THE BRITISH ARMY IN TRAINING
Their instructors are those wonderful vertebrae of
the Empire, the sergeants and sergeant-majors of the
British Army. Huge fellows, deep-chested, formid-
able of voice, they left their groups at the double as
soon as the Colonel appeared, and with a salute of
frightening energy and a click of the heels, pulled
up short and reported thunderously:
'Sergeant Hill, sir. . . . Third platoon.. . . Fifth
week of training. . . . Bayonet-charging, sir!'
As he listened, the Colonel looked the sergeant in
the eyes. Each knew in what esteem the other held
him. It was military grandeur, without servitude*
We watched the training. It involved setting out
in parties of four, rifle in hand, leaping a wall, fixing
bayonets, running through a first bunch of hanging
dummies, pinning to the ground a second repre-
senting riflemen lying on their stomachs, and finally
taking a trench. It was all carried out in one frenzied
movement. Sergeant Hill was like a man possessed.
He set off with each new party, leaped the wall,
shouted encouragement to his men, urged them
onward and infused them with his own indefatigable
enthusiasm.
They looked intelligent, these young soldiers,
almost without an exception. Every class of society
was represented. The English peer was in the same
platoon as the man that fanned his estate, the Oxford
classical scholar in the same platoon as his butcher.
'Are you satisfied with them?" I asked the Colonel.
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