustic apartment—here where there is no peril from above and no peril from in front, neither peril of enfilade, here too—it is a Base I am doing this sentence about—we have our problems.
To begin with there is the glorious uncertainty of things. Some men are here to-day and the far side of Wipers to-morrow night. Others arrive from England thirsting for all sorts of things that no sane man ever wants to have anything to do with, and are kept doing a bomb course and a machine-gun course on alternate days for eight months. There is a tale told of one such who, when he was finally sent to the trenches, was returned as hopeless after three days because he would do nothing except sit beside a machine gun trying to fill the belt with grenades. There is no sadder story in the War.
Now if I knew for certain that I was going to be here eight months I could marry and settle down. Or if I knew for certain I was for Wipers to-morrow night I could make a new will—not that there's anything the matter with the old one, but I met a man on leave who put me up to some good tips in will-making—and settle up. But as it is part of our military system for junior officers not to know anything I dare not even have my letters forwarded.
Anyhow, Bases are not what they were in my young days. Of course there were always parades; but you obviously couldn't parade while you were busy over some Alternative Necessary Duty. Alternative Necessary Duties were always my strongest suit. On the evening of my arrival in camp I would summon the Band Sergeant and provide him with my programme of work. On Monday he would please arrange for a criminal in my detail. On Tuesday I would use my influence in the matter of obtaining clothing for my detail. This would be a very laborious task, involving three signatures in ink or indelible pencil; but no matter, to a good officer the comfort of his men comes before everything. On Wednesday I would pay my men. Rotten job, paying out, but ensures Generous Glow, and no expense unless you lose the Acquittance Roll. On Thursday I would read Standing Orders to the latest arrived draft; maybe they had had this done to them once already, but one cannot be too particular. A private I know of who had only had Standing Orders read to him once got into awful trouble through carelessly kicking a recalcitrant corporal on the head. That just shows you. On Friday—but I weary you, if that be possible. Suffice it that the Base went very well then.
The trouble began, as usual, high up. The G.O. Commanding something most frightfully important inspected one of our parades one morning and found 7,528 other ranks under one Second-Lieutenant. All might have been well if the Second-Lieutenant had not forgotten to fire the correct salute of fourteen bombs (or whatever was the correct salute). The G.O.C. investigated. He searched the woods and delved in the instructional trenches, but never another officer came to light. So he went home and, after a bad lunch—we surmise—set himself to abolish Alternative Necessary Duties in a formal edict. No officer is to absent himself from a parade except by the express orders of an O.C. Base Depôt.