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Page 2
The step once taken, however, we all set to work to discover how we
might become soldiers with a minimum of exertion and inconvenience to
ourselves. During the process I learned many things, among others
that I was a unit in the most democratic army in history; where Oxford
undergraduate and farm labourer, Cockney and peer's son lost their
identity and their caste in a vast war machine. I learned that Tommy
Atkins, no matter from what class he is recruited, is immortal, and
that we British are one of the most military nations in the world. I
have learned to love my new life, obey my officers, and depend upon
my rifle; for I am Rifleman Patrick MacGill of the Irish Rifles, where
rumour has it that the Colonel and I are the only two _real_ Irishmen
in the battalion. It should be remembered that a unit of a rifle
regiment is known as rifleman, not private; we like the term rifleman,
and feel justly indignant when a wrong appellation plays skittles with
our rank.
The earlier stages of our training took place at Chelsea and the White
City, where untiring instructors strove to convince us that we were
about the most futile lot of "rookies" that it had ever been their
misfortune to encounter. It was not until we were unceremoniously
dumped amidst the peaceful inhabitants of a city that slumbers in the
shadow of an ancient cathedral that I felt I was in reality a soldier.
Here we were to learn that there is no novelty so great for the newly
enlisted soldier as that of being billeted, in the process of which he
finds himself left upon an unfamiliar door-step like somebody else's
washing. He is the instrument by which the War Office disproves that
"an Englishman's home is his castle." He has the law behind him;
but nothing else--save his own capacity for making friends with his
victims.
If the equanimity of English householders who are about to have
soldiers billeted upon them is a test of patriotism, there may well be
some doubts about the patriotic spirit of the English middle class in
the present crisis. The poor people welcome to their homes soldiers
who in most cases belong to the same strata of society as themselves;
and, besides, ninepence a night as billet-fee is not to be laughed
at. The upper class can easily bear the momentary inconvenience of
Tommy's company; the method of procedure of the very rich in regard to
billeting seldom varies--a room, stripped of all its furniture, fitted
with beds and pictures, usually of a religious nature, is given up
for the soldiers' benefit. The lady of the house, gifted with that
familiar ease which the very rich can assume towards the poor at a
pinch--especially a pinch like the present, when "all petty class
differences are forgotten in the midst of the national crisis"--may
come and talk to her guests now and again, tell them that they are
fine fellows, and give them a treat to light up the heavy hours that
follow a long day's drill in full marching order. But the middle
class, aloof and austere in its own seclusion, limited in means and
apartment space, cannot easily afford the time and care needed for the
housing of soldiers. State commands cannot be gainsaid, however, and
Tommy must be housed and fed in the country which he will shortly go
out and defend in the trenches of France or Flanders.
The number of men assigned to a house depends in a great measure on
the discretion of the householder and the temper of the billeting
officer. A gruff reply or a caustic remark from the former sometimes
offends; often the officer is in a hurry, and at such a time
disproportionate assortment is generally the result. A billeting
officer has told me that fifty per cent. of the householders whom he
has approached show manifest hostility to the housing of soldiers. But
the military authorities have a way of dealing with these people. On
one occasion an officer asked a citizen, an elderly man full of paunch
and English dignity, how many soldiers could he keep in his house.
"Well, it's like this--," the man began.
"Have you any room to spare here?" demanded the officer.
"None, except on the mat," was the caustic answer.
"Two on the mat, then," snapped the officer, and a pair of tittering
Tommies were left at the door.
Matronly English dignity suffered on another occasion when a sergeant
inquired of a middle-aged woman as to the number of men she could
billet in her house.
"None," she replied. "I have no way of keeping soldiers."
"What about that apartment there?" asked the N.C.O. pointing to the
drawing-room.
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