Shadows of the Workhouse

shuffled backwards and forwards, sideways and hitherways, trying to make a line. The staff sergeant bellowed and swore and brandished his regimental swagger cane, trying to get them into military line. He was not successful, but had to make do with second best.
    “Right, you horrible men. You wait till I get you on the parade ground. You’ll damned soon learn how to form a line. Roll call.”
    An old duty sergeant stepped forward with two sheets of paper in his hand containing lists of names, which he proceeded to read out. His reading was not very good. No doubt the process would have been quicker if a duty sergeant who could read properly had been sent, but the ability to read was not an accomplishment that was rated very highly in the army.
    He got through several simple names without mishap – Brown, Smith, Cole, Bragg – but then was stuck.
    “Warrarramb . . . ” he shouted.
    No one answered.
    “Warrarrnad” Louder.
    No response.
    “What you say?” yelled the staff sergeant.
    The duty sergeant tried to look confident, and shouted “Warrarrandy”
    No response.
    The staff sergeant strode over to him, his cane swishing, his boots clicking, and snatched the paper. In the flickering gaslight of the station he squinted at the page. “Warrenden,” he shouted.
    A man stepped forward. Roll call proceeded in this manner. The duty sergeant did his best, but got stuck on Ashcroft, shouting “Askafoot”. Bengerfield, Willowby, Waterton set him stuttering, until everyone thought roll call would never be finished.
    One man was missing. The name was shouted backwards and forwards several times, but no one stepped forward. The staff sergeant struck the calf of his leg with his swagger cane and, with great deliberation, pulled out a stub of pencil and underlined the name.
    “It will be the worse for him,” he said menacingly. “Right men, form a column, four abreast, quick march.”
    Forming a column for untrained men is as difficult as forming a line. The staff sergeant swore and cursed and used his cane liberally, eventually getting some sort of ragged column together. With a “left, right, left, right” they marched off.
    It was four miles to the camp, which did Joe good. By the time he got there, his head had cleared from the effects of the rum, and ached only a little from the crack on the wall. The night air refreshed him, and the men surrounding him gave him a feeling of security.
    The sentries at Aldershot Barracks leaped swiftly to attention when they heard the column approaching. An incomprehensible word was barked out by the staff sergeant, sounding something like “Awt”. No one in the column thought it meant anything and continued marching. The four at the front were confronted by a menacing row of guards, each with a bayonet raised at forty-five degrees, and pointed directly at their stomachs. Another step, and they would have been skewered. They halted. The men behind carried on marching, straight into the backs of the men in front. About half the column fell on each other in this way. Being fresh from a sane world where this sort of thing is considered funny, they fell about laughing, but the staff sergeant failed to see the joke. He swore and raged at their imbecility.
    The column re-assembled inside the gates and marched another quarter-mile to the billet, a grey rectangular building, four storeys high.
    A short way off from this building the staff sergeant shouted.
    “In a minute, I am going to say ‘halt’, and that means ‘stop’, and when I say ‘halt’ I want you to stop. Got it?” They continued marching.
    “Awt.” Half the men stopped, the other half didn’t. The result was exactly the same as at the gate. The staff sergeant nearly went berserk. Somehow he managed to re-assemble them, marched them another fifty yards and shouted, “Halt.”
    This time everyone stopped.
    “Right. In line.”
    This was no easier than it had been at the station. In fact it was harder, because it was pitch-dark. Men stumbled and fell over each other, muttering and laughing.
    “Silence!” roared the staff sergeant.
    “Silence yerself, yer bloody windbag,” shouted a voice.
    “Who said that?” roared the sergeant.
    “Father Christmas,” said the voice.
    “Corporal, open the door,” roared the sergeant.
    The corporal on duty opened the door of the billet.
    “Forward. Quick march,” roared the sergeant, leading the way up four flights of stone steps. At the top, the corporal in