SOLDIERS' TALES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 29, 3 February 1916, Page 8

SOLDIERS' TALES.

NOT FROM THE FRONT. WAR OFFICE ECONOMY. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, December 17. 1 heard a tale the other day which will bear re-telling in these days when our "pastors and masters" and others —usually people who have a notion that it is easy to be "passing rich on forty pounds a year," but have never had to try to live on less than fifty or sixty, or maybe a hundred times that amount —who are wont to spend their leisure in sermonising their poor brethren in the virtue of economy. It appears that at a certain camp of armed men "somewhere" in the North Eastern military area, a motor trolley "ran amok," and incidentally brought to grief a big tent. The fabric of the tent was torn in a few places, but the principal damage resulting from the trolley's elephantine gambols was the destruction of about a score of tent pegs. A non-com., who was also a handy man, repaired the canvas, and asked the officer commanding to give him authority to buy pegs to replace those destroyed by the trolley. But the ofTcer commanding knew his business, nnd knew what might happen if he permitted a hairs-breadth departure from War Office routine. So he decreed that a report of the mishap must be furnished to the Low Highest Muck-a-Muck at Whitehall, with a request for a new supply of pegs. Done, ln the course of a few days information was received at the camp to the effect that the report had been read, and would be attended to in due course, or words to that effect. In "due course"—that is to some unspecified number of days later —a further communication from the War Office reached the camp. Therein it was explained that loose pegs could not be sent, as they were only supplied with new tents, but a new tent would be sent, value £150. with the usual quantity of pops. The new tent and the pegs duly arrived, and the old tent was gravely returned to the department responsible for the safe-keeping of such things. Thus did Red Tape achieve another triumph at the expense of the bloated British taxpayer, and leave him speechless with admiration —or something else —at the economical tactics of Whitehall. A SORT OF "SET OFF." By way of a sort of "set off" to this story, one may tell another which rebounds to the credit of a Government department—not, however, the War OHicc. Somewhere in the area of the Eastern Counties a certain official with an unofficial turn of mind in charge of a big building devoted to wounded oversea soldiers discovered that the beds supplied to his patients were of an ancient and most . unsympathetic pattern, being chiefly "composed of two planks and a straw mattress. He also found that the Huns in a certain internment camp not far away were supplied with tlie latest pattern iron beds, with wive springs and good mattresses. Having got into his head the strange notion that Tommy Atkins from overseas should come first in the matter of bedding and the interned Hun second, be conceived the idea of getting the internment camp beds transferred to the hospital, and substituting for them the hospital beds. So he wrote to the Home Office suggesting that the exchange would be much approbated by the soldiers, if not by tho Huns. It so happened that the letter containing his audacious proposition fell into the hands of an official who had not only the power to authorise the exchange of beds, but—the days of miracles are still with us—actually saw eye to eye with the officer, and sent him the requisite authority to carry out his scheme for making the oversea soldier more comfortable at the expense of the j Hun! His misfortune leaves one quite icold. as the saying goes, but one's heart warms towards that hospital officer ami towards the Home Office authority who enabled him to give effect to bis intelligence ami his sympathy with his oversea charges.