Kitchener\'s Mob
J >> James Norman Hall >> Kitchener\'s MobKitchener's Mob
The Adventures of an American in the British Army
By
James Norman Hall
Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1916
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY JAMES NORMAN HALL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published May 1916_
TO
TOMMY
OF THE GREAT WAR
WHO IS ADDING IMMORTAL LUSTER
TO THE NAME OF
ATKINS
Note
This brief narrative is by no means a complete record of life in a
battalion of one of Lord Kitchener's first armies. It is, rather, a
story in outline, a mere suggestion of that life as it is lived in the
British lines along the western front. If those who read gain thereby
a more intimate view of trench warfare, and of the men who are so
gallantly and cheerfully laying down their lives for England, the
purpose of the writer will have been accomplished.
The diagram which appears on the front and rear covers of the book is a
partially conventionalized design illustrating some features of trench
construction mentioned in Chapter VI. For obvious reasons it is not
drawn to scale, and although it is a truthful representation of a
typical segment of the British line, it is not an exact sketch of any
existing sector.
_April_, 1916.
Contents
I. Joining Up 1
II. Rookies 9
III. The Mob in Training 17
IV. Ordered Abroad 39
V. The Parapet-etic School 55
VI. Private Holloway, Professor of Hygiene 69
VII. Midsummer Calm 92
VIII. Under Cover 108
IX. Billets 129
X. New Lodgings 144
XI. "Sitting Tight" 177
Kitchener's Mob
CHAPTER I
JOINING UP
"Kitchener's Mob" they were called in the early days of August, 1914,
when London hoardings were clamorous with the first calls for volunteers.
The seasoned regulars of the first British expeditionary force said it
patronizingly, the great British public hopefully, the world at large
doubtfully. "Kitchener's Mob," when there was but a scant sixty thousand
under arms with millions yet to come. "Kitchener's Mob" it remains
to-day, fighting in hundreds of thousands in France, Belgium, Africa,
the Balkans. And to-morrow, when the war is ended, who will come
marching home again, old campaigners, war-worn remnants of once mighty
armies? "Kitchener's Mob."
It is not a pleasing name for the greatest volunteer army in the history
of the world; for more than three millions of toughened, disciplined
fighting men, united under one flag, all parts of one magnificent
military organization. And yet Kitchener's own Tommies are responsible
for it, the rank and file, with their inherent love of ridicule even at
their own expense, and their intense dislike of "swank." They fastened
the name upon themselves, lest the world at large should think they
regarded themselves too highly. There it hangs. There it will hang for
all time.
It was on the 18th of August, 1914, that the mob spirit gained its
mastery over me. After three weeks of solitary tramping in the mountains
of North Wales, I walked suddenly into news of the great war, and went
at once to London, with a longing for home which seemed strong enough to
carry me through the week of idleness until my boat should sail. But, in
a spirit of adventure, I suppose, I tempted myself with the possibility
of assuming the increasingly popular _alias_, Atkins. On two successive
mornings I joined the long line of prospective recruits before the
offices at Great Scotland Yard, withdrawing each time, after moving
a convenient distance toward the desk of the recruiting sergeant.
Disregarding the proven fatality of third times, I joined it on another
morning, dangerously near to the head of the procession.
"Now, then, you! Step along!"
There is something compelling about a military command, given by a
military officer accustomed to being obeyed. While the doctors were
thumping me, measuring me, and making an inventory of "physical
peculiarities, if any," I tried to analyze my unhesitating, almost
instinctive reaction to that stern, confident "Step along!" Was it an
act of weakness, a want of character, evidenced by my inability to say
no? Or was it the blood of military forebears asserting itself after
many years of inanition? The latter conclusion being the more pleasing,
I decided that I was the grandson of my Civil War grandfather, and the
worthy descendant of stalwart warriors of a yet earlier period.
