The New Army in Training by Rudyard Kipling

Author:Rudyard Kipling [Kipling, Rudyard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction & Literature, Action Suspense, Historical, Classics
ISBN: 1230002929903
Google: 5VHgswEACAAJ
Publisher: GOLDEN CLASSIC PRESS
Published: 2018-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

CAMP GOSSIP

Only a few months ago that entire collection poured into Valcartier camp in pink shirts and straw hats, desperately afraid they might not be in time. Since then they have been taught several things. Notably, that the more independent the individual soldier, the more does he need forethought and endless care when he is in bulk.

‘Just because we were all used to looking after ourselves in civil life,’ said an officer, ‘we used to send parties out without rations. And the parties used to go, too! And we expected the boys to look after their own feet. But we’re wiser now.’

‘They’re learning the same thing in the New Army,’ I said. ‘Company officers have to be taught to be mothers and housekeepers and sanitary inspectors. Where do your men come from?’

‘Tell me some place that they don’t come from,’ said he, and I could not. The men had rolled up from everywhere between the Arctic circle and the border, and I was told that those who could not get into the first contingent were moving heaven and earth and local politicians to get into the second.

‘There’s some use in politics now,’ that officer reflected. ‘But it’s going to thin the voting-lists at home.’

A good many of the old South African crowd (the rest are coming) were present and awfully correct. Men last met as privates between De Aar and Belmont were captains and majors now, while one lad who, to the best of his ability, had painted Cape Town pink in those fresh years, was a grim non-commissioned officer worth his disciplined weight in dollars.

‘I didn’t remind Dan of old times when he turned up at Valcartier disguised as a respectable citizen,’ said my informant. ‘I just roped him in for my crowd. He’s a father to ‘em. He knows.’

‘And have you many cheery souls coming on?’ I asked.

‘Not many; but it’s always the same with a first contingent. You take everything that offers and weed the bravoes out later.’

‘We don’t weed,’ said an officer of artillery. ‘Any one who has had his passage paid for by the Canadian Government stays with us till he eats out of our hand. And he does. They make the best men in the long run,’ he added. I thought of a friend of mine who is now disabusing two or three ‘old soldiers’ in a Service corps of the idea that they can run the battalion, and I laughed. The Gunner was right. ‘Old soldiers,’ after a little loving care, become valuable and virtuous.

A company of Foot was drawn up under the lee of a fir plantation behind us. They were a miniature of their army as their army was of their people, and one could feel the impact of strong personality almost like a blow.

‘If you’d believe it,’ said a cavalryman, ‘we’re forbidden to cut into that little wood-lot, yonder! Not one stick of it may we have! We could make shelters for our horses in a day out of that stuff.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.