lasts a week or ten days, and the boys are looked over for vaccination and worked lightly in brigades with lots of blank cartridge. Second Camp—that's for the fifteen to eighteen-year-olds—lasts ten days or a fortnight, and that includes a final medical examination. Men don't like to be chucked out on medical certificate much—nowadays. I assure you Second Camp, at Salisbury, say, is an experience for a young I.G. Officer. We're told off to 'em in rotation. A wilderness of monkeys isn't in it. The kids are apt to think 'emselves soldiers, and we have to take the edge off 'em with lots of picquet-work and night attacks.'
'And what happens after Second Camp?'
'It's hard to explain. Our system is so illogical. Theoretically, the boys needn't show up for the next three or four years after Second Camp. They are supposed to be making their way in life. Actually, the young doctor or lawyer or engineer joins a Volunteer battalion that sticks to the minimum of camp—ten days per annum. That gives him a holiday in the open air, and now that men have taken to endowing their Volunteer drill-halls with baths and libraries he finds, if he can't run to a club, that his own drill-hall is an efficient substitute. He meets men there who'll be useful to him later, and he keeps himself in touch with what's going on while he's studying for his profession. The town-birds—such as the chemist's assistant, clerk, plumber, mechanic, electrician, and so forth—generally put in for their town Volunteer corps
