August lo, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
29 
The Men at Arms 
By Professor J. H. Morgan. 
THE Major's wife had shown him the Major's 
D.S.O., and had told him the story of how tlie 
Major got it as a company commander in the 
first winter campaign near Vpres ; the story was 
a hteral application of the official exhortation in Notes 
from the Front that " it should be a point of honour with 
all officers to carry through any task confided to them 
without asking for reinforcements." She had also given 
him a writing-case and had asked about his mother. He 
swallowed a gulp in his throat. 
" She kime to see me orf — at Waterloo, mum. And she 
talked as though she were scolding me— she hadn't talked 
to me like that since I was a little nipper. But I saw 
through it ; she were fair daft at my going. And then 
when the whistle went she broke down." He hastily 
brushed something away from his eye. " So I started 
on me mouf organ for all I was worth, and said, ' Now 
we shan't be long, mother.' And the last I saw of her 
she was wi\'ing her hankerchief." 
" Well, Hawkins," said the major, " I've written to 
Major C- to keep an eye on you. He is a particular 
friend of mine, and if you ever want advice, go to him. 
Now, remember, always keep your field-dressing in 
your left-hand pocket and your emergency ration in your 
right. And keep them like -the ten commandments. 
And anoint yourself with carbolic soap as with oil. 
You've had to wait a long time for your draft to go out, 
but it was worth if. A Lewis gun takes some learning you 
know. Can you strip her ? " 
" Yes, sir, right down to the radiator." 
" And put her together again ? " 
" Yes, sir." 
" You've passed all your tests, I think ? " 
" Yes, sir. Sergeant-major put me through with a 
stop-watch the other day. Put me down in front of a 
landscape target, he did. And said, ' Action 800.' And 
I moved the screws with the flat of mte hand and got the 
sights at 800. But anyone could do that, as you know 
sir. Then he tried me with stoppages. And then he 
said, ' You'll do.' " 
" Good." 
The Major was pleased. As well he might be, for 
there are one hundred and thirty-seven parts in a Lewis 
gun, and it's skilled labour. 
" Now, good-bye, and Good-luck to you." 
The boy saluted, but the Major held out his hand. 
" Stokes will give you some supper. Mind you don't 
miss your train back to camp." 
The major and his wife told me the history of their 
protege. He had been a newsboy at Piccadilly Circus 
twelve months since, and the Major's sister had been in the 
habit of buying papers from him. One day he confided 
to her that he was going to enlist ; his father wore the 
Egyptian medal, and the Khedive's star, and there may 
have been an hereditary instinct. She had asked the Major 
and his wife to keep an eye on him, and as chance would 
have it the boy's battalion had come to the Plain for 
training, and the major, after being invalided home, 
had joined the staff of the Southern Command ; so they 
had kept in touch with him. 
" What do you think of him ? " they asked me. 
I told them. He had an honest countenance, fearless 
blue eyes set well apart under a square forehead ; they 
looked you straight in the face, and, except when he was 
rnoved and spoke the clipped dialect of the Cockney, 
his speech was good homespun English. Also he was 
straight as a lath. His face was tanned brown, his tunic 
was tight across his chest, his teeth were white as ivory. 
" And eighteen months ago he was a street urchin 
dodging the taxi-cabs, anaemic, down-at-heel, with a 
phthisical cough and incipient rheumatism," 'said the 
Major reflectively. " And now look at him ! A horrible 
example of militarism, ain't he? What?" 
" And what does Stokes think of him ? " I asked. 
Stokes is Major B.'s servant, a twenty-one years' service 
man in his old regiment, now doing his bit by cleaning 
the Major's knives and forks. 
" Ask him," said the Major. " I should like to know." 
Later in the evening, after he had ministered to the 
astounding appetite of the New Army and seen him off, 
I questioned Stokes. Stokes sees a good deal of the 
men on the Plain, for the Major's wife has many recruits 
under her maternal care, and they always report them- 
selves at her house before they go out with the drafts. 
Stokes pondered as he tapped the ashes out of his pipe 
on the garden gate. 
" He'll do, sir," he said, thoughtfully. 
Coming from the old Army this tribute to the 
New Model was eloquent. " But this New Army beats 
me altogether. Fourteen weeks' training is all some of 
'em has, and in my time it were three years and no less 
before you made a soldj er. And the things they learns — 
bombing and gassing and fancy shooting at Solano targets 
and machinery and map-reading. It's like a 'igh school 
up on the Plain there. And such a mix-up too — gen'le- 
men in the ranks ! We never 'ad more'n one at the depot 
in my time, and 'e were a sort of freak of nature — like a 
white pheasant. Done time, we used to think 'e had — ■ 
'ad an uncommon gift for hand-writing, and one day he 
wrpte another bloke's name on a bit of paper, and did it 
so well that the bloke's own mother were taken in by it. 
That got 'im in quod, I reckon, and after that there was 
nothing for it but the Army." 
" But Lord bless you, sir," continued Stokes, " there 
are no end of real toffs in the ranks now. And there 
ain't no flies on 'em, either. Some of 'em very handy 
with the mittens too. Thank you, sir, but I'd prefer 
Shag, if you don't mind. There's only one fault as I 'ave 
to find with this 'ere new Army," he 'added as he pressed 
his forefinger into the bowl of his pipe. 
" What's that ? " 
" They're too well-behaved for me. Why, sir "— 
and he lowered his voice fearfully — " how many hours 
' Detention Barracks ' d'you think they've a given in 
No. 6 Camp up there last week ? One hundred-and- 
sixty-eight ! Yes, that's all — strike me dead if it ain't. 
And over two thousand men there too. It ain't natural. 
It's like a Sunday School. Why, in my time, you'd 
'ave 'ad no end of men in clink. Mind you, sir, we was 
a good line regiment — no better in the British Army. 
But a few hours' pack-drill or C.B., or in clink — why that 
was all in the day's work. It was a sort of growing pains. 
But this new Army seems to be full-grown all at once, 
so to speak." 
He looked over the hedge at the road below ; it was 
a warm summer evening, the chimes of the Cathedral 
bells floated over the blue irises in the water-meadows, 
the air was full of the scent of honeysuckle, and a thou- 
sand gnats danced in the sun. In the road soldiers off 
duty strolled by in twos and threes, flourishing little 
canes. A solitary figure in a red cap patrolled up and 
down. 
" That bloke's got a soft job," said Stokes enviously. 
*' Reckon if I was to jine this new Army a job as Military 
Police would just about suit me." 
The spectacle of the military policeman's sinecure 
must, I think, have slightly exasperated Stokes, though 
I have a private suspicion that Stokes nursed an ancient 
grudge against his kind. At any rate, the moment my 
back was turned he cooed softly over the hedge, " Hi ! 
mate." The policeman made a right-about turn. 
" Daddy," said Stokes endearingly, " what did you do 
in the Great War ? " 
***** 
This was some two months ago. I have never seen 
Private Hawkins since (or Stokes either for that matter) , 
but I have read within the last few days of the doings 
of his regiment at , and I doubt not that he was 
strong and quitted himself like a man. 
Hawkins was in his way portentous, for he was a con- 
clusive proof that there is no continuation school like the 
New Army, and when he returns to civilian life he will 
not be content with the " blind alley " of the newsvendor. 
He was only one of thousands in our great cities running to 
waste with his eye untrained and his hand unskilled 
when he joined the Army. Long before his platoon had 
