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British Army From Within

<h2 class="vspace">CHAPTER II THE WAY OF THE RECRUIT</h2></div> The way of the recruit, though still a hard one, is not so hard as it used to be, for, especially in the cavalry and artillery, various modifications have been introduced by which the youngster is broken in gradually to his work. This is not all to the good, for under the new way of working the training which precedes “dismissal” from recruit’s training to the standing of a trained soldier takes longer, and, submitting the recruit to a less strenuous form of life for the period through which it lasts, does not produce quite so handy and quick a man as the one who was kept at it from dawn till dark, with liberty at the end of his official day’s work to clean up equipment for the next day. Still, the annual training of the “dismissed” soldier is a more strenuous business now than in old time, so probably the final result is about the same. The recruit’s first requirements, after he has interviewed the recruiting sergeant on the subject of enlistment is to take the oath—a very quick and26 simple matter—and then to pass the doctor, which is not so simple. The recruit is stripped, sounded, tested for full physical efficiency, and made to pass tests in eyesight and breathing which, if he emerges satisfactorily, proclaim him as near physical perfection as humanity can get without a course of physical culture—and that course is administered during his first year of service. Kept under the wing of the recruiting sergeant for a matter of hours or days, as the case may be, the recruit is at last drafted off to his depot, or direct to his unit, where his real training begins in earnest. We may take the case of a recruit who had enlisted from mixed motives, arrived at a station whence he had to make his way to barracks in the evening, in order to begin his new life; here are his impressions of beginning life in the Army. He went up a hill, and along a muddy lane, and, arriving at the barracks, inquired, as he had been told to do, for the quartermaster-sergeant of “C” Squadron. He was directed to the quartermaster-sergeant’s office, and, on arrival there, was asked his name and the nature of his business by a young corporal who took life as a joke and regarded recruits as a special form of food for amusement. Having ascertained the name of the recruit, the corporal, who was a kindly fellow at heart, took27 him down to the regimental coffee bar and provided him with a meal of cold meat, bread, and coffee—at the squadron’s expense, of course, for the provision of the meal was a matter of duty. The corporal then indicated the room in which the recruit was to sleep, and left him. The recruit opened the door of the room, and looked in. It was a long room, with a row of narrow beds down each side, and in the middle two tables on iron trestles, whereon were several basins. On almost every bed sat a man, busily engaged in cleaning some article of clothing or equipment; some were cleaning buttons, some were pipeclaying belts, some were engaged with sword-hilts and brick-dust, some were cleaning boots—all were cleaning up as if their lives depended on it, for “lights out” would be sounded at a quarter-past ten, and it was already past nine o’clock. When they saw the recruit, they gave him greeting. “Here’s another one!” they cried. “Here’s another victim!” and other phrases which led this particular recruit to think, quite erroneously, that he had come to something very bad indeed. Two or three were singing, with more noise than melody, a song which was very old when Queen Anne died—it was one of the ditties of the regiment, sung by its men on all possible and most impossible occasions.28 One man shouted to the recruit that he had “better flap before he drew his issue,” and that he could not understand at all. Translated into civilian language, it meant that he had better desert before he exchanged his civilian clothing for regimental attire, but this he learned later. They seemed a jolly crowd, very fond of flavouring their language with words which, in civilian estimation, were terms of abuse, but passed as common currency here. The recruit stood wondering—out of all these beds, there seemed to be no bed for him. After a minute or two, however, the corporal in charge of the room came up to him, and pointed out to him a bed in one corner of the room; its usual occupant was on guard for twenty-four hours, and the recruit was informed that he could occupy that bed for the night. In the morning he could go to the quartermaster’s store and draw blankets, sheets, a pillow, and “biscuits” for his own use. After that, he would be allotted a bed-cot to himself. Biscuits, it must be explained, are square mattresses of coir, of which three, placed end to end, form a full-sized mattress for a military bed-cot. Sitting on the borrowed bed-cot, the recruit was able to take a good look round. The ways of these29 men, their quickness in cleaning and polishing articles of equipment, were worth watching, he decided. They joked and chaffed each other, they sang scraps of songs, allegedly pathetic and allegedly