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Patrick MacGill >> The Amateur Army
THE AMATEUR ARMY
BY PATRICK MACGILL
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
CHILDREN OF THE DEAD END
THE RAT-PIT
[Illustration: RIFLEMAN PATRICK MACGILL]
HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED ARUNDEL PLACE HAYMARKET LONDON S.W. MCMXV
_Wyman & Sons Ltd., Printers, London and Reading._
PREFACE
I am one of the million or more male residents of the United Kingdom,
who a year ago had no special yearning towards military life, but who
joined the army after war was declared. At Chelsea I found myself a
unit of the 2nd London Irish Battalion, afterwards I was drilled into
shape at the White City and training was concluded at St. Albans,
where I was drafted into the 1st Battalion. In my spare time I wrote
several articles dealing with the life of the soldier from the stage
of raw "rooky" to that of finished fighter. These I now publish in
book form, and trust that they may interest men who have joined the
colours or who intend to take up the profession of arms and become
members of the great brotherhood of fighters.
PATRICK MACGILL.
"The London Irish,"
British Expeditionary Force,
_March 25th_, 1915.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
I ENLIST AND AM BILLETED 13
CHAPTER II
RATIONS AND SICK PARADE 23
CHAPTER III
PICKETS AND SPECIAL LEAVE 36
CHAPTER IV
OFFICERS AND RIFLES 48
CHAPTER V
THE COFFEE-SHOP AND WANKIN 60
CHAPTER VI
THE NIGHT SIDE OF SOLDIERING 71
CHAPTER VII
DIVISIONAL EXERCISE AND MIMIC WARFARE 85
CHAPTER VIII
THE GENERAL INSPECTION AND THE EVERLASTING WAITING 99
CHAPTER IX
READY TO GO--THE BATTALION MOVES 111
CHAPTER I
I ENLIST AND AM BILLETED
What the psychological processes were that led to my enlisting in
"Kitchener's Army" need not be inquired into. Few men could explain
why they enlisted, and if they attempted they might only prove that
they had done as a politician said the electorate does, the right
thing from the wrong motive. There is a story told of an incident that
occurred in Flanders, which shows clearly the view held in certain
quarters. The Honourable Artillery Company were relieving some
regulars in the trenches when the following dialogue ensued between a
typical Tommy Atkins and an H.A.C. private:
T.A.: "Oo are you?"
H.A.C.: "We're the H.A.C."
T.A.: "Gentlemen, ain't yer?"
H.A.C.: "Oh well, in a way I suppose--"
T.A.: "'Ow many are there of yer?"
H.A.C.: "About eight hundred."
T.A.: "An' they say yer volunteered!"
H.A.C.: "Yes, we did."
T.A.: (With conviction as he gathers together his kit). "Blimey, yer
must be mad!"
For curiosity's sake I asked some of my mates to give me their reasons
for enlisting. One particular friend of mine, a good-humoured Cockney,
grinned sheepishly as he replied confidentially, "Well, matey, I done
it to get away from my old gal's jore--now you've got it!" Another
recruit, a pale, intelligent youth, who knew Nietzsche by heart,
glanced at me coldly as he answered, "I enlisted because I am an
Englishman." Other replies were equally unilluminating and I desisted,
remembering that the Germans despise us because we are devoid of
military enthusiasm.
The step once taken, however, we all set to work to discover how we
might become soldiers with a minimum of exertion and inconvenience to
ourselves. During the process I learned many things, among others
that I was a unit in the most democratic army in history; where Oxford
undergraduate and farm labourer, Cockney and peer's son lost their
identity and their caste in a vast war machine. I learned that Tommy
Atkins, no matter from what class he is recruited, is immortal, and
that we British are one of the most military nations in the world. I
have learned to love my new life, obey my officers, and depend upon
my rifle; for I am Rifleman Patrick MacGill of the Irish Rifles, where
rumour has it that the Colonel and I are the only two _real_ Irishmen
in the battalion. It should be remembered that a unit of a rifle
regiment is known as rifleman, not private; we like the term rifleman,
and feel justly indignant when a wrong appellation plays skittles with
our rank.
The earlier stages of our training took place at Chelsea and the White
City, where untiring instructors strove to convince us that we were
about the most futile lot of "rookies" that it had ever been their
misfortune to encounter. It was not until we were unceremoniously
dumped amidst the peaceful inhabitants of a city that slumbers in the
shadow of an ancient cathedral that I felt I was in reality a soldier.
