ENJOYING THE FUN
THE BRITISHER'S SPORTING INSTINCT IN WAR STORY OF A FIGHTING TYPE (By C. D. Stalling.) (By favour of the Eoyal Colonial Institute.) ' "I am tip to my eyes in work. We are in it once again, and no doubt >you have read ail about it by now. I am keeping quite fit and enjoying the fun. immensely, •although it is a bit too warm this weather for hard work. I feel quite bucked with my Military Cross, and thank you so lnuch for your kind congratulations." . 1 his is an extract from a letter I have just received from the Intelligence Officer of the Umptioth Brigade, who was formerly .my • signalling sergeant, in tho Umpteenths' Londons, 2nd Lieutenant Longshort (that is not quite his name), is one of the. men who have earned for the London. Regiment a reputation second to none in' the whole British Army. And perhaps in the few lines quoted is to be tound Tie secret' of their success. "I am enjoying, the fun immensely." What a sentiment from a, man who has spent nearly thirty mouths on active service in Irance! And yet it is no uncommon sentiment, nor is he anything else than a normal type of the London-or, for that matter, the' British-officer. ■ ; Three years ago he was a hard-working and intelligent clerk in a large insurance oihee in the city. He took the usual hour for lunoh, and doubtless spent the better . part of it in playing dominoes. On Saturday afternoon he would rush off to play cricket or football, according- to the season of the year, and on Sundays he would go to church in the mornings sometimes, and sometimes he wouldn't. In a word, he was the ordinary peaceful, law-abiding,. sporting, middle-class Londoner. Accordingly, when the war came he did what the ordinary Londoner was doing, without the slightest hesitation, tie enlisted. Those early months of training in one /of the Home countries meant hard work, but on tho whole he enjoyed them. He was doing the only sort of thing that a self-respecting Engishihan could be doing at that timo, nnd he was doing it with all his might. His one grievance was a fear lest the war might be finished before his battalion ever got to it.' He lias often since recalled his fears on that point and chuckled over them. But at last, after seven months of training, they began to pack up for France. A dozen battalions ot the London Regiment they were, forming a complete division. They went out in March, 1915, and there is no engagement in the last two years and a quarter in which they have not taken a part, and a distinguished;' part. They stood by at Youve Ohapelle, and saw for tho first time -.chat war was really like. Ever' since then they havo known what it is ike at .first hand. Longshort was with them then, and he has been with them ever since, continuously. He Was a private when he fought at Givenchy and iestubert. Then he took up signalling. In the Loose "show" ho was a lancecorporal, and after it became the iser. geant of the Umpteenths signalling sec;ion. He was through tho gruelling wintar of '15-'16,. which was distinguished by no big engagement, but taxed to the utmost one's powers of endurance during a period when tho Boche could send over eix shells to our one. It was no picnic being in tho trenches in those days, nor .>™re the days that.followed, on tho slopes of the Vimy Ridge, and at Souchez, easy days for the men. of the London Eegiment. Longshort had won his commission by this time, and was doing admirable work as signalling officer and assistant adjutant. Then came, the Battle, of. the Somme. J.O have lived through those days, to have assisted at the capture of High Wood, a labyrinth of machine-guns, that took ten weeks to overcome, and to havo come out ot it unscathed, is an accumulation of experience that any man of 24 might envy ' and since then Longshort has spent a second, winter m the trenches and taken part in the wonderful victory of llessines, as adjutant ot the Umpteenth Londone and as intelligence ofheer of the brigade ot which they form a distinguished quur-
Some cax'ssr for an insurance clerk! Don t forget that. He was not a regular soldier, for whom war was 'merely the logical outcome of years of preparation, but a.city clerk. is the man wao, having meanwhile earned many times over, as I know from experience and won once the Military Cross, can .coollj write to England to say that he. is enjoying the fun immensely It isn't in any bloodthirsty spirit that he .penned those words. The mere fact that Euna aTe being slaughtered as they slaughtered us in his early campaigning days (only many times more so) is of no interest to this vow veteran.. Jμ my recollection of him ho was always smiling, oven on the alter--Jioon when wo came through tho very iiell of a barrage together, or the night we strayed into a Hinnvnrking party between the lines, having lost our way to our front trenches. . It was all >i>ar't of the great game or the great work. And lie always loved his work, just because it was so much like a game, apart from thet bloody, episodes. For. war. after all/ i A . not all killing. Most of the time it is preparation for killing and co-operation in killing-, ind all the preparatory business is really interesting and very much akin to sport. It; is curious to reflect that our traditions of sport and eportsmansnip, which themselves derive from the laws of chivalry, tho unwritten laws of earlier wars, have in their turn been the inspiration of our unprofessional armies in this war.
Longshort' and 'hundreds of thousanda like him rushed into the beastly business of war because of an iiietiactive eporting feeling that Germany -asn't •playing tho ganie," It sounds a, trivial reason, but when you come to analyse it it comprehends most of what President Wilson has said with more elaboration and eloquence in his recent speeches, delivered in the light of far fuller knowledge than was in the world's possession three years ago. "The military masters of tiermany," ho observed in his "I'lag Day" address at Waiiiiugton, "regarded the smaller States, particularly, and those people who could be overwhelmed by force, as theii natural tools f.nd instruments of domination."
Somehow , the Xongshorts of Britain realised instinctively ihat they had to take their coats oif, when. Britain declared war against the invaders of Belgium, because they resented this bully who wasn't making war according to the rules of the game. The sanctimonious war-makers of Potsdam might denounce' it as a sacrilege to speak of war as a sport. .They prefer, to cloak their activities under the guise of religion, claiming the Almighty as atf ally of the Central Powers of Darkness. But tho fact remains that it is the 6porting instinct of the British peoples that lias maintained their morale at an extraordinarily high level during months of numerical inferiority in men, guns, and Fliells.And it is the inherent sportingvinstincts of the race that can produce such men as Lieutenant'Longshort, JI.C, whocfter thirty months of continuous war under all conditions, • can write home to 6ny that he is "enjoying the fun immensely."
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Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3199, 25 September 1917, Page 7
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1,240ENJOYING THE FUN Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3199, 25 September 1917, Page 7
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