The Soul of the Camp: A Derbyman’s O’dyssey

Excerpt:

1 In the meshes of the Military net

A clear crisp morning and the last day of tearful April; my number is up and the days of liberty and freedom, to evolve one's own ego, days of the past.

The great war, the armageddon of the Nations, has lasted three and three-quarter years and for England and her Allies has now entered upon a desperate phase. In the event, the spring of 1918 prove zero hour, the darkest hour before the dawn.

It was a time which called for supreme effort and the last sacrifice.

The Moloch of war was insatiable; having devoured maturer age it demanded now the blood of children. Mere boys of eighteen years and, in certain cases, considerably younger, were being hurried, semi trained, across the narrow straits, over which since fateful August, 1914, so many of England's sons had passed, so many fated to return no more.

Over yonder, whither the youth of England now streamed in its thousands, lay the flower of England's manhood, victims of the summer madness of European diplomacy. Over the same strip of water, up the same road of war these boys were being hurriedly pressed and thrown straight into the battles hurly burly in an homeric attempt to stem this, destined to be, the last terrible Teutonic advance.

At home in sorrow stricken England, the age limit had been lifted to 50 and orders issued to the various Local Tribunals to pass every fit and available man into the army with the least possible delay.

So it befel the writer on this first day of April to lay aside, " nolens-volens," for the time all thought of business and the life of the citizen, to take up the role of the soldier.

At Whitworth Institute, Manchester, where I was ordered to report, I lighted upon a wonderful scene, the which did fill my poor little urban soul with wonder and amazement.

 

In the large hall, I found myself amongst hundreds of men and youths sitting waiting the call, whilst non com's and orderlies hustled about as though the fate of empire waited on their movements.

It was about the hour of noon when I heard my name roared out in stentorian tones and, one amongst many, I passed into the hall of the grand inquisition.

 

 

2 The Grand Inquisition

Now was given to me great knowledge, fierce light upon much I had not suspected, much less known. It was a lesson in anatomy, full, rigorous, relentless, and, well, very personal and at times embarrassing.

I began to learn various things concerning my anatomy, I certainly never knew before.

Perhaps you were somewhat knock-kneed, well you were not aware of the fact.

The shoulders, yes decidedly rounded; well, perhaps, that would be accounted for by one's sedentary habits. As regards the feet, they are found to be quite flat and one or more of your toes hammered.

Due note is made of all these rising deficiencies, and you begin to visually shrink in your own estimation.

Some puffiness round the heart; little wonder.

Your visual organs very deplorable.

Weight, 7st. 12lbs. " Umph."

Perhaps the army is needing jockeys.

Well, well, in the searching light of this Medico-Inquisition we realise, we are really after all, certainly very small nuts.

Still, when all is said and done, you can hardly expect a man sans even his shirt to develop his natural dignity.

The remorseless inquisitors proceed with the examination and knock and punch your anatomy about with as little
concern as though you were but a transport animal in the hands of a vet.

So you shiver in the chilly room and wonder what is to be your fate.

The pendulum is surely swinging against you and the prospect of your ever evolving into the accepted military type, diminishes every moment and, the peculiar thing about it all is, notwithstanding your lack of enthusiasm for the Military Cult, you are not sure whether you like the thought of rejection, or no ; I suppose the reason is, no man likes to think he is carrying an unhealthy body.

What are they discussing now ?

The question of vaccination marks; to you it all seems so trivial; to your examinors, on the other hand, it seems a very weighty matter. No marks visible, yet you are sure something of the sort happened to you in the dim and distant past. No, you don't remember the operation.

So they slap your arm in the hope the occult sign will emerge, but all without the desired result. So the inquisitors consult and consider, analyse and scrutinise, and generally weigh you in the balance, and the chances of your emerging from the ordeal a man grow remotely less.

Naturally, under the searching investigation, you have faithfully chronicled all your manifold ailments and past illnesses ; you have disinterred your ancestry and divulged their physical and anatomical weaknesses.

Had you at any other time and place been asked if there was. any lunacy in your family, you might have answered volubly and aggressively; but not in this chilling atmosphere, with all the searching eyes of the disciples of Esculapius upon you alas, your dignity has gone with your shirt and you, mere atom, blown in from the street, fully conscious now of all your manifold physical and mental weaknesses, meekly answer, " No, I cannot recollect hearing of any."

Oh that " Umph," it gets on your nerves. You envisage the scrap heap, the inquisitors' tone is wholly dispiriting; it is undoubtedly written in the book of fate, you will be a reject, a man marked to return to the bosom of his family, a wash out, otherwise, one of England's broken dolls.

By this the irksome examination is in its last stage . . .