Here we were to learn that there is no novelty so great for the newly
enlisted soldier as that of being billeted, in the process of which he
finds himself left upon an unfamiliar door-step like somebody else's
washing. He is the instrument by which the War Office disproves that
"an Englishman's home is his castle." He has the law behind him;
but nothing else--save his own capacity for making friends with his
victims.
If the equanimity of English householders who are about to have
soldiers billeted upon them is a test of patriotism, there may well be
some doubts about the patriotic spirit of the English middle class in
the present crisis. The poor people welcome to their homes soldiers
who in most cases belong to the same strata of society as themselves;
and, besides, ninepence a night as billet-fee is not to be laughed
at. The upper class can easily bear the momentary inconvenience of
Tommy's company; the method of procedure of the very rich in regard to
billeting seldom varies--a room, stripped of all its furniture, fitted
with beds and pictures, usually of a religious nature, is given up
for the soldiers' benefit. The lady of the house, gifted with that
familiar ease which the very rich can assume towards the poor at a
pinch--especially a pinch like the present, when "all petty class
differences are forgotten in the midst of the national crisis"--may
come and talk to her guests now and again, tell them that they are
fine fellows, and give them a treat to light up the heavy hours that
follow a long day's drill in full marching order. But the middle
class, aloof and austere in its own seclusion, limited in means and
apartment space, cannot easily afford the time and care needed for the
housing of soldiers. State commands cannot be gainsaid, however, and
Tommy must be housed and fed in the country which he will shortly go
out and defend in the trenches of France or Flanders.
The number of men assigned to a house depends in a great measure on
the discretion of the householder and the temper of the billeting
officer. A gruff reply or a caustic remark from the former sometimes
offends; often the officer is in a hurry, and at such a time
disproportionate assortment is generally the result. A billeting
officer has told me that fifty per cent. of the householders whom he
has approached show manifest hostility to the housing of soldiers. But
the military authorities have a way of dealing with these people. On
one occasion an officer asked a citizen, an elderly man full of paunch
and English dignity, how many soldiers could he keep in his house.
"Well, it's like this--," the man began.
"Have you any room to spare here?" demanded the officer.
"None, except on the mat," was the caustic answer.
"Two on the mat, then," snapped the officer, and a pair of tittering
Tommies were left at the door.
Matronly English dignity suffered on another occasion when a sergeant
inquired of a middle-aged woman as to the number of men she could
billet in her house.
"None," she replied. "I have no way of keeping soldiers."
"What about that apartment there?" asked the N.C.O. pointing to the
drawing-room.
"But they'll destroy everything in the room," stammered the woman.
"Clear the room then."
"But they'll have to pass through the hall to get in, and there are so
many valuable things on the walls--"
"You've got a large window in the drawing-room," said the officer;
"remove that, and the men will not have to pass through the hall. I'll
let you off lightly, and leave only two."
"But I cannot keep two."
"Then I'll leave four," was the reply, and four were left.
Sadder than this, even, was the plight of the lady and gentleman at
St. Albans who told the officer that their four children were just
recovering from an attack of whooping cough. The officer, being a
wise man and anxious about the welfare of those under his care, fled
precipitately. Later he learned that there had been no whooping cough
in the house; in fact, the people who caused him to beat such a hasty
retreat were childless. He felt annoyed and discomfited; but about a
week following his first visit he called again at the house, this time
followed by six men.
"These fellows are just recovering from whooping cough," he told the
householder; "they had it bad. We didn't know what to do with them,
but, seeing that you've had whooping cough here, I feel it's the only
place where it will be safe to billet them." And he left them there.
But happenings like these were more frequent at the commencement of
the war than now. Civilians, even those of the conventional middle
class, are beginning to understand that single men in billets, to
paraphrase Kipling slightly, are remarkably like themselves.
With us, rations are served out daily at our billets; our landladies
do the cooking, and mine, an adept at the culinary art, can transform
a basin of flour and a lump of raw beef into a dish that would make an
epicurean mouth water. Even though food is badly cooked in the billet,
it has a superior flavour, which is never given it in the boilers
controlled by the company cook. Army stew has rather a notorious
reputation, as witness the inspired words of a regimental poet--one of
the 1st Surrey Rifles--in a paean of praise to his colonel:
"Long may the colonel with us bide,
His shadow ne'er grow thinner.
