The popular conception of active service is of a succession of encounters with the enemy. Desperate deeds of valour, brilliant charges by bodies of troops, men saving other men under fire, the storming of positions, and the flush of victory after strenuous action enter largely into the civilian conception of war.

The reality is a sombre business of marching and watching, nights without sleep and days without food; retracing one’s steps in order to execute the plan of the brain to which a man is but one effective rifle out of many thousands, marching for days and days, seeing nothing more exciting than a burnt-out house and the marching men on either side and to front and rear—and then the contact with the enemy. A vicious crack from somewhere, or the solid boom of a piece of artillery; somewhere away to the front or flank is the enemy, and his pieces do damage in the ranks; there is a searching for cover, some orders are given, perhaps a comrade lies utterly still, and one knows that that man will not move any more; there is a desperate sense of ineffectiveness, of anger at this cowardly (as it seems) trick of hitting when one cannot hit back. There is the satisfaction of getting the range and firing, with results that may be guessed but cannot be known accurately by the man who fires; there is the curious thrill that comes when an angrily singing bullet passes near, and one realises that one is under fire from the enemy. In a normal action, there is the sense of disaster, even of defeat when one’s side may in reality be winning, for one sees men dying, wounded, lying dead—one knows the damage the enemy has inflicted, but has no idea of the damage ones own force has inflicted in return. Often, when it begins to be apparent that the enemy is nearly beaten, there comes the order to retire; one does not understand the order, but, with a sullen sense of resentment at it, retires, ducking at the whizzing of a shell, though not all the ducking in the world would avail if the shell were truly aimed at the one who ducks, or starting back to avoid a bullet that whizzed by—as if by starting back one could get out of the way of a bullet!

After a day of action, or after the chance has come to rest for a while after days of action, one gets a sense of the horror of the whole business—the tragedy of lives laid down, in a good cause certainly, but the men are dead, and one questions almost with despair if it is worth while. So many good men with whom one has joked and worked and played in time of peace have gone under—and there are probably more battles yet to fight. It is not until a war has concluded, and men who have served are able to get some idea of the operations as a whole, that they are able to understand what has been done and why it has been done. Men who came back wounded from Mons and Charleroi, away from the magnificent three weeks’ retreat that was then in progress for the British and French armies, were, in many cases, fully convinced that they had been defeated—that their armies were beaten, and had to retreat to save themselves from destruction. The man in the ranks cannot understand the plan of the staff who control him, for he sees so very little of the whole; at the most, he knows what is happening to a division of men, while engaged in the retreat to the position of the Marne were, at the least, twenty divisions on the side of the Allies. Had one of these been utterly shattered in a set battle, the other nineteen might still have won a decisive victory, and, if news of that victory had not come through for a day or two, the survivors from the shattered division would have spread tidings of a defeat—which it would have been, to them. The man in the ranks sees so little of the whole.

Here the war correspondent makes the most egregious mistakes, for, untrained in military service himself, he takes the word of the man in the ranks—the man on the staff of army headquarters is far too busy and far too discreet to talk to war correspondents—and out of what the man in the ranks has to say the war correspondent makes up his story. Though the man in the ranks may believe his own story to be true, though he may tell of the operations as he conceives them, he may be giving an utterly false impression of what is actually happening. The man in the ranks is one cog in a machine, and he cannot tell what all the machine is doing at any time, least of all when a battle is in progress.

Every battle fought differs from all other battles, for no opposing forces ever meet under precisely identical conditions twice. Thus it is useless to speak of a typical battle except in the broadest general sense, and useless to attempt to describe a typical battle, or action of any kind. Usually, the artillery get into action after cavalry have reconnoitred the enemy’s position; the guns shell the enemy until he is considered sufficiently weakened to permit of infantry attack, and then the infantry go forward, even up to the rarely occurring bayonet charge. If their advance dislodges the enemy, the cavalry are set on to turn retreat into rout; if, on the other hand, the attacking force is compelled to retire, the cavalry cover the retreat, and, in order to make good in a retreat, a part of a force is taken back while the remainder hold the enemy in check. In modern actions, artillery fire their shells over the heads of their own infantry at the enemy, distance and trajectory permitting of this. By trajectory is meant the curve that a projectile describes in its flight; both rifles and big guns are so constructed and sighted that they throw their projectiles upward to counteract the pull of gravity, and the missile eventually drops down toward its object—it does not travel in a perfectly straight line. But it is bad for infantry to be in front of their own guns, with their own artillery shells passing over them, for too long—morale suffers from this after a time, since a man cannot distinguish in such a case between his own artillery’s shells and those of the enemy. Whenever possible, the artillery in rear of an infantry force are posted slightly to either flank; circumstances, however, do not always admit of this.

