e policy of pegging away.

II

So much for the effect of its training upon the regiment as a whole.
But when you come to individuals, certain of whom we have encountered
and studied in this rambling narrative, you find it impossible to
generalise. Your one unshakable conclusion is that it takes all sorts
to make a type.

There are happy, careless souls like McLeary and Hogg. There are
conscientious but slow-moving worthies like Mucklewame and Budge.
There are drunken wasters like--well, we need name no names. We have
got rid of most of these, thank heaven! There are simple-minded
enthusiasts of the breed of Wee Pe'er, for whom the sheer joy of
"sojering" still invests dull routine and hard work with a glamour of
their own. There are the old hands, versed in every labour-saving
(and duty-shirking) device. There are the feckless and muddle-headed,
making heavy weather of the simplest tasks. There is another class,
which divides its time between rising to the position of sergeant and
being reduced to the ranks, for causes which need not be specified.
There is yet another, which knows its drill-book backwards, and can
grasp the details of a tactical scheme as quickly as a seasoned
officer, but remains in the ruck because it has not sufficient force
of character to handle so much as a sentry-group. There are men,
again, with initiative but no endurance, and others with endurance but
no initiative. Lastly, there are men, and a great many of them, who
appear to be quite incapable of coherent thought, yet can handle
machinery or any mechanical device to a marvel. Yes, we are a motley
organisation.

But the great sifting and sorting machine into which we have been cast
is shaking us all out into our appointed places. The efficient and
authoritative rise to non-commissioned rank. The quick-witted and
well-educated find employment on the Orderly Room staff, or among the
scouts and signallers. The handy are absorbed into the transport, or
become machine-gunners. The sedentary take post as cooks, or tailors,
or officers' servants. The waster hews wood and draws water and
empties swill-tubs. The great, mediocre, undistinguished majority
merely go to stiffen the rank and file, and right nobly they do it.
Each has his niche.

To take a few examples, we may begin with a typical member of the
undistinguished majority. Such an one is that esteemed citizen of
Wishaw, John Mucklewame. He is a rank-and-file man by training and
inst