(It would, though, if he ever tried
Some Army stew for dinner.)"
Billeting has gained for the soldier many friends, and towns that have
become accustomed to his presence look sadly forward to the day when
he will leave them for the front, where no kind landlady will be at
hand to transform raw beef and potatoes into beef pudding or potato
pie. The working classes in particular view the future with misgiving.
The bond of sympathy between soldier and workers is stronger than that
between soldier and any other class of citizen. The houses and manners
of the well-to-do daunt most Tommies. "In their houses we feel out
of it somehow," they say. "There's nothin' we can talk about with the
swells, and 'arf the time they be askin' us about things that's no
concern of theirs at all."
Most toilers who have no friends or relations preparing for war
have kinsmen already in the trenches--or on the roll of honour. And
feelings stronger than those of friendship now unite thousands of
soldiers to the young girls of the houses in which they are billeted.
For even in the modern age, that now seems to voice the ultimate
expression of man's culture and advance in terrorism and destruction,
love and war, vital as the passion of ancient story, go hand in hand
up to the trenches and the threat of death.
CHAPTER II
RATIONS AND SICK PARADE
It has been said that an army moves upon its stomach, and, as if in
confirmation of this, the soldier is exhorted in an official pamphlet
"Never to start on a march with an empty stomach." To a hungry
rifleman the question of his rations is a matter of vital importance.
For the first few weeks our food was cooked up and served out on the
parade ground, or in the various gutter-fringed sheds standing in
the vicinity of our headquarters. The men were discontented with the
rations, and rumour had it that the troops stationed in a neighbouring
village rioted and hundreds had been placed under arrest.
Sometimes a haunch of roast beef was doled out almost raw, and
potatoes were generally boiled into pulp; these when served up looked
like lumps of wet putty. Two potatoes, unwashed and embossed with
particles of gravel, were allowed to each man; all could help
themselves by sticking their fingers into the doughy substance and
lifting out a handful, which they placed along with the raw "roast" on
the lid of their mess-tin. This constituted dinner, but often rations
were doled out so badly that several men only got half the necessary
allowance for their meals.
Tea was seldom sufficiently sweetened, and the men had to pay for
milk. After a time we became accustomed to the Epsom Salts that a
kindly War Office, solicitous for our well-being, caused to be added,
and some of us may go to our graves insisting on Epsom Salts with tea.
The feeding ground being in many cases a great distance from the fire,
the tea was cold by the time it arrived at the men's quarters. Those
who could afford it, took their food elsewhere: the restaurants in
the vicinity did a roaring trade, and several new ones were opened. A
petition was written; the men signed it, and decided to send it to
the colonel; but the N.C.O.'s stepped in and destroyed the document.
"You'll not do much good at the front," they told us, "if you are
grumbling already."
A week followed the destruction of the petition, and then appeared the
following in Battalion Orders: "From to-morrow until further orders,
rations will be issued at the men's billets." This announcement caused
no little sensation, aroused a great deal of comment, and created a
profound feeling of satisfaction in the battalion. Thenceforth rations
were served out at the billets, and the householders were ordered
to do the cooking. My landlady was delighted. "Not half feeding you;
that's a game," she said. "And you going to fight for your country!
But wait till you see the dishes I'll make out of the rations when
they come."
The rations came. In the early morning a barrow piled with eatables
was dragged through our street, and the "ration fatigue" party, full
of the novelty of a new job, yelled in chorus, "Bring out your dead,
ladies; rations are 'ere!"
"What have you got?" asked my landlady, going to the door. "What are
you supposed to leave for the men? Nothing's too good for them that's
going to fight for their country."
"Dead rats," said the ration-corporal with a grin.
"Don't be funny. What are my men to get?"
"Each man a pound of fresh meat, one and a half pounds of bread, two
taters, two ounces of sugar, and an ounce of tea and three ounces of
cheese. And, besides this, every feller gets a tin of jam once in four
days."
This looks well on paper, but pot and plate make a difference in the
proposition. Army cheese runs to rind rapidly, and a pound of beef is
often easily bitten to the bone: sometimes, in fact, it is all
bone and gristle, and the ravages of cooking minimise its bulk in
a disheartening way. One and a half pound of bread is more than the
third of a big loaf, but minus butter it makes a featureless repast.
