Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (507 page)

“Why horses for a foot regiment?”

“I.G.’s don’t foot it unless they’re obliged to. No have gee-gee how can move? I’ll show you later. Well, as I was saying, we broke those beasts in on compressed forage and small box-spurs, and then we started across Scotland to Applecross to hand ‘em over to a horse-depot there. It was snowing cruel, and we didn’t know the country overmuch. You remember the 30th — the old East Lancashire — at Mian Mir?

“Their Guard Battalion had been ‘heefing’ round those parts for six months. We thought they’d be snowed up all quiet and comfy, but Burden, their C. O., got wind of our coming, and sent spies in to Eschol.”

“Confound him,” said Luttrell, who was fat and well-liking. “I entertained one of ‘em — in a red worsted comforter — under Bean Derig. He said he was a crofter. ‘Gave him a drink too.”

“I don’t mind admitting,” said the Boy, “that, what with the cold and the remounts, we were moving rather base over apex. Burden bottled us under Sghurr Mohr in a snowstorm. He stampeded half the horses, cut off a lot of us in a snow-bank, and generally rubbed our noses in the dirt.”

“Was he allowed to do that?” I said.

“There is no peace in a Military Area. If we’d beaten him off or got away without losing anyone, we’d have been entitled to a day’s pay from every man engaged against us. But we didn’t. He cut off fifty of ours, held ‘em as prisoners for the regulation three days, and then sent in his bill — three days’ pay for each man taken. Fifty men at twelve bob a head, plus five pounds for the Dove as a captured officer, and Kyd here, his junior, three, made about forty quid to Burden & Co. They crowed over us horrid.”

“Couldn’t you have appealed to an umpire or — or something?”

“We could, but we talked it over with the men and decided to pay and look happy. We were fairly had. The 30th knew every foot of Sghurr Mohr. I spent three days huntin’ ‘em in the snow, but they went off on our remounts about twenty mile that night.”

“Do you always do this sham-fight business?” I asked.

“Once inside an Area you must look after yourself; but I tell you that a fight which means that every man-Jack of us may lose a week’s pay isn’t so damn-sham after all. It keeps the men nippy. Still, in the long run, it’s like whist on a P. & O. It comes out fairly level if you play long enough. Now and again, though, one gets a present — say, when a Line regiment’s out on the ‘heef,’ and signifies that it’s ready to abide by the rules of the game. You mustn’t take head-money from a Line regiment in an Area unless it says that it’ll play you; but, after a week or two, those clever Linesmen always think they see a chance of making a pot, and send in their compliments to the nearest I.G. Then the fun begins. We caught a Line regiment single-handed about two years ago in Ireland — caught it on the hop between a bog and a beach. It had just moved in to join its brigade, and we made a forty-two mile march in fourteen hours, and cut it off, lock, stock, and barrel. It went to ground like a badger — I
will
say those Line regiments can dig — but we got out privily by night and broke up the only road it could expect to get its baggage and company-guns along. Then we blew up a bridge that some Sappers had made for experimental purposes (
they
were rather stuffy about it) on its line of retreat, while we lay up in the mountains and signalled for the A.C. of those parts.”

“Who’s an A.C.?” I asked.

“The Adjustment Committee — the umpires of the Military Areas. They’re a set of superannuated old aunts of colonels kept for the purpose, but they occasionally combine to do justice. Our A.C. came, saw our dispositions, and said it was a sanguinary massacre for the Line, and that we were entitled to our full pound of flesh — head-money for one whole regiment, with equipment, four company-guns, and all kit! At Line rates this worked out as one fat cheque for two hundred and fifty. Not bad!”

“But we had to pay the Sappers seventy-four quid for blowing their patent bridge to pieces,” Devine interpolated. “That was a swindle.”

“That’s true,” the Boy went on, “but the Adjustment Committee gave our helpless victims a talking to that was worth another hundred to hear.”

“But isn’t there a lot of unfairness in this head-money system?” I asked.

“Can’t have everything perfect,” said the Boy. “Head-money is an attempt at payment by results, and it gives the men a direct interest in their job. Three times out of five, of course, the A. C. will disallow both sides’ claim, but there’s always the chance of bringing off a coup.”

“Do all regiments do it?”

