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.
The Victor (after being admonished for un-scoutlike behaviour). "Well, you may say what you like, Sir, but I consider it distinctly subversive of discipline for an ordinary private to call his patrol-leader 'Toffee-nose.'"
"In its issue of 22nd instant our estimable contemporary, 'La Patria degli Italiani' published a magnificent translation of the latest poem of Rudyard Kipling: 'Rule Britannia.'"—Buenos Aires Standard.
Wait till you read Robert Bridges' new work, "God Save the King."
A thoughful and far-reaching suggestion toward the better regulation of the currency has been made by a Mr. James Innes C. Roger. He writes to the Press in the following terms:—" It has lately struck me that a silver 10s. piece might be introduced during the war instead of (or in addition to) the paper notes now current. Although these might be objected to on the ground of size and weight, they would be interesting as a memento of the great war, especially if the obverse side bore, say, a representation of the British Fleet in action."
It seems to us that this would provide a delightful little game for the Government, which probably has not much else to do at present, and we do not see how the proposed coins could possibly be objected to on the grounds mentioned above. On the contrary they would be most useful in a variety of ways in which the sixpence and threepenny bit are of no service whatever. In thoroughly honest households they could he employed as letter-weights or for practising the discus-throw for the next Olympic Games (if any), or for keeping open a swing door while a tea-tray is carried through. We hope the idea will be vigorously followed up. A 15/- piece representing the British Army crossing the Aisne River under fire would be certain to be popular, as also would a 17/6 piece showing the arrival of the Indian Troops at Marseilles.
Something, too, might be done with our stamps. Concrete gun emplacements would look very well on the five-shilling stamp, and the desired effect of secrecy could be obtained by printing them on the back; while we would suggest for the penny stamp a design of a muffler or a mitten with crossed knitting needles in each corner. At the same time an important step could be taken toward popularizing the postal order, by printing on the obverse side of it in red the whole of the first verse of "It's a long way to Tipperary."
We only throw out these suggestions for what they are worth. Like Mr. Roger himself our sole idea is to contribute something really useful to the pregnant deliberations of the hour.
