The First Hundred Thousand Part 8

"Upon the skyline we notice--Squad, '_shun!_"

Captain Wagstaffe has strolled up. He is second in command of A Company. Bobby explains to him modestly what he has been trying to do.

"Yes, I heard you," says Wagstaffe. "You take a breather, while I carry on for a bit. Squad, stand easy, and tell me what you can see on that target. Lance-Corporal Ness, show me a pit-head."

Lance-Corporal Ness steps briskly forward and lays a grubby forefinger on Bobby's "mine."

"Private Mucklewame, show me a burn."

The brook is at once identified.

"Private M'Leary, shut your eyes and tell me what there is just to the right of the windmill."

"A wee knowe, sirr," replies M'Leary at once. Bobby recognises his "low knoll"--also the fact that it is no use endeavouring to instruct the unlettered until you have learned their language.

"Very good!" says Captain Wagstaffe. "Now we will go on to what is known as Description and Recognition of Targets. Supposing I had sent one of you forward into that landscape as a scout.--By the way, what is a scout?"

Dead silence, as usual.

"Come along! Tell me, somebody! Private Mucklewame?"

"They gang oot in a procession on Setter-day efternoons, sirr, in short breeks," replies Mucklewame promptly.

"A procession is the very last thing a scout goes out in!" raps Wagstaffe. (It is plain to Mucklewame that the Captain has never been in Wishaw, but he does not argue the point.) "Private M'Micking, what is a scout?"

"A spy, sirr," replies the omniscient one.

"Well, that's better; but there's a big difference between the two.

What is it?"

This is a poser. Several men know the difference, but feel quite incapable of explaining it. The question runs down the front rank.

Finally it is held up and disposed of by one Mearns (from Aberdeen).

"A spy, sirr, gets mair money than a scout."

"Does he?" asks Captain Wagstaffe, smiling. "Well, I am not in a position to say. But if he does, he earns it! Why?"

"Because if he gets catched he gets shot," volunteers a rear-rank man.

"Right. Why is he shot?"

This conundrum is too deep for the squad. The Captain has to answer it himself.

"Because he is not in uniform, and cannot therefore be treated as an ordinary prisoner of war. So never go scouting in your nightshirt, Mucklewame!"

The respectable Mucklewame blushes deeply at this outrageous suggestion, but Wagstaffe proceeds--

"Now, supposing I sent you out scouting, and you discovered that over there--somewhere in the middle of this field"--he lays a finger on the field in question--"there was a fold in the ground where a machine-gun section was concealed: what would you do when you got back?"

"I would tell you, sirr," replied Private M'Micking politely.

"Tell me what?"

"That they was there, sirr."

"Where?"

"In yon place."

"How would you indicate the position of the place?"

"I would pint it oot with ma finger, sirr."

"Invisible objects half a mile away are not easily pointed out with the finger," Captain Wagstaffe mentions. "Lance-Corporal Ness, how would you describe it?"

"I would tak' you there, sirr."

"Thanks! But I doubt if either of us would come back! Private Wemyss?"

"I would say, sirr, that the place was west of the mansion-hoose."

"There's a good deal of land west of that mansion-house, you know,"

expostulates the Captain gently; "but we are getting on. Thompson?"

"I would say, sir," replies Thompson, puckering his brow, "that it was in ablow they trees."

"It would be hard to indicate the exact trees you meant. Trees are too common. You try, Corporal King."

But Corporal King, who earned his stripes by reason of physical rather than intellectual attributes, can only contribute a lame reference to "a bit hedge by yon d.y.k.e, where there's a kin' o' hole in the tairget." Wagstaffe breaks in--

"Now, everybody, take some conspicuous and unmistakable object about the middle of that landscape--something which no one can mistake. The mansion-house will do--the near end. Now then--_mansion-house, near end_! Got that?"

There is a general chorus of a.s.sent.

"Very well. I want you to imagine that the base of the mansion-house is the centre of a great clock-face. Where would twelve o'clock be?"

The platoon are plainly tickled by this new round-game. They reply--

"Straught up!"

"Right. Where is nine o'clock?"

"Over tae the left."

"Very good. And so on with all the other hours. Now, supposing I were to say, _End of mansion-house_--_six o'clock_--_white gate_--you would carry your eye straight _downward_, through the garden, until it encountered the gate. I would thus have enabled you to recognise a very small object in a wide landscape in the quickest possible time.

See the idea?"

"Yes, sirr."