On mobilisation for active service, the first thing that happens in the British Army is the calling up of the reserves. All men enlist, in the first case, for a certain number of years with the colours and a further period “on the reserve.” In this latter force, they are free to follow any civilian avocation, but on mobilisation must immediately report themselves at headquarters—wherever their headquarters may be—and take the place appointed to them in the mobilised army. Then comes the business of drawing war kit and equipment from stores. As a battleship clears for action, so the Army rids itself for the time of all things not absolutely necessary on active service, exchanges blank ammunition for ball, sharpens swords and bayonets, and in every way prepares for stern business. Each man is issued with a little aluminium plate which he is compelled to wear, and on which are inscribed such particulars as his name, regimental number, unit, etc., so that in case of his being killed on the field he can be identified and the news of his death transmitted to his next of kin. Each man, too, is issued with an “emergency ration,” which is a compressed supply of food amply sufficient for one day’s meals, so that in any tight corner, where provisions are not obtainable, he may be able to hold out for at least one day without being reduced to starvation. The opening and use of this ration, except by permission of an officer, counts as a crime in the Army, unless a man is placed in such a position that no officer is at hand to sanction the opening of the package, when the matter is perforce left to the man’s discretion.

Marching on service is a different matter from marching in time of peace. Not only is there the strain of ever-possible attack, but there is also, for cavalry and infantry, the weight of service armament and equipment to be considered. Every man carries in his bandoliers 150 rounds of ammunition for his rifle—not a bit too much, when the rate of fire possible with the modern rifle is taken into account. But 150 rounds of ball cartridge is a serious matter when one has to carry it throughout the day, and, when active service opens, it is easy to understand why only really fit men are passed by doctors into the Army. So far as the rank and file are concerned, it is power to endure that makes the soldier on active service; bravery is needed, initiative is needed, but staying power is needed most of all.

There may be days of solid marching without a sight of the enemy. One may form part of a flanking force whose business is to march from point to point, fighting but seldom, but always presenting a threat to the enemy or his lines of communication, and thus ever on the move, with very little time for sleep or eating; again, one may be placed with a force which has to march half a day to come in contact with the enemy, and to fight the other half of the day; or yet again, it may be necessary to march all night in order to take a position—or be shot in the attempt—at dawn. In time of peace and on manoeuvres, officers take care that compensating time is allowed to men, so as to give them the normal amount of rest; on active service, the officer commanding a force spares his men as much as he can, and gives them all the rest possible, but he has to be guided by circumstances, or to rise superior to circumstances and cause himself and his men to undergo far more than normal exertions. War, as carried out to-day, requires all that every man has to give in the way of staying power, and now, as in the days of the battle-axe and long-bow, physical endurance is the greatest asset a man can have on active service. The hard drinker in time of peace and the man who has been looking for “soft jobs” all the time of his peace service soon “go sick” and become ineffective; they may be just as brave as the rest, but they lack the staying power requisite to the carrying on of war.

Men’s impressions of being under fire vary so much that every account is of interest. “My principal impression was that I’d like to run away, but there was nowhere to run to, so I stuck on, and got used to it after a bit.” “I felt cold, and horribly thirsty—I never thought to be afraid till afterwards.” “It was interesting, till I saw the man next to me rolled over with a bullet in his head, and then I wanted to get up and go for the devils who had done that.” Thus spoke three men when asked how they felt about it. My own impression was chiefly a fear that I was going to be afraid—I did not want to disgrace myself, but to be as good as the rest.

One man, who came back wounded after the day of Mons, described how he felt at first shooting a man and knowing that his bullet had taken effect—for in the majority of cases, with a whole body of men firing, it is difficult to tell which of the bullets take effect. This, however, was a clear case, and the man could not but know that he was responsible for the shot.

