F. O. Langley

“ What will happen is that we shall go suddenly and without time to explain, and, when our friends are told, their faces will cloud over, not with sorrow at our departure but with annoyance at being pestered with the news of it again. It is a hard life, is a soldier's! ”

“ Recalling the good old days of annual camps, when energy to be rewarded with free beer rather than demanded as a matter of course, the battalion as often as not sings as a whole while route-marching at ease past the C.O.:—
"Nobody knows how dry we are,
Nobody knows how dry we are,
Nobody knows how dry we are,
And nobody seems to care."
While the conduct of all of us becomes every day more disciplined, our speech, I have to report with regret, becomes more loose. Emphasis is an essential of military life, and it must be such emphasis as the least intelligent may readily appreciate. ”

“ You will remember how, four months ago, we collected ourselves together in accordance with our long-standing engagement to protect these islands against the foreign trespasser, the condition of our contract being that our service should begin (as charity should) and end (as charity often does) at home. In the bad old days when I was at the Bar I should of course have known that contracts are apt to turn round on those who make them; but now I am only a plain soldier and I am unable to understand why I should be made to stay at home when I desire to go and make a nuisance of myself abroad. ”