The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) Part 2

Rivalry, perfectly friendly in character, was great in the earlier days before chums began to be split up as the result of taking commissions. If we were digging trenches "somewhere in Ess.e.x," our particular sector had to be completed quicker and be more finished in character than any other. Jobs were done at the double if it were thought to be necessary; if any man developed a tendency to take a rest at too frequent intervals--well, he was ticked off in the most approved fashion. It all made for the good of the whole. The N.C.O. in charge had an easy time, he hadn't to drive a man. All he had to do was to see that in over-eagerness his working party did not take risks.

But the time came when the calculations upon securing a commission began to make their appearance. It may be some men were approached on the matter, or that others thought they would get to the Front more quickly as individual officers than as members of the Battalion (as indeed proved the case in many instances), but certain it is that the Colonel began to be inundated with applications to apply for permission.

Whilst freely recommending all suitable applications, the Colonel, in order to keep up the strength of the Battalion, made a rule that an applicant was to supply two other recruits to the Battalion of a certain height and of absolute physical fitness.

Naturally this was conformed with, and the recruiting sergeants round Whitehall were all the richer for it. So, too, were the recruits, and everyone was satisfied. If one man went two others took his place.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIRST INSPECTION OF BATTALION: HYDE PARK, OCTOBER, 1914.

To face p. 20]

Finally, as it was found that men constantly leaving was interfering with the internal organization of the companies, a special company was formed of all those waiting for their commission papers to come through.

This company, "E," proved the friendly b.u.t.t of all the others, one wag even going so far as to christen it the "Ess.e.x Beagles," alleging they did not "parade," but "met"!

So, in order to free the others for harder training this company provided very nearly all the fatigue parties for the camp.

Still, this didn't matter. It just gave the budding officers a chance to show what they were capable of. On several occasions a member of "E" Company proved he was more than a little useful with his hands when it came to a matter of treating things from a physical point of view and cutting the cheap wit out. The fatigues were also done without a murmur, that was another point of honour, and although the available strength of the company was dwindling day by day, "grousing"

about extra work was conspicuous by its absence.

There was a funny side about this dwindling of the strength, too. Men would be on the morning parade, and not on that later in the day. The explanation was a simple one. Their papers had come through. A man would walk out through the gates and be pulled up by the sentry.

"What about your pa.s.s?" the latter would ask.

"Got my discharge," would be the reply.

"Got a commission?"

"Yes."

"Good luck, old chap. I'm getting my papers to-morrow."

So, many of the original members of the First Sportsman's Battalion were scattered about on every front in their various regiments.

Walking through the Rue Colmar, Suez, one day I met my old company officer, then in the Royal Flying Corps. At Sidi Bishr, on the banks of the Mediterranean, I met another. A fellow-sergeant in the Battalion came up in the Rue Rosetta, Alexandria, and claimed me.

Out beyond the Bitter Lakes, east of the Suez Ca.n.a.l, I met an old Sportsman who had been a fellow-corporal with me. Back of the Somme, a prominent West Country Sportsman shouted a greeting to me from the Artillery. He still remembered rousing the camp at Hornchurch one night by sounding a hunting horn.

In an Artillery Captain in the Hebuterne sector I recognized another member--a Machine-Gun officer rolled up smilingly on the way up the line, and, finest time of all, I had nearly a whole day with what was left of the old crowd when they were resting after Delville Wood.

Friendships made in the First Sportsman's Battalion were not easily broken. We are out of it now, but--once a Sportsman, always a Sportsman. That, at least, has been my experience.

And it must not be forgotten that to Mrs. Cunliffe-Owen is due the credit of conceiving the idea of a battalion formed of men over the then enlistment age, who, by reason of their life as sportsmen, were fit and hard. Approaching the War Office, she obtained permission to raise a special battalion of men up to the age of forty-five. This was how the Sportsman's Battalion was actually brought into being.

+-----------------------------------------------------+ | TRAINING AT HOME--HOW THE FINISHED SOLDIER EMERGED | | FROM THE ROUGH MATERIAL | +-----------------------------------------------------+

TRAINING AT HOME--HOW THE FINISHED SOLDIER EMERGED FROM THE ROUGH MATERIAL

Formed almost as soon as the war broke out in 1914, the First Sportsman's Battalion may have provoked some criticism. It was uncertain at first as to what branch of the service it was to represent. Personally I thought it was to be mounted, and I was not alone in this idea either. More than a few of us got busy at once in settling how, if possible, we could provide our own mounts. That was in the days when we were new to war, long before we began to know what something approaching the real thing was.

Recruiting went on briskly at the Hotel Cecil, London, where Mrs.

Cunliffe-Owen and her staff worked hard and late. Lieutenant-Colonel Winter, then Second-Lieutenant Winter, with his ledger-like book and his green-baize-covered table, was a familiar figure. So, too, was the tailor who had been entrusted with the task of fitting us out with our uniforms. He, poor man, was soon in trouble. The stock sizes could be secured, but stock sizes were at a discount with the majority of the men who first joined up. They wanted outside sizes, and very considerable outside sizes, too, for the average height was a little over six feet, and the chest measurements in proportion.

Still, we recognized that these things had to be, and we kept on with a smile and a joke for everything. Perhaps we had a pair of army trousers and a sports-coat. Perhaps we had a pair of puttees, and the rest of the costume was our own. It didn't matter. It was good enough to parade in off the Embankment Gardens. It was good enough to route march in through the London streets. And the traffic was always stopped for us when we came home up the Strand, and proceeded down the steps by the side of "the Coal Hole" to the "dismiss." Rude things might be said to us by the crowd, but there was a warm spot in their hearts for us. We just carried on.

