THE PERFECT SOLDIER

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3088, 19 May 1917, Page 7

THE PERFECT SOLDIER

"'BY AN- OFFICER. "• (From the "Daily Mail,") There : is a general idea that the perfect soldier is the man.with'the big chest and the smart salute, the man who can 6hoot well, use a 'bayonet, to advantage,, and drill like an automaton on the barrack square. And this, like most general ideas, is absurdly incomplete, for the perfect soldier is much more than a man who knows his drill.. . To "start-with, he must be an engineer. His trench is full' of water—ha must devise some method; of emptying it; he must pave it with' branches, bricks, tins, and sandbacs; he'must drive in stakes and run a_little drain along at the side; he must," if possible, direct all superfluous water over towards the Boche. He arrives at a spot,for the night and discovers that there is nothing to shelter him from the rain; he does wonders with his waterproof sheet and a little string, or he cuts down trees, chops off their branches for a roof, and in an hour or two has a cosy little log hut with a chimney, a doorway, and a seat outside to be used if ever the fine weather comes.

' He. must learn to dig at niuht in No Man's Land without nearly "braining" his immediate neighbour at each stroke of fiia pick; he must know that skill is needed to use a spade, that' sandbags must be. placed like the bricks of a. house if his parapet is to have any stability at all;' he must be able to build a complete city- of dug-outs in the course of a few days; and he must.master the art of putting up a pit-orop and of revetting the side of a trench.

..He is not only an engineer—he.is also,a •porterof no little-skill, for he. must learn how to carry two - sheets of corrugated iron in a howling gale, and, from time to time, .ho will probably find himself faced with the necessity of bringing two boxes of ammunition over a mile ■up to the trenches. He is a cook who can boil tea without "stewing" it" and produce a Welsh rarebit that is not Black and tough like ■ shoe-leather, He is a diplomatist and a tactician; he can see like a catMn the dark; he can march for miles over rough cobble-stones: and lie oils and cleans his rifle, when he comes in wet. and tired, before he thinks of drying his clothes or cooking his supper. And, greatest of all, he is cheerful. He laughs when ho falls into a shell-hole -full of water; ho plays on his mouthorgan when the men pine for a tune to help their feet along the road; ho is good-tempered when ho is called upon to dig trenches for tho fourth night in succession; and ho refrains from swearing when the ration party brings him his 217 th pot of plum and apple jam. He knows at least, a, d_ozcn comic songs; he does not grumble" and ask "why there's a blooming war on"; ho does not lose his equipment; he never uses his bayonet as a toasting-fork; and he cleans his teeth, and not his boots, ■ with his tooth-brush.