a court-martial?" I asked. "I've never that convened one before."
"What matter the time!" said James grandly. "The mills may grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small."
"Quite so. But in about an hour and a quarter the guard is changed; and if, as is probably, the man who insulted me is then on guard himself, he will have the rifle. And if he has the rifle, I don't quite see how we are going to shoot him."
"You mean he mightn't give it up?"
"Yes. It would be rank insubordination, I admit, but in the circumstances one would not be surprised at his attitude."
"That is a good point," said James. "It had escaped me." He was silent again. "There's another thing, too, I was forgetting," added. "If he were shot, his wife might possibly object and make a fuss. The affair would very likely get into the papers—you know what the Press is. It might give the Corps a bad name."
We were both silent for a little.
"Suppose," I said, "the death penalty were not enforced, and he were merely given three days in cells?"
"But he has to get back to his work on Monday."
"True. Really, it's very hard to see how discipline can be maintained. I almost wish now that I wasn't a temporary noncommissioned officer. As a private one simply has the time of one's life, telling corporals all day long to go and boil their heads. I wish I were a private again."
"There's one thing you can do," said James. "You can report him to the Sergeant of the Guard."
"And what's the good of that?"
"Only that it's probably your duty," said James austerely. "And I should think it's also your duty to get back to the guard-tent as soon as possible."
I rose with dignity.
"I do not consult my solicitor simply to be told my duty," I said stuffly. "All I want to know if, Can I bring an action against him?"
"No," said James.
"In that case I will return. Good evening."
I went back to the guard-tent. The mutineer was still reading, but now there was a light to read by. He looked up as I came in. I had had that uneasy feeling all along, and now I knew. It was the Sergeant.
I saluted. It may be wrong, as James says, but a salute or two thrown in can't do any harm.
"May I speak to you, Sergeant?" I said respectfully, yet with an air which implied that the Germans were upon us and that the news must be kept from the others.
We went outside together.
"Awfully sorry," I said; "it was rather dark. I'm an ass."
"My dear man, that's all right," he said. "By the way you'd better see about getting some straw in. I've got to see the Adjutant." He went off, and I returned to the tent.
"I want one of you to help me get some straw," I said mildly.
Three of them jumped up at once. "You stay here," they said, "we'll get it."
So there you are; there's nothing wrong with the discipline. At the same time if it were necessary to shoot anybody, I am not quite sure how we should proceed.
Dear Mr. Punch,—Having recently dropped into several London theatres and halls of variety I have been struck by the numerical strength, agility and apparently abounding vitality of the young men forming the chorus. These gallant fellows sing and caper with the utmost spirit throughout the whole evening, both in musical comedy or revue; and in London alone, where revues are now being postponed at many of the outlying halls, there must be more than a thousand of them. Now and then they even go so far as to impersonate recruits—the chorus to the recruiting songs which have crept into more than one programme—and they make, I can assure you, Sir, a very brave show with their refles and their miliary paces, a little accelerated perhaps by the exigencies of the tune, but a marvel of discipline none the less.
Watching these brisk and efficient male choruses at work, the thought has come to me—in fact has often been forced upon me by the martial nature of the musical number which they were engaged in rendering with so much capability and cheerfulness—that at a time when England is particularly in need of her young men in the field, the audiences of London might consent to forgo a little of the pleasure that comes from watching athletic youths covered with grease-paint and gyrating in the limelight, and, by expressing their readiness to see these necessary evolutions carried out by older men, liberate so much good material to join the Army. Such is the power of the make-up (I am told) that a man of fifty could easily be arranged to look sufficiently like a man of half his age, at any rate without imperilling the success of the entertainment from the point of view of the spectator. And of course the girls will remain in all their charm, since girls cannot enlist.
The point may be worth considering. The decision, I feel sure, rests entirely with the public. If the public says: "Let the young go, and give us more mature choristers for a while, and we will patriotically endeavour to endure the privation"—then all the young men will, of course, enlist as one. But unless the public says this they must remain in the choruses against the grain.
I am, Sir,
Yours gratefully,
Over Age.
Recruiting Officer. "What's the good of coming here and saying you're only seventeen years old? Go and walk round that yard and come back and see if you're not nineteen."
The Censor at Work.
Beneath a photograph of a naval officer The Daily Mirror says:—
"A daring raid has just been made by Commander Samson... The small picture shows the commander."
Beneath the same photograph The Daily Mail says:—
"A famous British naval airman (nameless by order of the Censor)."
But the order of the Censor came too late. The Mirror had given the great secret away to the Kaiser, and the whole course of the war was altered.
