Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/262

 236 FRANK SIDGWICK

��"FORM FOURS" A volunteer's nightmare

If you're Volunteer Artist or Athlete, or if you de- fend the Home,

You sacrifice "Ease" for ''Attention/' and march like a metronome ;

But of all elementary movements you learn in your Volunteer Corps

The one that is really perplexing is known as the Forming of Fours.

Imagine us numbered off from the right : the Ser- geant faces the squad,

And says that the odd files do not move — I never seem to be odd !

And then his instructions run like this (very simple in black and white) —

" A pace to the rear with the left foot, and one to the right with the right."

Of course if you don't think deeply, you do it without

a hitch ; You have only to know your right and left, and

remember which is which ;

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