The First Hundred Thousand

Ian Hay

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781443438513
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

The First Hundred Thousand is John Hay Beith's humorous memoir of military training and life in the trenches as part of the first hundred thousand volunteers in Lord Kitchener's New Army during the First World War.

Compiled from pieces written for Blackwood's Magazine, Beith's memoir was a bestseller in the then-neutral United States as well as in Britain and, following the "Battle of the Slap-Heaps" (Loos), Beith went to work at the information branch of the British War Mission in Washington, supplying war news to the American press.

HarperTorch brings great works of non-fiction and the dramatic arts to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperTorch collection to build your digital library.

Book One

Blank Cartridges

Chapter I

Ab Ovo

“Squoad—’Shun! Move to the right in fours. Forrm—fourrrs!”

The audience addressed looks up with languid curiosity, but makes no attempt to comply with the speaker’s request.

“Come away now, come away!” urges the instructor, mopping his brow. “Mind me: on the command ‘form fours,’ odd numbers will stand fast; even numbers tak’ a shairp pace to the rear and anither to the right. Now—forrm fourrs!”

The squad stands fast, to a man. Apparently—nay, verily—they are all odd numbers.

The instructor addresses a gentleman in a decayed Homburg hat, who is chewing tobacco in the front rank.

“Yous, what’s your number?”

The ruminant ponders.

“Seeven fower ought seeven seeven,” he announces, after a prolonged mental effort.

The instructor raises clenched hands to heaven.

“Man, I’m no askin’ you your regimental number! Never heed that. It’s your number in the squad I’m seeking. You numbered off frae the right five minutes syne.”

Ultimately it transpires that the culprit’s number is ten. He is pushed into his place, in company with the other even numbers, and the squad finds itself approximately in fours.

“Forrm—two deep!” barks the instructor.

The fours disentangle themselves reluctantly, Number Ten being the last to forsake his post.

“Now we’ll dae it jist yince more, and have it right,” announces the instructor, with quite unjustifiable optimism. “Forrm—fourrs!”

This time the result is better, but there is confusion on the left flank.

“Yon man, oot there on the left,” shouts the instructor, “what’s your number?”

Private Mucklewame, whose mind is slow but tenacious, answers—not without pride at knowing—

“Nineteen!”

(Thank goodness, he reflects, odd numbers stand fast upon all occasions.)

“Weel, mind this,” says the sergeant—“Left files is always even numbers, even though they are odd numbers.”

This revelation naturally clouds Private Mucklewame’s intellect for the afternoon; and he wonders dimly, not for the first time, why he ever abandoned his well-paid and well-fed job as a butcher’s assistant in distant Wishaw ten long days ago.

And so the drill goes on. All over the drab, dusty, gritty parade ground, under the warm September sun, similar squads are being pounded into shape. They have no uniforms yet: even their instructors wear bowler hats or cloth caps. Some of the faces under the brims of these hats are not too prosperous. The junior officers are drilling squads too. They are a little shaky in what an actor would call their “patter,” and they are inclined to lay stress on the wrong syllables; but they move their squads about somehow. Their seniors are dotted about the square, vigilant and helpful—here prompting a rusty sergeant instructor, there unravelling a squad which, in a spirited but misguided endeavour to obey an impossible order from Second Lieutenant Bobby Little, has wound itself up into a formation closely resembling the third figure of the Lancers.

Over there, by the officers’ mess, stands the colonel. He is in uniform, with a streak of parti-coloured ribbon running across above his left-hand breast-pocket. He is pleased to call himself a “dugout.” A fortnight ago he was fishing in the Garry, his fighting days avowedly behind him, and only the special reserve between him and embonpoint. Now he finds himself pitchforked back into the active list, at the head of a battalion eleven hundred strong.

He surveys the scene. Well, his officers are all right. The second in command has seen almost as much service as himself. Of the four company commanders, two have been commandeered while home on leave from India, and the other two have practised the art of war in company with brother Boer. Of the rest, there are three subalterns from the 2nd Battalion—left behind, to their unspeakable woe—and four from the O.T.C. The juniors are very junior, but keen as mustard.

But the men! Is it possible? Can that awkward, shy, self-conscious mob, with scarcely an old soldier in their ranks, be pounded, within the space of a few months, into the 7th (Service) Battalion of the Bruce and Wallace Highlanders—one of the most famous regiments in the British army?

