Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3830/The Watch Dogs
VIII.
Dear Charles,—We have got a move on at last. We don't know where we are going or why we are going or even if we are really going at all. It may be that we are on our way to the Continent; it may be that we are on our way to the coast to assume the defensive; it may be that the authorities are pulling our legs and are watching from behind the hedges en route to see how we take it. We march on till we are told to stop. We stop till we are told to march on.
I was, as you know, in London on Sunday. Having had a trying week I sought a change of air to recuperate my health. I also sought to recover my self-respect by being saluted in my native parks. Full of the good things of this world I returned in the evening to ———
[Censor. Now then, don't you give it away.
Myself. But, dash it all, he knows where I'd come from.
Censor. That may be, but it's not to get about where you are.
Myself. But I'm not there now. I'm at ———
Censor. H'sh.]
I got to my little nest (anonymous) at 10.30 P.M. and found the following among other orders awaiting me: "Company Officers will hold their companies in readiness to move at short notice." "Will they?" I asked, and leapt lightly into my bed; never a wise thing to do when your bed consists of a stick or two and a bit of canvas... I was collecting myself on the floor when a corporal came in, wearing that significant, nay sinister, look which corporals assume when they bring messages from orderly room. Having cursed him roundly for the collapse of my bed (in military life you may curse anybody for anything, provided he is an inferior) I told him to proceed and let me know the worst. "We move at 8 A.M., Sir," said he. "And what is it now?" I asked. "11.5 P.M., Sir," said he. "Then," said I, "I have under nine hours to pack up all my goods, dividing them into those which I shall carry myself on my for-light-articles-only back, those which the transport will carry and those which I shall leave here for Providence to send home; to inspect my half-company, its feet, its rifles, its packs, its kit-bags and the thousand-and-one other things which are its; to feed my men and myself and gather together a day's ration for both of us and to attend to all those little odds and ends which will inevitably crop up when one is about to leave one's headquarters and never see them again. All this must be done by 8 A.M. you say?" "The battalion will march to the rendezvous at 7.15, Sir," said he. "Reveillé at 5.30, breakfast at 6.30, and sick parade at 6.45," he concluded, adding, with sarcasm more effective than any of my own, "Good night, Sir."
I went straight to sleep. What else could I do? Obviously the suggested programme was impossible of completion in the time allotted; why then attempt it? I decided to obey orders: to reveillé at 5.30, breakfast at 6.30, and then to start getting ready and continue doing so till called for. If the worst came to the worst, I should become a sick man and parade accordingly. It struck me as I dozed off that in civil life the very last thing an invalid would attempt would be to parade.
In supposing that I should at least be thorough about my sleep, I reckoned without my old though not always welcome friend, Banner. His view is that when a crisis arrives it is up to the people involved to be at least busy, if not worse. To him commotion is essential, and he has always distrusted our adjutant because the only thing he did on receiving telegraph orders to mobilize was to send out an orderly for a hundred cigarettes and a Daily Mirror. When Lieutenant Banner receives orders he at once puts his cap on, pushes it to the back of his head and passes a weary hand across a worried brow. When he has confused himself to the top of his bent he searches round for other victims. On this Sunday night ill luck directed his footsteps to my billet; seeing me in bed, he became positively aghast, though I firmly believe he was inwardly delighted to discover so depressing a sight.
You may imagine the colloquy that ensued; how he repeated to me, with a nice sense of climax, the news which I had already received from the corporal. "It is impossible to do it," said he. "Quite," said I, turning on my other side. "But good heavens, man, you're not going to sleep?" he asked. "I'm going to have a try," I told him. The result of the business was that Banner eventually did all my packing for me, feeling, no doubt, that I should be left behind if he didn't. Of course he was left behind himself. Really, I suppose, I ought to be very grateful to the dear old fellow; but I have the feeling that, if he had stayed away, I should have had my sleep and everything would have arranged itself in the mean-time, and would have arranged itself rightly.
We marched forth at break of day from that town where we have been stationed the last three months, and it shows how unavailing are these precautions for secrecy when I tell you that the local tailor was up and about before dawn collecting his unpaid accounts notwithstanding. Since then we have slept in hay-lofts, and sometimes in eligible villas, knowing the dignity and pleasure of the white sheet again. Our willy-nilly hosts are all firmly convinced that we want conversation confined to the more gruesome experiences of their friends and relations who have got mixed up in this war, but otherwise they are kindness itself. At the house I at present inhabit it is found absolutely essential that the father and the mother, three daughters, two maid-servants, the nurse, and even, I believe, the infant son, should rise from their beds at 5 o'clock when reveillé is, at the whim of the G.O.C., put at that unforgivable hour. It is only myself who may lie a-bed till six!
Well, Charles, I '11 let you know in due course what becomes of me, that is if I ever know myself. I see little more of the business than the backs of the files marching ahead of me, and even if I discover the names of our resting-places I have generally forgotten them in the haste of our departure. I met a man who had returned from the Continent itself and I asked him where he had been and how he got his wound. He admitted frankly that he didn't know; in fact, he said, he'd been back in England for three weeks now and no one had ever let him know whether he had been at the front or not. If they don't inform you as to your present or your past, how can you expect to be informed as to your future? Thus I may at this moment be marching forward to Belgium, or I may be merely moving to another home station, or it may all be a test of my power and organization and I may be making a wide circle which will bring me back one fine morning to my original starting-play, Tiddilyumpton.
Drop it all, a soldier ought to be told whether he is going to war or not. It would make it so much easier to know what attitude to adopt to the schoolchildren who cheer him as he marches past.
Yours, Henry.