All for a Scrap of Paper Part 25

"You've got your licence and all that sort of thing for motoring?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Ever been to France?"

"Often, sir; also Germany."

"Know the lingo?"

"Pa.s.sably."

"That is, you can understand what a Frenchman or a German says?"

"Everything, sir."

"Good! I'll speak to my Colonel right away. But let's strike while the iron is hot. You came here to enlist as a private, you say. In that case let's get through the medical business at once."

"I'm all right, sir."

"That must be proved. You are big enough, Heaven knows! Six feet high, aren't you?"

"Just a trifle above that."

"And forty inches around the chest, I should think. Come this way."

A few minutes later Bob had been overhauled by a doctor.

"Sound as a bell," was the doctor's verdict.

Next he had to submit himself to an oculist, who tested Bob's eyes.

"All right?" asked Captain Pringle, who was present during the examination, and told the doctors that Bob was an old friend of his.

"Should be a good shot," replied the oculist. "He's all right."

"Good!" said Captain. "How are your teeth, Nancarrow?"

Bob opened his mouth with a laugh. He was in high spirits.

"They look all right," said Captain Pringle; "but you must be properly examined. A week or two ago hundreds of fellows were taken on without any real examination at all. Only yesterday, when I was down at S----, I was talking with a doctor there, and he told me that a fellow had actually been pa.s.sed who had a weak spine, and wore instruments to support his back. Of course he was sent home at once, but it shows how, under the new conditions, things were conducted in a loose fas.h.i.+on. However, that's all over now. We are taking only sound men.

Here you are."

Bob was quickly dismissed by the dentist, and p.r.o.nounced "all right."

"I suppose you are ready at once?" asked Pringle.

"Give me a couple of hours to settle up about my chambers, and a few things like that, and I shall be ready, sir."

"Right. Of course there are the papers to sign and all that kind of thing, but that's nothing. Be here at three o'clock this afternoon."

"Very good, _mon capitaine_," and Bob saluted military fas.h.i.+on, while the other laughed.

"I don't know quite what to do with you yet, Nancarrow," said Pringle.

"You see, you are too good a man for a private--beside, you want to go straight to the front. Naturally, too, at such times as these we can't do everything by cast-iron rule. Exceptional cases demand exceptional treatment. I can't say any more than that until I see my Colonel. You will go with me to see him this evening. As you will see, I'm not treating you quite like an ordinary recruit."

"I should think not, sir. I did not expect such favours."

When Bob got back to his chambers, he wrote to his mother.

"I expect this letter will come as a great surprise to you, mother," he wrote. "This morning I enlisted! Of course you are rubbing your eyes by this time, especially when you remember how I regard war. I haven't altered my opinions in the slightest about its horror, and all that.

In fact, that's why I _have_ enlisted. I'm not going to enter into any explanations of my change of belief and conduct. I'm only going to sy that I believe it is my Christian duty to fight as long as G.o.d gives me health against this War G.o.d which Germany has set up. I'm not sorry I have gone through what I have gone through, even although I've lost nearly everything I treasure most, and have lived in h.e.l.l for weeks.

If I had enlisted when you wanted me to, I should have been no good. I should have been feeling all the time that I was not doing right. I should have been like a paralysed man trying to walk. Now everything is different. I am eager to be in the thick of it. I am just longing to be at those Germans. Not that I have anything against the German people, but I want to help to kill the system that has gripped them body and soul. It seems that nothing but war will cut out this poisonous cancer of militarism, and it is the call of G.o.d to cut it out.

"That's why I've pleaded to be sent to the front right away. I met Captain Pringle this morning (you remember him), and he's going to do his best for me. He's off to the firing line in about a week's time, and I'm in hopes that I shall be able to go with him. In what capacity I don't know as yet; possibly only as a private, but I don't mind that.

We can't all be officers, and I'm eager, anxious to be _anything_ whereby I can help the cause. It is possible, therefore, that in a week or two's time I shall be out of England, on my way to, if not in the very midst of action.

