aning as the
modern soldier's "Nah pooh!"

During the winter months classes of instruction are held in all the
training centres, the instructors being the non-commissioned officers
of the permanent Militia. The amount of good done depends largely on the
ability and personal effort of the commanders of the local corps. During
these months such officers as can spare the time or have not already
done so become, by various long and tedious processes, involving much
correspondence, attached to the various barracks for instruction.

This arrangement is a very popular one for all concerned, providing as
it does--

1. Frequent leave for junior officers of the permanent force;

2. An opportunity to drill men who know, by years of experience, what
movements one wishes to perform, and who will (D.V.) perform them with
machinelike precision despite wrong commands;

3. A pleasant change in the ordinary drill for the above-mentioned men
owing to the aforesaid wrong commands.

In the evenings lectures are given by senior officers who are not young,
married, or talented in other ways. These lectures comprise the hundred
and one things an officer is expected to know, from "Military Law" to
"Protection when at Rest." This last subject will require revision after
the present campaign, it being the writer's opinion that soldiers never
rest--not when there is a foot of Allied soil unturned by a shovel, at
any rate.

Eventually one passes an examination of sorts and becomes a qualified
officer of Militia. The questions set are not hard--they would doubtless
raise a smile if handed to a first year Sandhurst man--but they present
real difficulties to officers whose opportunities are limited and whose
spare time is largely taken up in the hard and thankless task of
recruiting.

Officers of the permanent force are, in the main, graduates of the Royal
Military College, Kingston, an institution second to none in the Empire.
Field officers of Militia can also take a training course at the
college, but the numbers who can avail themselves of this opportunity
are limited.

Our staffs are assisted by very able officers loaned from the Imperial
Army in exchange for officers of the same rank attached to Imperial
battalions.

But the bulk of the instructional work is done, and exceedingly well
done too, by the staff-sergeant--the Sergeant What's-'is-Name of
Kipling's song.

He is very carefully selected and trained, and becomes in time a w