第23章 SHOULD SOLDIERS BE POLITE?(3)

"Now then,you young chaps,are you all ready?Don't hurry yourselves:no need to make hard work of what should be a pleasure to all of us.That's right,that's very good indeed--considering you are only novices.But there is still something to be desired in your attitude,Private Bully-boy.You will excuse my being personal,but are you knock-kneed naturally?Or could you,with an effort,do you think,contrive to give yourself less the appearance of a marionette whose strings have become loose?Thank you,that is better.These little things appear trivial,I know,but,after all,we may as well try and look our best -"Don't you like your boots,Private Montmorency?Oh,I beg your pardon.I thought from the way you were bending down and looking at them that perhaps their appearance was dissatisfying to you.My mistake.

"Are you suffering from indigestion,my poor fellow?Shall I get you a little brandy?It isn't indigestion.Then what's the matter with it?Why are you trying to hide it?It's nothing to be ashamed of.

We've all got one.Let it come forward man.Let's see it."Having succeeded,with a few such kindly words,in getting his line into order,he would proceed to recommend healthy exercise.

"Shoulder arms!Good,gentlemen,very good for a beginning.Yet still,if I may be critical,not perfect.There is more in this thing than you might imagine,gentlemen.May I point out to Private Henry Thompson that a musket carried across the shoulder at right angles is apt to inconvenience the gentleman behind.Even from the point of view of his own comfort,I feel sure that Private Thompson would do better to follow the usual custom in this matter.

"I would also suggest to Private St.Leonard that we are not here to practice the art of balancing a heavy musket on the outstretched palm of the hand.Private St.Leonard's performance with the musket is decidedly clever.But it is not war.

"Believe me,gentlemen,this thing has been carefully worked out,and no improvement is likely to result from individual effort.Let our idea be uniformity.It is monotonous,but it is safe.Now,then,gentlemen,once again."The drill yard would be converted into a source of innocent delight to thousands."Officer and gentleman"would become a phrase of meaning.I present the idea,for what it may be worth,with my compliments,to Pall Mall.

The fault of the military man is that he studies too much,reads too much history,is over reflective.If,instead,he would look about him more he would notice that things are changing.Someone has told the British military man that Waterloo was won upon the playing fields of Eton.So he goes to Eton and plays.One of these days he will be called upon to fight another Waterloo:and afterwards--when it is too late--they will explain to him that it was won not upon the play field but in the class room.

From the mound on the old Waterloo plain one can form a notion of what battles,under former conditions,must have been.The other battlefields of Europe are rapidly disappearing:useful Dutch cabbages,as Carlyle would have pointed out with justifiable satisfaction,hiding the theatre of man's childish folly.You find,generally speaking,cobblers happily employed in cobbling shoes,women gossipping cheerfully over the washtub on the spot where a hundred years ago,according to the guide-book,a thousand men dressed in blue and a thousand men dressed in red rushed together like quarrelsome fox-terriers,and worried each other to death.

But the field of Waterloo is little changed.The guide,whose grandfather was present at the battle--quite an extraordinary number of grandfathers must have fought at Waterloo:there must have been whole regiments composed of grandfathers--can point out to you the ground across which every charge was delivered,can show you every ridge,still existing,behind which the infantry crouched.The whole business was began and finished within a space little larger than a square mile.One can understand the advantage then to be derived from the perfect moving of the military machine;the uses of the echelon,the purposes of the linked battalion,the manipulation of centre,left wing and right wing.Then it may have been worth while--if war be ever worth the while--which grown men of sense are beginning to doubt--to waste two years of a soldier's training,teaching him the goose-step.In the twentieth century,teaching soldiers the evolutions of the Thirty Years'War is about as sensible as it would be loading our iron-clads with canvas.

I followed once a company of Volunteers across Blackfriars Bridge on their way from Southwark to the Temple.At the bottom of Ludgate Hill the commanding officer,a young but conscientious gentleman,ordered "Left wheel!"At once the vanguard turned down a narrow alley--I forget its name--which would have led the troop into the purlieus of Whitefriars,where,in all probability,they would have been lost for ever.The whole company had to be halted,right-about-faced,and retired a hundred yards.Then the order "Quick march!"was given.The vanguard shot across Ludgate Circus,and were making for the Meat Market.

At this point that young commanding officer gave up being a military man and talked sense.

"Not that way,"he shouted:"up Fleet Street and through Middle Temple Lane."Then without further trouble the army of the future went upon its way.