BRITAIN'S NEW ARMY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 50, 27 February 1915, Page 13

BRITAIN'S NEW ARMY.

GUNS AND SUPPLIES. " PARKING" OF BATTERIES. (By KUDYARD KIPLING, in the San s Francisco "Examiner.") When a battery comes into camp it , " parks " all six guns at the appointed . plaur # side by side in one mathematically , straight line, and the accuracy of the j I alignment is, use ceremonial drill with the foot, a fair test of its attainments. j lhe ground was no treat for parking. 1 Specimen trees and draiuage ditclies I had to be avoided and circumvented. The 1 gunners, their reins, like guns, the ground, were equally wet, aud the elob dropped away like grucj from the brake shoes. And they were Londoners — ' . clerks, mechanics, shop assistants, and delivery men—anything and everything you please. But they were all "home, and at home in their saddles and seats. : They said nothing; their officers said : little enough to them. They came in across what had once been turf; wheeled with tight braces;^ ■ halted, unhooked, the wise teams | stumped off to their pickets, and behold, 1 the six gune were left precisely where they should have been left to the fraction of an inch. "Our men have one advantage," said a voice, "As Territorials they were introduced to unmade horses once a ■ year at training. So they've never been accustomed to made horsee." " And what do the horses cay about it all ?" 'I asked, remembering what I had seen on the road in the early da^s. "They said a good deal at first, but • our chaps could make allowances for 'em. They know now." THE SILENT GUNNERS. . Allah never intended gunners to talk. ! His own arm does that for him. The j. batteries off-saddled in silence, , one noticed on all sides little quiet caresses between man and beast —affec- . tionate muzzlings and nose clappings. , Surely the gunner's relation to his i . horse i≤ more intimate even than the cavalryman's; for a lost horse only turns cavaJry into infantry, but trouble '. in a gun team may mean death all | j around. And this is a gunners' war. , l [ The young, wet officers caid so, joy- J . ously, as they passed to and fro pick- , ,! ing up scandal about breast straps and breeching*; examining the collars of ( ammunition waggon teams, and listen- . ing to remarks about shoes. I "Local blacksmiths, assisted by the { battery itself, do the shoeing. There are master smiths and important far-/ [ riers. who have cheerfully thrown up good wages to help the game, and their horses reward them by keeping fit. A| fair proportion of the horses are aged —there was never a "linner yet satisfied with his team or its rat : ore till he had left the,battery—but they do.'j their work as steadfastly and whole- ) hcartedly a s the men. t I am persuaded they also like brine , in society and working out their daily problems of draught and direction. Tl:» English, too, and Londoners particularly, are the kindest ami most reason-' i able of folk with /animals. If it were J not our business strictly to under-ratc j ourselves for the next few years, one ' would say that the territorials' bat- I teries had already done wonders, but . perhaps it is better to let it all go with the grudging admission wrung out : of a wringing wet bombardier: " Well, it , isn't so dam' bad, considering." MISSED HOWITZERS. I left them taking their dinner in mees ) , tins to their tents, with a strenuous j . afternoon's cleaning up ahead of them, j and a detail under orders to take over I , some more horses from the railway «t»- ' , tion. The big park held nearly 3,000 j men. I had seen no more than a few , hundreds, and missed the howitzers' batteries after all. A cock pheasant chaperoned mc down the drive, complaining loudly that where he u*d to walk with his ladies under . the beech trees, some unsporting people had built a miniature landscape, with tiny villages, churches and factories, and , came there daili- to point cannon at it. "Keep away from that place," said I,' "or you -will find yourself in a field kitchen." "Xot mc!" hp crowed. "I'm as eacred' ; as golf courses." There was a little town a couple of miles down the road where one used to lunch in the old days and have the hotel to oneself. Xow there are six everchanging officers in billet there, and the . astonished houses quiver all day to traction engines and high-piled lorries. . A unit of the Army Service Corps and some mechanical transport lived near the station. "Are they easy to find?" I asked of a wandering private with the hands of a sweep and the head of a Christian among the lions. "Well, the A.S.C. are in the territorial drill hall lor one thing: and for another you're likely to hear US! There's some motors come in from Bulford " he snorted and passed on, emelling of petrol. The drill shed was peace and comfort. The A.S.C. were getting ready for pay day, and for a concert that evening. Outside, in the wind and the occasional rain epurts, life was different. The Bulford motors and smother crocks sat on a side road between what had been the local garage and a newly-erected 1 workshop of creaking , scaffold poles and bellying, slatting riok cloths, where a ' forge glowed and general Tepaire were being effected. Beneath the motors men lay on their backs and called their friends to pass them spanners, or for pity's eafce to shove another sack under ' their mud-plastered heads. VOICES IST GEAR-BOXES. 1 A corporal who had been nine years ! a fitter and seven in a city garage briefly 1 outlined the more virulent diseases that • develop in Government-owned Tolling ' stock (I heard quite a lot about Bulford). Hollow voices from below eviscerated gear boxes confirmed him. We withdrew into the shelter of the rick cloth workshop—the corporal, the sergeant who had been a carpenter with • a business of his own, and, incidentally, 1 bad eerved through the Boer war; an--1 other sergeant who was a member of the - Master Builders' Association, and a private who had also been a fitter, chaufI feur, and a. iew other things. The sergeant, who kept a .poultry farm in Surrey, had some duty «leewhere. [ A man at a carpenter's bench was , finishing a epoke for & newly-painted cart. He squinted along it. 1 "That's funny," said the master builder. "Of course, in his own business he'd chuck his job sooner than do woodwork. But it's all irumj."

