Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3824/Tommy Brown, Recruiting Sergeant
Tommy Brown had been moved up into Form II., lest he should take root in Form I. He had been recommended personally by the master of Form I. to Mr. Smith, the guardian deity of Form II., as "the absolute limit." After a year of Tommy, Mr. Smith had begun to mention him in his prayers, not so much for Tommy's good as for his own deliverance—mentally including him in the category of plague, pestilence, famine and sudden death.
Though the pervading note of Mr. Smith's report upon Tommy was gloom, deep gloom, he must have had some dim hopes of him, for, at the end of the Summer Term, he had placed his hand upon Tommy's head and said, "Never mind, my boy, we shall make a man of you some day."
A new term had begun; Tommy Brown had mobilised days late, but he was in time for Mr. Smith's lecture on "The War, boys."
The orator spoke for an hour and a quarter, and at the end he wiped his brows with the blackboard duster under the impression that it was his handkerchief. Meanwhile Tommy had eaten three apples, caught four flies, written "Kiser" in chalk on the back of the boy in front of him, exchanged a catapult with Jones minor for a knife, cut his finger, and made faces at each of the four new boys. Mr. Smith caught him in one of these contortions, but he was speaking of Louvain at the moment and took it as a compliment.
Suddenly Tommy found himself confronted with a number of sheets of clean paper. "The essay is to be written on one side of the paper only," said Mr. Smith.
Tommy asked the boy next to him what they had to write about, and the reply, "The War, you fool," set him thinking.
A deathlike stillness fell upon the room; Tommy Brown looked round, frowned heavily, dipped his pen in the ink and then in his mouth, and thought hard.
Then, after much frowning, he delivered himself of the following, the ink being shared equally between himself and the paper:—
"The wor was becose the beljums wouldent let the jermeus go over there fields so they put minds in the sea and bunbarded people dead with airplans. It was shokkin. The rusheus have got a steme roler. We have got a garden roler at home and I pull it sometimes. I dont like jermens. Kitchener said halt your country needs you and weve got a lot of drednorts. The airplans drop boms on anyone if your not looking it isnt fare yours truly T. Brown."
The essay completed to his satisfaction, Tommy Brown conveyed to his mouth a sweet the size and strength of which fully justified the name "Britain's Bulwarks" attached to it by the shopkeeper.
He then leaned back with the air of one who had done his duty in the sphere in which he found himself and proceeded to survey the room.
The other boys were still writing, and for fully half a minute Tommy looked at them in pained surprise.
He then read his own essay again and, finding no flaw in it, frowned once more on his fellow pupils and wrote: "My father won the Victoria Cross Meddle." Having written this he looked round again somewhat defiantly. His eye caught one of the new boys beginning another sheet.
Tommy's essay just filled two-thirds of a page. He would fight that new boy. Just then the words of a war poster came into his head and he wrote in large letters: "Your King and country want you."
Tommy studied this for a minute, and then, as the appeal seemed directed to himself, he wrote: "I'm not old enuf or I'd go my brothers gone I'm not a funk I let Jones miner push a needle into my finger to show him."
It seemed to Tommy Brown that the other boys possessed some secret fund of information, even the new boys. He'd show those new boys after school. Having made up his mind on this point he printed at the bottom of his essay, "Kitchener wants men." As an after-thought he added, "My father was a man."
He let his gaze wander round the room until it fell upon the face of his master, and then, under some impulse, he wrote the fateful words, "Mr. Smith is a man."
"Finish off now!" rang out the command from Mr. Smith.
Tommy saw the other boys putting sheet after sheet together, and he had hardly filled one. He racked his brains for something to add to his essay, and there came to his mind the words written under his father's portrait. He had only time to put down "England expecs—" when his paper was collected.
No one ever read Tommy Brown's essay excepting Mr. Smith, and he burnt it.
*******
A lady teaches Form II. now, and Tommy Brown is eagerly looking forward to the day when Mr. Smith will return to occupy once more the post that is being kept open for him, for Mr. Smith has promised to bring Tommy home a German helmet.