The colonel’s boyish figure stiffens.

“They’re a rough crowd,” he murmurs, “and a tough crowd: but they’re a stout crowd. By gad! we’ll make them a credit to the Old Regiment yet!”

Chapter II

The Daily Grind

We have been in existence for more than three weeks now, and occasionally we are conscious of a throb of real life. Squad drill is almost a thing of the past, and we work by platoons of over fifty men. Today our platoon once marched, in perfect step, for seven complete and giddy paces, before disintegrating into its usual formation—namely, an advance in irregular echelon, by individuals.

Four platoons form a company, and each platoon is (or should be) led by a subaltern, acting under his company commander. But we are very short of subalterns at present. (We are equally short of NCOs; but then you can always take a man out of the ranks and christen him sergeant, whereas there is no available source of second lieutenants save capricious Whitehall.) Consequently, three platoons out of four in our company are at present commanded by NCOs, two of whom appear to have retired from active service about the time that bows and arrows began to yield place to the arquebus, while the third has been picked out of the ranks simply because he possesses a loud voice and a cake of soap. None of them has yet mastered the new drill—it was all changed at the beginning of this year—and the majority of the officers are in no position to correct their anachronisms.

Still, we are getting on. Number Three Platoon (which boasts a subaltern) has just marched right round the barrack square, without—

(1) Marching through another platoon.
(2) Losing any part or parts of itself.
(3) Adopting a formation which brings it face to face with a blank wall, or piles it up in a tidal wave upon the verandah, of the married quarters.

They could not have done that a week ago.

But stay, what is this disturbance on the extreme left? The command “right form” has been given, but six files on the outside flank have ignored the suggestion, and are now advancing (in skirmishing order) straight for the ashbin outside the cookhouse door, looking piteously round over their shoulders for some responsible person to give them an order which will turn them about and bring them back to the fold. Finally they are rounded up by the platoon sergeant, and restored to the strength.

“What went wrong, sergeant?” inquires Second Lieutenant Bobby Little. He is a fresh-faced youth, with an engaging smile. Three months ago he was keeping wicket for his school eleven.

The sergeant comes briskly to attention.

“The order was not distinctly heard by the men, sir,” he explains, “owing to the corporal that passed it on wanting a tooth. Corporal Blain, three paces forward—march!”

Corporal Blain steps forward, and after remembering to slap the small of his butt with his right hand, takes up his parable—

“I was sittin’ doon tae ma dinner on Sabbath, sir, when my front teeth met upon a small piece bone that was stickit’ in—”

Further details of this gastronomic tragedy are cut short by the blast of a whistle. The colonel, at the other side of the square, has given the signal for the end of parade. Simultaneously a bugle rings out cheerfully from the direction of the orderly room. Breakfast, blessed breakfast, is in sight. It is nearly eight, and we have been as busy as bees since six.

At a quarter to nine the battalion parades for a route march. This, strange as it may appear, is a comparative rest. Once you have got your company safely decanted from column of platoons into column of route, your labours are at an end. All you have to do is to march; and that is no great hardship when you are as hard as nails, as we are fast becoming. On the march the mental gymnastics involved by the formation of an advanced guard or the disposition of a piquet line are removed to a safe distance. There is no need to wonder guiltily whether you have sent out a connecting-file between the vanguard and the main-guard, or if you remembered to instruct your sentry groups as to the position of the enemy and the extent of their own front.

Second Lieutenant Little heaves a contented sigh, and steps out manfully along the dusty road. Behind him tramp his men. We have no pipers as yet, but melody is supplied by “Tipperary,” sung in ragged chorus, varied by martial interludes upon the mouth organ. Despise not the mouth organ. Ours has been a constant boon. It has kept sixty men in step for miles on end.

Fortunately the weather is glorious. Day after day, after a sharp and frosty dawn, the sun swings up into a cloudless sky; and the hundred thousand troops that swarm like ants upon, the undulating plains of Hampshire can march, sit, lie, or sleep on hard, sunbaked earth. A wet autumn would have thrown our training back months. The men, as yet, possess nothing but the fatigue uniforms they stand up in, so it is imperative to keep them dry.

