THE CONSCRIPT.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 112, 13 May 1916, Page 6

THE CONSCRIPT.

FIRST THREE DAYS OP THE "HAD-TO-BE-PETCHED." By one of them. \ ———— It came* ten days agcj. a plain paper, yellow in colour. Army FORM W 3236. ! . . You are hereby warned that you will be required to join for service with the colours on March i 4, 1916. You should therefore . present yourself at IJ[ecruiting Office on the above date not later than 11 a.m. So I was to be fetched! My days as a clerk on my office stool were over. No more would I sit in the ninepenny seats in my favourite cinema, a cigarette between my lips. The more, v for I was to be a soldier—a conscript soldier —one of those who wouldn't come so-had-to-befetched. In the outer room of the recruiting office I sat down on a wooden bench and waited my turn to have my papers made out before I came in front of the recruiting officer. Several other conscripts were seated on benches, some of them scowling and defiant, others moody and restless, men o fall classes, navvies, ploughmen, clerks, like myself, a cinema porter, a bar tender, a gasworks manager. 'Come over 'ere you!" A big sergeant called me over, to a table where I answered the questions on my "Record of Service" paper. Thisdone, I was jplaced alongside the plcugliman, papers in hand, to wait my oiaU to the rOeruSjting table. SILENT CROJWTJ. "Next two men." We found ourselves piloted through a door to the front of a table where sat an elderly officer and a sergeant major 'Sign here,' said the latter, and he pushed two half-crowns and a six-penny-bit across the table at me — my two days' rations and pay. 'Don't drink that," said the officer to me; "you'll need it before you leave the depot. Next two.!"

' r Jb.'ack 'ere '3.30 isharpk mind,": , called the sergeant as I left the office to cool my heels before we went off, under escort, to the depot. It was a very silent and undemonstrative crbwd that watched us leave the recruiting office. As we marched down to the station there were no bands for us as there had been for the grouped men who left the same office a week ago. iWe were told off, eight of us to a carriage., with a sergeant to see that we '"adn't left nothing behind." The sergeant told us in a few choice sentences what he thought about us and or ancestors and gave us much advice, which, useful as it was, fell on unheeding ears. At nine o'clock in the evening we arrived at the depot barracks, cold and miserable, and I thought with sorrow of my seat in the cinema, for just about this hour Charlie Chaplin would be on the screen to make others laugh.

We fell in inside the barracks gate, and a big voice shouted n the I darkness, "Answer yer names now, and smart about it." Then we were \ i marched off to our sleeping quarters, a big 'barrack room, where we put cur kit's on a rack, and sat down c*? cur' "beds, rather tired and strange, At ten o'clock we were told to get into bed, and a soldier with a stripe on his arm came and. put out the gas jet which hung from the ceiling. THE LOST CHANCE. After our breakfast next day we 'wer e marched over to the hospital, where I came, naked as Adam, before three medical officers, who punched me and felt me. I asked |;hem if they could pass me for duty as a clerk in the Pay Corps—l rather prido myself on my handwriting, and think I am quick and intelligent. "Look here, young fellow, said the eldest of these to me, "you're going wherever I choose to put you. You had !y;our choice of joining the Pay Corps, months ago—new it's too late. Sergeant, next,, man please." So I dressed, and was marched back to barracks, where I spent the remains of my 5s 6d on lunch in the coffee bar. There were several other soldiers in the coffee bar, and I felt I ought to begin my career well, so I asked a little corporal to have a cup of coffee and a bun with

me, "No, thanks, mate" said he, and left} the |ba)r, mfjutteU-ing Isomeithing ' about conscrips. In the afternoon I was brought.with my companions, before the colonel, who told me I was fit for general service, abroad. "Right turn—quick march," bawled a voice in my ear, and I was marched out of the orderly room and up into the quartermaster's stores to be fitted and clothed in my uniform. Then I was marched down to the barber's shop at the request of the sergeant-major, who told the barber to "take his blooming curls off." My cap is much too large for me now.

When the barber had finished with me I put a cigarette in my mouth, and, hands in pockets, strolled over to the parade ground to watch the men drilling. The Army has a funny custom. I had not been more than half a minute when a sergeant came up to me, 'What the 'ell are you standing 'ere for? Take yer 'ands out of yer pockets and just you put your 'at on square, and clean your buttons before you give us the pleasure of seeing you again at 5.30 outside the orderly room. Understand? All right, isharp now, 5.30, and bring yer kit-bag with yer," *xiaml IN THE TIN HUTS. Early on the morning of my third day the train steamed into a station "somewhere in England."'' Here we detrained and wer e handed over to an escort of bronzed young men, who quickly and without any polite ceremony marched us off the platform and along rows of streets into the country, where, hidden by a row of trees, as we turned a corner long lines of grey tin huts sprang into view. Down the long lines of huts we passed, until with a sharp word of commnd, we halted in front of a hut, where displayed on a wooden board were the words, "Receiving room.'' Here we parted company from cur escort.

It is wonderful how much colonels and sergeants can compress into a few words. In the evening I saw my name in orders as posted to B Company, and, N under t/ne supervision of a sergeant, I moved my kit to my--company hut.. Here I was landed with three men like myself and received by the other inmates with a grin. "Fetched at last eh." lYeS,* there was the rub. I was a ccn;:cr:"pt, a pressed man, one of the had-to-be-fetched. If only I had joined before, how different my reception would have been, for no explanations are given to conscripts. The conscript soldier is addressed '"Ere you. go and do so-and-so and 'URRi. UP ABOUT IT." The conscript is given no chances. He is given an order, and .that order has to b e obeyed —or he has to take the consequences, and they are not light ones. This evening I asked an N.C.O. "jWhy?" ' • ••. "Why?" said he, "that's why." . His boots had hobnails.

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Wife: "What was the car we rode in to-day dear?" Husband: "The 4-90 Chevrolet." "Well why not buy me one, they're only i £245." —Stanley Peyton, Agent.