“I had four men with me on rear-guard,” he said, “and we were holding the end of a village street to let our chaps get away as far as possible before we mounted and caught up with them. We could see German infantry coming on, masses of them, but they couldn’t tell whether the village street held five men or a couple of squadrons, so they held back a bit. At last I could see we were in danger of being outflanked, so I got my men to get mounted, and just as they were doing so a German officer put his head round the corner of the house at the end of the street—not ten yards away from me. I raised my rifle, shut both eyes, and pulled the trigger—it was point-blank range, and when I opened my eyes and looked it seemed as if I’d blown half his face away. I felt scared at what I had done—it seemed wrong to have shot a man like that, though he and his kind drive women and children in front of their firing lines. It seemed to make such a horrible mess, somehow. I got mounted, and just as I swung my leg over the horse, a fool of a German infantryman aimed a blow at me with the butt end of his rifle—I don’t know where he sprung from—and damaged my arm like this. If he’d had the sense he could have run me through with a bayonet or shot me, but I suppose he was too flurried. But that officer’s face after I’d shot him stuck to me, and I still dream of it, and shall for some time, probably.” He who told this story is a boy of twenty-two or three, and he has gone back to the front to rejoin his regiment, now—with three stripes on his arm, instead of the two that were his at the beginning of the campaign.

On forced marches, and often on normal marches as well, all the things that one considers necessities—with the exception of sufficient food to keep one in condition—go by the board. One sleeps under the stars, with no other covering than a coat and blanket; one lies out to sleep in pouring rain, with no more covering; tents are out of the question, for there is no time to pitch and strike them. One goes for days without a wash, and for days, too, without undressing. There were two scamps in the South African campaign who promised each other, for some mysterious reason, that they would not take their boots off for a month, and they ran into such a series of marches and actions that, even if they had not made the compact, they would only have been able to remove their boots three times in the course of that month. The smart soldier of peace service goes unshaven, unwashed, careless of all except getting enough of food and sleep at times; and when a lull comes in the operations, so that he gets a day or even an hour or two to himself, a bath is a luxury undreamed of by the man who can have one every morning and consider it a mere usual thing.

If in time of peace the soldier considers a rifle carelessly, and even resents having to carry it about with him, he looks on it differently on service, knowing as he does that his life may depend on the quality of the weapon and his ability to use it at almost any minute of the day or night. The confirmed “grouser” of peace time, who will make a fuss over having to put twenty rounds of blank ammunition in his bandolier to go out on a field-day, will swing his three bandoliers of ball cartridges on to his person without a word of complaint, for he knows that he may need every round. Values alter amazingly on service; the man with a box of matches, when one has been away from the base for a few days, is a person of importance, and a mere cigarette is worth far more than its weight in gold. In General Rundle’s column during the South African war, half a biscuit was something to fight for, and the men who thought it such had many a time thrown away the same sort of unpalatable biscuits and bought bread to eat instead. An ant-heap acquired a new significance, for it might be the means of saving a man’s life at any time, and among mounted men a “fresh” horse, which might give its rider some trouble at the time of mounting, was no longer to be avoided, for by its freshness it showed that it had plenty of spirit and go about it, spirit that might take a man out of rifle range at a critical moment, when the slower class of mount might come out of action without its rider.

This reversal of the circumstances of ordinary life produces lasting effect on men; no man who has undergone the realities of active service comes back to the average of life unchanged. The difference in him may not be apparent at a casual glance, but it is there, for the rest of his life. He has looked on death at close quarters, and, whatever his intelligence may be—whether he be gutter-snipe or ’Varsity man, sage or fool—he has a clearer realisation of the ultimate values of things. One may count the Army in peace time as a great training school out of which men come moulded to a definite pattern, and yet retaining their individuality. But active service is a fire through which men pass, emerging on the far side purified of little aims to a greater or less extent, according to the material on which the fire has to work. For many—all honour to them and to those who mourn their loss—it is a destroying fire.

So far as the limits of space will permit, there is set down in these pages a record of what military service amounts to for the rank and file, in peace and war. It is necessarily incomplete, for the story of the British Army of to-day, apart from its history of great yesterdays, is not to be told in any one book—there is too much of it for that. There are those who belittle the Army and its ways and influence on the men who serve, but one who has served, with the perspective of time to give him clearness of vision, can always look back on the Army and be glad that he has learned its lessons, accomplished its tasks; the men who would belittle it are themselves very little men, too little to be worthy of serious notice. The British Army is a gathering of brave men, fighting in this year of grace 1914 in a noble cause, and fighting, as the British Army has always fought, bravely and well.

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH