Page:No More Parades (Albert & Charles Boni).djvu/51

 them You remember the first time when we had them on parade and that acting lance-corporal left the ranks to heave a rock at a sea-gull And called you '' Hunkey! Conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline? Where's that Canadian sergeant-major? Where's the officer in charge of the draft?"

Sergeant-Major Cowley said:

"Sergeant-Major Ledoux said it was like a cattle-stampede on the some river where they come from. You couldn't stop them, sir. It was their first German plane And they going up the line to-night, sir."

"To-night!" Tietjens exclaimed. "Next Christmas!"

The sergeant-major said:

"Poor boys!" and continued to gaze into the distance. "I heard another good one, sir," he said. "The answer to the one about the King saluting a private soldier and he not taking any notice is: when he's dead But if you marched a company into a field through a gateway and you wanted to get it out again but you did not know any command in the drill book for change of direction, what would you do, sir You have to get that company out, but you must not use About Turn, or Right or Left Wheel There's another one, too, about saluting The officer in charge of draft is Second-Lieutenant Hotchkiss But he's an A.S.C. officer and turned of sixty. A farrier he is, sir, in civil life. An A.S.C. major was asking me, sir, very civil, if you could not detail someone else. He says he doubts if Second-Lieutenant Hitchcock Hotchkiss could walk as far as the station, let alone march the men, him not knowing anything but