I was frank with the recruiting officers. I admitted, rather boasted, of
my American citizenship, but expressed my entire willingness to serve in
the British army in case this should not expatriate me. I had, in fact,
delayed, hoping that an American legion would be formed in London as had
been done in Paris. The announcement was received with some surprise. A
brief conference was held, during which there was much vigorous shaking
of heads. While I awaited the decision I thought of the steamship ticket
in my pocket. I remembered that my boat was to sail on Friday. I thought
of my plans for the future and anticipated the joy of an early
home-coming. Set against this was the prospect of an indefinite period
of soldiering among strangers. "Three years or the duration of the war"
were the terms of the enlistment contract. I had visions of bloody
engagements, of feverish nights in hospital, of endless years in a home
for disabled soldiers. The conference was over, and the recruiting
officer returned to his desk, smiling broadly.
"We'll take you, my lad, if you want to join. You'll just say you are an
Englishman, won't you, as a matter of formality?" Here was an avenue of
escape, beckoning me like an alluring country road winding over the
hills of home. I refused it with the same instinctive swiftness of
decision that had brought me to the medical inspection room. And a few
moments later, I took "the King's shilling," and promised, upon my oath
as a loyal British subject, to bear true allegiance to the Union Jack.
During the completion of other, less important formalities, I was taken
in charge by a sergeant who might have stepped out of any of the
"Barrack-Room Ballads." He was true to type to the last twist in
the _s_ of Atkins. He told me of service in India, Egypt, South
Africa. He showed me both scars and medals with that air of
"Now-I-would-n't-do-this-for-any-one-but-you" which is so flattering to
the novice. He gave me advice as to my best method of procedure when I
should go to Hounslow Barracks to join my unit.
"'An 'ere! Wotever you do an' wotever you s'y, don't forget to myke the
lads think you're an out-an'-outer, if you understand my meaning,--a
Britisher, you know. They'll tyke to you. Strike me blind! Be free an'
easy with 'em,--no swank, mind you!--an' they'll be downright pals with
you. You're different, you know. But don't put on no airs. Wot I mean
is, don't let 'em think that you think you're different. See wot I
mean?"
I said that I did.
"An' another thing; talk like 'em."
I confessed that this might prove to be rather a large contract.
"'Ard? S'y! 'Ere! If I 'ad you fer a d'y, I'd 'ave you talkin' like a
born Lunnoner! All you got to do is forget all them aitches. An' you
don't want to s'y 'can't,' like that. S'y 'cawrn't.'"
I said it.
"Now s'y, 'Gor blimy, 'Arry, 'ow's the missus?'"
I did.
"That's right! Oh, you'll soon get the swing of it."
There was much more instruction of the same nature. By the time I was
ready to leave the recruiting offices I felt that I had made great
progress in the vernacular. I said good-bye to the sergeant warmly. As I
was about to leave he made the most peculiar and amusing gesture of a
man drinking.
"A pint o' mild an' bitter," he said confidentially. "The boys always
gives me the price of a pint."
"Right you are, sergeant!" I used the expression like a born Englishman.
And with the liberality of a true soldier, I gave him my shilling, my
first day's wage as a British fighting man.
The remainder of the week I spent mingling with the crowds of enlisted
men at the Horse Guards Parade, watching the bulletin boards for the
appearance of my name which would mean that I was to report at the
regimental depot at Hounslow. My first impression of the men with whom I
was to live for three years, or the duration of the war, was anything
but favorable. The newspapers had been asserting that the new army was
being recruited from the flower of England's young manhood. The throng
at the Horse Guards Parade resembled an army of the unemployed, and I
thought it likely that most of them were misfits, out-of-works, the kind
of men who join the army because they can do nothing else. There were,
in fact, a good many of these. I soon learned, however, that the general
out-at-elbows appearance was due to another cause. A genial Cockney gave
me the hint.
"'Ave you joined up, matey?" he asked.
I told him that I had.
"Well, 'ere's a friendly tip for you. Don't wear them good clo'es w'en
you goes to the depot. You won't see 'em again likely, an' if you gets
through the war you might be a-wantin' of 'em. Wear the worst rags you
got."
I profited by the advice, and when I fell in, with the other recruits
for the Royal Fusiliers, I felt much more at my ease.
CHAPTER II
ROOKIES
"A mob" is genuinely descriptive of the array of would-be soldiers which
crowded the long parade-ground at Hounslow Barracks during that memorable
last week in August. We herded together like so many sheep. We had lost
our individuality, and it was to be months before we regained it in a new
aspect, a collective individuality of which we became increasingly proud.
