again there was a long pause . we &apos;re mates , he said at last ; that was all , yet I felt there was something more to it . I sent for the sergeant of the platoon both men were in and asked him to try to find out discreetly what lay behind this . it did not take him long . rifleman A had a secret ; he was illiterate , or very nearly so . rifleman B was teaching him to read and write in private . it had cost A a great effort to confess his secret to his mate and he could not face confiding in somebody else ; they wanted to complete the tuition . I took B off the draft and eventually sent them on another one together . a disproportionate amount of my time seemed to be taken up with delinquency , military or civil . apart from the daily crime sheet there were occasional courts martial , appearances in the police courts of neighbouring towns as prisoner &apos;s friend , and even , on one occasion , which I shall describe in another connection , a journey to London to give evidence of character in a case against a rifleman . the first time I appeared at a court martial I took infinite pains with my case for the defence . I interviewed the prisoner - a deserter - in the guardroom several times , sorted out the obvious lies from the more plausible parts of his story and , discovering that the essence of desertion lies in the intention not to return , built up an elaborate argument to show that the man had intended to come back , or at least that he could not be proved to have intended otherwise . this last became difficult when it emerged belatedly , via the civilian police , that he had flogged - that is , sold - every stitch of his military clothing and every piece of his equipment . my case got off to a bad start . the President of the court asked me if I was making a plea in mitigation and seemed rather impatient when I said no , I had a complete defence to offer . the court fidgeted and seemed bored ; the judge advocate looked , to me at least , half amused and half contemptuous . a sense of injustice spurred me on , and there is no doubt that it spurred me too far and too long . the sentence was 112 days &apos; detention . leaving the court I met an officer of another company who had been very helpful to me ; he had once been the commandant of a military prison . he put his hand on my shoulder and said something to the effect that that was quite a speech I had made . it was nice of him to say so , I replied unhappily , but it had n&apos;t had much effect , had it ? oh yes , he said . a considerable effect . how ? I asked , irritably . well , he said thoughtfully , I &apos;ve seen a lot of those cases , you know , and I would say that without your speech he would probably have got fifty-six days . if I defended that prisoner too much there was one I defended too little , indeed not at all . he was a camp hospital orderly , summoned to a police court about six miles away . I was particularly busy on the morning of the case and sent a message to the hospital that the rifleman should report to the company office and I would drive him into town . my idea was that he could tell me the facts on the way . but a message came back that the rifleman had already left . I realised I had cut everything rather fine and left at once . but by the time I reached the court my man was already in the dock and there was no chance of consulting him . I was in time to hear the charge , which was that he had taken a motor bicycle without the owner &apos;s permission and ridden it without a licence ; also that he had stolen a blanket and a groundsheet . he pleaded not guilty . the Chief Constable took him through the story to the point where it was established that he had , in fact , taken the articles . why ? asked the Chief Constable . and why did he plead not guilty ? the rifleman was a regular soldier with a row of service chevrons . he stood like a ramrod in the dock , head slightly raised , looking ahead and upward over the bench , and he spoke as if delivering a well-rehearsed recitation . well , sir , he said , it was like this , sir . there was a dance at the camp that night , sir . I wanted to take a girl home , sir . the Chief Constable asked patiently what that had to do with the charge . why had he taken the articles in question ? well , sir . it was like this , sir . there was a dance at the camp that night , sir . I wanted to take a girl home , sir . all right , said the Chief Constable . he wanted to take the girl home ; that was why he took the bicycle , believing the owner would have lent it if asked . but why did he take a blanket and a groundsheet ? well , sir . it was like this , sir &amp;hellip; . the whole routine came out again , not an inflection varied . the Chief Constable interrupted . why , he asked wearily , did you take a blanket and a groundsheet ? suddenly the soldier relaxed his rigid posture , looked down at the Chief Constable , and in a totally different voice full of challenging contempt for his interrogator &apos;s obtuseness , he said , y&apos; would n&apos;t like me to tell you , would ya ? all I did in that case was pay the five-pound fine which was quickly imposed and arrange for it to be deducted from his pay . when I was n&apos;t being an ineffective lay lawyer I was often an employment agent . the company &apos;s roll included a number of men who were drawing specialist rates of pay but for whom we had no job in their specialised line . when a specialist was wanted anywhere the application came to me . one day the Adjutant telephoned that a cook was required urgently at a stately home some miles away which had been requisitioned