Tramp, tramp, tramp. “Tipperary” has died away. The owner of the mouth organ is temporarily deflated. Here is an opportunity for individual enterprise. It is soon seized. A husky soloist breaks into one of the deathless ditties of the new Scottish Laureate; his comrades take up the air with ready response; and presently we are all swinging along to the strains of “I Love a Lassie,”—“Roaming in the Gloaming” and “It’s Just Like Being at Hame” being rendered as encores.

Then presently come snatches of a humorously amorous nature—“Hallo, Hallo, Who’s Your Lady Friend?”; “You’re my Baby”; and the ungrammatical “Who Were You With Last Night?” Another great favourite is an involved composition which always appears to begin in the middle. It deals severely with the precocity of a youthful lover who has been detected wooing his lady in the park. Each verse ends, with enormous gusto—

“Hold your haand oot, you naughty boy!”

Tramp, tramp, tramp. Now we are passing through a village. The inhabitants line the pavement and smile cheerfully upon us—they are always kindly disposed toward “Scotchies”—but the united gaze of the rank and file wanders instinctively from the pavement towards upper windows and kitchen entrances, where the domestic staff may be discerned, bunched together and giggling. Now we are out on the road again, silent and dusty. Suddenly, far in the rear, a voice of singular sweetness strikes up “The Banks of Loch Lomond.” Man after man joins in, until the swelling chorus runs from end to end of the long column. Half the battalion hail from the Loch Lomond district, and of the rest there is hardly a man who has not indulged, during some trades’ holiday or other, in “a pleesure trup” upon its historic but inexpensive waters.

“You’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road—”

On we swing, full-throated. An English battalion, halted at a crossroad to let us go by, gazes curiously upon us. “Tipperary” they know, Harry Lauder they have heard of; but this song has no meaning for them. It is ours, ours, ours. So we march on. The feet of Bobby Little, as he tramps at the head of his platoon, hardly touch the ground. His head is in the air. One day, he feels instinctively, he will hear that song again, amid sterner surroundings. When that day comes, the song, please God, for all its sorrowful wording, will reflect no sorrow from the hearts of those who sing it—only courage, and the joy of battle, and the knowledge of victory.

“—And I’ll be in Scotland before ye.

But me and my true love will never meet again

On the bonny, bonny baanks—”

A shrill whistle sounds far ahead. It means “march at attention.” “Loch Lomond” dies away with uncanny suddenness—discipline is waxing stronger every day—and tunics are buttoned and rifles unslung. Three minutes later we swing demurely on to the barrack square, across which a pleasant aroma of stewed onions is wafting, and deploy with creditable precision into the formation known as “mass.” Then comes much dressing of ranks and adjusting of distances. The colonel is very particular about a clean finish to any piece of work.

Presently the four companies are aligned: the NCOs retire to the supernumerary ranks. The battalion stands rigid, facing a motionless figure upon horseback. The figure stirs.

“Fall out, the officers!”

They come trooping, stand fast, and salute—very smartly. We must set an example to the men. Besides, we are hungry too.

“Battalion, slope arms! Dis-miss!”

Every man, with one or two incurable exceptions, turns sharply to his right and cheerfully smacks the butt of his rifle with his disengaged hand. The colonel gravely returns the salute; and we stream away, all the thousand of us, in the direction of the savoury smell. Two o’clock will come round all too soon, and with it company drill and tiresome musketry exercises; but by that time we shall have dined, and fate cannot touch us for another twenty-four hours.

Chapter III

Growing Pains

We have our little worries, of course.

Last week we were all vaccinated, and we did not like it. Most of us have “taken” very severely, which is a sign that we badly needed vaccinating, but makes the discomfort no easier to endure. It is no joke handling a rifle when your left arm is swelled to the full compass of your sleeve; and the personal contact of your neighbour in the ranks is sheer agony. However, officers are considerate, and the work is made as light as possible. The fainthearted report themselves sick; but the medical officer, an unsentimental man of coarse mental fibre, who was on a panel before he heard his country calling, merely recommends them to get well as soon as possible, as they are going to be inoculated for enteric next week. So we grouse—and bear it.

There are other rifts within the military lute. At home we are persons of some consequence, with very...

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• Dedication
• Publishers’ Note
• Epigraph
• Note
• Book One
• Book Two
• About the Author
• About the Series
• Copyright
• About the Publisher