However, officers are considerate, and the
work is made as light as possible. The faint-hearted report themselves
sick; but the Medical Officer, an unsentimental man of coarse mental
fibre, who was on a panel before he heard his country calling, merely
recommends them to get well as soon as possible, as they are going to
be inoculated for enteric next week. So we grouse--and bear it.
There are other rifts within the military lute. At home we are persons
of some consequence, with very definite notions about the dignity of
labour. We have employers who tremble at our frown; we have Trades
Union officials who are at constant pains to impress upon us our own
omnipotence in the industrial world in which we live. We have at our
beck and call a Radical M.P. who, in return for our vote and suffrage,
informs us that we are the backbone of the nation, and that we must
on no account permit ourselves to be trampled upon by the effete
and tyrannical upper classes. Finally, we are Scotsmen, with all a
Scotsman's curious reserve and contempt for social airs and graces.
But in the Army we appear to be nobody. We are expected to stand
stiffly at attention when addressed by an officer; even to call him
"sir"--an honour to which our previous employer has been a stranger.
At home, if we happened to meet the head of the firm in the street,
and none of our colleagues was looking, we touched a cap, furtively.
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