J 36
THE YPRES TIMES
discipline must be constantly occurring. Not that there is anything new in such a
situation. Long before Armageddon the Mikado of Japan had to deal with a
similar crisis, at least according to the late Sir W. S. Gilbert:
"The Mikado is struck by the fact that no executions have taken place
in Titipu for a whole year, and hereby decrees that unless a victim is
found within the next twenty-four hours the town will be reduced to the
rank of a village and the post of Lord High Executioner abolished."
To fit this into the present argument it is only necessary to make a few
changes in the wording:
"The Commanding Officer is struck by the fact that no crimes have
been reported from D Platoon for a whole month, and desires it to be
known that unless some delinquent is found within the next twenty-four
hours he will have the whole platoon up before him and the senior sergeant
reduced to the rank of private."
Drunkenness was a serious crime, but even that could at times have its
humorous side. One day, while engaged repairing a road in Belgium, a few of
our men had gone "scrounging" for souvenirs. Picture their faces when, in a
disused dug-out, they came upon a jar half filled with rum. It seems a convivial
bout ensued, and when, some time later, they, with unsteady gait, rejoined the
others, the will to work had gone from them, and one by one they had to be hid
away until such time as the effects of their libations had worn offif that were
possible. One of them, however, insisted on resuming his duties, and I can still
see him walking along the edge of a ditch that was being dug, a shovel over his
shoulders at the "rest," and his legs wriggling violently. Obviously it was only
a matter of a very brief time before the ditch would receive him, and when he did
disappear from view, shovel and all, our wartime gravity was completely split. To
make a sad story short, the stretchers that day bore back to camp three or four
casualties" of a very unusual nature.
A crime strange and undreamed of, except by its perpetrator, now falls to lie
recorded. It had to do with the censoring of letters. Our battalion, on its arrival
at the French port, where it was destined to remain for some months, was informed
on parade one morning that letters for home would be collected on certain days of
the week and handed in to the orderly-room to be censoredor "censured" as
some of the illiterates named it. Doubtless in the bulk of letters delivered up there
was nothing of such a private nature that the writer would not wish the officer to
see. However, there was one man a little more sensitive than the others, who
felt a secret resentment that any eyes other than those for whom his letters were
intended should see them. So this chap had a brain wave. Why should he not
carry his more private communications into Havre or Dieppe or Calais (it was one
of these cities), purchase stamps at the post office, drop them into the pillar-box
there and so have them transmitted home by the ordinary mail. In such letters,
of course, he was especially careful to avoid all reference to his battalion's doings,
movements, etc. Witness, then, this perfectly loyal but daring soldier applying
for stamps at the counter of a French G.P.O. and getting them, too! And that
not once or twice, but oftener. The marvel is that the dispenser of stamps had no
orders to refuse all dealings with men in King George's uniform. At any rate
our friend's nefarious practice soon came to an end, though how he was found out
was never known to him, nor need it matter now. Fortunately for him, he was in
the hands of officers and gentlemen who felt his motives to be perfectly sincere, if
ill-advised, and that there was no intention on his part to get behind the censors:
so he was let off. Even so, the mere irregularity might, conceivably, before any
other tribunal have cost him dear.
