1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [25]
But if the order was flagrantly breached, it was not because the men were insubordinate, but because they were genuinely unable to see the sense of it and could not believe that the Colonel was serious. ‘But sir,’ blurted one aggrieved soldier, marched into Captain Agius’s company orderly room on the heinous charge of strolling out of barracks with his brother, ‘we sleep in the same bed at home!’ He was perhaps the sixth man who had been hauled up on the same charge at company office that morning, and Agius was weary. ‘Seven days confined to barracks,’ he rapped. But he saw the point. It so happened that his own brother, Richard, was an officer in the battalion.
Many had been workmates in civvy street. There was almost a whole platoon from Brooks’ Piano Manufacturers, a contingent from Holt’s Bank, a happy band of dustmen and roadsweepers from Westminster Cleansing Department, and groups of friends or colleagues from a score of sports clubs and business concerns were scattered through the battalion. In a Territorial battalion rank was something to be observed within the bounds of the drill-hall and parade-ground and in peacetime a Terrier would no more have thought of walking ten paces behind a workmate who happened to be a sergeant than of saluting the lady at the breakfast table who happened to be his mother. All ranks enjoyed the social life, mixing in free-and-easy comradeship at the ‘family hops’ held once a month in the drill-hall, and at the children’s parties and smoking concerts at Christmas. How could they be expected to take kindly to being split up now according to the number of stripes a friend might sport on his arm?
In peacetime this camaraderie had been the strength of the Battalion – but it could be a fatal weakness on the battlefield where authority and discipline might tip the balance between failure and success. The real headache, when the Colonel clamped down, was that the NCOs, who were the backbone of the Battalion, resigned en masse rather than give in. Day after day Battalion Orders contained lists of NCOs – many recently promoted – followed by the ominous words ‘reverted to private at his own request’. In the face of the Colonel’s displeasure the officers detailed to supply replacements from the ranks were forced to resort to stratagems ranging from flattery to near-bribery, in their efforts to persuade men to accept a stripe. Most refused. Colonel Howells, now thoroughly exasperated and well aware that the efficiency of his Battalion could be at stake, ordered that henceforth any man ‘desiring to relinquish rank’ must first be interviewed by himself. But that was as far as he could insist. The men knew their rights and if persuasion didn’t work there was nothing the Colonel could do but acquiesce.
The matter of rights was the subject of eager discussion in any battalion of Territorials. Most companies in a battalion of Regular soldiers would have a barrack-room lawyer, but in a battalion composed mainly of men drawn from the business and professional world every man knew his rights and saw no reason why he should not avail himself of the privilege he had enjoyed as a private individual of exercising his own judgement. Grievances were not many (the walking-out order had been the most resented) but the Colonel was appalled to receive a curt notice from Brigade. It had travelled down the chain of command from the frosty eminence of Whitehall itself and it conveyed the unwelcome news that a number of his men had complained of minor grievances direct to the War Office. This was not only a breach of military etiquette but was in breach of King’s Regulations.
Wearily