“Heavily. The Line pays a bob per prisoner and the Militia ninepence, not to mention side-bets which are what really keep the men keen. It isn’t supposed to be done by the Volunteers, but they gamble worse than anyone. Why, the very kids do it when they go to First Camp at Aldershot or Salisbury.”

“Head-money’s a national institution — like betting,” said Burgard.

“I should say it was,” said Pigeon suddenly. “I was roped in the other day as an Adjustment Committee by the Kemptown Board School. I was riding under the Brighton racecourse, and I heard the whistle goin’ for umpire — the regulation, two longs and two shorts. I didn’t take any notice till an infant about a yard high jumped up from a furze-patch and shouted: ‘Guard! Guard! Come ‘ere! I want you
per
fessionally. Alf says ‘e ain’t outflanked. Ain’t ‘e a liar? Come an’ look ‘ow I’ve posted my men.’ You bet I looked. The young demon trotted by my stirrup and showed me his whole army (twenty of ‘em) laid out under cover as nicely as you please round a cowhouse in a hollow. He kept on shouting: ‘I’ve drew Alf into there. ‘Is persition ain’t tenable. Say it ain’t tenable, Guard!’ I rode round the position, and Alf with his army came out of his cowhouse an’ sat on the roof and protested like a — like a Militia Colonel; but the facts were in favour of my friend and I umpired according. Well, Alf abode by my decision. I explained it to him at length, and he solemnly paid up his head-money — farthing points if you please.”

“Did they pay you umpire’s fee?” said Kyd. “I umpired a whole afternoon once for a village school at home, and they stood me a bottle of hot ginger beer.”

“I compromised on a halfpenny — a sticky one — or I’d have hurt their feelings,” said Pigeon gravely. “But I gave ‘em sixpence back.”

“How were they manoeuvring and what with?” I asked.

“Oh, by whistle and hand-signal. They had the dummy Board School guns and flags for positions, but they were rushing their attack much too quick for that open country. I told ‘em so, and they admitted it.”

“But who taught ‘em?” I said.

“They had learned in their schools, of course, like the rest of us. They were all of ‘em over ten; and squad-drill begins when they’re eight. They knew their company-drill a heap better than they knew their King’s English.”

“How much drill do the boys put in?” I asked.

“All boys begin physical drill to music in the Board Schools when they’re six; squad-drill, one hour a week, when they’re eight; company-drill when they’re ten, for an hour and a half a week. Between ten and twelve they get battalion drill of a sort. They take the rifle at twelve and record their first target-score at thirteen. That’s what the Code lays down. But it’s worked very loosely so long as a boy comes up to the standard of his age.”

“In Canada we don’t need your physical drill. We’re born fit,” said Pigeon, “and our ten-year-olds could knock spots out of your twelve-year-olds.”

“I may as well explain,” said the Boy, “that the Dove is our ‘swop’ officer. He’s an untamed Huskie from Nootka Sound when he’s at home. An I. G. Corps exchanges one officer every two years with a Canadian or Australian or African Guard Corps. We’ve had a year of our Dove, an’ we shall be sorry to lose him. He humbles our insular pride. Meantime, Morten, our ‘swop’ in Canada, keeps the ferocious Canuck humble. When Pij. goes we shall swop Kyd, who’s next on the roster, for a Cornstalk or a Maori. But about the education-drill. A boy can’t attend First Camp, as we call it, till he is a trained boy and holds his First Musketry certificate. The Education Code says he must be fourteen, and the boys usually go to First Camp at about that age. Of course, they’ve been to their little private camps and Boys’ Fresh Air Camps and public school picnics while they were at school, but First Camp is where the young drafts all meet — generally at Aldershot in this part of the world. First Camp lasts a week or ten days, and the boys are looked over for vaccination and worked lightly in brigades with lots of blank cartridge. Second Camp — that’s for the fifteen to eighteen-year-olds — lasts ten days or a fortnight, and that includes a final medical examination. Men don’t like to be chucked out on medical certificates much — nowadays. I assure you Second Camp, at Salisbury, say, is an experience for a young I.G. officer. We’re told off to ‘em in rotation. A wilderness of monkeys isn’t in it. The kids are apt to think ‘emselves soldiers, and we have to take the edge off ‘em with lots of picquet-work and night attacks.”

“And what happens after Second Camp?”

