Soldiers

by Richard Holmes

  Until the 1870s soldiers ate in their rooms, and soon after ‘Reveille’ the room’s mess orderly-men would cut away to the cookhouse and return with tea and bread, the latter known as ‘Tommy’ or ‘Pong’. First parade might be at 7.30 or 8.30 a.m. often with a half-hour bugle warning – ‘Just half an hour they give us all to dress: Lots of time to turn out a-fresh! Things will be bad if you’re not there just the same – The Ord’-ly Sergeant, he will dot down your name.’ The ‘Quarter Call’ gave a final warning before the bugles blared the ‘Fall In’: ‘Fall in A, Fall in B, Fall in every companee’, or ‘Soldiers all, great and small, don’t you hear the bugle-call?’ Summoned by the bugle soldiers stood easy, in company groups, at the rear of the parade ground. Then the regimental sergeant major called for right markers, who slammed to attention, strode out to the spot marking their company’s right front, and halted. Then, on the sergeant major’s command, the companies fell in and the unit was ready for the day’s work.

  Daily routine varied greatly. Recruits would be drilled from dawn to dusk, and in the 1870s it took a cavalryman about nine months to be ‘dismissed recruit drill’. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries many regiments expected newly-joined officers to drill with the men until they had ‘passed off the square’. In the early nineteenth century Lieutenant John Cooke wrote that he was expected

  To drill with a squad composed of peasants from the plough and other raw recruits, first learning the facings, marchings and the companies’ evolutions. That being completed, the officer put on cross-belts and pouches and learnt the firelock exercises; then again he marched with the same; and when it was considered that the whole was perfect, with and without arms, they began to skirmish in extended file, and last of all learned the duties of a sentry, and to fire ball cartridge at a target.20

  Once a man had passed off the square his life became very much easier, not least because he could now be out of barracks after work and before Last Post, always assuming that his standard of dress was high enough for him to ‘pass the guard’ at the barrack gates. Soldiers leaving barracks were, by definition, in uniform, for it was not until the 1930s that they were allowed civilian clothes, and even then might not be permitted to walk out in them. By Victoria’s reign they left barracks in the full majesty of best uniforms, brushed and polished within an inch of their lives, natty caps replacing full-dress helmets, and carrying the riding whips or swagger canes without which, somehow, their military identities would have been incomplete. Unless a man had a pass to enable him to remain out longer or, better still, to ‘sleep out’ of barracks, he was expected back by 9.30 p.m., when the main gate was closed. The small wicket gate would be opened for late arrivals.

  Learning how to manage the finery of walking out was no easy task. In 1850 the men of the 74th Highlanders were advised that their carriage and gait off duty ‘required constant attention’, and in 1906 men of the Royal Fusiliers were enjoined to ‘at all times walk in that light and airy manner that distinguishes the fusilier’.21 R. G. Garrod, who joined the 20th Hussars before the First World War, remembered that the braces holding his overalls tight against the straps that ran beneath his instep had to be cushioned with cotton-wool to prevent him from chafing his shoulder, and he was not allowed near the barrack gate until he had mastered the art of picking up a dropped whip or glove. If cavalrymen made a magnificent sight striding out two by two, spurs tinkling on the cobbles, then they certainly paid for it. The repetitive demands of his steed meant that the cavalryman had a long day, with morning stables, mucking-out, generally at 6.00 a.m., followed by breakfast, another round of stables mid-morning and third stables after tea. The words for the cavalry trumpet call ‘Hay up’, or ‘Litter down’, sounded for third stables, ended on a hopeful note: ‘Soon as the Off-’cer’s been a-round boys, Then we can go to town.’ There was horses’ tack to be cleaned in addition to personal equipment, and the price a cavalryman paid for his elegance was a working day that might not end till perilously close to ‘Last Post’.

  However, Sergeant John Pearman, in India with the 3rd Light Dragoons in the 1840s, admitted that

  Our time was spent very idly, as all our drill was in the morning and dismounted drill in the evening. As it was very hot in the day, we sat on our charpoys and played at cards, backgammon or chess or anything that took our taste. At other times I would read books or sit at the needle.22

  Thanks to locally employed grooms he was spared the drudgery of looking after his horse. Infantryman John Fraser, serving in India forty years later, remembered that his day began when the nappy-wallah appeared and whispered ‘Shave, sahib?’ ‘We felt like lords,’ wrote Fraser, ‘for all of the interior tasks, sweeping out the rooms and verandahs, and carrying water from the well, was done for us by the natives.’23

  The end of the day was marked by the calls of ‘Last Post’ and ‘Lights Out’. The music bringing the army’s day to its end had originated in the seventeenth-century ‘tattoo’, the word deriving from the Dutch doe ten tap toe, directing sutlers and innkeepers to turn off the taps of their beer-kegs and soldiers to make their unsteady way homewards to camp or barracks. A party of drummers beat about the town, following a prescribed route from first to last post. As late as 1914 Trumpet and Bugle Sounds for the Army still contained the tune for ‘Tattoo’ (1st Post), although by then it was not always sounded, and the haunting ‘Last Post’, played at about 10.00 p.m., was followed, half an hour later by the brief lights out. The soldier was then confined for the night in the

  indescribable and subtly all-pervading aroma of pipe-clay, damp clothes, lamp oil, dish cloths, soft soap and butter and cheese suppers – for the soldier’s food is kept on a shelf in the same apartment in which he eats and lives. By this arrangement, his single apartment answers the purpose of dining-room, smoking-room, sitting-room, and bed-room combined.24

  During the day buglers would sound routine calls, like Men’s Meal, with the familiar refrain ‘Oh, come to the cook-house door, boys! Come to the cook-house door.’ That soldiers were bidden to the building’s door shows that the words pre-dated the construction of dining rooms in barracks from the 1870s. Until then mess orderlies – a mess consisted of about sixteen men from the same company – would report to the cookhouse and collect the cooked rations for their comrades, which were distributed and devoured at the barrack-room table. Because the quality of meat was variable, in some messes the orderly, standing with his back to the mess, would dole out a portion and ask ‘Who will have this’ to ensure pot-luck fairness. In 1863 Private Edwin Mole of the 14th Hussars saw how things were done in his mess:

  there came a shout of ‘Look out for scaldings!’ and a man ran up with a large dish of meat and a small tin of potatoes. Lumping them down on the table, he cried: ‘Come on; bring your churries!’ whereupon some of the soldiers produced knives and began to cut up the meat into lots according to the number in the mess. Then each soldier took the portion that suited his fancy; but at least half-a-dozen men, after a look at the dish, lit their pipes and went off to the canteen … The meat and potatoes were both bad and I made my dinner off bread …

  After a bit the men who had gone to the canteen began to return, a few not quite so steady as they might be, and by three o’clock all the room was asleep except myself.25

  The main meal of the day was known as dinner, but it was generally eaten between 1.00 and 2.00 p.m., and there was usually nothing but the ‘tea-meal’ of bread and tea between 5.00 p.m. and lights out unless the soldier chose to pay for it. The Napoleonic soldier had a daily ration of 1 lb bread, 1 lb beef, 1 oz butter or cheese, 1 lb pease pudding and 1 oz rice: pork might be substituted for the beef. By 1914 diet was only slightly more sophisticated, and a man was entitled to 1¼ lb meat, 1¼ lb bread or 1 lb biscuits, ¼ lb bacon, 3 oz cheese, tea, sugar, jam, salt, pepper, and mustard, with ½ lb fresh vegetables when available or 2 oz dried vegetables in lieu.26 Until 1873 these ‘commissariat rations’ were funded by stopping 4½d from a man’s
daily pay, and thereafter soldiers were still required to pay 3d for their ‘regimental rations’, things like the potatoes, and extra vegetables and bread, that had always been required to eke out the basic ration.

  The quality of the food was not improved by the fact that meat often arrived on the hoof, to be butchered regimentally and then issued to messes on the bone. In 1859 an officer thought that once meat and gristle had been removed a man actually received six or seven ounces of meat from a daily allowance that then amounted to ¾ lb. Each mess had two large coppers and food was boiled in them, usually meat in one and potatoes in the other, so there was little variety. Meat bones and off-cuts with vegetable trimmings, sometimes with oatmeal added, were boiled to make soup. Suet and raisins, given as ‘commissariat issue’ to embarked troops, might be purchased as regimental rations and, steamed in a cloth, made a very tasty ‘figgy duff’.

