|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 8
It has always been a pleasure to me to follow for hours the winding
country roads looking out for fresh scenes and new adventures. The
life of the roadside dwellers, the folk who live in little stone
houses and show two flower-pots and a birdcage in their windows, has
a strange fascination for me. When I took up my abode here and got my
first free Sunday afternoon, I shook military discipline aside for a
moment and set out on one of my rambles.
There comes a moment on a journey when something sweet, something
irresistible and charming as wine raised to thirsty lips, wells up in
the traveller's being. I have never striven to analyse this feeling or
study the moment when it comes, and that feeling has been often mine.
Now I know the moment it floods the soul of the traveller. It is at
the end of the second mile, when the limbs warm to their work and the
lungs fill with the fresh country air. At such a moment, when a man
naturally forgets restraint to which he has only been accustomed for
a short while, I met the picket for the first time. He told me to
turn--and I went back. But it was not in my heart to like that picket,
and I shall never like him while he stands there, sentry of the
two-mile limit; an ogre denying me entrance into the wide world that
lies beyond.
There is one thing, however, before which the picket is impotent--a
pass. It is like a free pardon to a convict; it opens to him the whole
world--that is for the period it covers. The two most difficult things
in military life are to obtain permit of absence from billets, and the
struggle against the natural impulse to overstay the limit of leave.
There are times when soldiers experience an intense longing to see
their own homes, firesides, and friends, and in moments like these it
takes a stiff fight to overcome the desire to go away, if only for a
little while, to their native haunts. Only once in five weeks may a
man obtain a week-end pass--if he is lucky. To the soldier, luck is
merely another word for skill.
With us, the rifleman who scores six successive "bulls" at six hundred
yards on the open range has been lucky; if he speaks nicely to the
quartermaster and obtains the best pair of boots in the stores, he has
been lucky; if by mistake he is given double rations by the fatigue
party he is lucky; but if the same man, sweating over his rifle in
a carnival of "wash-outs," or, weary of blistered feet and empty
stomach, asks for sympathy because his rifle was sighted too low or
because he lost his dinner while waiting on boot-parade, we explain
that his woes are due to a caper of chance--that he has been unlucky.
To obtain a pass at any time a man must be lucky; obtaining one when
he desires it most is a thing heard of now and again, and getting a
pass and not being able to use it is of common occurrence. Now, when I
applied for special leave I was more than a little lucky.
It was necessary that I should attend to business in London, and I set
about making application for a permit of leave. I intended to apply
for a pass dating from 6 p.m. of a Friday evening to 10 p.m. of the
following Sunday. On Wednesday morning I spoke to a corporal of my
company.
"If you want leave, see the platoon sergeant," he told me. The platoon
sergeant, who was in a bad temper, spoke harshly when I approached
him. "No business of mine!" he said; "the company clerk will look into
the matter."
But I had no success with the company clerk; the leave which I desired
was a special one, and that did not come under his jurisdiction. "The
orderly sergeant knows more about this business than I do. Go to him
about it," he said.
By Wednesday evening I spoke to the orderly sergeant, who looked
puzzled for a moment. "Come with me to the lieutenant," he said.
"He'll know more about this matter than I do, and he'll see into it.
But it will be difficult to get special leave, you know; they don't
like to give it."
"Why?" I asked.
"Why?" he repeated; "what the devil does it matter to you? You're paid
here to do what you're told, not to ask questions."
The lieutenant was courteous and civil. "I can't do anything in the
matter," he said. "The orderly sergeant will take you to the company
officer, Captain ----, and he'll maybe do something for you."
"If you're lucky," said the sergeant in a low whisper. About eight
o'clock in the evening I paraded in the long, dimly-lighted passage
that leads to our company orderly-room, and there I had to wait two
hours while the captain was conducting affairs of some kind or another
inside. When the door was opened I was ordered inside.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|