John Gordon Hargrave (6 June 1894 – 21 November 1982), (woodcraft name 'White Fox'), was described in his obituary as an 'author, cartoonist, inventor, lexicographer, artist and psychic healer'. As Head Man of the Kibbo Kift, he was a prominent youth leader in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s. He was a Utopian thinker, a believer in both science and magic, and a figure-head for the Social Credit movement in British politics. "At Suvla Bay"; Being the notes and sketches of scenes, characters and adventures of the Dardanelles campaign. (Excerpt from Wikipedia)
Chapter 1 IN WHICH MY KING AND COUNTRY NEED ME
I left the office of The Scout, 28 Maiden Lane, W.C., on September 8th, 1914, took leave of the editor and the staff, said farewell to my little camp in the beech-woods of Buckinghamshire and to my woodcraft scouts, bade good-bye to my father, and went off to enlist in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
I made my way to the Marylebone recruiting office, and after waiting about for hours, I went at last upstairs and "stripped out" with a lot of other men for the medical examination.
The smell of human sweat was overpowering in the little ante-room. Some of the men had hearts and anchors and ships and dancing-girls tattooed in blue on their chests and arms. Some were skinny and others too fat. Very few looked fit. I remarked upon the shyness they suffered in walking about naked.
"Did yer pass?"
"No, 'e spotted it," said the dejected rejected.
"Wot?"
"Rupture."
"Got through, Alf?"
"No: eyesight ain't good enough."
So it went on for half-an-hour.
Then came my turn.
"Ha!" said the little doctor, "this is the sort we want," and he rubbed his gold-rimmed glasses on his handkerchief. "Chest, thirty-four-thirty-seven," said the doctor, tapping with his tape-measure, "How did yer do that?"
"What, sir?" said I, gasping, for I was trying to blow my chest out, or burst.
"Had breathing exercises?"
"No, sir-I'm a scout."
"Ha!" said he, and noticed my knees were brown with sunburn because I always wore shorts.
I passed the eyesight test, and they took my name down, and my address, occupation and age.
"Ever bin in the army before?"
"No, sir."
"Married?"
"No, sir."
"Ever bin in prison?"
"No, sir."
"What's yer religion?"
"Nothing, sir."
"What?"
"Nothing at all."
"Ah, but you've got to 'ave one in the army."
"Got to?"
"Yes, you must. Wot's it to be-C. of E.?"
"What d'you mean?"
"Church of England. Most of 'em do."
Awful thoughts of church parade flashed through my mind.
"Right you are-Quaker!" said I.
"Quaker! Is that a religion?" he asked doubtfully.
"Yes."
I watched him write it down.
"Right, that'll do. Report at Munster Road recruiting station, Fulham, to-morrow."
We were all dressed by this time. After a lot more waiting about outside in a yard, a sergeant came and took about eight of us into a room where there was a table and some papers and an officer in khaki.
I spotted a Bible on the table. We had to stand in a row while he read a long list of regulations in which we were made to promise to obey all orders of officers and non-commissioned officers of His Majesty's Service. After that, he told us he would swear us in. We had to hold up the right hand above the head, and say, all together: "Swhelpmegod!"
I immediately realised that I had taken an oath, which was not in accordance with my regimental religion!
No sooner were we let out than I began to feel the ever-tightening tangle of red tape.
What the dickens had I enlisted for? I asked myself. I had lost all my old-time freedom: I could no longer go on in my old camping and sketching life. I was now a soldier-a "tommy"-a "private." I loathed the army. What a fool I was!
The next day I reported at Fulham. More hours of waiting. I discovered an old postman who had also enlisted in the R.A.M.C., and as he "knew the ropes" I stuck to him like a leech. In the afternoon an old recruiting sergeant with a husky voice fell us in, and we marched, a mob of civilians, through the London streets to the railway station. Although this was quite a short distance, the sergeant fell us out near a public-house, and he and a lot more disappeared inside.
What a motley crowd we were: clerks in bowler hats; "knuts" in brown suits, brown ties, brown shoes, and a horse-shoe tie-pin; tramp-like looking men in rags and tatters and smelling of dirt and beer and rank twist.
Old soldiers trying to "chuck a chest"; lanky lads from the country gaping at the houses, shops and people.
Rough, broad-speaking, broad-shouldered men from the Lancashire cotton-mills; shop assistants with polished boots, and some even with kid gloves and a silver-banded cane. Here and there was a farm-hand in corduroys and hob-nailed, cowdung-spattered boots, puffing at a broken old clay pipe, and speaking in the "Darset" dialect. At the station they had to have another "wet" in the refreshment room, and by the time the train was due to start a good many were "canned up."
Boozy voices yelled out-
"'S long way... Tipper-airy..."
"Good-bye, Bill... 'ave... 'nother swig?"
"Don't ferget ter write, Bill..."
"Aw-right, Liz... Good-bye, Albert..."
We were locked in the carriage. There was much shouting and laughing.... And so to Aldershot.
Chapter 1 IN WHICH MY KING AND COUNTRY NEED ME
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Chapter 2 A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY
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Chapter 3 SNARED
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Chapter 4 CHARACTERS
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Chapter 5 I HEAR OF HAWK
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Chapter 6 ON THE MOVE
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Chapter 7 MEDITERRANEAN NIGHTS
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Chapter 8 THE CITY OF WONDERFUL COLOUR ALEXANDRIA
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Chapter 9 MAROONED ON LEMNOS ISLAND
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Chapter 10 THE NEW LANDING
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Chapter 11 THE KAPANJA SIRT
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Chapter 12 THE SNIPER-HUNT
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Chapter 13 THE ADVENTURE OF THE WHITE PACK-MULE
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Chapter 14 THE SNIPER OF THE PEAR-TREE GULLY
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Chapter 15 KANGAROO BEACH
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Chapter 16 THE ADVENTURE OF THE LOST SQUADS
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Chapter 17 "OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND!"
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Chapter 18 TWO MEN RETURN
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Chapter 19 THE RETREAT
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Chapter 20 "JHILL-O! JOHNNIE!"
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Chapter 21 SILVER BAY
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Chapter 22 DUG-OUT YARNS
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Chapter 23 THE WISDOM OF FATHER S--
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Chapter 24 THE SHARP-SHOOTERS
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Chapter 25 A SCOUT AT SUVLA BAY
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Chapter 26 THE BUSH-FIRES
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Chapter 27 THE DEPARTURE
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Chapter 28 LOOKING BACK
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