Mr. Punch on the Warpath Part 17

[Ill.u.s.tration: "OFF!"

_Sergeant O'Leary._ "Double! Left! Right! What the blazes, Pat Rooney, d'ye mane by not doublin' wid the squad?"

_Pat._ "Shure, sergeant, 'twasn't a fair start"!]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LUCUS A NON," &c.

_(Aiming drill.)_

_Musketry Instructor._ "Now, then! How do you 'xpect to see the hobject haimed at, if you don't keep your heye closed?"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUR MANOEUVRES.

_Captain of Skirmishers (rushing in to seize picket sentries of the enemy)._ "Hullo! He-ar! You surrender to this company!"

_Opposition Lance-Corporal._ "Beg pardon, sir! It's the other way, sir.

We're a brigade, sir!!!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MILITARY ARDOUR.

_Sentry (with mixed ideas of manual and platoon)._ "Gar'd t'n out!"

_Commandant._ "Bless you, sir, what are you about?"

_Sentry._ "Shure, I'm waitin' for the worr'd foire!"

[Extract from Field Exercise or Red Book, pocket edition, page 356:--_Sentries paying compliments:_ "To field officers he will _present_ arms."

[Ill.u.s.tration: VOLUNTEER TACTICS AT OUR AUTUMN MANOEUVRES.

_Captain Wilkinson (excitedly, to Major Walker, of the firm of Wilkinson, Walker, & Co., Auctioneers and Estate Agents)._ "Don't you think we'd better bring our right wing round to attack the enemy's flank, so as to prevent their occupying those empty houses we have to let in Barker's Lane?"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A POSER.

_Sergeant-Major._ "Now, Private Smith, you know very well none but officers and non-commissioned officers are allowed to walk across this gra.s.s!"

_Private Smith._ "But, sergeant-major, I've Captain Graham's verbal orders to----"

_Sergeant-Major._ "None o' that, sir! Show me the captain's verbal orders! Show'm to me, sir!!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "FOLLOW MY LEADER!"

Captain Barble (East Suffolkshire R. V.) going to drill, has occasion to pa.s.s a certain window for reasons best known to himself. A vague idea possesses him that something is wrong somehow, or what should create such amus.e.m.e.nt on this occasion!]

MILITARY DIALOGUES

III

HOW IT SHOULD NOT BE DONE

_Interior of a dreary room in the War Office. A tired-looking young officer, in mufti, sits at a table with great piles of papers, each bundle tied with red tape and ticketed with labels of different colours, on one side of it ready to his hand. Another pile of papers, which he has already dealt with, is on the other side of the table. He is an official and has many letters, the first two being D. A. after his name. The gas has just been lighted. A clerk brings in another fat bundle of papers._

_The Officer (patting the smaller pile on the table)._ These can go on, Smithers. That question of sardine-openers must go back to the commissariat, and the General commanding the Central District must be authorised to deal on his own responsibility with the matter of the fierce bull in the field where the recruits bathe. What have you got there?

_The Clerk._ It is the correspondence, sir, relative to that false tooth requisitioned for by the officer commanding the Rutlandshire Regiment for the first cornet of the band. The Medical Department sent it back to us this morning, and there is another letter in from the Colonel, protesting against his regiment being forced to go route marching to an imperfect musical accompaniment.

_The Officer (groaning)._ I thought we had got rid of that matter at last by sending it to the doctors.

_The Clerk._ No, sir. The Surgeon-General has decided that "one tooth, false, with gold attachment," cannot be considered a medical comfort.

_The Officer (taking a precis from the top of the papers)._ I suppose we must go into the matter again. It began with the letter from the Colonel to the General?

_The Clerk._ Yes, sir, here it is. The O. C. the Rutland Regiment has the honour to report that the first cornet player in the band has lost a tooth, and as the band has become inefficient in the playing of marching music in consequence, he requests that a false tooth may be supplied at Government expense.

_The Officer._ And the General, of course, replied in the usual formula that he had no fund available for such purpose.

_The Clerk._ Yes, sir; but suggested that the regimental band fund might be drawn on.

_The Officer._ Where is the Colonel's letter in reply. (It is handed to him.) Ah, yes. Band fund is established, he writes, for purchase of musical instruments and music, and not for repair of incomplete bandsmen, and refuses to authorise expense, except under order from the Commander-in-Chief.

_The Clerk._ The General sends this on to us with a remark as to the Colonel's temper.

_The Officer._ And we pa.s.s it to the Quarter-Master-General's people, suggesting that under certain circ.u.mstances a false tooth might be considered a "necessary," and a free issue made.

_The Clerk._ A very long memo, on the subject, in reply, from the Q.-M.-G., sir. He points out that though, under exceptional circ.u.mstances, a pair of spectacles might be held to be a sight-protector, a false tooth could not be held to be either a fork, a spoon, a shaving-brush, a razor, or even an oil bottle.

_The Officer._ We wrote back suggesting that it might pa.s.s as a "jag"--our little joke.

_The Clerk._ _Your_ little joke, sir. The Q.-M.-G.'s people didn't see it.

_The Officer._ No? Then the correspondence goes on to the Ordnance Department, with a suggestion that a false tooth might be considered an arm or an accoutrement.