THE OPPORTUNIST IN THE THAMES VALLEY.
Mr. Crabbe augments his stock-in-trade.
A TERRITORIAL IN INDIA.
I.
My dear Mr. Punch,—We take special pride in the fact that we were the very first Territorials ever to land in India. As our battalion swung through the streets of Bombay before the critical eyes of the assembled natives, this knowledge enabled us to preserve an air of dignity despite the rakish angle of our unaccustomed topees. When you first march at attention with a rifle and a very large helmet you discover that the only possible position for the latter is well over the right ear. Later on you realise that this is a mistake, like most of the discoveries made during the first few days' residence in India.
On that memorable day, of which our battalion poet has written—
we were eight hundred strong, having spent thirty-two days in a transport and passed through all the salutary trials of inoculation, vaccination and starvation with considerable éclat. Now, alas! we were decimated. Decimated, did I say? Far, far worse than that. We are practically wiped out.
No, there has not been a second Mutiny, concealed by the newspapers. We have not perished of malaria. Nor have we been eaten up by white ants. Even the last-named would be a glorious, an inspiring end compared with the fate which has overtaken us.
You remember how, many years ago, you used to sit with your infantile tongue protruding from the left-hand corner of your mouth and write in a fair round hand, "The pen is mightier than the sword." At that time you disbelieved it. But you were wrong. It is true, sadly true.
A few days after our arrival we were reviewed by the G.O.C. In eloquent words he told us that we were not in India for garrison work, but ot be trained speedily for the Front, to be fitted to play our part on the great battlefields of Europe. Inspiring visions of military glory rose before us. Later in the day they began to evaporate. They have been evaporating ever since.
Owing to the departure of the Expeditionary Forces there has been a great shortage of soldier clerks in India, and the luckless Territorials who had the misfortune to arrive first have been called upon to fill the vacancies. Ichabod.
When the announcement that clerks were required was made to us my blood ran suddenly cold. I remembered how, centuries ago, when in camp on Salisbury Plain, I had been requested to fill up a form giving, among other particulars, my occupation, and light-heartedly and truthfully I had written "Clerk." It is a great mistake to be truthful in the Army. How I wished I had described myself as an agricultural labourer. Or a taxidermist—surely there is no demand for taxidermists in the Indian Army.
In a vain attempt to remedy the mistake I preserved a stony silence when we were asked who had had clerical experience, who could to type-writing, who possessed a knowledge of shorthand. With a single lift of my right eyebrow I disclaimed all acquaintance with office stools. With a faint pucker of the brows I made myself appear to be wondering where I had once heard that word typewriter. But my fatal incriminating declaration was too great a handicap.
By threes and fours our brave fellows melted away. They went as clerks; they went as typists; they went as telephone operators; they went as