“It’s hard to explain. Our system is so illogical. Theoretically, the boys needn’t show up for the next three or four years after Second Camp. They are supposed to be making their way in life. Actually, the young doctor or lawyer or engineer joins a Volunteer battalion that sticks to the minimum of camp — ten days per annum. That gives him a holiday in the open air, and now that men have taken to endowing their Volunteer drill-halls with baths and libraries, he finds, if he can’t run to a club, that his own drill-hall is an efficient substitute. He meets men there who’ll be useful to him later, and he keeps himself in touch with what’s going on while he’s studying for his profession. The town-birds — such as the chemist’s assistant, clerk, plumber, mechanic, electrician, and so forth — generally put in for their town Volunteer corps as soon as they begin to walk out with the girls. They like takin’ their true-loves to our restaurants. Look yonder!” I followed his gaze, and saw across the room a man and a maid at a far table, forgetting in each other’s eyes the good food on their plates.

“So it is,” said I. “Go ahead.”

“Then, too, we have some town Volunteer corps that lay themselves out to attract promising youths of nineteen or twenty, and make much of ‘em on condition that they join their Line battalion and play for their county. Under the new county qualifications — birth or three years’ residence — that means a great deal in League matches, and the same in County cricket.”

“By Jove, that’s a good notion,” I cried. “Who invented it?”

“C. B. Fry — long ago. He said in his paper, that County cricket and County volunteering ought to be on the same footing — unpaid and genuine. ‘No cricketer no corps. No corps no cricketer’ was his watchword. There was a row among the pro’s at first, but C. B. won, and later the League had to come in. They said at first it would ruin the gate; but when County matches began to be
pukka
county,
plus
inter-regimental, affairs the gate trebled, and as two-thirds of the gate goes to the regiments supplying the teams some Volunteer corps fairly wallow in cash. It’s all unofficial, of course, but League Corps, as they call ‘em, can take their pick of the Second Camper. Some corps ask ten guineas entrance-fee, and get it too, from the young bloods that want to shine in the arena. I told you we catered for all tastes. Now, as regards the Line proper, I believe the young artisan and mechanic puts in for that before he marries. He likes the two-months’ ‘heef’ in his first year, and five bob a week is something to go on with between times.”

“Do they follow their trade while they’re in the Line?” I demanded.

“Why not? How many well-paid artisans work more than four days a week anyhow? Remember a Linesman hasn’t to be drilled in your sense of the word. He must have had at least eight years’ grounding in that, as well as two or three years in his Volunteer battalion. He can sleep where he pleases. He can’t leave town-limits without reporting himself, of course, but he can get leave if he wants it. He’s on duty two days in the week as a rule, and he’s liable to be invited out for garrison duty down the Mediterranean, but his benefit societies will insure him against that. I’ll tell you about that later. If it’s a hard winter and trade’s slack, a lot of the bachelors are taken into the I. G. barracks (while the I. G. is out on the heef) for theoretical instruction. Oh, I assure you the Line hasn’t half a bad time of it.”

“Amazing!” I murmured. “And what about the others?”

“The Volunteers? Observe the beauty of our system. We’re a free people. We get up and slay the man who says we aren’t. But as a little detail we never mention, if we don’t volunteer in some corps or another — as combatants if we’re fit, as non-combatants, if we ain’t — till we’re thirty-five we don’t vote, and we don’t get poor-relief, and the women don’t love us.”

“Oh, that’s the compulsion of it?” said I.

Bayley inclined his head gravely. “That, Sir, is the compulsion. We voted the legal part of it ourselves in a fit of panic, and we have not yet rescinded our resolution. The women attend to the unofficial penalties. But being free British citizens —  — ”

“
And
snobs,” put in Pigeon. “The point is well taken, Pij —  —  — we have supplied ourselves with every sort and shape and make of Volunteer corps that you can imagine, and we’ve mixed the whole show up with our Odd Fellows and our I.O.G.T.’s and our Buffaloes, and our Burkes and our Debretts, not to mention Leagues and Athletic Clubs, till you can’t tell t’other from which. You remember the young pup who used to look on soldiering as a favour done to his ungrateful country — the gun-poking, ferret-pettin’, landed gentleman’s offspring — the suckin’ Facey Romford? Well, he generally joins a Foreign Service Corps when he leaves college.”