  As dining rooms were established in barracks, and cookhouses were equipped with better ovens, food could at last be roasted or fried as well as simply boiled. The messing-group largely disappeared, so cooking was now the responsibility of regimental cooks, under a sergeant, often called the ‘master duff’ just as the unit’s sergeant tailor was the ‘master stitch’. Cooks came under the control of the quartermaster, who was answerable to the commanding officer for the provision and preparation of rations. There were times, when it was not actively engaged on operations, when a battalion might not be able to eat centrally. In 1915 1/6th King’s was at HQ Third Army, and reverted to the old mess system, with each fifteen-man mess providing a cook each day. Private Norman Ellison recalled that rations were lavish, as was often the case for units living in the world of the rear.

  Every morning we open the ball with porridge, bacon and fried bread, honey or jam and tea. Luncheon mid-day: steak and onions or mutton chops. Dinner 6.30 p.m.: soup, roast beef or mutton, potatoes and another vegetable, milk pudding and jam, coffee and cigarettes.27

  By the middle of the nineteenth century quartermasters had inevitably passed through the ranks to their commissions, and, in the process, had learnt a good deal about how extra rations could be procured and how small improvements could make a real difference to the men that ate them. All-in stew, that great military staple, could be much enhanced by big suet dumplings (‘babies’ ’eads’) and extra onions. The addition of curry powder delighted old India hands, and a splash of paprika might persuade the uninitiated that they were eating goulash. Army biscuits, pounded to crumbs in a cloth, could make a savoury topping or, with ‘liberated’ apples, a fruit crumble. There was no pleasing everyone. One soldier exulted: ‘Today we have stew – and a rattling good stew. Followed by my favourite currant duff – spotted dog.’ However, a comrade opined ‘What! Stew again? Can’t that perishin’ bobadhji cook anything but stew?’28 Soldiers craved bulky food with a bit of bite to it, and there was no check on unhealthy practices. When the cooks had finished frying bacon they would yell ‘Gypp-oh!’ and soldiers would rush up to dip their bread gleefully in the hot fat. Most recruits were so badly fed outside the army that the first six months of their service changed them physically and psychologically. The food filled them out, and physical training toughened them. ‘Our bodies developed and our backs straightened according to plan’ wrote John Lucy.

  We marched instead of walking, and we forced on ourselves that rigidity of limb and poker face that marks the professional soldier. Pride of arms possessed us, and we discovered that our regiment was a regiment, and then some.29

  On campaign, if fresh vegetables were not at hand, lime juice might be given on the recommendation of the unit’s medical officer with the approval of the general officer commanding. Both these worthies had to agree to the issue of spirits, ½ gill of rum per man, and up to 2 oz of tobacco for smokers. Needless to say, most doctors and generals did indeed conclude that rum and tobacco were wholly essential for the well-being of their soldiers. A notable exception was Major General Reginald Pinney, who commanded 33rd Division on the Western Front in the First World War, ‘a devout, non-smoking teeto-taller who banned the rum ration in his division’. Private Frank Richards of 2/Royal Welch Fusiliers thought him ‘a bun-punching crank … more fitted to be in command of a Church Mission hut at the base than a division of troops’.30 In contrast, Douglas Haig, though his family fortune was founded on whisky distilling, thought him one of the most reliable of divisional commanders, and 33rd Division’s fine performance in checking the German offensive of April 1918 certainly seemed to bear this out. Cigarettes and pipe tobacco were issued free to troops during both world wars, and although the rum ration is no longer routine issue for troops on operations, it can still be given, on medical advice, in quite exceptional circumstances. In the whole of my time I never managed to encounter circumstances that were exceptional enough, though I lived in hope.