We squeak-squawked across the barrack square in boots which felt large
enough for an entire family of feet. Our khaki service dress uniforms
were strange and uncomfortable. Our hands hung limply along the seams of
our pocketless trousers. Having no place in which to conceal them, and
nothing for them to do, we tried to ignore them. Many a Tommy, in a
moment of forgetfulness, would make a dive for the friendly pockets which
were no longer there. The look of sheepish disappointment, as his hands
slid limply down his trouser-legs, was most comical to see. Before many
days we learned the uses to which soldiers' hands are put. But for the
moment they seemed absurdly unnecessary.
We must have been unpromising material from the military point of view.
That was evidently the opinion of my own platoon sergeant. I remember,
word for word, his address of welcome, one of soldier-like brevity and
pointedness, delivered while we stood awkwardly at attention on the
barrack square.
"Lissen 'ere, you men! I've never saw such a raw, roun'-shouldered
batch o' rookies in fifteen years' service. Yer pasty-faced an' yer
thin-chested. Gawd 'elp 'Is Majesty if it ever lays with you to save
'im! 'Owever, we're 'ere to do wot we can with wot we got. Now, then,
upon the command, 'Form Fours,' I wanna see the even numbers tyke a pace
to the rear with the left foot, an' one to the right with the right
foot. Like so: 'One-one-two!' Platoon! Form Fours! Oh! Orful! Orful! As
y' were! As y' were!"
If there was doubt in the minds of any of us as to our rawness, it was
quickly dispelled by our platoon sergeants, regulars of long standing,
who had been left in England to assist in whipping the new armies into
shape. Naturally, they were disgruntled at this, and we offered them
such splendid opportunities for working off overcharges of spleen. We
had come to Hounslow, believing that, within a few weeks' time, we
should be fighting in France, side by side with the men of the first
British expeditionary force. Lord Kitchener had said that six months of
training, at the least, was essential. This statement we regarded as
intentionally misleading. Lord Kitchener was too shrewd a soldier to
announce his plans; but England needed men badly, immediately. After a
week of training, we should be proficient in the use of our rifles. In
addition to this, all that was needed was the ability to form fours and
march, in column of route, to the station where we should entrain for
Folkestone or Southampton, and France.
As soon as the battalion was up to strength, we were given a day of
preliminary drill before proceeding to our future training area in
Essex. It was a disillusioning experience. Equally disappointing was the
undignified display of our little skill, at Charing Cross Station, where
we performed before a large and amused London audience. For my own part,
I could scarcely wait until we were safely hidden within the train.
During the journey to Colchester, a re-enlisted Boer War veteran, from
the inaccessible heights of South African experience, enfiladed us with
a fire of sarcastic comment.
"I'm a-go'n' to transfer out o' this 'ere mob, that's wot I'm a go'n' to
do! Soldiers! S'y! I'll bet a quid they ain't a one of you ever saw a
rifle before! Soldiers? Strike me pink! Wot's Lord Kitchener a-doin' of,
that's wot I want to know!"
The rest of us smoked in wrathful silence, until one of the boys
demonstrated to the Boer War veteran that he knew, at least, how to use
his fists. There was some bloodshed, followed by reluctant apologies on
the part of the Boer warrior. It was one of innumerable differences of
opinion which I witnessed during the months that followed. And most of
them were settled in the same decisive way.
Although mine was a London regiment, we had men in the ranks from all
parts of the United Kingdom. There were North-Countrymen, a few Welsh,
Scotch, and Irish, men from the Midlands and from the south of England.
But for the most part we were Cockneys, born within the sound of Bow
Bells. I had planned to follow the friendly advice of the recruiting
sergeant. "Talk like 'em," he had said. Therefore, I struggled bravely
with the peculiarities of the Cockney twang, recklessly dropped aitches
when I should have kept them, and prefixed them indiscriminately before
every convenient aspirate. But all my efforts were useless. The
imposition was apparent to my fellow Tommies immediately. I had only to
begin speaking, within the hearing of a genuine Cockney, when he would
say, "'Ello! w'ere do you come from? The Stites?" or, "I'll bet a tanner
you're a Yank!" I decided to make a confession, and I have been glad,
ever since, that I did. The boys gave me a warm and hearty welcome when
they learned that I was a sure-enough American. They called me "Jamie
the Yank." I was a piece of tangible evidence of the bond of sympathy
existing between the two great English-speaking nations. I told them of
the many Americans of German extraction, whose sympathies were honestly
and sincerely on the other side. But they would not have it so. I was
the personal representative of the American people. My presence in the
British army was proof positive of this.