"What I grudge," a sergeant struck in, "is having to put two and three guinea a week men to loading and unloading beef. That's where a modified conscription for the men that won't roll up'd be useful to us. We want hewere of wood, we do." "I want that file." This was a private in a hurry, come from •beneath an unspeakable Bulford. Someone asKed him musically if he "would tell his wife in the morning who he was with tonight?" "You'll find it in the tool chest," said the eergeant. It was his own tool chest, and a beauty, which he had contributed to the common stock. "And what sort of men have you got in the unit?" I asked. "Every sort you can think of. There isn't a thing 3'ou could not have made here if you'd wanted to. But"—the corporal who had been a. fitter epoke with fervour —"you can't expect us to ■make big ends, can you? That five-ton Bulford lorry out in the wet " "And she isn't the worst," eaid the , master builder. "But it's all part of ; the job. And so funny when you come to think of it. Mc painting carts, and [ certificated plu-mbers loading beef." "What .about the discipline?" I asked. The corporal turned a fitter's eye on , mc. "The mechanism is the discipi line," he said with most profound truth. "Jockin' a eick car on the road ie dis- . cipline, too. What about the discip- . line?" lie turned to the sergeant with the carpenter's cheet. There was one eergeant of regulars, with twenty year's service behind him and a knowledge i of human nature. "You ought to know. You've just been ; made corporal," said the sergeant of ; regulars. ! "Well, there's so much which everybody knows has got to be done that— , that—why, we all turn in and do it," i quoth the corporal. i "Yes, that's just about how the i caee stands," said the sergeant of regu- , lars. "Come and see our stores." They were beautifully arranged in a shed which felt like a monastery after the windy, clashing world without; and the young private who acted as checker —he came from some railway office — had the thin, keen face of the cleric. "We're in billets in the town," eaid the sergeant, who had Ibeen a carpenter. "But Fin a married man. I should not care to have men billeted on Uβ, an' I don't want to inconvenience other people. So I've knocked up a bunk for myself on the premises. It's handier to the stores."