  From the end of the nineteenth century bully beef and tinned meat-and-vegetable stew, often called Maconochie’s from its original manufacturer, were an essential part of the preserved rations eaten on manoeuvres or campaign. Corned beef often made its appearance in barracks, perhaps fried up into a hash with onions and potatoes (luxurious when topped with a fried egg and lubricated with brown sauce) or carried out to the ranges in thick doorstep sandwiches. Composite (‘Compo’) rations, issued during and after the Second World War, were tinned or packaged food that arrived in wooden crates or cardboard boxes, with a number of menus (initially A to G) to ensure variety. It might be cooked, with the heartening roar of the petrol-fired, and occasionally lethal, No 1 burner, by a company’s cooks under the forceful direction of the colour sergeant, or simply issued to platoons to be divvied up amongst the sections and cooked under local arrangements. Armoured vehicle crewmen, likely to be given a big box to last them for several days, grew expert at heating tins on exhaust grilles.

  If tactical circumstances made collective cooking impossible, then troops lived on the tinned 24-hour ration packs. There are ten different menus: ‘Menu 1’ has bacon, omelette and beans for breakfast; tomato soup and lamb curry with rice for dinner; a tuna in mayo snack; and both an isotonic lemon drink and the powder for a chocolate drink. All packs contain a sundries wallet with a chocolate bar, oatmeal blocks, fruit biscuits, hard-tack biscuits, boiled sweets, jam, the makings for tea and coffee, Tabasco sauce, chewing gum, a natty folding can opener, water purification tablets, all-weather matches, and toilet tissue. Both compo rations and 24-hour packs contained individual favourites, and barter was rife within the sub-tribe as one tin of the ever-popular beans and sausages was traded for several of the salty bacon grill. Processed cheese issued with it was not much liked and could usually be cadged easily. Yet there were worse things, at the end of a long and wearing day, than a thick slice of cheese on a hard-tack biscuit, or a good squeeze of tubed apricot jam on an oatmeal block.

  In an effort to improve the standards of army cooking, cookery schools were established in home commands during the First World War. It was not until 1941 that the Army Catering Corps was founded, initially as part of the Royal Army Service Corps. It became a corps in its own right in 1965, and was subsumed within the new Royal Logistic Corps in 1993. Warrant officers, NCOs, and men of the catering corps were posted to units, where they worked alongside regimental cooks. When the call for the men’s meal was blown, soldiers took mess tins or plates (local arrangements varied), together with their ‘noshing rods’ – to a long counter where food was ladled out, and to a table where they ate it. As they left the cookhouse, they washed and rinsed their utensils by plunging them into two tubs of water, one soapy and the other (in theory) clean. Over the past quarter-century the old-style cookhouse has disappeared, to be replaced by a restaurant or cafeteria, often sympathetically decorated, serving wholesome food with healthy options available. One of the services’ most controversial recent decisions has been the partial adoption of ‘Pay as You Dine’. The logic was that soldiers paid, by deductions from their pay, for food that they often did not eat, and it was fa
irer to allow them to opt out of eating army food, and to spend the money on things they preferred. Some of the many critics of ‘Pay as You Dine’ maintain that it is ‘Save to Starve’, for many soldiers pocket the extra pay but eat inadequately, or live on burgers, chips, and fizzy drinks. Other critics have argued that it has destroyed the social function of the cook-house, which formed part of the wider apparatus of corporate control.

  The eighteenth-century soldier had ready access to small beer in his billet, and to porter or spirits if his purse allowed him that luxury. From the start, barracks included canteens, bleak rooms with tables and chairs where men could buy drink. The Board of Ordnance soon let the contracts for canteens to the highest bidder, and by 1847 it was making an annual profit of almost £54,000 from canteen lettings. Horace Wyndham’s description of a night of entertainment in a Victorian canteen catches the mood of the place perfectly. ‘It is about as much as one can do, at first, to see more than a dozen yards into the interior of the room,’ he wrote. There were perhaps 300 men in a space designed for 150. The two dozen tables and benches housed ‘schools’ of three or four men, drinking from a single half-gallon jug: it was a point of honour for each man to pay for a round before leaving. There was a low stage at one end of the room, with a piano, played by a ‘professional gentleman [in this case Professor Guillaume, known to most of his listeners as Bill ’Iggins] who, for a small pecuniary consideration, and as much beer as he can take without getting unduly intoxicated, presides at the instrument for two hours every evening.’ A soldier acted as chairman, and performers from the body of the canteen were invited up.

  ‘I ’ave much pleasure, gents … in inviting our well-known friend Ginger Jackson to oblige us with a song an’ dance.’