"A hundred thousand _sound_ men, not sick boys, go quite a way," said Pigeon.
"We expect the Line to garrison the Mediterranean Ports and thereabouts,"
said Bayley. "Don"t sneer at the mechanic. He"s deuced good stuff. He isn"t rudely ordered out, because this ain"t a military despotism, and we have to consider people"s feelings. The Armity usually brackets three Line regiments together, and calls for men for six months or a year for Malta, Gib, or elsewhere, at a bob a day. Three battalions will give you nearly a whole battalion of bachelors between "em. You fill up deficiencies with a call on the territorial Volunteer battalion, and away you go with what we call a Ports battalion. What"s astonishing in that? Remember that in this country, where fifty per cent of the able-bodied males have got a pretty fair notion of soldiering, and, which is more, have all camped out in the open, you wake up the spirit of adventure in the young."
"Not much adventure at Malta, Gib, or Cyprus," I retorted. "Don"t they get sick of it?"
"But you don"t realise that we treat "em rather differently from the soldier of the past. You ought to go and see a Ports battalion drawn from a manufacturing centre growin" vines in Cyprus in its shirt sleeves; and at Gib, and Malta, of course, the battalions are working with the Fleet half the time."
"It seems to me," I said angrily, "you are knocking _esprit de corps_ on the head with all this Army-Navy jumble. It"s as bad as----"
"I know what you"re going to say. As bad as what Kitchener used to do when he believed that a thousand details picked up on the veldt were as good as a column of two regiments. In the old days, when drill was a sort of holy sacred art learned in old age, you"d be quite right. But remember _our_ chaps are broke to drill from childhood, and the theory we work on is that a thousand trained Englishmen ought to be about as good as another thousand trained Englishmen. We"ve enlarged our horizon, that"s all. Some day the Army and the Navy will be interchangeable."
"You"ve enlarged it enough to fall out of, I think. Now where in all this mess of compulsory Volunteers----?"
"My dear boy, there"s no compulsion. You"ve _got_ to be drilled when you"re a child, same as you"ve got to learn to read, and if you don"t pretend to serve in some corps or other till you"re thirty-five or medically chucked you rank with lunatics, women, and minors. That"s fair enough."
"Compulsory conscripts," I continued. "Where, as I was going to say, does the Militia come in?"
"As I have said--for the men who can"t afford volunteering. The Militia is recruited by ballot--pretty comprehensively too. Volunteers are exempt, but most men not otherwise accounted for are bagged by the Militia. They have to put in a minimum three weeks" camp every other year, and they get fifteen bob a week and their keep when they"re at it, and some sort of a yearly fee, I"ve forgotten how much. "Tisn"t a showy service, but it"s very useful. It keeps the ma.s.s of the men between twenty-five, say, and thirty-five moderately fit, and gives the Armity an excuse for having more equipment ready--in case of emergencies."
"I don"t think you"re quite fair on the Militia," drawled Verschoyle.
"They"re better than we give "em credit for. Don"t you remember the Middle Moor Collieries" strike?"
"Tell me," I said quickly. Evidently the others knew.
"We-ell, it was no end of a pitman"s strike about eight years ago. There were twenty-five thousand men involved--Militia, of course. At the end of the first month--October--when things were looking rather blue, one of those clever Labour leaders got hold of the Militia Act and discovered that any Militia regiment could, by a two-thirds vote, go on "heef" in a Military Area in addition to its usual biennial camp. Two-and-twenty battalions of Geordies solemnly applied, and they were turned loose into the Irish and Scotch Areas under an I.G. Brigadier who had private instructions to knock clinkers out of "em. But the pitman is a strong and agile bird. He throve on snowdrifts and entrenching and draggin" guns through heather. _He_ was being fed and clothed for nothing, besides having a chance of making head-money, and his strike-pay was going clear to his wife and family. You see? Wily man. But wachtabittje! When that "heef" finished in December the strike was still on. _Then_ that same Labour leader found out, from the same Act, that if at any time more than thirty or forty men of a Militia regiment wished to volunteer to do sea-time and study big guns in the Fleet they were in no wise to be discouraged, but were to be taken on as opportunity offered and paid a bob a day. Accordingly, about January, Geordie began volunteering for sea- time--seven and eight hundred men out of each regiment. Anyhow, it made up seventeen thousand men! It was a splendid chance and the Armity jumped at it. The Home and Channel Fleets and the North Sea and Cruiser Squadrons were strengthened with lame ducks from the Fleet Reserve, and between "em with a little stretching and pushing they accommodated all of that young division."
"Yes, but you"ve forgotten how we lied to the Continent about it. All Europe wanted to know what the dooce we were at," said Boy Bayley, "and the wretched Cabinet had to stump the country in the depths of winter explaining our new system of poor-relief. I beg your pardon, Verschoyle."
"The Armity improvised naval manoeuvres between Gib and Land"s End, with frequent coalings and landings; ending in a cruise round England that fairly paralysed the pitmen. The first day out they wanted the fleet stopped while they went ash.o.r.e and killed their Labour leader, but they couldn"t be obliged. Then they wanted to mutiny over the coaling--it was too like their own job. Oh, they had a lordly timel They came back--the combined Fleets anch.o.r.ed off Hull--with a nautical hitch to their breeches. They"d had a free fight at Gib with the Ports battalion there; they cleared out the town of Lagos; and they"d fought a pitched battle with the dockyard-mateys at Devonport. So they"d done "emselves well, but they didn"t want any more military life for a bit."
