One man was unlucky:
his mate was chosen for kit inspection, but this hapless individual
came out minus a toothbrush and comb, and the friend in need took his
place in the freshly-formed ranks. Here, the helper found that his own
kit was inefficient, he had forgotten to put in a pair of socks. That
afternoon he had to do two hours' extra drill.
Perhaps an even greater trial than Divisional Inspection was that of
waiting orders when we were the victims of camp rumours. But this was
as nothing to the false alarms. There is some doggerel known to the
men which runs:
"We're off to the front," said the colonel,
as he placed us in the train,
"And we went at dawn from the station,
and at night came back again."
For months we had drilled and drilled, all earnest in our labours and
filled with enthusiasm for our new profession, and daily we await the
order to leave for foreign parts. Where are we going to when we leave
England? France, Egypt, or India? Rumour had it yesterday that we
would go to Egypt; to-day my mate, the blue-eyed Jersey youth, heard
from a friend, who heard it from a colour-sergeant, that we are going
out to India, where we will be kept as guardians of the King's Empire
for a matter of four years. Ever since I joined the Army it has been
the same: reports name a new destination for my battalion daily.
Afterwards we had to go and help the remarkable Russians who passed
through England on the way to France; but when the Russians faded from
the ken of vision and the Press Bureau denied their very existence,
it was immediately reported that we had been drilled into shape in
order to demolish De Wet and all his South African rebels.
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