Breakfast and tea without butter and milk does not always make a
dainty meal.
Even the distribution of rations leaves much to be desired; the
fatigue party, well-intentioned and sympathetic though it be, often
finds itself short of provisions. This may in many cases be due to
unequal distribution; an ounce of beef too much to each of sixteen men
leaves the seventeenth short of meat. This may easily happen, as the
ration party has never any means of weighing the food: it is nearly
always served out by guesswork. But sometimes the landladies help in
the distribution by bringing out scales and weighing the provisions.
One lady in our street always weighed the men's rations, and saw that
those under her care got the exact allowance. Never would she take any
more than her due, and never less. But a few days ago, when weighing
sugar and tea, a blast of wind upset the scales, and a second
allowance met with a similar fate. Sugar and tea littered the
pavement, and finally the woman supplied her soldiers from the
household stores. She now leaves the work of distribution in the hands
of the ration party, and takes what is given to her without grumbling.
The soldiers' last meal is generally served out about five o'clock
in the afternoon, sometimes earlier; and a stretch of fourteen hours
intervenes between then and breakfast. About nine o'clock in
the evening those who cannot afford to pay for extras feel their
waist-belts slacken, and go supperless to bed. And tea is not a very
substantial meal; the rations served out for the day have decreased in
bulk, bread has wasted to microscopic proportions, and the cheese has
diminished sadly in size. A regimental song, pent with soldierly woes,
bitterly bemoans the drawbacks of Tommy's tea:
"Bread and cheese for breakfast,
For dinner Army stew,
But when it comes to tea-time
There's dough and rind for you,
So you and me
Won't wait for tea--
We're jolly big fools if we do."
But those who do not live in billets, and whose worldly wealth fails
to exceed a shilling a day, must be content with Army rations, with
the tea tasting of coom, and seldom sweetened, with the pebble-studded
putty potato coated in clay, with the cheese that runs to rind at
last parade, and, above all, with the knowledge that they are merely
inconvenienced at home so that they may endure the better abroad.
There is another school of theorists that states that an army moves,
not upon its stomach, but upon its feet, the care of which is of vital
importance. This, too, finds confirmation in the official pamphlet,
which tells the soldier to "Remember that a dirty foot is an unsound
foot. See that feet are washed if no other part of the body is," etc.
My right foot had troubled me for days; a pain settled in the arch of
the instep, and caused me intense agony when resuming the march after
a short halt; at night I would suddenly awake from sleep to experience
the sensation of being stabbed by innumerable pins in ankle and toes.
Marching in future, I felt, would be a monstrous futility, and I
decided that my case was one for the medical officer.
Sick parade is not restricted by any dress order; the sore-footed
may wear slippers; the sore-headed, Balaclava helmets; puttees can be
discarded; mufflers and comforters may be used. "The sick rabble" is
the name given by the men to the crowd that waits outside the door of
the M.O.'s room at eight in the morning. And every morning brings its
quota of ailing soldiers; some seriously ill, some slightly, and a few
(as may be expected out of a thousand men of all sorts and conditions)
who have imaginary or feigned diseases that will so often save
"slackers" from a hard day's marching. The aim and ambition of these
latter seem to be to do as little hard work as possible; some of them
attend sick parade on an average once a week, and generally obtain
exemption from a day's work. To obtain this they resort to several
ruses; headaches and rheumatic pains are difficult to detect, and the
doctor must depend on the private's word; a quick pulse and heightened
temperature is engendered by a brisk run, and this is often a means
towards a favourable medical verdict--that is, when "favourable" means
a suspension of duties.
At a quarter to eight I stood with ten others in front of the M.O.'s
door, on which a white card with the blue-lettered "No Smoking"
stood out in bold relief. The morning was bitterly cold, and a sharp,
penetrating wind splashed with rain swept round our ears, and chilled
our hands and faces. One of the waiting queue had a sharp cough and
spat blood; all this was due, he told us, to a day's divisional
field exercise, when he had to lie for hours on the wet ground
firing "blanks" at a "dummy" enemy. Another sick soldier, a youth of
nineteen, straight as a lance and lithe as a poplar, suffered from
ulcer in the throat. "I had the same thing before," he remarked in a
thin, hoarse voice, "but I got over it somehow. This time it'll maybe
the hospital. I don't know."