"Please don't talk about this. G.o.d knows it's too serious to be talked about. Fancy a doctor going to perform an operation which may kill not only the patient but himself, and you have a hint of my feelings at this moment. Let the people think what they will of me--I'm beyond all that now. I'll write you in a day or two telling you exactly what has taken place."

When Bob arrived at S---- that afternoon, Captain Pringle went straight to Colonel Sapsworth. In a few minutes the Colonel knew the main outlines of Bob's career.

"I should have advised him to join one of the Public School Corps,"

said the Captain, "but in that case he would have been months before he could have gone into active service. You see he's as keen as mustard to be at the front, and remembering my last conversation with you, I thought I'd bring him down. We shall be sadly in need of men of his stamp. He will provide his own motor-bike, which he knows inside and out; he speaks French and German almost like a native, he's as plucky as they make 'em, he's eager to get to work; in addition to which he was the best lad we had in the O.T.C. with which I was connected."

"Does he want a commission?" asked the Colonel.

"Yes, I should think so--naturally. You see he's been well brought up, and is well off. On his mother's side he belongs to one of the best families in the West of England, and--and--well, Tommies are having to rough it just now."

"And none the worse for it," snapped the Colonel.

"Exactly; and he's quite prepared to enlist as a private. I was only answering your question."

"Just so: let's see him."

A few minutes later Bob was undergoing a severe cross-examination by the Colonel, who had the reputation of being somewhat eccentric in his methods. Bob, who of course knew that he was being subjected to special treatment, did not know whether the old officer was pleased with him or not. He only knew that he was asked keen, searching questions in a brusque, military fas.h.i.+on, and that he was finally dismissed without knowing what was to become of him.

For some time after this Bob knew what it meant to be a Tommy; he soon found out, moreover, that his experiences in the O.T.C. did not prepare him for those he was now undergoing. Each morning he was up at half-past five, and then for several hours a day he was submitted to the severest drilling. He quite understood the necessity for men being physically fit before being drafted into the army at war time. When he lay down at night in the company of men whom in ordinary times he would never think of a.s.sociating with, he was so tired that he forgot the uncomfortable surroundings and uncongenial society. Never in his life had he slept as he slept now. Never did he imagine he would have to put up with such privations.

In one sense he found that, as far as the privates went, the army was a great democracy. One man was as good as another. The sons of well-to-do families rubbed shoulders with colliers and farm labourers.

Tommy was Tommy, whether he was "Duke's Son" or "Cook's Son." And yet, in another sense, education and social status were recognised. He found that in spite of themselves, and in spite of the fact that all distinctions were technically sunk between them, those who came from labourers' cottages found themselves almost instinctively paying deference to the men who did not belong to their cla.s.s.

There were some half a dozen men in Bob's company who had come from good homes, and while general comrades.h.i.+p existed, these men naturally drifted together.

One of the great hards.h.i.+ps to Bob was the food. The rancid b.u.t.ter, the coa.r.s.e bread, the almost uneatable bacon, the tough meat, tried him sorely. At first he could scarcely swallow it. He got used to it at length, however, and found that he was none the worse for it. He also longed for the luxury of a private bath. Oh! just for half an hour in the porcelain bath in his mother's house! Just to have the exquisite pleasure of feeling the sting of cold pure water around his body!

But things were not to be. As he laughed to himself, "I am a full private, and I must take my chance like the rest of them!"

Nevertheless, to a lad reared amidst all the refinements of a good home the change was so great that had he not felt it a bounden duty to be where he was, he would have felt like running away. Still he was not there for fun, neither had he antic.i.p.ated an easy time. Sometimes, it is true, he was more than disgusted by what he saw. Many of the men did not seem to understand the ordinary decencies of life, and acted in such a fas.h.i.+on as to grate sorely upon his sensitive nature. Their language was often unprintable, while their ideas of life and conduct often made him sick.

How could such fellows as these fight for honour and truth? Some of them seemed to have no sense of honour or decency. He saw presently, however, that even these, who were not by any means representative of the whole, had far higher standards than he had at first thought. They were coa.r.s.e, and some times brutal, but they were kind to their pals, and would put themselves to any trouble to do another chap a good turn.