humorous; they shouted from one end of the room to the other in order to carry on conversations; they called the Army names, they called each other names, and they called individuals who were evidently absent yet more names, none of them complimentary. They made a lot of noise, and in that noise one of them, having finished his cleaning, slept; when he snored, one of his comrades threw a boot at him, and, since the boot hit him, he woke up and looked round, but in vain. Therefore he calmly went to sleep again, but this time he did not snore. The recruit, who had come out of an ordinary civilian home, and hitherto had had only the vaguest of notions as to what the Army was really like, wondered if he were dreaming, and then realised that he himself was one of these men, since he had voluntarily given up certain years of his life to their business. With that reflection he undressed and got into bed. After “lights-out” had sounded and been promptly obeyed, he went to sleep.... His impressions are typical, and his introduction to the barrack-room may serve to record the view30 gained by the majority of those who enlist: that first glimpse of military life is something utterly strange and incomprehensible, and the recruit sleeps his first night in barracks—or stays awake—bewildered by the novelty of his surroundings, and a little afraid. In a few days the recruit begins to feel a little more at home in his new surroundings. One of his first ordeals is that of being fitted with clothing, and with few exceptions, all his clothing is ready-made, for the quartermaster’s store of a unit contains a variety of sizes and fittings of every article required, and from among these a man must be fitted out from head to foot. The regimental master-tailor attends at the clothes’ fitting, and makes notes of alterations required—shortening or lengthening sleeves, letting out here, and taking in there. When clothes and boots have been fitted, the recruit is issued a “small kit,” consisting of brushes and cleaning materials for himself and his clothes and equipment, even unto a toothbrush and a comb. As a rule, he omits the ceremony of locking these things away in his box when he returns to the barrack-room, with the result that most of them are missing when he looks on the shelf or in the box where he placed them. For, in a barrack-room, although all things are not31 common, the property of the recruit is fair game, and he catches who can. Gradually, as the recruit learns the need for taking care of such property as he wishes to retain, he also learns barrack-room slang and phrasing. In the Army, one is never late: one is “pushed.” One does not eat, but one “scoffs.” A man who dodges work is said to “swing the lead,” and there is no such thing as work, for it is “graft,” or “kom.” Practically every man, too, has his nickname: all Clarkes are “Nobby,” all Palmers are “Pedlar,” all Welshmen in other than Welsh regiments are “Taffy,” all Robinsons are “Jack,” and every surname in like fashion has its regular nickname. But, contrary to the belief entertained by the average civilian, the soldier does not readily take to nicknames for his superiors. For his own officers he sometimes finds equivalents to their names through their personal peculiarities, but if one spoke to a soldier of “K. of K.,” the soldier would request an explanation, while “Bobs” for Lord Roberts might be understood, but would not be appreciated. The general officer and the superior worthy of respect gets his full title from the soldier at all times, and nicknames, except for comrades of the same company or squadron, form a mark of contempt, especially when applied to32 commissioned officers. Sometimes the soldier finds a nickname for a comrade out of a personal peculiarity, as when one is particularly mean he gets the name of “Shonk,” or “Shonkie,” which is equivalent to “Jew,” with a reference to usury and extortion. If a regimental officer gets a nickname, it may be generally assumed that he is not held in very great respect by his men. “Bulgy,” of whom more anon, was a very fat young lieutenant with more bulk than brains; “Duffer” was another lieutenant, and his title explains itself—it was always used in conjunction with his surname; “Bouncer” was a major who had attained his rank by accident, and left the service because he knew it was hopeless to anticipate further promotion. The officer who commands the respect of his men does not get nicknamed, and the recruit very soon learns to call his superiors by their proper names when he has occasion to mention superior officers in course of conversation with his comrades. As a rule, the recruit is subjected to one or more practical jokes by his comrades in his early days as a soldier. In cavalry regiments, a favourite form of joke is to get the recruit to go to the farrier-major for his “shoeing-money,” a mythical33 allowance which, it is alleged, every recruit receives at the beginning of his service. The pretext might appear a bit thin if only one man were concerned in the deception, but the recruit is assured by a whole barrack-roomful of soldiers that “it’s a fact, and no hank,” and in about five cases out of ten