Mess kit

“ Then come the underclothing, knife and fork, razor, Prayer Book and Bible, brushes, and other odds and ends with which every man must be provided. If any article is deficient from the official list, the man is promptly “put down” for a new article to replace the deficiency—and for this he has to pay. The upkeep of a full kit is most strictly enforced, and,69 in addition to the completeness of the kit, the amount of polish on the various articles calls for much attention on the part of the inspecting officer. ”

“ Kit inspection was a business apart; the general picked out several soldiers haphazard and ordered their packs to be opened for an examination of the contents—spoons, shirts, socks, and the various necessaries which dismounted men in full marching order must carry on their persons were inspected carefully. A full pack is judged best by its contents, and nearly all packs passed muster. One man was unlucky: his mate was chosen for kit inspection, but this hapless individual came out minus a toothbrush [pg 104] and comb, and the friend in need took his place in the freshly-formed ranks. ”

“ At first sight, it would seem that the circumstance of an officer inspecting the kit and equipment of his men is not one which would cause an undue amount of trouble, but the reverse of this is the case in practice. Each man has to lay down his kit to a regulation pattern; at the head of the bed, on which the clothing and equipment is laid out, the reds and blues and khaki-coloured squares represent much time spent by the man in folding each article of clothing to the last half-inch of size and form, prescribed by the regulation affecting the way in which kit must be laid down for inspection. ”

“ A knife or fork not sufficiently bright, boots not quite as well cleaned and polished as they might be, or brass buttons displaying a suspicion of dullness, lead at the least to an order to show again at a stated hour—not the single article, but the whole kit—while repeated deficiencies, either in the quantity of the articles or in the evident amount of care bestowed on them, will lead to defaulters’ drill or even cells. ”

“ No. 20 was damaged, but not destroyed; Mr. Turndall had been interrupted. Mr. Parsons managed to drag things out of the quicksands amidst which his partner had got them. I understand that his firm has a high reputation in London to-day. He never took another partner. And every year since he has sent me something in recognition of the festive season.
My boy—he was my last-born as well as my first-born, for we have never had another child—is now a policeman, like his father was.
So now you understand how it is that, to this hour, whenever I see a kit-bag, a curious feeling goes all over me. ”

“ Philip Turndall would have been regarded as an injured innocent.
Unfortunately, his game was spoiled by my happening to hear the click of the window-catch. It must have been an awkward moment for him when I flashed my bull's-eye upon him as he crouched upon the window-sill. No wonder he perspired; the marvel was that he should have kept so cool. The kit-bag must have been in the garden all the time. ”

“ A new draft also submits to kit inspection. I suppose kits are inspected in England before the start is made; but the British soldier has an amazing desire to get rid of the parts of his equipment which strike him as superfluous. He appears to shed kit as he goes along, and often succeeds in arriving at the end of the journey with only half the things he ought to have. ”

“ It takes a good man to survive that.... If you've got any money, try and keep a little in hand, so that you can always replace missing kit. The fellows here are appalling thieves—of uniform. It is regarded as a right, natural and proper thing to steal uniforms and kit, and yet we'd nearly kill a man who stole money, tobacco, or food. ”

“ You’re always thrutching past with great loads on your shoulder when I am weighing out,” interrupted Kit, testily, and Jabez held his peace.
But if he went on his way quietly, he was equally observant, and saw the same thing happen again too often to be the result of accident. Moreover, from the window of the little room where he had a broad desk for designing, he saw Kit meet the same men and women stealthily after hours under the opposite gateway. ”

“ Each surplus kit bag contains 1 jointed cleaning rod and case.
Squad leaders are responsible that surplus kit bags are kept in order and fully packed in the field. [2] Men are allowed access to them for the purpose of making substitutions.
[Footnote 2: In campaign or simulated campaign, when an organization is restricted to its prescribed field-train transportation, surplus kits, overcoats, and sweaters are stored on the line of communications or other designated place with the permanent camp equipment of the organization.] ”

“ Without encountering any more remarkable adventure on the road, than meeting a lad in a brimless hat, the exact counterpart of his old one, on whom he bestowed half the sixpence he possessed, Kit arrived in course of time at the carrier’s house, where, to the lasting honour of human nature, he found the box in safety. ”

“ Among the rank and file, mess books are kept for the companies or squadrons of each unit, and usually these mess books are placed in the hands of corporals, who eat with the men, and thus benefit from their own good judgment in the matter of choosing provisions to the value allowed by the mess book, and equally they suffer for their own mistakes. ”

“ So he picked up his partner off the floor and packed him into a brand new kit-bag which he might have bought for that special purpose. Parsons was small; the bag was large. Neatly folded up into a compact parcel by Turndall's vigorous hands, room was found for him, though probably no live man was ever confined in closer quarters. Some time after the shades of night had fallen, with the kit-bag in one hand, and something containing methylated spirit in the other, Mr. Turndall went across London to his friend's residence at No. 20, Quarnley Terrace. ”

“ As might be expected in the army, government items that should be within the QM stores often found their way into other hands. Authorities found that the easiest way of dealing with this problem was to announce that on a particular time and day a kit inspection would be held, but that on the previous night the QM stores would be open and all illegally held items could be returned with no questions asked. The kit inspection would still be held but it would catch far fewer people and fewer charges would be laid. ”

“ And it won't kill any of us. I don't see why you can't hammer copper and brass, and cut out leather designs in a woodshed just as well as you can in a studio. The really great mind should rise superior to its environment."
"Let's tell Kit that the first time she scraps over dishwashing," Doris said. "I didn't hear anything about Tekla going along, did you, Jean?"
Kit turned around and drummed out a gay strain of martial music on the piano keys, while she sang:
"Oh, it has to be done, and it's got to be done,
If I have to do it myself." ”