An orderly corporal filled in admission forms and handed them to us;
each form containing the sick man's regimental number, name, religion,
age, and length of military service, in addition to several other
minor details having no reference at all to the matter in hand. These
forms were again handed over to another orderly corporal, who stood
smoking a cigarette under the blue-lettered notice pinned to the door.
The boy with the sore throat was sitting in a chair in the room when I
entered, the doctor bending over him. "Would you like a holiday?" the
M.O. asked in a kindly voice.
"Where to, sir?"
"A couple of days in hospital would leave you all right, my man," the
M.O. continued, "and it would be a splendid rest."
"I don't want a rest," answered the youth. "Maybe I'll be better in
the morning, sir."
The doctor thought for a moment, then:
"All right, report to-morrow again," he said. "You're a brave boy.
Some, who are not the least ill, whine till one is sick--what's the
matter with you?"
"Sore foot, sir," I said, seeing the M.O.'s eyes fixed on me.
"Off with your boot, then."
I took off my boot, placed my foot on a chair, and had it inspected.
"What's wrong with it?"
"I don't know, sir. It pains me when marching, and sometimes--"
"Have you ever heard that Napoleon said an army marches on its
stomach?"
"Yes, sir, when the feet of the army is all right," I answered.
"Quite true," he replied. "No doubt you've sprained one of yours;
just wash it well in warm water, rub it well, and have a day or two
resting. That will leave you all right. Your boots are good?"
"Yes, sir."
"They don't pinch or--what's wrong with you?" He was speaking to the
next man.
"I don't know, sir."
"Don't know? You don't know why you're here. What brought you here?"
"Rheumatic pains, I think, sir," was the answer. "Last night I 'ad an
orful night. Couldn't sleep. I think it was the wet as done it. Lyin'
out on the grass last field day--"
"How many times have you been here before?"
"Well, sir, the last time was when--"
"How many times?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Was it rheumatic pains last time?"
"No sir, it was jaw-ache--toothache, I mean."
"I'll put you on light duties for the day," said the M.O. And the
rheumatic one and I went out together.
"That's wot they do to a man that's sick," said the rheumatic one when
we got outside. "Me that couldn't sleep last night, and now it's light
duties. I know what light duties are. You are to go into the orderly
room and wash all the dishes: then you go and run messages, then you
'old the orficer's horse and then maybe when you're worryin' your own
bit of grub they come and bundle you out to sweep up the orficers'
mess, or run an errand for the 'ead cook and bottle-washer. Light
duties ain't arf a job. I'm blowed if marchin' in full kit ain't ten
times better, and I'm going to grease to the battalion parade."
Fifteen minutes later I met him leaving his billet, his haversack
on the wrong side, his cartridge pouches open, the bolt of his gun
unfastened; his whole general appearance was a discredit to his
battalion and a disgrace to the Army. I helped to make him presentable
as he bellowed his woes into my ear. "No bloomin' grub this mornin',"
he said. "Left my breakfast till I'd come back, and 'aven't no time
for it now. Anyway I'm going out on the march; no light duties for me.
I know what they are." He was still protesting against the hardships
of things as he swung out of sight round the corner of the street.
Afterwards I heard that he got three days C.B. for disobeying the
orders of the M.O.
Save for minor ailments and accident, my battalion is practically
immune from sickness; colds come and go as a matter of course, sprains
and cuts claim momentary attention, but otherwise the health of the
battalion is perfect. "We're too healthy to be out of the trenches,"
a company humorist has remarked, and the company and battalion agrees
with him.
CHAPTER III
PICKETS AND SPECIAL LEAVE
One of the first things we had to learn was that our ancient cathedral
town has its bounds and limits for the legions of the lads in khaki.
Beyond a certain line, the two-mile boundary, we dare not venture
alone without written permission, and we can only pass the limit in a
body when led by a commissioned officer.
The whole world, with the exception of the space enclosed by this
narrow circle, is closed to the footsteps of Tommy; he cannot now
visit his sweetheart, his sweetheart must come and visit him. The
housemaid from Hammersmith and the typist from Tottenham have to come
to their beaux in billets, and as most of the men in our town are
single, and nearly all have sweethearts, it is estimated that five
or six thousand maidens blush to hear the old, old story within the
two-mile limit every week-end.