Archibald’s propensities are entirely peripatetic. He is the vagabond
of the army lines. Locate him and he is gone. His home is where night
finds him and the day’s duties take him. He is the only gun that keeps
regular hours like a Christian gentleman. All the others, great and
small, raucous-voiced and shrill-voiced, fire at any hour, night or
day. Aeroplanes rarely go up at night; and when no aeroplanes are up,
Archibald has no interest in the war. But he is alert at the first
flush of dawn, on the lookout for game with the avidity of a pointer
dog; for aviators are also up early.
Why he was named Archibald nobody knows. As his full name is Archibald
the Archer, possibly it comes from some association with the idea
of archery. If there were ten thousand anti-aircraft guns in the
British army, every one would be known as Archibald. When the British
Expeditionary Force went to France it had none. All the British
could do was to bang away at Taubes with thousands of rounds of
rifle-bullets, which might fall in their own lines, and with the field
guns.
It was pie in those days for the Taubes! Easy to keep out of the range
of both rifles and guns and observe well! If the Germans did not
know the progress of the British retreat from on high it was their
own fault. Now, the business of firing at Taubes is left entirely to
Archibald. When you see how hard it is for Archibald, after all his
practice, to get a Taube, you understand how foolish it was for the
field guns to try to get one.
Archibald, who is quite the “swaggerest” of the gun tribe, has his own
private car built especially for him. Such of the cavalry’s former part
as the planes do not play he plays. He keeps off the enemy’s scouts. Do
you seek team-work, spirit of corps, and smartness in this theatre of
France, where all the old glamour of war is supposed to be lacking? You
will find it in the attendants of Archibald. They have pride, _élan_,
alertness, pepper, and all the other appetisers and condiments. They
are as neat as a private yacht’s crew and as lively as an infield of
a major league team. The Archibaldians are naturally bound to think
rather well of themselves.
Watch them there, every man knowing his part, as they send their shells
after the Taube! There is not enough waste motion among the lot to tip
over the range-finder, or the telescopes, or the score board, or any of
the other paraphernalia assisting the man who is looking through the
sight in knowing where to aim next, as a screw answers softly to his
touch.
Is the sport of war dead? Not for Archibald! Here you see your target--
which is so rare these days when British infantrymen have stormed and
taken trenches without ever seeing a German--and the target is a bird,
a man-bird. Puffs of smoke with bursting hearts of death are clustered
around the Taube. One follows another in quick succession, for more
than one Archibald is firing, before your entranced eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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