Adventures of a Despatch Rider

platform of Earl's Court Station, waiting for the 6.55 through train to South Harrow, and Alec had just remarked that we had ten minutes to wait. We had travelled up to

tite that we did not feel like work in t

the spirit of adventure. We determined to take part, and debated whether we should go out as war correspondents or as orderlies in a Servian h

rnament on Monday, and a dance in the evening, left us with a mere background of warlike endeavour. It w

d excitement. Things were too big to grasp. It was just the other day that 'The Blue Book,' most respectable of Oxford magazines, had published an article showing that a war between Great Britain and Germany was almost unthinkable. It had been written by an undergraduate who had actually been at a German university. Had the multitudinous Anglo-German

n St James's there was little hope. I walked down Pall Mall. In Trafalgar Square a vast, serious crowd was anxiously waiting for news. In Whitehall Belgians were doing their best to ro

scenes that would accompany its declaration, so I went home.

for London to join them, but on the way up I read the paragraph in which the War Office appealed for motor-cyclists. So I went straight to Scotland Yard. There I was taken up to a large room full of benches crammed with all sorts and conditions of men. The old fellow on

little songs, and made the worst jokes in the world-being continually interrupted by an irritable sergeant, whom we called "dearie." One or two men were feveris

sses, and qualifications were written down. To my overwhelming joy I was marked as "very suitable." I went to Great Portland Street,

d together we went to the appointed place. There we found twenty or thirty enlisted or unenlisted. I had come only to make inquiries, but I was carried away. After a series of waits I was medi

e might be killed, until, by the time we reached Victoria, there was not a single one of us who would not have given anything to u

of us, who wanted to go out together, managed by slight misstatements to be put into one batch. We were chosen to join the 5th

es had derided as a crowd of slavish wastrels and empty-headed slackers. We met with tact and courtesy from the mercenary. A sergeant of the Sappers we d

tly requested me to mention in "the book" that she carried, with much labour, a large and heavy pair of ski-in

our names in the visitors'

t in these 'ere times yer ne

r-breaking splutter of exhausts

young fellers! I wonder

't quite sure I liked the idea of it all. But the sharp morning air, the interest in training a new motor-cycle in the way it should go, the unexpected popping-up and grotesque salutes of wee gnome-like Boy Scouts, soon made me forget the war. A series of the kind of little breakdowns you always have in a collection of new bikes delayed us considerably, and only a race over greasy setts

t from three to six weeks. At Holyhead we carefully took our bikes aboard, and settled down to a cold voyage. We were all a trifle appreh

cottages in the twilight. When it was quite dark we stopped at a town with a hill in it. One of our men had a brick thrown at him as he rode in, and when we came to the inn we didn't get a gracious word, and decided it was more pleasant not to be a soldier in Ireland. The daughter of the house was pretty and passably clean, but it was very grimly that she had led me through

th the starting up of our bikes, and we were off again.

lready arrived. We were overjoyed to see them. We realised that what they did not know about motor-cycles was not worth knowing, and we had

ve universities, thrown as corporals at the head of a company of professional soldiers. We were determined that, whatever vices we might have, we should not be accused of "swank

rs or to Ulster, but the war had made all the difference in the world. We were to represent Carlow in the Great War. Right through the winter

went into a little public-house for some beer and bread and cheese. The landlord told me that though he wasn't exactly a lover of soldiers, thing

though two of us nearly fainted on parade the following morning-it was streamingly hot-but our farewell dinner was absolut