ABOUT FATIGUES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 181, 9 June 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

ABOUT FATIGUES.

OFFICER'S' -MESS XOi' A FAVOURITE.

"When the average n.au onlists he is finite well aware of the troubles that await him. He is prepared for Ions; hours of drill, for long inarclies, tor severe manual labour, such as trench digging, and lor the thousand and one tilings that try the strength u>" the eiti. Zen turned soldier. To his snprise lie finds tlur these things fail to kill him. He is drilled till he is knocked stupid, till he does not know his right from his left. He is marched till his pack seems just about to throttle him, till his feet are aching—tired—and every bone in his body is stiff and tore. He digs trenches till he is blind with fatigue, till his back aches and his hands aiM ra.w. He is soaked through and through, not once, but many times. He swear* most profanely, and makes sarcasti remarks about the British Empire, but in his secret soul he is really enjoying the life —even the discomforts /.cached to it —and though he sweats as lie never did before, he puts 011 weight, and waxes fat. Also, lie acquires, or dis covers, a sense of h lUiour that stand l ' him in good stead vv'ien he go. to one of the numerous 'fronts."

MUCH SOUGHT AFTER All these tilings, though tlev real j try lii~ strength to the brea':" 1; p' u-t, never more than ruffe the si ltace ot his good humour. What 0~.9s drive many a good man to the point of mutiny is "fatigue" duty. For some obscure reason when one is reckoning tho unpleasant things 111 Army life one forgets about the fatigues. Of course there are fatigues and fatigues. For instance, in our battalion the billet-paying fatigue is very much sought after Every Saturday morning men are sent round the billets to pay for die week's accommodation. This was one of the fatigues on which. 1 "marked time" Saturday after Sat. rday, and lurked about and contrived to be deir.il-ed for tlic job. That meant that 1 was off parade, and free shortly aftor eleven o'clock 111 the morning to go home ot anywhere else that pleased m\ Then the sergeants' mess i',.tigue is reckoned a "snczzlc" in our battalion. "Why it should be sa I cannot say, for while we wore still under canvas it was reckoned one of the very worst possible. Here in billets, however, it is t:< ciiledly a favourite. There are dishes tc wash and pots to lie s'-übbed and scraped out, but one gets lots of hot water and lots of dish towels, s;: that the ta-K of dishwashing is easy.

THE CHIEF ATTRACTION. The chief attraction of the sergeants' mess is the food that one gets in it, for the mess caterer, wise in Ins generation realises that if he feeds s fatigue mess, well they will work well; so he gives them their three meals per day. Soldiers are in sonic ways \ cry like children. Tlic-y will do anything for a man who will teed them well, but even moro than good food do they appreciate the way the food is offered. So they tackle the dirty pans with a g'ad heart and a pleasantly well-filled stomach. They work with a will, and so in the sergeants' mess all goes well. After sergeants' mess comes cook house; the dirt;,est job on wli.cli a man could lie placed. Our battalion is about seven hundred strong. Our cook house is in the open—open to all ti.e winds and rains. It cooks for seven hundred men, but it ':as no water supply. Ail the water for making tea, soup, etc., all the water for cleaning purposes, has to be carried from a solitary tap 111 an adjacent wash-house. Truly, tin? British Army is i\ wonderful iiistiti;ti >... Seven hundred men di pending on (lie charity of a good-njtured washerwoman for their water. And yet—there :s a war on. In the cook house the fatigue man has very hard work to do. he has to carry water from the tap to the boilers, he has to wash the huge cooki ig pott — with the most ahntrd suppiy of hot water —he pec's turnips and onions, and, above all, hi- has to keep himself clean, for in *'ieso war days •! soldier does not not enjoy the possession ot a walking-out in ii.rm. The work is not at all pleasant, but if the fatigue man tries to do his best he will get lots of help from the cooks, and like the Pabu "Kim,' he may "stay himself with scraps from the cookhouse." If fie tries to shirk—our head cook weighs at least twe ve stone, and what he leases undone 'i ; ? assistant* will look t >

BUT THE OFFICERS' MTSS! The fatigue that is most heartily disliked ;n our battalion is ' officers' mess. 1 ' It is not hard work, j.lthough there are scores .of plates, ct ps, and saucers to be wa-hed. and the supply of water is not all that it should be. the towels for drying are few, but these few are wet as veil as dirty. but still it is a change from the eternal parade, the tr.'iich digging and bayonet fighting that make up *'>;• life of the soldier in trailing. It is the spirit of the place that is disliked. The mess caterer is a sergeant who is doing his bit for the country by working in the officers' mess when, we think, he should he out at the front. The permanent staff arc all unfit men. It seems to us that they make it their business to annov and insult the train.'d soldiers who may be detailed for a day's dish washing.

All the unfit men who are on staff jobs—in battalion or eompanv officers' or sergeants' n esses—have a vast contempt for thiO trained and 'it soldier who is ready io risk his life at th" front. So in our officers' Dies';. when i fatigue man asks for a clean towe' or a kettlefnl of hot water, the lame or the blind staff men look at him as though his request were absolutely unliea :! of. In (barge of the fatiguo men s a flatfooted myopic yciith. His ma r ners ar> as impleading as his person, though lie has been less discourteous since a fatigue man —in accountant r, an Edinburgh. bar.k —.irrke a saucer over his bead.

a iir\M!Y i a ric;i: Tn marked contrast to the strgeant* me.ss, tie l officers mess is on • of the "hungry" fatig:.e=. There is neither meat nor drink to I:-.' had m it. The last time 1 was detailed for the joh 1 had as my felkw-vietim a youth of about nineteen. "Do von know the meaning: of 'sanhntai'o"l asked him. he replied. "This it." said T. as 1 knocked over a pile of ahout 'w> dozen p'atcs. The crash they made hrouglir the i-iess eater u- Hying down ll r stairs. FTe ( ur»ed me lor all the fools. "Do you think I did it purposely?" 1 asked. ■'(let to <nt of this, and don't come hmk." was th? nn«w >■ 1 got. Somehow 1 hive never acain he.en detailed for tint t: tigue. This. (;t course, is high treason, hut the plain truth w til at it does not w" to work TOO well ir. tl-o Arn v.- V. S. A.