“ Most people do not realise the disruptive force that there is in a simple jimmy. I didn't until I saw the solid drawer with its heavy lock yield with just the trace of a noise. Kennedy waited an instant and listened. Nothing happened.
Inside the drawer was a most nondescript collection of useless articles. There were a number of pieces of fine sponge, some of them very thin and cut in a flat oval shape, smelling of lysol strongly; several bottles, a set of sharp little knives, some paraffin, bandages, antiseptic gauze, cotton—in fact, it looked like a first-aid kit. ”

“ How different was Kathryn's attitude now than it had been in the hyperspatial tube! And how well for Civilization that it was!
"Hold it, kids. I've got a thought," Kit suggested. "We've never done any teamwork since you became able to handle heavy stuff, and we'll have to get in some practice before the big blow-off. ”

“ The two kit-bags had been slashed completely across and their entire contents scattered. Even the pockets of the coats and trousers had been turned inside out. Nothing had escaped.
Beaten! Until to-night he had had a perfect defense. He tried to reach back to analyze the cause which had emboldened [Pg 163] him to leave the security of the car, but it wasn't reachable. The want of sleep? The craving for exercise? Mere bewilderment? He couldn't solve it; just one of those moves which continue to render human beings fallible. Why hadn't he left the envelope in the safe? ”

“ After a preliminary question about my health and inquiry as to my white hair, which I had to explain was probably due partly to shock and partly to my head having been so long bandaged up, the conversation got beyond the little German I possessed, and one of the big Staff officers came to the rescue in fluent but guttural English. They could not believe that the kilt was worn in the winter-time, and seemed to think that it was only a parade uniform. Many questions were asked about the advantages of the kilt as fighting kit. ”

“ All, who have seen them at work, agree that their methods are dirty and septic to a degree, and the oft-expressed wonder has ever been, not that their results are so bad, but that they are ever good. Their surgical equipment is carried in a bag or in a box, which would be considered dirty alongside of the tool-chest or work-basket of any English artisan. ”

“ The noise soon awakened Kit and the chief and Haines, and they could not believe at first that they were really prisoners. But very little experimenting with the door convinced each in turn that it was only too true.
“The bolt must have slipped when the door slammed,” the chief engineer decided, bringing his mechanical mind to bear on the problem. ”

“ On board Kit disports himself as a fatuous ass, of the kind that hyphenated Americans (in plays) would naturally assume to be the staple of a British Cabinet. Not that Goring really was such an ass; but it was Kit's plan to be so guileless as to induce the enemy agents to think they had a sitter. ”

“ Human hairs a few inches in length are easily procurable; a single one is practically invisible to the naked eye, and a slight strain will snap it. If cunningly placed across the two covers of a box, on the lid of a box, over an unlocked bag, trunk, suit-case or elsewhere, few Paul Prys would ever dream of suspecting its presence, and the precaution inevitably tells its own tale. ”

“ Turning upon the doctor with undisguised passion, I hotly asked:
“Who has taken it? Describe the person at once. Tell what you know about the box, I did not finish the threat; but my looks must have been very fierce, for he edged off a bit, and cast a curious glance at the officer before he answered:
“You have, then, no ailing friend? Well, well; I expended some very good advice upon you. But you paid me, and so we are even.”
“The box!” I urged; “the box! Don’t waste words, for a man’s life is at stake.” ”

“ I have known men come to the shed drenched to the skin, many a time, and be forced to work in that condition while the garments were drying on their backs. Now and then, though not often, a bold and hardy workman will remove his shirt or trousers and stand and dry them at the furnace door. If he does this he is certain to be shied at and made the target for various lumps of coke and coal. Amusement is sometimes caused by the shirt taking fire; I have more than once seen a workman reduced to the necessity of borrowing an overcoat to wrap around him in lieu of upper garments. ”

“ What is to prevent these people, whoever they are, from attacking me—sending me some infernal machine in the disguise of a box or package, which, as soon as I open it, might burn or blind or otherwise disfigure me so that my life would be ruined? ”

“ To an unbiased onlooker it might have appeared that the smiling, shock-haired man in the faded and torn sweater and the old khaki trousers had some reason for trundling the stuffed effigy along the wire for the benefit of Squad A, because, after all, quite a few members of that coterie performed extremely poorly at the task of wrapping their arms about the dummy and dragging it to earth, and not much better at throwing their bodies in front of it in blocking. ”

“ To ask a bashful boy or shy girl fresh from the kitchen to walk out upon a platform and face that crowd of mocking students was a kind of torture. No desk was permitted. Each victim stood bleakly exposed to the pitiless gaze of three hundred eyes, and as most of us were poorly dressed, in coats that never fitted and trousers that climbed our boot-tops, we suffered the miseries of the damned. ”

“ They used to send him out to open safes and vaults and strong boxes, whose mechanism had gone wrong, or when combinations were lost. The men who do those jobs are always skilled and specially trained; and entirely trustworthy men, Maybe it was the temptation, or—Heaven knows what!—but, anyhow, the company made a mighty big mistake in educating and then trusting O’Leary. He went wrong. One night, he cracked a safe in a country bank, and if his pals hadn’t squealed, would never have been suspected. He did about three years for that job, and then, when he came out, turned loose. ”

“ General Brooke, his Brigade-Major, Captain Leckie, and his Orderly Officer, Lieut. Fox; Colonel Beville, Deputy Judge Advocate, who manages the mess for us, Captain Harris, the Deputy Assistant Quarter Master General, and Mr. Cane, the Chaplain. The mess is managed on what is called the "camp fashion" principles—that is, every one has to provide their own plates, cups, knives, forks, and spoons, and chair; then wine, beer, and tea at breakfast are supplied by each person for himself, according to his own taste, the mess merely providing the eatables. ”