STORIES OF CAMP AND RECRUIT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7889, 19 December 1903, Page 4

STORIES OF CAMP AND RECRUIT.

* SOME LOCiIL ANECDOTES. (Specially compiled for the "Star.") It is the usual story of the pertinent recruit, and at is told of a local corps re. contly in training camp. The commander of the company, unofficially doing rounds with the officer of the da-y, thought to improve the shining hour one night by conducting a little viva voce examination, and asked of a picket : " What are you doing here?" "You ought to know," tame the unconventional and somewhat aggrieved reply, "You sent me here, didn't you?" On a par with tne foregoing Is the simple reply of a "recruity wnen 'asked the text-book question "What are you?" The answer should, of course, have been | " Sentry," but the volunteer, still oppressed with the strangeness of his attire, bashfully replied, " Please eir, I'm a recruit." A good deal more emphatic' was the method bi address adopted by anotheu recruit of a company recently in training here. A number of men were doing outpost duty on a hill, with numerous officers and non-coms watching operations. " Look at that man advancing upon you," said on© of the lutter to a recruit near him', " What are you going to do<?" The 'picket was profoundly ignorant. " Don't let him through j your- linee, nvan! Stop (foiml" Thuß i objurgated, the volunteer ransacked his brain for the formula and shouted it to the advancing stranger, who, however, obliviously inarched on. " Well," the irascible sergeant shouted, "What now z what now? You " (various things). " Halt ." yelled the now thoroughly flurried and exI asperated recruit, " Halt, or I'll well j shoot you." j As an instance of the think-for-yourself | methods which gained our men such approbation in the South African. War the ■ following story is hard to beat, and it also has the merit of having happened under : our noses, as it were, while our volunteers were in training here. The order had been i given to an outpost to retire with the uti most speed. - A v«ry steep Ihill lay im- : mediately behind and all the picket made the detour, which seemed absolutely necessary . — all except one brilliant 'tactician. ! He. hastily removed one of his leather leg- : gangs, sat on it, and tobogganed tmierrily down the incline, to arrive away ahead of his companions !