Читать книгу The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - Fred W. Ward - Страница 13

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Formed almost as soon as the war broke out in 1914, the First Sportsman's Battalion may have provoked some criticism. It was uncertain at first as to what branch of the service it was to represent. Personally I thought it was to be mounted, and I was not alone in this idea either. More than a few of us got busy at once in settling how, if possible, we could provide our own mounts. That was in the days when we were new to war, long before we began to know what something approaching the real thing was.

Recruiting went on briskly at the Hotel Cecil, London, where Mrs. Cunliffe-Owen and her staff worked hard and late. Lieutenant-Colonel Winter, then Second-Lieutenant Winter, with his ledger-like book and his green-baize-covered table, was a familiar figure. So, too, was the tailor who had been entrusted with the task of fitting us out with our uniforms. He, poor man, was soon in trouble. The stock sizes could be secured, but stock sizes were at a discount with the majority of the men who first joined up. They wanted outside sizes, and very considerable outside sizes, too, for the average height was a little over six feet, and the chest measurements in proportion.

Still, we recognized that these things had to be, and we kept on with a smile and a joke for everything. Perhaps we had a pair of army trousers and a sports-coat. Perhaps we had a pair of puttees, and the rest of the costume was our own. It didn't matter. It was good enough to parade in off the Embankment Gardens. It was good enough to route march in through the London streets. And the traffic was always stopped for us when we came home up the Strand, and proceeded down the steps by the side of "the Coal Hole" to the "dismiss." Rude things might be said to us by the crowd, but there was a warm spot in their hearts for us. We just carried on.

Bit by bit we were provided with our uniforms, and we began to fancy ourselves as the real thing. We began to make new friends, and we were drawn closer to those we knew. We came from all over the world. At the call men had come home from the Far East and the Far West. A man who had gone up the Yukon with Frank Slavin, the boxer; another who had been sealing round Alaska; trappers from the Canadians woods; railway engineers from the Argentine; planters from Ceylon; big-game hunters from Central Africa; others from China, Japan, the Malay States, India, Egypt—these were just a few of the Battalion who were ready and eager to shoulder a rifle, and do their bit as just common or garden Tommies. The thought of taking a commission did not enter our minds at the start. Every man was eager to get on with the work, with but a dim thought of what it was going to be like, but worrying not a bit about the future.

In a few weeks the Battalion had learnt how to form fours, to wheel, and to maintain a uniformity of step. Every man was desperately keen; to be late for parade was a great big sin. And this despite the fact that every man had to come into London from all parts of the suburbs, and farther out than that in many instances, by train (paying his own fare) every morning.

So the time went on. Then came the news that we were to go into camp at the Grey Towers, Hornchurch, Essex, and next came the formation of a fatigue party to go on ahead and get things ready for the reception of the Battalion. There was a rush to get into this party as soon as the news went round. Everyone was eager to do something fresh, and, after all, we didn't know what fatigues were in those days. So the party went on ahead.

We who were left kept on with our drills; we even did physical jerks on the slopes of Savoy Street, Strand. Then came the news that we were to march away. That bucked everybody up tremendously, for, to tell the truth, we were really beginning to get tired of the London life. Some of us, who had seen life in various parts of the world previously, were sighing again for the open air. All of us were thinking it was really time we did something to justify our existence. We did not claim to be show soldiers; we wanted to get at it.

MARCHING AWAY FROM HYDE PARK TO ENTRAIN FOR HORNCHURCH.ToList

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All things come to those who wait, however. We were to move to Hornchurch—the first step to active service. We had our uniforms, we even had white gloves, and at last we fell in, by the Hotel Cecil, with a band at our head, and off we went. Funnily enough, some of us felt this break with London more than we felt anything afterwards. It was really our first introduction to "the Great Unknown."

Had the Guards been marching away they could not have had a greater and a more enthusiastic send-off. The streets of the City were packed; it was a struggle to get through. At Liverpool Street we were reduced to a two-deep formation, and even then it became a case of shouldering your way through those who had gathered to wish us "God speed." But we were entrained at last; we detrained at Romford, and we marched to Hornchurch. We were in the camp.

Our First Surprise.—That's when we had the first surprise sprung upon us, for we learnt that the camp would be our home for a whole solid fourteen days. No one was to be allowed to go into the village; we were to begin our course of instruction in discipline. There were a few heart-burnings, but nothing more. The Battalion played up to its ideal.

We were drilled early and late; we were instructed in the art of guard mounting; we peeled potatoes in the cookhouse; we fetched coal from the quartermaster's stores; we fell in to get our rations from the cookhouse; and last, but not least, we began to grouse. That was our first advance to becoming real soldiers. At least, so the author was told by an old N.C.O. who had marched with Roberts to Kabul, and who was again in the Service, too aged to do more than to instruct, but not too aged to do that well.

Hard work and plain but plentiful food soon made the Battalion as hard as nails, a phrase coined by the London Evening News, and a phrase that stuck. Quite as important, too, was the fact that a member of the "hard as nails" Battalion had to prove he was capable of acting up to it. So it was just a matter of honour that every man should keep off the sick parades, and not come home in the ambulance when a long route march or a field day was indulged in.

This took a bit of doing sometimes, for there was no mercy shown us. We said we wanted the real thing, and, between ourselves, we got it. A march of seven miles to the scene of operations, a hard field day, and a march of seven miles home again, with pack, rifle, and full equipment in other ways, was our lot. We began to recognize that we were really soldiers, and we patted ourselves on the back.

Sport, too, played a very big part in our training. The Army of to-day recognizes the fact that athletics makes and keeps our youngsters fit and well. Our Colonel recognized it from the start, and as we had plenty of material to work upon we went right away with it. We had a "soccer" team, a "rugger" team, and a cricket eleven. The records of the matches we won, and the fact that very few defeats were notched up against us, proves we had a perfect right to style ourselves "the First Sportsman's Battalion, the 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers."