DARN THE SOCKS, THIS IS WAR!
The question is, what does it take for a gentleman to fight a battle while still being a gentleman? Sure, there are many ways that such a question might be answered, all of which depend upon the definition of a gentleman. If one is noble by birth, one might be considered a gentleman by default. Yet one would have to agree that many such gentleman are only so by the essence of their name of birth and not by the nature of their character.
William Shroudley had such a name, a gentleman by birth, who may or may not be one according to his character.
William Shroudley was a Leftenant in the majesty's service, a member of the First Army of the Rifles of San Tilley. He had followed the military career path according to the wishes of his father, the Duke Alistair Shroudley of Cornswitch Modern, under the fiefdom of His majesty, the Third King of Beerswallow.
Lft. Shroudly was of average height, average build, with an average appearance and an average manor. He had only recently begun his third decade in age, and commanded men who were almost twice old as he, who had spent more years in service than he had apart from his mother's womb.
Shroudly had been rubber stamped up the chain of command. His officers training had been in military logistics, a fancy term which described the expertise in baggage handling and transport. Not that this wasn't an important aspect to any army that needed to travel beyond its own borders. After all, the on field commanders needed their supplies of tea, coffee, and briscuit, and the men, the weekly dispersment of fruit cake. After all, these important perks of military life had to be provided, and it was Shroudly's responsibility to make sure they were.
Lft Shroudly was aided by Sergeant Master Treacle, a balding man of portly figure, who took his duties extremely seriously. At all times he could be seen with his clip-board, a mound of paper with carpon copy interspersed between each leaf, and several quadset of different coloured pens protruding from his uniform's many pockets.
While Shroudly disdained paperwork, Treacle thrived on it. If one was to look closely at Treacle's clip-board, he would notice many different coloured requisition forms, each for their own function and purpose of distribution. The White forms were inter-command memoes, used primarily for rush orders prescribed by officers requiring important resupply of personal items. The Yellow forms were general requisition orders for quarter-master requests made by the general infantry men related to personal need, that were non-essential for military manuveours. These were consistently piled on the bottom. The Pink forms were high-priority requistions for military equipment related to the aesthetic appearance of all military personel. Any requistions beyond these parameters were outside of Shroudly's rank and pay grade. Only a Captain or higher could process requisitions for ammunition, weapons, and squad related military equipment.
Shroudly had only recently been promoted from loading transport supervisor of homeward bound mail, and was happily engaged in the challenge of training his men in the nuances of military distributionship in tandem with military communication lines. His job was to be sure that no matter what was requistioned by any soldier, the officers would receive tea, coffee, and brisquit, and the infantry would receive fruit-cake. It was a huge responsibility, and it was Shroudly's responsibitity to make sure it happened.
'***
It was a bright sunny day. The pounding of the guns was only intermittent. The mud before the front line was slowly turning from slick watered slime to thick watered slime. The trenches had drained to the point where a person standing on the floorboards at the bottom only had to deal with water just above the top of his boots. Many of the men had carved out cubby-holes into the sides of the trenches where they could huddle comfortably above the water level.
Shroudly was talking with the Sergeant of the Watch, a thick, muscular individual with short clipped hair and a drooping moustache. Treacle was standing two feet away, clip-board in hand, listening intently to the Sergeant's complaints.
"Leftenant," the Sergeant was saying, with a tone of exasperation, "We've been in this trench for seven days. Twice, we've requested in triplicate for thirty sets of hip-waders, and still we have had no reply or confirmation that our order has been received, let alone that it is being processed, or in transit. Are you sure that the requisition has even been delivered to the quarter-master?"
Shroudly had an extremely bored expression on his face, so much so that the Sergeant wasn't sure that he had even been listening. There was a long silence. When no answer was forthcoming, the Sergeant tried again. "Leftenant, Sir! Have you been listening?"
Shroudly's eyes focussed on the Sergeant. "Sergeant," he responded, "I do not appreciate your tone. Do I need to remind you that you are talking to a superior officer. You are a Sergeant, and I am a Leftenant, you shall address me in the manner that is appropriate to my superior rank. In answer to your question, Yes, I have been listening."
Shroudly took a deep breath, "Do I need to remind you that all requistions received through my office are sent in order of priority in bulk to requisition distribution. These are then sorted and graded according to distributional necessity and then sent to appropriate distribution centres. They are then graded and sorted according to departmental perveyance, and once delivered they are then and only then considered to have been received. As you are very well aware, my supply is only that of officerial personal items, military aesthetic items, and infantry personal item requests. Today, I have tweezers and fruit-cake."
Shroudly nodded at Treacle. Treacle opened his military pouch and handed the Sergeant a pair of small tweezers and a brown-wrapped parcel the size of an eight by eight baking tin.