Bit by bit we were provided with our uniforms, and we began to fancy ourselves as the real thing. We began to make new friends, and we were drawn closer to those we knew. We came from all over the world. At the call men had come home from the Far East and the Far West. A man who had gone up the Yukon with Frank Slavin, the boxer; another who had been sealing round Alaska; trappers from the Canadians woods; railway engineers from the Argentine; planters from Ceylon; big-game hunters from Central Africa; others from China, j.a.pan, the Malay States, India, Egypt--these were just a few of the Battalion who were ready and eager to shoulder a rifle, and do their bit as just common or garden Tommies. The thought of taking a commission did not enter our minds at the start. Every man was eager to get on with the work, with but a dim thought of what it was going to be like, but worrying not a bit about the future.

In a few weeks the Battalion had learnt how to form fours, to wheel, and to maintain a uniformity of step. Every man was desperately keen; to be late for parade was a great big sin. And this despite the fact that every man had to come into London from all parts of the suburbs, and farther out than that in many instances, by train (paying his own fare) every morning.

So the time went on. Then came the news that we were to go into camp at the Grey Towers, Hornchurch, Ess.e.x, and next came the formation of a fatigue party to go on ahead and get things ready for the reception of the Battalion. There was a rush to get into this party as soon as the news went round. Everyone was eager to do something fresh, and, after all, we didn't know what fatigues were in those days. So the party went on ahead.

We who were left kept on with our drills; we even did physical jerks on the slopes of Savoy Street, Strand. Then came the news that we were to march away. That bucked everybody up tremendously, for, to tell the truth, we were really beginning to get tired of the London life. Some of us, who had seen life in various parts of the world previously, were sighing again for the open air. All of us were thinking it was really time we did something to justify our existence. We did not claim to be show soldiers; we wanted to get at it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARCHING AWAY FROM HYDE PARK TO ENTRAIN FOR HORNCHURCH.

To face p. 28]

All things come to those who wait, however. We were to move to Hornchurch--the first step to active service. We had our uniforms, we even had white gloves, and at last we fell in, by the Hotel Cecil, with a band at our head, and off we went. Funnily enough, some of us felt this break with London more than we felt anything afterwards. It was really our first introduction to "the Great Unknown."

Had the Guards been marching away they could not have had a greater and a more enthusiastic send-off. The streets of the City were packed; it was a struggle to get through. At Liverpool Street we were reduced to a two-deep formation, and even then it became a case of shouldering your way through those who had gathered to wish us "G.o.d speed." But we were entrained at last; we detrained at Romford, and we marched to Hornchurch. We were in the camp.

OUR FIRST SURPRISE.--That's when we had the first surprise sprung upon us, for we learnt that the camp would be our home for a whole solid fourteen days. No one was to be allowed to go into the village; we were to begin our course of instruction in discipline. There were a few heart-burnings, but nothing more. The Battalion played up to its ideal.

We were drilled early and late; we were instructed in the art of guard mounting; we peeled potatoes in the cookhouse; we fetched coal from the quartermaster's stores; we fell in to get our rations from the cookhouse; and last, but not least, we began to grouse. That was our first advance to becoming real soldiers. At least, so the author was told by an old N.C.O. who had marched with Roberts to Kabul, and who was again in the Service, too aged to do more than to instruct, but not too aged to do that well.

Hard work and plain but plentiful food soon made the Battalion as hard as nails, a phrase coined by the London _Evening News_, and a phrase that stuck. Quite as important, too, was the fact that a member of the "hard as nails" Battalion had to prove he was capable of acting up to it. So it was just a matter of honour that every man should keep off the sick parades, and not come home in the ambulance when a long route march or a field day was indulged in.

This took a bit of doing sometimes, for there was no mercy shown us.

We said we wanted the real thing, and, between ourselves, we got it. A march of seven miles to the scene of operations, a hard field day, and a march of seven miles home again, with pack, rifle, and full equipment in other ways, was our lot. We began to recognize that we were really soldiers, and we patted ourselves on the back.

Sport, too, played a very big part in our training. The Army of to-day recognizes the fact that athletics makes and keeps our youngsters fit and well. Our Colonel recognized it from the start, and as we had plenty of material to work upon we went right away with it. We had a "soccer" team, a "rugger" team, and a cricket eleven. The records of the matches we won, and the fact that very few defeats were notched up against us, proves we had a perfect right to style ourselves "the First Sportsman's Battalion, the 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAMP: HORNCHURCH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF A HUT: HORNCHURCH.

To face p. 30]

Scullers, footballers, boxers, runners, wrestlers, actors, musicians, artists--all these could be had for the asking, and we drew upon them liberally. We were given plenty of opportunities to indulge in our pa.s.sion for sport in the ordinary way, but the private who once asked for leave in order to go grouse shooting didn't get it. It was suggested he might put in a little time at the rifle range instead. No restrictions, however, were put upon any early morning running matches, and the football and cricket teams were helped in every way.

To get back to the purely military side, however. We groused at the amount of drills and night operations, to being hut orderlies, going on guard, and so on. But we did them as a means to an end. Then we had the rudest shock of all. We learnt we were to embark on the task of digging trenches--somewhere in Ess.e.x! That put the lid on things, so we considered. We, infantry soldiers, to dig trenches! It couldn't be right. We thought the Engineers, or the Pioneers, or somebody else, always did that. Our job was to carry a rifle, and to shoot Germans.

That's how the rank and file looked at it in the first place. Of course they discovered other things when the Battalion got to France, but that's another story.

However, it had to be done and, like everything else, it _was_ done.

After an early breakfast, the company detailed fell in and marched off to the station. After a while, a special train arrived and we scrambled in. In the interim, it may be mentioned, packed trains proceeding cityward went by, the pa.s.sengers cheering us. That pa.s.sed the time if it did nothing else.