he goes to the farrier-major, who, entering into the spirit of the thing, sends the victim in to the orderly-room sergeant or the provost-sergeant, and from here the recruit goes to the next official chosen, until he finds out the hoax. If a non-commissioned officer can be found with the same sense of humour as induced the shoeing-money hoax, he—usually a lance-corporal—orders the recruit to go to the sergeant-major or some other highly placed non-com. for “the key of the square.” As a rule, this request from the recruit provokes the sergeant-major to wrath, and the poor recruit gets a hot time. There is a legend of a recruit having been sent to the quartermaster’s store to get his mouth measured for a spoon, but it may be regarded as legend pure and simple, for there are limits to the credulity, even, of recruits, though authenticated instances of hoaxes which have been practised show that much may be done by means of an earnest manner and the thorough preservation of gravity in giving recommendations34 to the victim. Many a man has gone to the armourer to get his spurs fitted, and probably more will go yet. If a civilian takes a thorough dislike to his work, he has always the opportunity of quitting it; if he fails to satisfy his employers, he is either warned or dismissed. In the Army, the man who dislikes his work has to pocket the dislike and go on with the work, while if his employers, the regimental authorities, have any fault to find with him, they do not express it by dismissal until various forms and quantities of punishment for slackness have been resorted to. The recruit gets far more punishments than the old soldier, for the latter has learned what to do and what to avoid, in order to make life simple for himself; his punishments usually arise out of looking on the beer when it is brown to an extent incompatible with the fulfilment of his duties, and, when sober, he generally manages to evade “office” and its results. But the recruit finds that the corporal in charge of his room, the drill instructor in charge of him at drill, the sergeant in charge of his section or troop, the non-commissioned officer under whose supervision he does his fatigues, and a host of other superiors, are all capable of either placing him in the guard-room to await trial or of informing35 him that he is under open arrest, and equally liable for trial—and this for offences which would not count as such in civilian life, for three-quarters of the military “crimes” are not crimes at all in the civil code. Being late on parade, a dirty button—that is, a button not sufficiently brilliant in its polish—the need of a shave, a hasty word to one in authority, and half a hundred other apparent trivialities, form grounds for “wheeling a man up” or “running him in.” And the guard-room to which he retires is the “clink,” while, if he is so persistent in the commission of offences as to merit detention, the military form of imprisonment, he is said to go to the “glass house”—that is, he is sent to the detention barracks for the term to which he is sentenced—and his punishment is spoken of as “cells,” and never anything else. A minor form of punishment, “confined to barracks,” or “defaulters’,” involves the doing of the regiment’s dirty work in the few hours usually devoted to relaxation, with drill in full marching order for an hour every night, and answering one’s name at the guard-room at stated intervals throughout the afternoon and evening, in order to prevent the delinquent from leaving barracks. This the soldier calls “doing jankers,” and the bugle or trumpet call which orders him out36 on the defaulters’ parade is known as “Paddy Doyle”—heaven only knows for what reason, unless one Paddy Doyle was a notorious offender against military discipline in far-back times, and his reputation has survived his personal characteristics in the memory of the soldier. The accused, whoever he may be, is paraded first before his company, squadron, or battery officer, and the charge against him is read out. First evidence is taken from the superior officer who makes the charge, and second evidence from anyone who may have been witness to the occurrence which has caused the trouble. Then the accused is asked what he has to say in mitigation of his offence, and if he is wise, unless the accusation is very unjust indeed, he answers—“Nothing, sir.” Then, if the case is a minor one, the company or squadron or battery officer delivers sentence. If, however, the crime is one meriting a punishment exceeding “seven days confined to barracks,” the case is beyond the jurisdiction of the junior officer, and must be sent to the officer commanding the regiment or battalion or artillery brigade for trial. In that case, the offender is paraded with an escort of a non-commissioned officer and man, and marched on to the verandah of the regimental orderly room when “office”37 sounds—almost always at eleven o’clock in the morning. When the colonel commanding the unit—or, in case of his absence, his deputy—decrees, the offender is marched into the presence of his judge; the adjutant of the regiment reads the charge, the evidence is stated as in the case of trial by a