John Brown

No doubt you have seen, in the highways and byways, a lot of youths in khaki with white bands round their caps. These 'boys' are called cadets, and are usually men home from the front to train for commissions. In Sandhurst they are officially styled gentlemen cadets; but apparently we are not supposed to be gentlemen-we're just cadets. Funny, isn't it? But that's the way of the army.

Well, my name is John Brown-a very ordinary name-and I'm one of those fellows. Before the war I evaded toil by becoming a student, and spent a lot of time on 'ologies and 'osophies. Now I'm learning to be a pukka officer, and the leader of sixty men to the cannon's mouth.

When I left my battalion for the cadet school I shed no tears. They were in the trenches, or, rather, in the mud. And it cost a pair of brand-new boots to get on to the road. However, I survived, and in due time landed at Windmoor. This is a 'blasted heath,' swept by the winds, and isolated from picture-shows, barmaids, and revues; not a petticoat in sight, and at every corner a notice which amounts to: 'England expects that every cadet this day will do his duty.'

'This is no Utopia,' I muttered, falling into the first hut by the way. Ye gods! There was an old colonel, with eyes like a hawk and cheeks like dumplings; and what do you think he was doing? Cutting his corns.

'What the-why the-who the devil are you, sah?'

'John Brown, sir,' I said meekly, for never in my life had I seen such a perfect relic of the Napoleonic wars.

'Get to blazes out of this, John Brown!' he roared, putting his fat feet on the floor and banging the door. I was again alone-on the blasted heath. The old gent inside was Colonel Eat-All, the commandant. Rumour says he devoured two dervishes at Omdurman. I stumbled on once more, and found the orderly-room.

'This way,' said Sergeant-Major Kneesup, introducing me to the adjutant. I clicked my heels in the style of a Guardsman, and saluted like a railway signal.

'Well?' said a blasé-looking gent with three pips, looking up at me from his papers.

'John Brown, sir.'

'Who sent you here?'

'The War Office.'

'Umph! I know nothing about you. You had better go back to your regiment for your papers.'

'But I can't go all the way to France, sir.'

'Well, no-perhaps not. Wait a minute,' he said, ringing a bell. A clerk answered.

'Have you any papers dealing with Cadet John Brown?'

'Yes, sir. Came a fortnight ago.'

'Thank you. That's all.' The clerk went out.

'Oh, it's all right, Brown. Just go over to No. 1 Company. You'll see Sergeant-Major Smartem there. He'll fix you up. Good luck!' he concluded with a genial smile.

I saluted and went out, marvelling at the methods of the British Army.

I dug out the sergeant-major, and again announced that I was John Brown.

'That's a fine name to go to bed with.'

'It's the one my mother gave me.'

'Oh, well, you can't help it. Here's your blankets; there's your bed. You'll get your equipment to-morrow. Shove this white band on your cap. Tea's at five o'clock. The lavatory's down there. That's the canteen over yonder. And when you want writing-paper, hymns, or free salvation, there's a Y.M.C.A. down the road. Now, push off-John Brown.'

I was extremely grateful for all this information in tabloid form, but I had a lurking suspicion that my name was going to be a subject of rude jest. However, I am an optimist. I pitched my bag into a corner of the hut, pulled out a little book called The Pleasures of Hope, and commenced to read till tea-time. But I was disturbed. Cadet after cadet came filing in. They were all new and rather green, except one man, called Beefy Jones.

'What a ruddy place for a cadet school!' he roared.

'My dear chap, it is designed to protect our morality,' muttered a spectacled youth, who looked like (and proved to be) an ex-parson.

'Morality! After all that time at the front! What a jest!' exclaimed Beefy, banging his kit down.

In half-an-hour we were all good pals. Beefy confided to me that he had a ripping girl five miles away, and she had a jolly sister. If I wanted an intro., it was all right. He would fix it up. While the ex-parson-Billy Greens by name-suggested that I might help him to hand out the hymn-books at Sunday services. I promised to do so. (My father was in the Diplomatic Service.) And so twenty of us settled down to life in our hut at Windmoor Cadet School.

Tea-time proved that the rations were good, and when Lieutenant Blessem (our platoon officer) came round for complaints, we shouted, 'None, sir.'

'That's a good start,' he said with a smile. 'I want you boys to be happy here. If you're in trouble, or want to know anything, come down to my hut and I'll help you. But remember this, boys'--

'What, sir?' said Beefy.

'This platoon has got to be top-hole at everything.'

'Hear, hear, sir!' we roared, rattling our plates as he went out. Blessem was a sport. After tea we got piles of books thrown at us, as well as the standing orders of the school-a moral code akin to the Koran, insisting on sobriety, sincerity, and big salaams. These orders endorsed the ancient theory that women and wine are the root of all evil.

Beefy grinned, then shoved me on the back of his motor-bike and whirled me over to Sweetville, where I was introduced to Adela, a peach of a girl, who had never been kissed. What luck!

It was 7 P.M. when I met Adela. I kissed her at 9; promised to marry her at 9.15; and at 9.30 (to the minute) Beefy and I were answering roll-call at the camp five miles away. Some hustle-eh, what?

We made our beds down and got in between the blankets. About 'Lights out' there was an infernal din outside the hut. Somebody was running round shouting, 'John Brown! Where the 'ell's John Brown?' Then some fifty huts started a chorus of-

'John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,

As we go marching along,' &c., &c.

Beefy led the chorus in our own hut-much to my annoyance. At last the door opened, and the sergeant-major bawled, 'Silence!' They shut up. He next inquired if John Brown lived there.

'Yes, sergeant-major. Here I am.'

'Telegram for you.'

'Oh, thanks,' I muttered, thinking it was some wonderful effusion from Adela. On opening the brown envelope I read: 'Sending you cough-drops, Keating's powder, and body-belt.-Mother.'

As the lights went down I thought of the dear, good soul who was so careful of my welfare. Mothers may be silly, but they always love their boys.