i WARNING NOT NEEDED. c We entered what had been the local ' garage. The mechanical transport were * ,in full possession, tinkering the gizzards "| of more cars. We discussed chewed-up 3 Igears (samples at hand) and the civil population views of. the military. The c corporal told a tale of a clergyman in - a Midland town -.-who, only a year ago, n on the occasion oi" some manoeuvres, n preached a sermon warning his flock to >- guard their -women folk against the eo'ldiers. j "And when you think—when you ; know," said the corporal, "what life in (j those little towne reaHy is," he whistled. "Now come and see us paid in the drill t shed." The first man" I ran across there was c a sergeant who had served in the M.I. in the Picnic we used to call a -war. He had been a private chauffeur some years —long enough to catch the professional 0 look, but was joyously reverting to eern vice type again. The men lined out, were called out, 0 saluted emphatically at the pay table, c and fell back with their emoluments. c They smiled at each other. £ "An' it's all so funny," murmured the master builder in my ear. "About . a 1 quarter—no—lese than a quarter—of what one 'ud be making on one' 6 own." )- UNION KATES? '• "Two ten a week and all found, I was. '- An' only two cars to look after," said a >- voice behind. "An , if I'd been, asked— h only asked to lie down in the mud all '• the afternoon"—the speaker looked at 8 his ten shilling paper note and half a • handful of silver. Someone wanted to know eotto voce if "That -was union n rates," and the grin spread among the •t uniformed experts. "Thank heaven," eaid one of them at '- last. "It's too dark to work on those - -blessed ■Bulfords-any more to-day. Well get ready lor the concert." But it was not too dark half an hour c later for my car to meet a big- lorry i- storming back in the wind and wet from the northern camps. She gave mc Lon--1 don allowance—half an inch between r hub and bub—β-wung her corner like a i Broofcland's belle, changed her gear for r uphill with a sweet click, and charged - away. For aught I knew she was driven by an ex—"Two ten a week and all i found"—or who next month might be "• dodging sfcelis with her and thinking it t all so funny. I Horse, loot, even the guns may aomer times get a little rest, bat so long v t men -eat thrice a day there ie no rest r for the A.S.C, They carry the campaign on their ever-enduring 'backs.

SCARBOROUGH BABY-KELLERS They sailed away from.the Kiel Canal, in the dawn of a winter's day; > They were long and leau, and in between > the sleek destroyers ,lay: I Wrapped round in smoke, thro' the morning fogs, these German battleships ! Made for the town on the English coast lj» with their cannon bared to the lips. Ammunition was - piled around, and the German sailors stood ' Ready to fight with English girle and babes, ' for the English brood ; Were hated more than the French and Rose by the brutal-minded Hub, Who shotted bis suns in Che dawn for Hβ, in the glow of the morning yon. 1 AH at once, ns they left the log, joins ■their thirty knots, I Far on tbe dim. horizon lay the tiniest spot of spots; . They brought the telescopes to bear, and drew a hurried breath. • For the flag on the spot was the- British ; dag, and the spot was a fleet of Death. 5 Never a moment the admiral lost, trat.be , save the order: "Turn And cast the coal on the foresee fires as fast as the coal can burn! Back to tbe Kiel Canal we'll haste, because of the deeds we've done, ' That bring tbe British close on our heela," , > and they lied in the morning son. • Mile on mile they cleft the sea, but the Britishers followed fast, 3 And tbe Lion, their leading battleship, i emitted a hellish blast; f A blast that roared and shook the air, and 1 killed tbe fish in tbe main. And cast the thunderbolts of war with the noise of a hurricane! Down on the stricken Blncher dropped a medley of bursting shells, And she rolled and 6ank, and her ultimate berth only th« mermaid tells. " And as they saw her sink in the blue, the I Germans, one by one, j; Slipped away on a different course to hide t from the winter sun. Bnt what avail was the path they took, for the Lion surged ahead 1 At a greater speed; their guns were smashed 3 and tbe floors were littered with dead; And close behind on the Lion's trail, as l far as the eye could see, L The Tiger and others followed fast in all 3 their mirjesty. I Crash and boom, and boom and crash! —out of their turret-decks The mighty twelve-inch cannon burst, makr tag tbe foemen wrecks; • Riddling them through with flaming shells, i in a whirl of disordered foam; And O, it was a sight to see the Germans make for home! 1 They struggled siowly in at last, bnt then ' it was none too soon— • They had lost a cruiser and battleship, and I the sun of afternoon Gazed down on'their maimed and bleeding 1 men, and the twisted shattered hulls I That only seemed fit refuge now for tbe > rats and the noisy gulls! . But still the German papers print their • titles of fl column long . Of bow the British ships were sank, and the British account is wrong; • Of bow the German fleet returned- "~nnh ha/raed to Kiel that night, " While th<» Kaiser presented the Iron Cross to r" A crews who bad won the fight! —B. L. EIRE, Devonport r *