"While I may sympathize with your issues concerning your requisitions, they do not fall into the parameters of aesthetic military equipment. For as you can easily recognize," Shroudly gave a sniff of disdain, "hip-waders are a function of combative military equipment and not aesthetic military equipment. And therefore they do not fall under our requistional purview."
Without waiting for a reply, Shroudly turned around and left, with a final remark cast behind him, "Please, enjoy your fruit-cake."
Treacle gave an apologetic shrug, and sloshed behind his commander.
"Sergeant Treacle," the Leftenant was saying, "Be sure to delay their requisition for another two days. Without proper military discipline, one would think His Majesty's Rifles were merely a militia. They are soldiers and they shall be treated as such."
Treacle responded, "Yes sir."
They sloshed on silently, for a few minutes. "Oh, and Treacle, be sure to put in a requisition for a pair of hip-waders, the mud is getting into my boots."
"Yes, Leftenant."
Treacle waited a short while, and asked, "Leftenant, Sir?"
"Yes, Treacle."
"I was wondering sir, why it is that if the trenches are so deep in water, why don't the men bail out the water like they would do in a ship that has a leak?"
Shroudly thought for a minute, "I think the answer would be obvious, Treacle."
"Well, yeah, Sir, I was just wondering if you knew it, Sir.
"Of course I know the answer, and obviously you do as well, so I will let you answer the question."
Treacle thought for a moment, "Well the way I see it, is that if we were in a boat, and it was leaking we would be in the Navy."
"Yes," Shroudly encouraged.
"But we aren't in the Navy, are we sir?"
"We most definitely are not."
"And if we aren't in the Navy we won't be in the boat would we?"
"Exactly," Shroudly answered.
"So if we are not in the Navy and not in the Boat because we are not in the Navy, it stands to reason that we are not sinking, and therefore we have no need to bail out the water."
"And there you have it, that is the brilliance of the Army," Shroudly answered, "We are definitely not the Navy."
"Makes sense to me, Sir."
They continued to slosh through the mud. Several shells landed near by, exploded, and sent mud careening over their path in the trench. Neither appeared to be concerned with the falling debris, as they continued forward to their next delivery.
As they approached another huddle of twenty men, the mud soaked Sergeant stood up quickly, shouting out, "Tention".
As one the men responded to attention and saluted.
"As you were," Shroudly said.
"Hello, Leftenant," the Sergeant greeted Shroudly with a brown teethed smile. "Another package of fruit-cake, I imagine."
Shroudly smiled, "Now that is what I call proper discipline, Sergeant Treacle."
To the mud-soaked Sergeant he said, "Sergeant, may I congratulate you on keeping your men at the level of readiness needed to fight this just and glorious engagement."
The Sergeant responded enthusiastically, "A just and glorious war, sir. That it is in deed!"
"And why might I ask, Sergeant, are your men so happy to be where they are," Shroudly said as he observed the smiles on the men's faces.
"It's all about the fruit-cake sir," the Sergeant answered.
"Yes, and why is that?"
"It saved our lives, Sir. Well several of us, anyway!"
Shroudly responded, "That is what I like to hear. Soldiers satisfied with their lot in this most dismal theatre of battle, happy with their provision, basking in the care of this man's army."
"And how did it save your men?" Sergeant Treacle asked.
The Sergeant answered, "We were holding it for a special occasion and had set it on the shelf. Then a grenade came flying into the trench. We couldn't see it since it was under the water, in the mud, so we were trying to get out of the way. In the confusion, the fruit-cake got knocked off the shelf, and fell onto the grenade just as it went off. The cake was so hard, it absorbed all of the shrapnel."
The Corporal sitting near the Sergeant added, "We were thinking, the next time we go over the top, if we all had fruit-cake covering our chests we would be less likely to get injured by their rifles."
Shroudly had a flash of insight, "Why, Corporal, that is a brilliant idea. I will make sure that command hears about this flash of genius, and I'll be sure to mention your names when I present it."
"That would be wonderful sir," the Sergeant said, beeming.
After Shroudly and Treacle left the men, Treacle asked another question.
"So, Sir, do you think this kind of body armor will really work?"
Shroudly answered, "We'll have to refine the idea, because once the cake gets wet it'll become soft, and won't work any longer. But I am sure we can figure out a way to wrap it so it doesn't get wet. Maybe we can put it in a tin, and it will stay dry that way."
"That would be brilliant, Sir."
"Ahhh, but that's not half of it, Treacle."
"Why is that, Sir."
"Because we will be doubling our department's efficiency in one single swoop."
"Why is that, Sir"
"Because, once we prove the use of fruit-cake as "combative military equipment", it will no longer qualify as a "military personal need." So our department won't be delivering any more fruit-cake, and all we will need to do is process requests for tweezers," Shroudly grinned triumphantly.
To be continued.
