Incredulous friend (to soldier invalided home). "What—you captured ten Germans by yourself? Good gracious! How did you do it?"
Tommy. "I just shouted out 'Waiter!' and they came along."
We are the last line of defence. When the Regular Army and the Reserve Army and the new Million Army and the Indian Army and the Overseas Army and the Territorial Army are all entering Berlin together, then the defence of England (we hope) will rest entirely upon us. There are not many of us, as armies go nowadays, but there ought to be one apiece for all the towns round the coast, and what we lack in numbers we shall make up for in pride.
We are last defence. We all have wives or defective retinas or birthdays previous to 1879, or something that binds us together unofficially. Our motto from Monday to Friday is, "Soldier and Civilian too," and in camp at week-ends, "Remember Przemysl." At present we have no uniforms, to the disgust of our wives; but they are coming. Opinion is divided as to whether we want them to come. Some say that, clad in khaki, we shall get admiring glances from the women and envious glances from the small boys which are not really our due; our proud spirit rebels against the idea of marching through London in false colours. James says that, seeing that a soldier is only a soldier, and that he himself (James) is a special constable from 4 A.M. to 8, a dashed hard-working solicitor from 9.30 to 5, and a soldier from 5.30 to 7, not to mention the whole week-end, he jolly well expects all the admiration he can get; and that, if any small boy cheers him under the impression that he is only a Territorial, he is doing him a confounded injustice. Perhaps a tail-coat and khaki breeches would best meet the case.
Then we come to the question of rifles. There are at this moment thousands of men in the Army who have no rifles. Whole battalions of new recruits are unarmed. Our battalion is not unarmed; it has a rifle. We have all seen it; those of us who have been on guard through the cold dark hours of Saturday-Sunday have even carried it—respectfully, as becomes a man who thanks Heaven that it is not loaded. Our pride in it is enormous. Were a sudden night attack by Zeppelins made upon our camp, the battalion would rally as one man round the old rifle, and fling boots at the invader until the last pair of ammunition gave out. Then, spiking the Lee-Enfield, so that it should useless if it fell into the hands of the enemy, we should retire barefoot and in good order, James busily jotting down notes of our last testamentary dispositions…
But, of course, we know that the invaders will not come yet. Meanwhile much can be learnt without arms (cf. "Infantry Training" passim—a book we all carry in our pockets), and we have the promise of enough rifles for a company in three weeks. When the last lot of German prisoners begins to land we shall be ready for them.
We get plenty of encouragement; indeed we feel that the authorities have a special eye upon us. To give an example. We paraded the other night and were inspected by a General—tut-tut, a couple of Generals. One of them addressed us afterwards and gave us to understand that, having seen the flower of the Continental armies at work, he was, even so, hardly prepared for the extraordinary—and so on; which made James throw out his lower chest a couple of inches further than usual. Whereupon the Admiralty airship hurried up and, flying slowly over us, inspected us from the top. I say nothing of what James must have looked like from the top; what I say is that not many battalions are inspected by two Generals and an airship simultaneously. We are grateful to the authorities.
Just at present our fault is over-keenness. On our first Sunday in camp our company commanded stood us to attention and asked for three volunteers—for some unnamed forlorn hope. The whole company advanced