Being an American, it was very hard, at first, to understand the class
distinctions of British army life. And having understood them, it was
more difficult yet to endure them. I learned that a ranker, or private
soldier, is a socially inferior being from the officer's point of view.
The officer class and the ranker class are east and west, and never
the twain shall meet, except in their respective places upon the
parade-ground. This does not hold good, to the same extent, upon active
service. Hardships and dangers, shared in common, tend to break down
artificial barriers. But even then, although there was good-will and
friendliness between officers and men, I saw nothing of genuine
comradeship. This seemed to me a great pity. It was a loss for the
officers fully as much as it was for the men.
I had to accept, for convenience sake, the fact of my social inferiority.
Centuries of army tradition demanded it; and I discovered that it is
absolutely futile for one inconsequential American to rebel against the
unshakable fortress of English tradition. Nearly all of my comrades were
used to clear-cut class distinctions in civilian life. It made little
difference to them that some of our officers were recruits as raw as were
we ourselves. They had money enough and education enough and influence
enough to secure the king's commission; and that fact was proof enough
for Tommy that they were gentlemen, and, therefore, too good for the
likes of him to be associating with.
"Look 'ere! Ain't a gentleman a gentleman? I'm arskin' you, ain't 'e?"
I saw the futility of discussing this question with Tommy. And later, I
realized how important for British army discipline such distinctions
are.
So great is the force of prevailing opinion that I sometimes found
myself accepting Tommy's point of view. I wondered if I was, for some
eugenic reason, the inferior of these men whom I had to "Sir" and salute
whenever I dared speak. Such lapses were only occasional. But I
understood, for the first time, how important a part circumstance and
environment play in shaping one's mental attitude. How I longed, at
times, to chat with colonels and to joke with captains on terms of
equality! Whenever I confided these aspirations to Tommy he gazed at me
in awe.
"Don't be a bloomin' ijut! They could jolly well 'ang you fer that!"
CHAPTER III
THE MOB IN TRAINING
The Nth Service Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, on the march was a sight not
easily to be forgotten. To the inhabitants of Colchester, Folkestone,
Shorncliffe, Aldershot, and other towns and villages throughout the
south of England, we were well known. We displayed ourselves with what
must have seemed to them a shameless disregard for appearances. Our
approach was announced by a discordant tumult of fifes and drums, for
our band, of which later, we became justly proud, was a newly fledged
and still imperfect organization. Windows were flung up and doors thrown
open along our line of march; but alas, we were greeted with no welcome
glances of kindly approval, no waving of handkerchiefs, no clapping of
hands. Nursemaids, who are said to have a nice and discriminating eye
for soldiery, gazed in amused and contemptuous silence as we passed.
Children looked at us in wide-eyed wonder. Only the dumb beasts were
demonstrative, and they in a manner which was not at all to our liking.
Dogs barked, and sedate old family horses, which would stand placidly at
the curbing while fire engines thundered past with bells clanging and
sirens shrieking, pricked up their ears at our approach, and, after one
startled glance, galloped madly away and disappeared in clouds of dust
far in the distance.
We knew why the nursemaids were cool, and why family horses developed
hysteria with such startling suddenness. But in our pride we did not see
that which we did not wish to see. Therefore we marched, or, to be more
truthful, shambled on, shouting lusty choruses with an air of boisterous
gayety which was anything but genuine.
"You do as I do and you'll do right,
Fall in and follow me!"
was a favorite with number 12 platoon. Their enthusiasm might have carried
conviction had it not been for their personal appearance, which certainly
did not. Number 15 platoon would strive manfully for a hearing with
"Steadily, shoulder to shoulder,
Steadily, blade by blade;
Marching along,
Sturdy and strong,
Like the boys of the old brigade."
As a strictly accurate historian I must confess that none of these
assertions were quite true. We marched neither steadily, nor shoulder to
shoulder, nor blade by blade. We straggled all over the road, and kept
step only when the sergeant major doubled forward, warning us, with
threats of extra drills, to keep in our fours or to "pick it up!" In
fact, "the boys of the old brigade," whoever they may have been, would
have scornfully repudiated the suggestion that we resembled them in any
respect.
