Part 22 (1/2)

What a life! What a.s.sociates (outside the tiny band of gentlemen-rankers). What cruel awful _publicity_ of existence--that was the worst of all. Oh, for a private room and a private coat, and a meal in solitude! Some place of one's own, where one could express one's own individuality in the choice and arrangement of property, and impress it upon one's environment.

One could not even think in private here.

And he was called a _private_ soldier! A grim joke indeed, when the crying need of one's soul was a little privacy.

A _private_ soldier!

Well--and what of the theory of Compensations, that all men get the same sum-total of good and bad, that position is really immaterial to happiness? What of the theory that more honour means also more responsibility and worry, that more pay also means more expenses and a more difficult position, that more seniority also means less youth and joy--that Fate only robs Peter to pay Paul, and, when bestowing a blessing with one hand, invariably bestows a curse with the other?

Too thin.

Excellent philosophy for the b.u.t.terfly upon the road, preaching contentment to the toad, who, beneath the harrow, knows exactly where each tooth-point goes. Let the b.u.t.terfly come and try it.

_What_ a life!

Not so bad at first, perhaps, for a stout-hearted, hefty sportsman, during recruit days when everything is novel, there is something to learn, time is fully occupied, and one is too busy to think, too busy evading strange pit-falls, and the just or (more often) unjust wrath of the Room Corporal, the Squadron Orderly Sergeant, the Rough-Riding Corporal, the Squadron Sergeant-Major, the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major, the Regimental Sergeant-Major, the Riding-Master.

But when, to the pa.s.sed ”dismissed soldier,” everything is familiar and easy, weary, flat, stale and unprofitable?

The (to one gently nurtured) ghastly food, companions, environment, monotony--the ghastly ambitions!

Fancy an educated gentleman's ambitions and horizon narrowed to a good-conduct ”ring,” a stripe in the far future (and to be a Lance-Corporal with far more duty and no more pay, in the hope of becoming a Corporal--that comfortable rank with the same duty and much more pay, and little of the costly gold-lace to mount, and heavy expenses to a.s.sume that, while putting the gilt on, takes it off, the position of Sergeant); and, for the present, to ”keep off the peg,”

not to be ”for it,” to ”get the stick,” for smartest turn-out, to avoid the Red-Caps,[20] to achieve an early place in the scrimmage at the corn-bin and to get the correct amount of two-hundred pounds in the corn-sack when drawing forage and corn; to placate Troop Sergeants, the Troop Sergeant-Major and Squadron Sergeant-Major; to have a suit of mufti at some safe place outside and to escape from the branding searing scarlet occasionally; possibly even the terrible ambition to become an Officer's servant so as to have a suit of mufti as a right, and a chance of becoming Mess-Sergeant and then Quarter-Master, and perhaps of getting an Honorary Commission without doing a single parade or guard after leaving the troop!...

What a life for a man of breeding and refinement!... Fancy having to remember the sacred and immeasurable superiority of a foul-mouthed Lance-Corporal who might well have been your own stable-boy, a being who can show you a deeper depth of h.e.l.l in h.e.l.l, wreak his dislike of you in unfair ”fatigues,” and keep you at the detested job of coal-drawing on Wednesdays; who can achieve a ”canter past the beak”[21] for you on a trumped-up charge and land you in the ”digger,”[22] who can bring it home to you in a thousand ways that you are indeed the toad beneath the harrow. Fancy having to remember, night and day, that a Sergeant, who can perhaps just spell and cypher, is a monarch to be approached in respectful spirit; that the Regimental Sergeant-Major, perhaps coa.r.s.e, rough, and ignorant, is an emperor to be approached with fear and trembling; that a Subaltern, perhaps at school with you, is a G.o.d not to be approached at all.

Fancy looking forward to being ”branded with a blasted worsted spur,”

and, as a Rough-Riding Corporal, receiving a forfeit tip from each young officer who knocks off his cap with his lance in Riding-School....

Well! One takes the rough with the smooth--but perceives with great clearness that the (very) rough predominates, and that one does not recommend a gentleman to enlist, save when a Distinguished Relative with Influence has an early Commission ready in his pocket for him.

Lacking the Relative, the gently-nurtured man, whether he win to a Commission eventually or not, can only do one thing more rash than enlist in the British Army, and that is enlist in the French Foreign Legion.

Discipline for soul and body? The finest thing in all the world--in reason. But the discipline of the tram-horse, of the blinded bullock at the wheel, of the well-camel, of the galley-slave--meticulous, puerile, unending, unchanging, impossible ...? Necessary perhaps, once upon a time--but hard on the man of brains, sensibility, heart, and individuality.

Soul and body? Deadly for the soul--and fairly dangerous for the body in the Cavalry Regiment whose riding-master prefers the abominable stripped-saddle training to the bare-backed....

Dam yawned and looked at the tin clock on the shelf above the cot of the Room Corporal. Half an hour yet.... Did time drag more heavily anywhere in the world?...

His mind roamed back over his brief, age-long life in the Queen's Greys and pa.s.sed it in review.

The interview with the Doctor, the Regimental Sergeant-Major, the Adjutant, the Colonel--the Oath on the Bible before that dread Superman.... How well he remembered his brief exordium--”Obey your Superiors blindly; serve your Queen, Country, and Regiment to the best of your ability; keep clean, don't drink, fear G.o.d, and--most important of all--take care of your horse. _Take care of your horse_, d'ye hear?”

Also the drawled remark of the Adjutant afterwards, ”Ah--what--ah--University?”--his own prompt reply of ”Whitechapel, sir,” and the Adjutant's approving ”Exactly.... You'll get on here by good conduct, good riding, and good drill--not by--ah--good accent or anything else.”

How well he remembered the strange depolarized feeling consequent upon realizing that his whole worldly possessions consisted in three ”grey-back” s.h.i.+rts, two pairs of cotton pants, two pairs of woollen socks, a towel; a hold-all containing razor, shaving-brush, spoon, knife and fork, and a b.u.t.ton-stick; a cylindrical valise with hair-brush, clothes-brush, bra.s.s-brush, and boot-brushes; a whip, burnisher, and dandy-brush (all three, for some reason, to be paid for as part of a ”free” kit); jack-boots and jack-spurs, wellington-boots and swan-neck box-spurs, ammunition boots; a tin of blacking and another of plate powder; blue, white-striped riding-breeches, blue, white-striped overalls, drill-suit of blue serge, scarlet tunic, scarlet stable-jacket, scarlet drill ”frock,” a pair of trousers of lamentable cut ”authorized for grooming,” bra.s.s helmet with black horse-hair plume, blue pill-box cap with white stripe and b.u.t.ton, gauntlets and gloves, sword-belt and pouch-belt, a carbine and a sword. Also of a daily income of one loaf, b.u.t.ter, tea, and a pound of meat (often uneatable), and the sum of one s.h.i.+lling and twopence subject to a deduction of threepence a day ”mess-fund,” fourpence a month for delft, and divers others for library, was.h.i.+ng, hair-cutting, barrack-damages, etc.

Yes, it had given one a strange feeling of nakedness, and yet of a freedom from the tyranny of things, to find oneself so meagrely and yet so sufficiently endowed.

Then, the strange, lost, homeless feeling that Home is nothing but a cot and a box in a big bare barrack-room, that the whole of G.o.d's wide Universe contains no private and enclosed spot that is one's own peculiar place wherein to be alone--at first a truly terrible feeling.

How one envied the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major his Staff Quarters--without going so far as to envy the great Riding-Master his real separate and detached house!