The Amateur Army Part 1

The Amateur Army.

by Patrick MacGill.

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.

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 c.o.c.kney, 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, c.o.c.kney and peer's son lost their ident.i.ty and their caste in a vast war machine. I learned that Tommy Atkins, no matter from what cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 a.s.sume towards the poor at a pinch--especially a pinch like the present, when "all petty cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s, aloof and austere in its own seclusion, limited in means and apartment s.p.a.ce, 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 a.s.signed 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 a.s.sortment 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 t.i.ttering 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 cla.s.s, 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 cla.s.ses in particular view the future with misgiving.

The bond of sympathy between soldier and workers is stronger than that between soldier and any other cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sion of ancient story, go hand in hand up to the trenches and the threat of death.