telegraphists. To the Battalion Orderly Room they went; to the Brigade Headquarters Office; to the Embarcation Office.
Then came a lull, and I thought, after all, I had escaped. I arose happily at 5.30 a.m. I did many various and strenuous fatigues. I swept the barrack floor singing and peeled potatoes with a joyful heart. I polished my equipment incessantly and greased my mess tin with the greatest care. In short, I was rapidly becoming a soldier.
And I obtained leave and went into the town, where I saw much the cheered me while the clerks were at their labours. I read a sign in a restaurant window, "Breakfast, tiffin, tea, dinner and all kinds of perfumery." I saw six coolies running along a main street with a grand piano balanced on their heads. I was very happy while it lasted.
And then the blow fell. We had thought that surely every possible office had been filled with clerks, but we were wrong as usual. As I was going to bed one night there came a peremptory order that I was to be at the Divisional Staff Office, four miles away, sharp at eight o'clock next morning.
In conformity with my instructions I went forth next morning to take up my new and peaceful avocation in full marching order, with rifle, sidearm and twenty rounds of ball ammunition.
Being a soldier clerk in India is very different from being a civilian clerk in England. Here I work in shirt-sleeves, khaki shorts and puttees, pausing occasionally to brush off the ants which crawl affectionately over my knees. At home—well, I can imagine the Chief's face if a clerk (or an ant) ventured into his office with bare knees.
Also the methods adopted here are not like our impetuous English ways. Operations are carried out with a leisured dignity befitting the immemorial East. Take a telegram for example. At home the Chief says rapidly, "Send a wire to So-and-so telling him this-and-that." A harassed clerk snatches off the telephone-receiver, and in two minutes the message is dictated to the post-office and the incident is closed.
Not so here. A document comes out of the Records Department three days old, having been duly headed, numbered, summaried and indexed. The clerk to whom it is handed thinks it advisable to wire a reply, so he writes at the foot, "Wire So-and-so, telling him this-and-that?" initials it and sends it to the Chief. The Chief writes, "Yes, please," initials it and sends it back. The clerk then drafts the actual telegram, initials the draft and sends it to the Chief, who, if he approves, initials it and sends it back. The draft is next handed to a second clerk, who, after due consideration, types two copies and initials them. These are taken to the Chief, who signes them and sends them back. One copy is filed and the other goes to a third clerk, who enters it verbatim into a book and has the book initialled by clerk No. 1, after checking. Then it goes to a fourth clerk, who numbers it, makes a précis in another book, and hands it, with explanations, to a patti wallah, who takes it outside to an orderly, who conveys it (with unhasting dignity) to the post-office.
More of this, if you can bear it, in my next.
Yours ever,
One of the Punch Brigade.
"BEHIND THE GREAT WESTERN BATTLE LINE.""
Daily Chronicle.
We always thought the Great Western claimed to be the Holiday Line.
British Tommy (returning to trench in which he has lately been fighting, now temporarily occupied by the enemy). "Excuse me—any of you blighters seen my pipe?"
OVERHEARD EVERYWHERE.
I.
"How are yours getting on?"
"Oh, all right."
"How many rooms do you give them?"
"A sitting-room and two bedrooms."
"I wish we could. We have no spare sitting-room. They have meals with you, I suppose?"
"Lunch and dinner, yes."
"Do they know any English?"
"Devil a word."
"Do you know any French?"
"Precious little. But Norah does—some. I say, what does 'chin-chin' mean?"
"'Chin-chin'? Isn't that what some fellows say before they drink?"
"WEll, it can't be that. Madame says it at intervals all the time her husband is talking."
"Oh, you mean 'Tiens, tiens,' don't you?"
"Perhaps. What does it mean, anyway?"
"It's just an exclamation like 'Really' or 'Just think of that!'"
"That Heaven I know! You've taken a terrible load off my mind."
"Do they eat much?"
"Well, I should call their appetites healthy."
"Same with ours. But it's all right. I shouldn't mind if they ate twice as much."
II.
"Do yours do anything?"
"Monsieur is an artist. Madame mends lace beautifully."
"What does he pain?"
"Well, he hasn't pained anything yet, but he says he's an artist. He looks like one. He goes to the National Gallery."
"Why don't you ask him to paint one of the children?"
"My dear, they're terrified of him! They won't come into the room."
III.
"Are you having an easy time with yours?"
"Moderate. Only Jack behaves so badly. After every meal Monsieur always begins a long speech about their indebtedness to us and all the rest of it, and Jack will walk out in the middle."
"What do you talk about?"
"Well, for the most part about the terrible privations before they got away.
