April 26, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
13 
a 
we 
speak. The doctor held up his hand. ' Don't, interrupt 
liim," he whispered, " it won't help matters." 
" Where are our supports ? Where's the runner ? No ! 
No 1 mustn't retire. Where's Mr. Addison ? How many t 
About thirty ? Thirty did you say ? Out of fifty-five ! See 
that chimney-stack ! Three hundred ! Yes, three hundred. 
Recruit are you my lad ? Only just off the square. Never 
mind! Remember old six o'clock. Get tip of foresight mto 
line with the shoulder of the U of the backsight and aim at 
bottom of the stack! That's it. I don't know. Well! 
We've got our iron rations. After that it'll be a case 
of ' March Past.' How many of us did you say ? About 
twentv-one! Twenty-one out of fifty-five. They've out- 
flanked us! It's a wash-out. We've no ammunition left. 
Me've tlie wounded to think of. But I_ never thought it 'ud 
conic to this. Where's Mr. Addison ? " 
" Fiftv-five ! " said the colonel quietly to himself. " Yes, 
it would be about fifty-five : We were up to full strength." 
The voice had stopped. The colonel, glancing at the doctor, 
saw that his eyes were narrowly watching the sergeant- 
major. The sergeant-major was gazing fixedly at the 
desk in front of Jiim behind which the doctor sat. 
The doctor leaned forward and very quietly, very unobtrusively 
placed his hand over something lying on the front of the, 
desk, grasped it, closed it with a click, and put it in his pocket. 
It was a penknife. ,, 
The stealthy look died out of the sergeant-major's eyes and 
the ne.xt moment he had resumed his monologue. 
" Don't club him like that ! He's hit in the leg ;• Tie 
can't. He can't, I tell you. Christ ! Call yourself 
soldier. Where's your officer ? ' Prisoners ! ' I know 
are. But we're men same as you. How would you like . . . 
Oh Christ ! leave me, alone. You dog, leave me alone . . . 
I can't carry it any more, you've broke my arm. It's your 
pack.!^No! I ain't got anything to give you, my lad. 
They've been through my pockets too. Rations ! They've 
taken mine too. No ! I ain't had anything for forty-eight 
hours. How docs it go ' Come to the cook-house door, 
boys, come to the cook-house door.' " 
"It's the men's way of putting the cook-house, call," 
whispered the colonel to the doctor. 
" No ! it's mouldy. How many ? Fifteen did y<jiu,y^ay 
out of fifty-five. Yes ! They've clubbed five of us becaiisc 
they couldn't keepup. A horse tent. Yes, they've bedded 
us down with straw'. Look at the straw — it's moving. 
It's alive. Christ! Don't they 'itch? Something cruel. 
They say it's good enoygli for English swine. How many did 
you say? Fourteen I Fourteen out of fifty-five! ,Yes he 
died of hungei.jjoor ciiap. How's it go? 'Come to the 
cook .' No! 1 can't remember any more. There 
ain't any cook-house jiero, my lad. No ! don't give in. Spat 
in your face, did they ? Tell 'em to go to hell ! Your' shirt 
itches, do it ? Tlirow it dway then. Took yer kit away, 
did they ? Christ ! ain't we deficient in articles. The 
O.C'U take an inventory when we get home same as. he 
did with deserters and'll order us to be put under stoppages 
to make good. The adjutant won't like it . . ." , 
The colonel was gripping the arms of his chair. He 
muttered something under his breath. The doctor toyed 
with a pen, his eyes fi.\ed on the patient. The latter now 
clenched his lists convulsively. Tlie attendants moved a 
pace closer. ,. ., , .,, ' 
" No towel! Use your shirt my lad, musn't be dirty on 
parade. Soup like sewage, ain't it ! ' Strai-harackc\' ^"•— ^'• 
it mean ? Means 
What's 
in clink ' my lad. Yes ! fifty pfcfinings 
a day fpr fatigues. y\in't.this baulk of timber heavy. Offer- 
ing you bread, are tlwy ? No ! Don't take any notice ; they'll 
only snatch it away again to get a rise out of you. Blast 
them, they ain't human. Tighten yer belt, instead, ij^lad. 
How does it go ? ' Come to the — ' No ! j can't 
remember it : I'm that hungry. How many did you 
say ? Eight. Eigljt out of fifty-five. It's the typhus 
done it. Where's the platoon ? Not even a section ! 
Never say die, boys. . . . How many did you say ? 
Three of us poor sinners left. One on us left — not enough 
to mount guard now. . . They're going to tic liim up 
to the post, he was a sergeant-major, he was. 
" Tie him up to the post ! Yes ! All night, and it's snow- 
ing. Jesus ! The wind's something cruel. What for ? 
For giving back answers ! Why did they ciUl liim an ' Eng- 
lish swine ' then ! Yes ! a double knot. Round the ankles, 
then round the knees, then round the shoulders, then round 
the. wrists, then a slip-knot round the tree. It'll be about 
tattoo at home now, it will. Tell 'em to go to hell. . . . 
tell 'em. . . ." 
"What about Addison ? Ask him about Addison," the 
Colonel entreated. But the doctor shook his head, 
The sentences grew more and more confused.. He uttered 
substantives without verbs and verbs without substantivses. 
He faltered, stammered^— and stopped. The brain had run 
down like a clock. 
" Like spirit-rapping — oh ! most damnably," was how 
the colonel put it afterwards. " And not a trace of feeling, 
no ! Not a flicker on the poor devil's face. And there 
were we talking over him as though he were a dog or a horse 
— like two ' vets.' And those attendants standing beside 
him like two damned deaf-mutes. As for him, you'd have 
sworn he was talking about semieone else. A brain without a 
mind, you know. Ever noticed how the tajje clicks out the 
E.xchange telegrams and then gives you ' the right hon. 
gentleman said x x x x x ? ' All noughts and crosses, you 
know. It was just like that." 
The colonel put this to the Meehcal Superintendent at thc^ 
time. He urged liim to help him find a cue — to play the 
l)rompter to tliat darkened brain. 
The doctor shook his head. " We alienists are still groping 
in the dark " he protested. With his eyes still on the vacant 
face of the sergeant-major. " We can observe much ; we 
can experiment but little — or not at all. ' Fear not them 
which kill the body ' — you Jinow the rest. I cannot cure the 
soul. I have been asked that q_uestion before — oh ! too often. 
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased 
pluck from the memory a rooted so^ro\^? ? 
" Would that I could ! You know at times he thinks he has 
committed an unforgivable sin and that he's condemned to 
stand for ever on his toes tied tp a post iiV tlie snow. What 
did you say? Oh, yos ! An auditory impression, if 
sufticiently resonant, will sometimes stimulate the other 
senses. A good deal's been done that way in cases of 
liypnotism — take a tuning-fork, for example ; if sounded 
close to the ear, it will sometimes increase the acuteness 
(jf vision. One can even conceive of its rendering first-aid 
to a defective mtfnory. But .these are mere conjuring tricks. 
What's that ? " , 
Tlirough the open window there floated upon the air a 
single silvery note. It was followed by another, tentative 
and tremulous, and then a series of volatile trills and 
flourishes. In the larch-tree outside a thrush, piping its 
morning call, stopped iiKjuisitively. The listlessness died 
out of the sergeant-major's face ; he listened, his head on 
one side, with the ])ainful effort at location of a new-born 
child. LTpon the green hillsitle, half-a-mile away, a happy 
bugler was practising liis calls. He broke into the " pick- 
me-up, ijick-mc-u])" quavers of the sergeants' mess-call, 
changed suddenly into tlie " Drummer's knock," blew a 
few bars of the " Last Post.'' .and then sounded a plaintive 
sequence of three notes which. came and went as in a fugue. 
The sergeant-major started to his feet, put his hands to his 
temples, stared at the Colonel's uniform, and, suddenly 
coming to attention, saluted. 
" The orderly sergeants' call, sir ! " 
The colonel watched him breathlessly, waiting for a resur- 
rection that never came. 
" We've got to mobilise — to mobilise — to mobilise. Send 
the colours to the depot. Open the church for the men's 
kits, orderly. flic reservists will be here to-morrow. 
Quick ! " And he made for the door. 
Strong arms clasped him in a grip of iron. He struggled 
in the embrace of the attendants. 
" Let mc go ! Let me go ! " he shouted. " I'm the 
sergeant-major ! Where's the adjutant. Damn you ! Let 
me go ! " 
* » 
" No," said the colonel to me afterwards. " I'd had 
enough. The last I saw, orTsrther heard, of him as I left 
that horrible place was his Toic*' from down a long corridor 
as they led him away. There is a peculiar timbre about the 
voices of the insane — you may have noticed it ? . . . When 
I think of the old regiment — tlie old regiment marching up 
from rail-head, the advan'ced-guard like a spear-point, the 
connecting files, the column of fours, and the Sergeant-Major 
up in front with the CO. and me; all the men with marigolds 
in their caps and singing, singing, " Tipperary " in the 
heat and dust— and 'then <te^.f . . . What ?' Addison' 
No ! I never heard." 
St. Andrew's Home for Working Boys, Westminster, which 
lias just completed fifty years of useful work among the working 
boys of London, is badly in want of funds. Speaking of this 
Home just before thc^ war, the Bisliop of London said he had 
known it for twenty-five years aiid-Jincw of no other institution 
of the same size whicli had done better work. To-day, when 
War Orphans have to be provided for, the need of such in- 
slitutions is self-evident. ' The Homo has lost lately a con- 
siderable revenue by the death of subscribers ami it is essential 
that new subscribers should take their place if the work is to be 
carried on. It is work that is national in the best sense of the 
word, and the institution is conducted on sound business prin- 
ciples. Subscriptions and donations should be sent to the 
Hon. Treasurer, 20, Great Peter Street. Westminster. 