They would have been justified in doing so had any of them seen us at the
end of six weeks of training. For, however reluctantly, we were forced to
admit that Sergeant Harris was right when he called us "a raw batch o'
rookies." Unpromising we were not. There was good stuff in the ranks, the
material from which real soldiers are made, and were made; but it had not
yet been rounded into shape. We were still nothing more than a
homogeneous assembly of individuals.
We declined to accept the responsibility for the seeming slowness of our
progress. We threw it unhesitatingly upon the War Office, which had not
equipped us in a manner befitting our new station in life. Although we
were recruited immediately after the outbreak of war, less than half of
our number had been provided with uniforms. Many still wore their old
civilian clothing. Others were dressed in canvas fatigue suits, or the
worn-out uniforms of policemen and tramcar conductors. Every old-clothes
shop on Petticoat Lane must have contributed its allotment of cast-off
apparel.
Our arms and equipment were of an equally nondescript character. We might
easily have been mistaken for a mob of vagrants which had pillaged a
seventeenth-century arsenal. With a few slight changes in costuming for
the sake of historical fidelity, we would have served as a citizen army
for a realistic motion-picture drama depicting an episode in the French
Revolution.
We derived what comfort we could from the knowledge that we were but one
of many battalions of Kitchener's first hundred thousand equipped in this
same makeshift fashion. We did not need the repeated assurances of cabinet
ministers that England was not prepared for war. We were in a position to
know that she was not. Otherwise, there had been an unpardonable lack of
foresight in high places. Supplies came in driblets. Each night, when
parades for the day were over, there was a rush for the orderly room
bulletin board, which was scanned eagerly for news of an early issue of
clothing. As likely as not we were disappointed, but occasionally jaded
hopes revived.
"Number 15 platoon will parade at 4 P.M. on Thursday, the 24th,
for boots, puttees, braces, and service dress caps."
Number 15 is our platoon. Promptly at the hour set we halt and right-turn
in front of the Quartermaster Stores marquee. The quartermaster is there
with pencil and notebook, and immediately takes charge of the
proceedings.
"All men needing boots, one pace step forward, March!"
The platoon, sixty-five strong, steps forward as one man.
"All men needing braces, one pace step back, March!"
Again we move as a unit. The quartermaster hesitates for a moment; but he
is a resourceful man and has been through this many times before. We all
need boots, quite right! But the question is, Who need them most?
Undoubtedly those whose feet are most in evidence through worn soles and
tattered uppers. Adopting this sight test, he eliminates more than half
the platoon, whereupon, by a further process of elimination, due to the
fact that he has only sizes 7 and 8, he selects the fortunate twelve who
are to walk dry shod.
The same method of procedure is carried out in selecting the braces.
Private Reynolds, whose trousers are held in place by a wonderful
mechanism composed of shoe-laces and bits of string, receives a pair;
likewise, Private Stenebras, who, with the aid of safety pins, has
fashioned coat and trousers into an ingenious one-piece garment. Caps and
puttees are distributed with like impartiality, and we dismiss, the
unfortunate ones growling and grumbling in discreet undertones until the
platoon commander is out of hearing, whereupon the murmurs of discontent
become loudly articulate.
"Kitchener's Rag-Time Army I calls it!" growls the veteran of South
African fame. "Ain't we a 'andsome lot o' pozzie wallopers? Service? We
ain't never a-go'n' to see service! You blokes won't, but watch me! I'm
a-go'n' to grease off out o' this mob!"
No one remonstrated with this deservedly unpopular reservist when he
grumbled about the shortage of supplies. He voiced the general sentiment.
We all felt that we would like to "grease off" out of it. Our deficiencies
in clothing and equipment were met by the Government with what seemed to
us amazing slowness. However, Tommy is a sensible man. He realized that
England had a big contract to fulfill, and that the first duty was to
provide for the armies in the field. France, Russia, Belgium, all were
looking to England for supplies. Kitchener's Mob must wait, trusting to
the genius for organization, the faculty for getting things done, of its
great and worthy chief, K. of K.