company or squadron officer, and the colonel pronounces his verdict. Acquittals are rare; not that there is any injustice, but it is assumed, and usually with good reason, that if a man is “wheeled up” he has been doing something he ought not to have done. Then, too, the soldier’s explanations of how he came to get into trouble are far too plausible; officers with experience of the soldier and his ways come to understand that he can explain away anything and find an excuse for everything. It is safe, in the majority of cases, to take a harsh view. However, the punishments inflicted are, in the majority of cases, light: “jankers,” though uncomfortable, is not degrading to any great extent, and the man who has had a taste or two of this wholesome corrective will usually be a more careful if not a better soldier in future. “Cells” is a different matter. Not that it lowers a man to any extent in the estimation of his comrades, but it is a painful experience, practically38 corresponding to the imprisonment with hard labour to which a civilian misdemeanant is subjected. It involves also total loss of pay from the time of arrest to the end of the period of punishment, while confinement to barracks involves only the actual punishment, and, unless the crime is “absence,” there is no loss of pay. Drunkenness is punished by an officially graded system of fines, as well as by “jankers” or “cells.” The average man, however, performs work of average quality, avoids drunkenness, and keeps to time, the result being that he does not undergo punishment. Barrack-room life, for the recruit, is a fairly simple matter. He makes his own bed, and sweeps the floor round it. He folds his blankets and sheets to the prescribed pattern; the way in which he folds his kit and clothing, also, is regulated for him by the company or squadron authorities, and, for the rest, he is kept too busy throughout the day at drill, and too busy throughout the evening in preparing for the next day’s drill, to get into mischief to any appreciable extent. The recruit who involves himself in “crime” is, more often than not, looking for trouble. It has already been stated that a full day’s work for the recruit is a strenuous business. If we39 take the average day of a recruit in, say, a cavalry regiment, and follow him from réveillé to “lights out,” it will be seen that he is kept quite sufficiently busy. Réveillé sounds anywhere between 4.30 and 6.30 a.m., according to the season of the year, and, before the sound of the trumpet has ceased the corporal in charge of the room will be heard inviting his men to “Show a leg, there!” The invitation is promptly complied with, for in a space of fifteen minutes all the men in the room have to dress, wash if they feel inclined to, and get out on early morning stable parade to answer their names. They are then marched down to stables, where they turn out the stable bedding and groom their horses for about an hour. The horses are then taken out to water, returned to stables, and fed, and the men file back to their rooms to get breakfast and prepare for the morning’s drill. This latter involves a complete change of clothing from the rough canvas stable outfit to clean service dress and putties for riding-school use. The riding-school lesson is usually over by half-past ten, and after this the recruit takes his horse back to the stables, off-saddles, and returns to the barrack-room to change into canvas clothing once more, and enjoy the ten minutes, more or less, of relaxation40 that falls to him before the trumpeter sounds “stables.” Going to stables again, the men groom their horses, and when these have been passed as clean by the troop sergeant or troop officer the troopers set to work and clean steel work and leather. The way in which this is done in the Army may be judged from the fact that, after a morning’s parade, it takes a full hour to clean saddle and head dress and render them fit for inspection. It is one o’clock before midday stables is finished with, and then of course it is time for dinner. For this principal meal of the day one hour is allowed; but that hour includes the getting ready for the afternoon parade for foot drill, in which the cavalry recruit is taught the use of the sword and all movements that he will have to perform dismounted. This lasts an hour or thereabouts, and is followed by a return to the barrack-room and another change of clothing, this time into gymnasium outfit. The recruit is then marched to the gymnasium, where, for the space of another hour, the gymnastic instructor has his turn at licking the raw material into shape. Marched back to the barrack-room once more, the recruit is free to devote what remains to him of the minutes before five o’clock to cleaning the spurs, sword, etc., which41 have become soiled by the morning’s riding-school work. At five “stables” sounds again; the orders for the day are read out on parade, and the men march to stables to groom, bed down, water, and feed their horses, a business to which an hour is devoted. Tea follows, and then, unless the recruit has been warned for night guard, he is free to complete the preparation of his equipment for the next