TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

on his podgy figure. His name, he told me, was
Mansfield, and he made no secret of the fact that he
had chucked up a job worth £800 a year. "And a
nice hope I've got of ever getting it back again!" he
added.

When our luggage was unloaded we went to report
ourselves at the orderly room. Everything was quiet
and deserted, for the troops were drilling on a big
field a few hundred yards up the road which went
past the camp. We entered the orderly room. The
Adjutant was sitting at a table strewn with documents.
We saluted clumsily, but he did not look up for a
minute or two. When he deigned to do so his eyes
alighted on Mansfield. During a prolonged scrutiny
he adjusted an eyeglass. Finally he leant back in his
chair and exclaimed, with unreproducible hauteur,
"Christ! who's your tailor?" This (with a reminder
that his hair wanted cutting) was the regimental
recognition which Mansfield received from his grate-
ful country for having given up a good job in the
woollen industry. My own reception was in accord-
ance with the cut of my clothes and my credentials
from Captain Huxtable.

IV

IT is ten years since I uttered an infantry word of
command: and I am only one of a multitude of
men in whose minds parade ground phraseology has
become as obsolete and derelict as a rusty kettle in a
ditch. So much so that it seems quite illuminating
to mention the fact. "At the halt on the left form
platoon" now sounds to me positively peculiar, and
to read Infantry Training 1914 for a few minutes might

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