608 
SUBALTERN OFFICERS. 
inefficiency, or to the want of firmness of character,* of their divisional 
officers themselves. 
It is very hard to understand Lieut. Murray's objections to Orderly 
Officers, for such an abuse of the system as he describes is unknown to 
me. When a division has paraded as a division, its officer, if present 
with the battery, has always, as far as my experience goes, been with 
it. In the batteries I have served in, the orderly officer has always 
referred men to their own officers, and has been very careful not to 
needlessly interfere with divisions other than his own. It would not 
have been pleasant for him if he had. 
Is the division never to drill without its own subaltern looking on ? 
Are officers never to have a day's hunting or shooting? Are they 
eternally to be superintending the drilling of a gun detachment of two 
men, the instruction of three in forming fours, or the explanation of 
the mysteries of the sword exercise to their shoeing-smith ? If so, then 
they in truth will soon look outside their profession for employment. 
In the systems of training different armies, many allowances have to 
be made for the national characteristics of the men; surely some may 
be made for those of the officers ? 
The horses of a battery have to be exercised, the orderly officer takes 
them out; one, perhaps two subalterns get a days fishing; the bond 
of union between them and their men is broken, the gulf of etiquette 
is widened ! So runs the tale. Well might Terence say,— 
“Nihil est quin male narrandopossit depravari /" 
9. The practical proposal to remedy all the evils supposed to exist—» 
one very easy to make, and one which may appear at first sight very 
easy to carry out—is to carry on all duties and instruction by divisions 
under their own subaltern officers. Let us see what this means. 
X think, if the state of a division of a field battery be carefully 
analysed, that it will be found in all cases that the squads of the 
different classes of the various drills consist of from 1 to 9 men each, 
and that on any particular day 5 or 6 is the number actually available 
for instruction in the largest classes, except perhaps those for 
theoretical instruction and for marching drill. In all there are about 
18 classes. The instructors available under most favourable circum¬ 
stances would be the lieutenant, two sergeants, and one rank and file 
non-commissioned officer. Now, the lieutenant could not instruct a 
class at the same time as the others, or he would be unable to supervise 
them, and as the rank and file non-commissioned officer could not 
be considered to have his education complete, while one of the sergeants 
* Of course, X am only speaking of the present. In years gone by a different system may have 
prevailed. 
