When I Was in the Army Before

Winter 1915-1916

A Reminiscence of the C.O.

When I entered the Army I had a varied experience in England, and served in many places. One regiment I served with was the Royal Irish Rifles, and here I had during eighteen months an opportunity of getting to know the men of the regiment - and felt there was something to be said for the days of the regimental surgeon. I knew the disposition of each man, and was able at times by a word of advice to check the crazy ones and coax the 'onaisy ones.' I remember once when I took over the medical charge of the regiment being amused at the epidemics of toothache which occurred on the days of the C.O.'s parade; the secret being that my predecessor was unable to extract teeth and the hospital sergeant equally so; the men had something put in the tooth and went back, 'Medicine and Duty,' to wait for next C.O.'s parade. As I was brought up for the Army and knew of the toothache excuse, I obtained practice in the extraction of teeth in hospital when a student, and had a set of instruments made for myself. The first C.O.'s parade caused ten men's teeth to ache. I sent for my forceps, and ten men went back less a tooth apiece. After a few more C.O.'s parades and a few more extractions it was possible for the colonel to have a parade without making his men's teeth ache.

I was sitting in my office one day, and saw from my window the corporal bringing the sick to hospital. One man was evidently enjoying a good story he was telling, and appeared so happy that I wondered what he could be suffering with. When he entered my room he looked a very sad man, and was holding his hand to his ear, and when I said, "Well, Sullivan, what's the matter with you?" he replied, "Earache, sorr." It did not require a Sherlock Holmes to discover that he was for C.O.'s parade, and had evidently had a night of it - and also that the earache was not real. I examined his ear, found it healthy, then explained in a sympathetic manner that bad teeth were a common cause of earache, that the pain was reflex, and that the only certain cure of the terrible pain of earache was extraction of the offending tooth. I looked into his mouth and saw two bad molars, sent him out of the room to think which was the worst, and on his return took out the first of the two, and sent him back to duty. At the time I had on the sick list an officer with very severe enteric. He had no visitors, so counted on his servant for the news. When I next visited this young officer he gave me the following story:
"Well, Hakim, Montgomery has been in to assure me that if we had the doctor wid us always there would be few of them go sick but what had something the matter wid'em. Shure, Sullivan came in late last night, and said he would clean his belt for no man, and he would not go on any Commanding Officer's parade next morning. He meant going sick. We tould him he'd better not go sick wid toothache or he would be having one less to ate wid. Sez he, 'I'm not going sick wid toothache. I am going wid earache, and he won't take that out.' Well, sorr, he went sick this morning, and the doctor was most kind and sympathetic, and, sez he, 'My poor fellow, earache is a terrible pain, and in you - as your ear is all right - it must come from a bad tooth.' And wid that he took out a tooth and sez, 'Remember, Sullivan, and don't go sick with earache next Commanding Officer's parade, or I'll take out your other bad teeth for you.' And shure the whole barrack room is laughing at Sullivan."

There was another man who was incessantly in trouble, so much that I could nearly always count on finding him in cells if not in hospital - and almost invariably for the same reason. His reply to my enquiry, "Well, and what has brought you to the cells this time?" was ever the same. Had "a sup of drink taken, sorr," and tried to fight the guard. I offered him on one occasion to cut his cells short by taking him into hospital, but he asked me not to, as he would rather finish his punishment first. He and I were quite friends, so I asked the adjutant (poor Clinton Baker, who was recently killed while in command) to put this man in the football team, and he did, and from that day onwards P__ never got into trouble. Meeting him one afternoon kicking a football, I expressed surprise to find him still out of trouble, and he replied, "The colonel is just after seeing me sorr, and, sez he, 'P__, I have not seen you so long that I thought you had deserted.'" Often I have thought that bad characters (so-called) in the Army like my friend P__, merely want their energy directed into a proper channel.

I remember one night being called to a man who had fractured the base of his skull. I was told he had fallen over the verandah, and as it was possible that he might die I accepted the accident theory, though it was more than probably he had been thrown over in a fight. I put him to bed with an ice-bag on his head, and had six regimental orderlies told off to mind him, two on duty at a time. I paid a surprise visit at two o'clock in the morning of the following day, and found the whole ward - except one - asleep, including the regimental orderlies; the sole exception being the patient, who was sitting up in bed smoking a short clay pipe, while the ice-bag was on the floor under the bed. I took his temperature, and it was 104 degrees. I told him it was useless trying to help him; he was spoiling the average of the regiment; his defaulter sheet was full twice over; and the kindest thing he could do for the regiment was to die - and have a military funeral.
He made an uninterupted and complete recovery.

On one occasion we were going on manoeuvres, and some of the lazy ones decided that there was no fun to be had out of it, and so they would stay on at Brighton. To do this they would go sick on the first day out, as there was no hospital at the first halting place, and I should be obliged to send them back. They forgot that it is unwise to think aloud, and so I overheard the plan. I arranged with the colonel to have every man who fell out collected and brought in by the rearguard after I had examined him, and then started them off next morning an hour before the regiment with warning that if they were late getting in to the next camp they would have no dinner, as none would be saved, and they would have two hour's start next day. This cured them. They got to camp before we did.

Since I have been here I have met several men of the R.I.R., though, of course, none who were in the regiment when I was with it twenty years ago; but they are the same cheery crowd, full of divilment, but good fighting men (and I am sure that those who knew Jimmy Shortis would be willing to accept him as a good type of the man I mean), well worthy of carrying on the tradition of a fine regiment, and one of which I shall always retain most affectionate recollections - though, alas, most of the officers serving in my time have died on service during this war.