Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3827/The Watch Dogs
VII.
Dear Charles,—We haven't gone yet. Upon my word, we don't know what to do about it. We start off for the Continent and then we halt and ask ourselves, "Won't they be wanting us to go to Egypt and have a word with the enemy there?" So we come back and change our underclothes and start out again; but we haven't got far before a persistent subaltern starts a scare about invasions. At that we halt again and have a pow-wow. Thick underclothes for the Continent; thin underclothes for Egypt, but what underclothes for home defence? And that, old man, is the real difficulty about war: what clothes are you to make it in? Our official programme is, however, clearly defined how. It is this: We sail on or about ——— to ———, and thence to ———. We then change direction left and turn down by the butcher's shop and up past the post-office. Here we form fours, form two deep, slope arms, order arms, present arms, trail arms, ground arms, take up arms, pile arms, unpile arms, move to the right in fours, by the left, left wheel. The essence of these manœuvres is that they make it impossible for even the most acute enemy to guess which is our real direction. He gathers that it is one of two things: it is either right, or, failing that, left. But which? Ad, that is the secret! Sometimes I am in some doubt myself after having given the order.
Our musical repertoire is extensive, and, I venture to think, very aptly and poetically expresses the feelings of soldiers in the several aspects of military life. Their deep-seated respect for ceremonial is expressed thus, to the Faust airs:—
All soldiers eat it instead o' ham.
And every morning we hear the Colonel say,
'Form fours! Eyes right! Jam for dinner to-day!'"
His heart's sorrow upon leaving his fatherland is rendered exactly thus:—
We're going to cross the Ocean.
Good bye-er!
Fare-well-er!
Farewell for ever-mo-er!"
And lastly his deep concern for his country's and his own and everybody's welfare is thus put:—
It doesn't belong to me."
We had a Divisional Field Day yesterday. Recollecting a previous experience, the G.O.C. sent for his three Brigadiers, when the division was assembled for action, and, it seems, said to them, "There must be less noise." The Brigadiers, returning to the field, called out each his four battalion-commanders and said to them, distinctly, "There must be less noise." The twelve battalion commanders called out each his eight company-commanders, who called out each his four section-commanders, and in every instance was repeated, quite audibly, the same utterance, "There must be less noise." Three hundred and eighty-four section-commanders were engaged in impressing this order, with all the emphasis it deserved, upon the men, when the General rode on to the field. His anger was extreme. "There must be less noise!" said he.
Yours ever,
Henry.