February 27, 1915 
LAND AND WATER 
I AM not yet, I regret to say, in such a case that much 
learning has made me mad. But it becomes daily 
more apparent to me that continual study of military 
experts — not excluding the notorious Bernhardi vvl.o, 
I sincerely trust, is likely to draw no royalties for the 
extraordinary sale of his candid and unprincipled volume — 
has thoroughly fogged such intelligence as once I boasted. It 
has been my lot not only to read the military experts but to 
talk to some of them and to take counsel with them ; and 
I refer now not to such military experts as you and I, who 
could teach General Joffre and Sir John French and Admiral 
Jellicoe their business, but to the pukka experts whose quali- 
fications give them authority for the daily instruction of a 
hitherto unmilitary nation in the colossal art of war. 
Rightly or wrongly, I draw certain inferences from the 
doctrine of these men ; and I find that it may be applied to 
the inglorious sport of game shooting, in which some few of 
us, because military authority sets up such humiliating 
standards of age and physical fitness for martial occupation, 
are still engaged at less frequent intervals than was formerly 
the case. One of these inferences is that large flanking 
movements are the essence of both strategy and tactics. 
Another is that the success of such movements presupposes 
a quite sufficient force of all arms, combined with an excellent 
accuracy of fire and a perfect fire control. 
Unfortunately, the special constable and myself were 
compelled to disregard these axioms when we endeavoured to 
destroy the enemy force of partridges with a ludicrously in- 
adequate army. It so happened that the old soldier was 
compelled to fail us at the last moment. His defection was 
was only made known to us when we reached the platform. 
If we had remembered our military experts we should, 
perhaps, have withdrawn our force in safety without 
risking disaster. But one beater and one black dog awaited 
us at the wayside station, and the day was very fine. So we 
pursued our enterprise, filling the train iournev with much 
talk of our country and with gloomy suspicions of a supposed 
German spy in a corner of tlie carriage — who turned out a 
private of the new army. 
All the morning, then, we pursued our partridges with 
indifferent success. An unusual drought — which would ha\ e 
been so valuable to the good fellows who are saving our skins 
for us in trenches often half full of water — had made these 
birds uncommonly suspicious of human approach now 
become particularly audible on the baked stubbles and through 
the languishing root fields. Our line of three, even when 
reinforced by half a beater in the shape of a small boy, could 
not cope with the tactical situation. If we extended to a 
hundred paces the coveys rose in the gaps of the line and 
flew away unpursued by shot — until we became so chagrined 
that we fired absurdly long shots, with the sole result of 
frightening the birds into more protracted flight. If we 
closed on the centre and took the few fields of good cover in 
narrow strips the coveys rose far away on the unguarded 
flank. Besides, a little of this sort of sport goes a good long 
way. To divide a ten-acre field of mangolds into three 
sections, and to take each section against the wind across 
the drills, retracing one's tired steps between each section, 
is well enough when three guns, knowing that two or three 
coveys are in the field, have a reasoned hope of getting so 
near them that every gun may come into action. But when 
two guns, with a beater and a half, aided by a wilful black 
dog, divide ten acres of mangolds into five sections, doubtful 
whether any coveys are actually in the field, and morally 
certain that if so they will rise out of shot, one consequence 
is certain. That consequence is that they compound with 
strategy, abandon the retraction of tired steps, blunder over 
the field in the easiest way, and are so surprised when a 
close-lying covey does rise that they miss with all four barrels. 
That was, more or less, the first four hours of the day. 
Fortified by tea, the partridges were found in an unexpectedly 
kindly mood. All the familiar coveys were on the ground 
— without any too visible ravages by our former batteries. 
All waited for us in roots or on stubbles. Most got away 
without paying anything like the toll that should have been 
exacted. Not for the first time nor, probably, for the last 
I have entered — in small, shy letters — in the game-book 
" shooting abominable." But it was a glorious late Septem- 
ber evening, and we cheered the chief beater by talking to 
him of Zeppelin raids and telling him that, after all, his 
brother (somewhere on the River Aisne) might not have a 
family monopoly of the unnerving excitements of explosives. 
But there is yet another inference to be drawn, I think, 
from the military experts and their literature. That is that 
anticipation is the most important thing of all. The number 
and the variety of military anticipations would appal me if I 
were to consider them in cold blood. And anticipation has 
a fierce satisfaction utterly denied to the prosaic fact with 
which it so seldom corresponds. I shall therefore anticipate 
the doings of three whole guns on the little shoot when, not 
too late in October, we snatch, if it so may be, three more 
days from the wreckage of an annual holiday. 
First for the total bag in modest figures. It shall be 
fifteen brace of partridges, twenty-eight pheasants, three 
hares, and thirty-five rabbits, with one duck, two plover, 
and five pigeons to add a pleasant variety. We are to shoot 
with the accuracy reserved for our best days. We are to 
find the with}' bed full of pheasants, of which several — let me 
be candid — are to escape by the back door. In Kilkenny 
Copse — you see how frank my imagination is — we are to 
suffer a reverse. An unfortunate lapse on the part of the 
black dog, who will there run in, despite all objurgations, 
and set up a premature flush of birds, and some confusion on 
the part of the guns will help several of these birds to go 
scot free. But when we come to Ashwales wo shall deal 
very faithfully with its eleven pheasants, killing ten of them 
with a mortal precision of fire. Then shall be accomplished by 
one of us the two agreeable feats of a high pheasant and a 
hare to two barrels, followed as soon as the new cartridges 
are in by a right and left out of the covey of partridges which 
bursts suddenly and attractively out of the shelter of the 
bottom hedgerow. And on one of the other days we are to 
find our partridges in that most curiously submissive and quies- 
cent mood which surprises the shooter at intervals throughout 
the season, so that we make hay of them while the sun shines, 
and are amply rewarded for march and countermarch. 
Terms of Subscription to 
"THE COUNTY GENTLEMAN 
LAND AND WATER" 
(ESTABLISHED 1862). 
AT HOME— Twelve Months - - £18 
CANADA— Twelve Months - - £1 10 6 
ELSEWHERE ABROAD— Twelve Months£l 17 
The above rates include all Special Numbers and Postage. 
BACK COPIES of "LAND AND WATER," containing the 
series of Articles by HILAIRE BELLOC, "THE WAR BY 
LAND •' ; and FRED. T. JANE, " THE WAR BY WATER " ; 
can be obtained through any Newsagent, or on application 
to the Offices of "LAND AND WATER," Central Hodse, 
KiNGSWAY, W.C. 
Telephone : 
4572 Regent. 
Telegraphic Address : 
"Agendorum, Westcent, London." 
^11 
