preferable to their billet in France.

Soon after breakfast the hour for the inquisition arrived and the two friends found themselves side by side "on the mat" before the great man, who was physically a very little man. Colonel Watts was a "dug-out." Some time before the war broke out he had retired from a very long and incredibly undistinguished military career with the rank of major, and had devoted himself to bullying his meek wife and generally making her life a misery. When the war began the gallant major, much to Mrs. Watts' relief, applied for and obtained command of a New Army battalion. Unfortunately, however, he managed to quarrel so violently with all his immediate superiors and most of his colleagues that the divisional general refused to take him to the[Pg 104] front. Shortly before the division sailed for France the little man returned raging to Tunbridge Wells, discharged all his wife's servants, poisoned her dog, and proceeded to vent all his accumulated spleen on the poor lady herself. Eventually, only just in time to save Mrs. Watts' sanity, he was offered the command of the Territorial reserve battalion of the Middlesex Fusiliers, a post which he had held ever since.

[Pg 104]

He sat behind a very large table, with Captain Sandeman, his adjutant, standing beside him. Alf and Bill were marched in by the regimental sergeant-major, an unctuous person very different from the martinet who controlled the 5th Battalion at the front.

"Private Higgins, sir, and Private Grant," he announced—as who should say, "Mr. and Mrs. Platt-Harcourt, my lady!"

"Higgins!" repeated the Colonel, gazing ferociously at Alf from under his beetling eyebrows. "Higgins! Higgins!!"

"Yessir!" said Alf, thinking that confirmation was being required.

"Be quiet!" roared Colonel Watts, with such suddenness that Alf took a step backwards in alarm. "And stand still!"

"Stand still, man, and only speak when you are spoken to," said the oily voice of the R.S.M. in Alf's ear.

The colonel fixed the unfortunate Alf with a [Pg 105]protruding eye, and continued his baleful glare until his victim was on the very verge of crying out. His one idea seemed to be to intimidate Alf; he paid no attention whatever to Bill, who was standing stiffly to attention, his eyes fixed in a lack-luster stare on the wall above the adjutant's head.

 Prev. P 68/185 next