as a high level military headquarters . I consulted the Sergeant-Major ; we went over our lists of cooks and chose one . he was sent for and seemed a very presentable man . I gave instructions for him to be driven , with his kit , to his new and cosy-sounding job . that evening , passing a bunch of soldiers in a camp road way , I thought I saw the cook , then decided I must be mistaken . but the thought persisted and I sent for the Sergeant-Major . oh , no , he said , I must be mistaken . he had personally seen the cook off in a truck with all his kit . I told him to enquire . half an hour later he reported back . I was right . our cook was home again . the Sergeant-Major asked him what had happened . I do n&apos;t know , the man said , looking genuinely puzzled . I &apos;d only just got there and I was in the kitchen and a sergeant came down and said the General wanted tea . he had company up in the drawing room . wanted it right away . well , when I took the pail up &amp;hellip; . nobody had ticked him off . he had simply and immediately been ordered back to where he came from . he probably established a record for short tenure as a General &apos;s cook , but I should like to have been present at the moment in the drawing room when tea was served . it was ironic that while I was trying to deal with the problems of the employed men I had also to cope with a less constant but trying problem of unemployed men . the main body of the company was fully engaged in a training programme but there were at times quite large numbers of men who had completed their training and were waiting to be drafted overseas . no soldier is more difficult to handle than the idle soldier , and none is quicker to realise when duties or training are designed more to prevent boredom or to keep him out of mischief than to further his proficiency . the draftee is restless , impatient , and apt to see no reason why he should n&apos;t be on embarkation leave until it is time for him to go abroad . when , as sometimes happened , a man had had embarkation leave twice and was still hanging about a camp in England , his morale was unpredictable , even from day to day . one sternly devised further training programmes and tried to stress their importance , but the scepticism was palpable . it was better to be unorthodox - so long as higher authority did n&apos;t find out - and intersperse their days with what were frankly games . when influenza struck down several platoon commanders I was reduced to putting bodies of these men under one NCO and offering a packet of cigarettes to the first man to reach the top of a nearby hill - stressing , of course , the need for maintaining a high pitch of physical fitness - or sending them out in pairs in initiative tests , which amused them , gave them some freedom , and at least got them out from under my feet . all the trained men had qualified in D and M ( driving and maintenance ) and when I was given two buses for use in the company &apos;s defensive r&amp;ocirc;le in the event of invasion I packed off whole groups to practise bus driving . I discovered that men who had driven even heavy vehicles for years took some time to get the knack of handling a bus and , though their military careers were unlikely to call for such a skill , this again kept them busy on something a little off the beaten track of routine . nearly all the men were Londoners , and home was only a couple of hours hitch-hiking away ; so absenteeism became rife . it was coolly calculated . they knew that if they had a few days at home and were put in the guardroom when they returned they would be released if the draft movement order came through , so what had they to lose ? when Christmas came we had a mass of unauthorised departures . a pale-faced corporal reported one night that his entire barrack room was deserted . he had found a packet of cigarettes on his pillow with a message attached - happy Christmas , Corp - and signed by all the missing men . the temptation to take no action , knowing they would all be back as soon as the holiday was over , was great , but one could not take that easy way . I had the local police of each man &apos;s home district informed , and a sufficient number of them spent their Christmas in civilian cells to serve as a warning to others . the various invasion alarms were almost a relief in that they called for action which at least approximated to war , though nothing in fact happened . the company &apos;s task was to guard the perimeter of an airfield a few miles away . when the alarm stand-by was received our curious caravan set off - two buses , a couple of jeeps , and two dispatch riders . we were assigned our r&amp;ocirc;le only when the first of these alarms was received , so we arrived at the airfield in the dark . two world war 1 soldiers , now ground defence officers in the RAF , greeted us . my first question was as to the extent of the perimeter . it was nine miles . my training told me that you should never spread men thinly , so I split my force into two small mobile units ( each with a bus ) and proposed to hold them in a central position while pickets covered the perimeter . but the RAF men would have none of this and it was made clear to me that once on their premises I came under their orders . so I had the ridiculous task of spreading my men - about 120 of them - along a nine-mile line . the RAF men supervised my placing of them and apparently approved . when dawn came I found that most of them had a field of fire which could have caused them only to shoot up the anti-aircraft gunners on the rising ground around us . 