Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3828/The Last Line
IV.
We progress. The days when the whole art of war consisted of "On the left, form platoons... On the left, blanket," are over. Skirmishing, signalling, musketry, Swedish drill—a variety of entertainment is now open to us; there is even a class for buglers. To give you an idea of the Corps at work, I offer you a picture of James and myself semaphoring to each other.
James is in the middle distance, a couple of flags draped over his person. I am going to send him a message. I signal to him that I am about to begin; he waves back that he is ready. Now then...
My mind becomes a complete blank. I find that I have absolutely nothing to say to James.
"Go on," says my instructor.
"Yes, but what?" I ask. All desire to interchange thought with James has left me.
"Anything. Ask him, if a herring and a half costs three ha'pence, how much———"
"Yes, but that's too long. It would take me at least a week, and by that time the herring would be censored. No, I've got it."
It has occurred to me suddenly that it would annoy James if I reminded him of his professional life. He looks so military in his puttees and khaki shirt.
"Do—you—want—a—nice—mortgage?" I signal.
James takes it up to "nice," and then breaks down. The "m-o" he reads as "s-w" (an easy mistake to make), and he imagines that I am offering him a nice sword—a fitting offer to one of his martial appearance. When the third letter turns out to be not the "o" which he expected, he loses his head and signals "Repeat."
I give it him again slowly. He reads the first five letters as s-w-r-t-g and assumes this time that I am offering him a nice town in Poland. It is five minutes before we get the mortgage properly established, and by then James is utterly disgusted.
He is now going to send a message to me. There is nothing half-hearted about James when he has his khaki shirt on.
"Why the devil don't you send up those guns?" he signals.
General James is hard pressed. The enemy is advancing in echelon against his left wing; cavalry beat themselves against the hollow square on his right; his centre has formed platoon after platoon unavailingly. Still the enemy comes on. Where the devil are those guns?
I signalled back:
"Sorry, but B Company is using the bullet."
It was a blow to James. Reluctantly he came to his decision.
"Must fall back," he said, and he caught a flag between his legs and did so...
Well, there you have us signalling. To show you us skirmishing I cannot do better than describe the fierce engagement between A and C Companies, which resulted in the entire annihilation of A. But perhaps that would not be fair. I am a prejudiced recorder; let one of A Company speak.
He was annoyed.
"We worked round their flank," he said, "and we'd got quite close up to them under cover of a wood when we came on one of them smoking a pipe. He said he was an outpost, and that he'd decimated us all long ago."
"What did you do?" asked his friend.
"We scragged him."
Personally I had a safer position among the supports. A decimated enemy in the first flush of annoyance can be dangerous. I merely lay in a ditch and counted ants... But I was very glad to hear we'd won.
Rifle exercises go on apace. We have a curious collection of weapons ("weapons of precision" as they are called by those who have never seen my targets), an order for six hundred of one family having fallen through, owing to a clerical error. "We can offer you 600 rifles, 1900 pattern," the firm wrote; but an inspection of them showed that the "6" and the "9" had got mixed up.
But even with more modern weapons than these we are not very formidable as yet, and for some weeks we must rely on other methods of striking terror into the hearts of the enemy. Luckily we are acquiring an excellent substitute for lead. As an example of "frightfulness" nothing can exceed the appearance of one of our really mixed platoons lying on its backs and waving its legs in the air. This is one of the Swedish drill movements... and, as I think I have mentioned before, we are all ages and shapes...
Let me conclude with a little story to show the dangers to which we are subject and the fearlessness with which we face them. I cite the case of Reginald Arburthnot Wilkins.
R. A. Wilkins is just as keen as they make them, and it is his great sorrow that, being in an important Goverment office, he is not allowed to enlist. For my liking he is too smart; when he does a "right-turn" he does it with a jerk that you can almost hear. The click of the heels is all very well, but Reginald Arbuthnot makes his neck click too. An "eyes-right" nearly takes his head off.
A dozen of them, including Reginald, were being taught saluting the other day. There was an imaginary Field-Marshal or somebody on the left, and they were told to turn the head smartly to the left, at the same time bringing the right hand up to the salute... "Sa-lute!" Reginald Arbuthnot Wilkins whizzed his head round to the left, but accidentally brought the wrong hand up. There was a crash as his left thumb met his left eye-ball, and Reginald was in hospital for a week.
The remarkable thing is that the other eleven, quite undismayed, went on practising the salute. That gives you some idea of our spirit.