CALLED UP.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 219, 20 October 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

CALLED UP.

By ASHLEY STERNE.

I don't think that anyone v.ho knows me roally well would over accuse me of being a coward. To befjuite candid, I don't mind confessing to you confidentially that I am rather addicted to deeds of d«rring-do. 1 once fetched a policeman to stop a runaway horse. On another occasion I captured singlehanded a felon whom I discovered one day at the bottom of my garden gorging himself on my best Ribstou rhubarb. I knew the fellow by sight, and next day I went round to the Council school and complained to his schoolmaster. Another time I saved an old gentleman from drowning. He was standing somewhat close to the edge of the Old Sw 4 an Per at London Bridge, and absolutely reckless of my own life I stepped up to him and suggested that he should stand back. 1 ortunately for him he took my advice, but I shudder to think what might hav'e happened if he had not done so, and had been seized with a sudden attack of and had fallen into the river, and in the excitement of the moment had forgotten how to swim. vVhy, lie would have perished before I have found someone to go in after him. Thue, since now my country finds .t can't get* on with the war without me (I knew I should get mixed up in it sooner or later), the summoning ot my Group has 110 terrors for me. I shall come; 1 shall saw; I shall conquer. The only thing about which I havo any hesitation is, which branch of the Service sliall I enrich with my presence? My personal inclination is towards the Life Guards. I should just love to defy the Hun from the back o ( my charger in Whr.tehall. My one fear is that my physique might perhaps be ,a trifle too—compact, shall I say? —to comply with the Life Guards' standard. Be that as it may, 1 know I should look exceedingly noble and impressive with one of those tin hats on and elevators inside those commodious boots; and 1 am certain, too, that I could grow a moustache as big as a cucumber if 1 sat up late and really put my back into it.

Or I shouldn't mind boinga Grenadier. I can .imagine the martial ardour that would he aroused in mo when tho band played "Ti-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tiddle-um Tiddle-uni-tuai-tiddle-<iddle-um." (Reader's of tonic sol-fa will at once be able to identify this as tho tune o'" " The British Grenadiers.") Wtih strains like these in my ears and mother's muff balanced on my skull, I should feel capable of dealing with tho most ferocious enemy Kmghtsbridge could produce.

Then the Royal Engineers arc not to bo sneezed at, You just sneeze at :i Royal Engineer and see. I adoro anything to do with engines. I once made an engine out of an empty pineapple tin, the wheels of the family sewingmachine, ;ind the pendulum from tha drawing-room clock. It went beautifully; and you'll find tho pincapplo tin still stuck in the scullery ceiling of my ancestral mansion to tins very day. Should I become a Royal Engineer i should dc addressed as "Sapper," which seems very attractive. It may even bo "Your Royal Sapness" for aught I know to the contrary. Anyway, "Sapper "is good enough for mo, and if I should ever box Bombadier Wells, jusi think how imposing some such sentence as this would look in print: "Tho Sapper landed a pretty cut on the point, and the Bombadror went down like a wolf on the fold" —I mean, like a log. Or there's the band—the Army ' iVhesiral Corps. 1 rather fancy myself as a double-bassoon. Moreover, I have , been carefully through all the casualty .lists, and I cannot find a single instance of a double-bassoon's being wounded, killed, missing, taken pr soner, or shot at dawn. Then, too, imagine the sensation 1 should create when friends inquire of my people the latest news jf me. "Oh, haven't you heard? He's in tho Army, doing awfully well ...Tuppence to go into the next street... A double-bassoon, you know." And folks will think it's a kind of commissioned rank, like that of tho now-obso-lete comet; and the editors of tho illustrated papers will write for my photograph, and when they've seen it they'll write and tel lme to come and fetch it away, or it will be burnt on the steps o; tho Royal Exchange in deference to tho wishes of the printing-staff. Yes, there'll bo no little swank in the Sterne family on the day when, with my double-bassoon at the trail gripped between my resolute, bull-dog jaws, I am called up with the rest of tho flower of England's manhood to render a blow for my country.