day’s work, and use what little spare time is left in such relaxation as may please him. In the infantry the number of parades done during the day is about the same; there is, of course, no “stables,” but the time which the cavalryman devotes to this is taken up by musketry instruction, foot drill, and fatigues. In the artillery there is more to learn than in the cavalry, for a driver has to learn to drive the horse he rides, and lead another one as well, while the gunner has plenty to keep him busy in the mechanism of his gun, its cleaning, and the various duties connected with it. To the recruit the perpetual cleaning, polishing, burnishing, and scouring are naturally somewhat irksome; and it is not until a man has undergone the whole of his recruits’ training that he begins dimly to understand the extreme delicacy and fineness of the instruments of his trade—or profession. He comes42 gradually to realise that a rifle is a very delicate piece of mechanism; a spot of rust on a sword may impair the efficiency of the blade, if allowed to remain and eat in; while a big gun is a complicated piece of machinery needing as much care as a repeater watch, if it is to work efficiently, and a horse is as helpless and needs as much care as a baby. At first sight there seems no need for the eternal cleaning of buttons, polishing of spurs, and other trivial items of work which enter into the daily life of a soldier, but all these things are directed to the one end of making the man careful of trifles and thoroughly efficient in every detail of his work. Old soldiers, having finished with foot drill (known in the barrack-room as “square”) and with riding school (which is allowed to keep its name), have a way of looking down on recruits; the chief aim of the recruit, if he be a normal man, is to get “dismissed” from riding school, square, and gymnasium, and the attitude of the old soldier encourages this ambition. Usually a recruit is placed under an old soldier for tuition in his work, and it depends very much on the quality of the old hands in a barrack-room as to what quality of trained man is turned out therefrom. Service counts more than personal worth, and in fact more43 than anything else in barrack-room life. The man with two years’ service will get into trouble sooner or later if he ventures to dictate to the man of three years’ or more service, whatever the relative mental qualifications of the two men concerned may be. “Before you came up,” or “before you enlisted,” are the most crushing phrases that can be applied to a fellow soldier, and no amount of efficiency atones for lack of years to count toward transfer to the Reserve or discharge from the service to pension. So far as the infantry recruit is concerned, foot drill and musketry, together with a certain amount of fatigues, comprise the day’s routine. With foot drill may be bracketed bayonet drill, in which the recruit is taught the various thrusts and parries which can be made with that weapon for which the British infantryman has been famed since before Wellington’s time. Both in the cavalry and infantry, every man has to fire a musketry course once a year; the recruit’s course of musketry, however, is a more detailed and, in a way, a more instructive business than the course which the trained man has to undergo. The recruit has to be taught that squeezing motion for the trigger which does not disturb the aim of the rifle; he has to be taught, also, the extreme care with which44 a rifle must be handled, cleaned, and kept. It may be said that the recruits’ course is designed to lay the foundation on which the trained man’s course of musketry is built, and at the end of the recruits’ course the men who have undergone it are graded off into first, second, and third class shots, while “marksmen” are super-firsts. On the whole the first year of a man’s service is the hardest of any, so far as peace soldiering is concerned. There is more reason in this than appears on the surface. A recruit joins the army somewhere about the age of twenty—the official limit is from eighteen to twenty-five; it is evident that in his first year of service a man is at such a stage of muscular and mental growth as to render him capable of being moulded much more readily than in the later military years. It is best that he should be shaped, as far as possible, while he is yet not quite formed and set, and, though the process of shaping may involve what looks like an undue amount of physical exertion, it is, in reality, not beyond the capabilities of such men as doctors pass into the service. It is true that the percentage of cases of heart disease occurring in the British Army is rather a high one, but this is due not to the strenuous training, but in many cases to excessive cigarette-smoking and in45 others to the strained posture of “attention,” combined with predisposition to the disease. The recruit has a hard time, certainly, but many men work harder, and the years of service which follow on the strenuous period of recruits’ training are more enjoyable by contrast. <hr /> 46 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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