"And the strike?"
"That ended, all right enough, when the strike-money came to an end. The pit-owners were furious. They said the Armity had wilfully prolonged the strike, and asked questions in the House. The Armity said that they had taken advantage of the crisis to put a six months" polish on fifteen thousand fine young men, and if the masters cared to come out on the same terms they"d be happy to do the same by them."
"And then?"
"Palaver done set," said Bayley. "Everybody laughed."
"I don"t quite understand about this sea-time business," I said. "Is the Fleet open to take any regiment aboard?"
"Rather. The I.G. must, the Line can, the Militia may, and the Volunteers do put in sea-time. The Coast Volunteers began it, and the fashion is spreading inland. Under certain circ.u.mstances, as Verschoyle told you, a Volunteer or Militia regiment can vote whether it "heefs" wet or dry. If it votes wet and has influence (like some F.S. corps), it can sneak into the Channel or the Home Fleet and do a cruise round England or to Madeira or the North Sea. The regiment, of course, is distributed among the ships, and the Fleet dry nurse "em. It rather breaks up sh.o.r.e discipline, but it gives the inland men a bit of experience, and, of course, it gives us a fairish supply of men behind the gun, in event of any strain on the Fleet.
Some coast corps make a specialty of it, and compete for embarking and disembarking records. I believe some of the Tyneside engineerin" corps put ten per cent of their men through the Fleet engine rooms. But there"s no need to stay talking here all the afternoon. Come and see the I.G. in his lair--the miserable conscript driven up to the colours at the point of the bayonet."
PART II
The great hall was emptying apace as the clocks struck two, and we pa.s.sed out through double doors into a huge reading and smoking room, blue with tobacco and buzzing with voices.
"We"re quieter as a rule," said the Boy. "But we"re filling up vacancies to-day. Hence the anxious faces of the Line and Militia. Look!" There were four tables against the walls, and at each stood a crowd of uniforms. The centres of disturbance were noncommissioned officers who, seated, growled and wrote down names.
"Come to my table," said Burgard. "Well, Purvis, have you ear-marked our little lot?"
"I"ve been tellin" "em for the last hour we"ve only twenty-three vacancies," was the sergeant"s answer. "I"ve taken nearly fifty for Trials, and this is what"s left." Burgard smiled.
"I"m very sorry," he said to the crowd, "but C Company"s full."
"Excuse me, Sir," said a man, "but wouldn"t sea-time count in my favour?
I"ve put in three months with the Fleet. Small quick-firers, Sir? Company guns? Any sort of light machinery?"
"Come away," said a voice behind. "They"ve chucked the best farrier between Hull and Dewsbury. Think they"ll take _you_ an" your potty quick- firers?"
The speaker turned on his heel and swore.
"Oh, d.a.m.n the Guard, by all means!" said Sergeant Purvis, collecting his papers. "D"you suppose it"s any pleasure to _me_ to reject chaps of your build and make? Vote us a second Guard battalion and we"ll accommodate you. Now, you can come into Schools and watch Trials if you like."
Most of the men accepted his invitation, but a few walked away angrily. I followed from the smoking-room across a wide corridor into a riding- school, under whose roof the voices of the few hundred a.s.sembled wandered in lost echoes.
"I"ll leave you, if you don"t mind," said Burgard. "Company officers aren"t supposed to a.s.sist at these games. Here, Matthews!" He called to a private and put me in his charge.
In the centre of the vast floor my astonished eyes beheld a group of stripped men; the pink of their bodies startling the tan.
"These are our crowd," said Matthews. "They"ve been vetted, an" we"re putting "em through their paces."
"They don"t look a bit like raw material," I said.
"No, we don"t use either raw men or raw meat for that matter in the Guard," Matthews replied. "Life"s too short."
Purvis stepped forward and barked in the professional manner. It was physical drill of the most searching, checked only when he laid his hand over some man"s heart.
Six or seven, I noticed, were sent back at this stage of the game. Then a cry went up from a group of privates standing near the line of contorted figures. "White, Purvis, white! Number Nine is spitting white!"
"I know it," said Purvis. "Don"t you worry."
"Unfair!" murmured the man who understood quick-firers. "If I couldn"t shape better than that I"d hire myself out to wheel a perambulator. He"s cooked."
"Nah," said the intent Matthews. "He"ll answer to a month"s training like a horse. It"s only suet. _You"ve_ been training for this, haven"t you?"
"Look at me," said the man simply.
"Yes. You"re overtrained," was Matthews" comment. "The Guard isn"t a circus."
"Guns!" roared Purvis, as the men broke off and panted. "Number off from the right. Fourteen is one, three is two, eleven"s three, twenty and thirty-nine are four and five, and five is six." He was giving them their numbers at the guns as they struggled into their uniforms. In like manner he told off three other guncrews, and the remainder left at the double, to return through the further doors with four light quick-firers jerking at the end of man-ropes.
"Knock down and a.s.semble against time!" Purvis called.
The audience closed in a little as the crews flung themselves on the guns, which melted, wheel by wheel, beneath their touch.
"I"ve never seen anything like this," I whispered.