"BUCKSHEE"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 52, 26 November 1918, Page 7

"BUCKSHEE"

. AN ALL-EOUND WOED. '.'Bucjcsn.ee" is one. of. the most overworked words' in the yocabulafy of the New Army.. \Vhera it came frdm nobody seems to know. The Indian Army is'said to have, coined it, but.it does not figure dn any of Mr. Kipling's stories. Perhaps the Egyptian Army £ot hold oJ "backslieesh" aiid anglicised it. "Buckshee" means "something for nothing." ■ If, after the'"gippo" has been rationed out, a little of the stew is left in the dixie,..you will hear the. sergeant shout out: "Who wants a buckshe6 Bit?" The lucky fellow ..who, lights up a .cigarette when cigarettes ore very few and far between will bo greeted on all Sides by, the c-ry, '''Got a buckshee, mate?" Like ail words that your real soldier-man favours, it is made to serve a variety of .purposes. . A buckshee man is a man too many When a fatigue has been numbered off. If'hO'-.ie lucky he may be told to stay behind; but more often than not he is given a buckshee shovel and told to carry on; • '■'. . . a man who is brought up before his Company .commander for .a minor offence and given an hour's packdrlil will be ill-advised enough to resent it somewhat openly—say, by a scowl—as he is marched out of the orderly room. He is brought >back just as the sergeantmajor has shouted to the police-corporal, "One hour's pack," and is given an additional hour to teach him better manners. Then, ae he is marched out the second time the sergeant-major adds, "And one hour buckshee!" An unpaid lance-corporal wears a stripe. When the Army Council issued the instruction thiit all second-lieutenants of 18 months' ci'vice should be promoted to full lieutenants and thousands of junior subs rushed into the nearest town to piirehaf-'e their second "pips," those were called' buckshee pips. D.S.O.'s' given to hard-working staff officers .on the Whitehall fl:ont and D.C.M.'s awarded to master bakers in "cushy" base . billets are buckshee decorations. Tho recent increase in Tommy's pay was known throughout tho Army as ' "the buckshee tnliilet , . , ' . ■ {~ lteally, it Is difficult to think of any -occasion. - when the word caiinot b6 used in some way or another. But there ;»; one, at least. At the termination of hostilities Toinmy is. determined to seo to it that tho Boche gets no "bucksheo pence!—J.M.X.'in the "Dnily Mail." ■