Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    On the King's Service: Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms
    On the King's Service: Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms
    On the King's Service: Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms
    Ebook111 pages1 hour

    On the King's Service: Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms

    By Innes Logan

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    On the King's Service: Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms

    Read more from Innes Logan

    Related to On the King's Service

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Hurrah For The Wavy Navy

      Mar 9, 2022

      Hurrah For The Wavy Navy
      5 min read

    • Article

      Raw And Immersive Tale Of The Civil War

      May 26, 2022

      LATE IN THE SUMMER OF 1641, with Charles I deep in dispute with his Parliament, alarming reports reached Westminster of Catholics amassing arms at Basing House in Hampshire. At this point in time, few expected civil war, but plenty feared an imminent

      5 min read

    • Article

      The 1745 Rising reassessed

      Oct 8, 2022

      Explore a selection of digital history guides in the History Scotland store: https://scot.sh/hsdownload Reminiscences of a Jacobite: The Untold Story of the Rising of 1745 Michael Nevin Birlinn Ltd (2020) pp. 288 Hardback, £25.00; paperback, N/A;

      7 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Dec 28, 2022

      I was intrigued by the short story in the November issue's Anniversaries section regarding the peaceful transfer of power from Henry III to his son Edward I –the first such occasion in English history. I wanted to know more about why this particular

      4 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Oct 28, 2021

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      Onwards, Unknown Soldier

      Nov 4, 2020

      THERE was no doubt in the mind of The Times’s leader writer about the significance of the event. The ceremony, he wrote, had been ‘the most beautiful, the most touching, and the most impressive that in all its long, eventful story this island has eve

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Dismal Existence

      Jun 8, 2023

      A Dismal Existence
      5 min read

    • Article

      Books & co

      Sep 11, 2020

      back to school! Where will your reading take you this autumn? By Ian H Waller Subtitled ‘Unlocking the Mysteries of the Manor for Family Historians’, Introducing Manorial Records really does do this – making the intriguing, but perhaps daunting, topi

      5 min read

    • Article

      Following In Ransome’s Footsteps

      Nov 16, 2022

      Robert Twigger (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, £20) SWALLOWS and Amazons for grown-ups? Robert Twigger has inexhaustible curiosity, a childlike desire to explore and bags of energy. You can almost sense John, Susan, Titty and Roger nodding approvingly in th

      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jul 9, 2020

      Grace Huxford’s How We Forgot the Korean War (July) revived memories of my father’s concern that, as a ‘Z Reservist’, he might be recalled to fight in Korea. I was 10 years old at the time, and the Korean War certainly made a lasting impression on me

      3 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Mar 16, 2023

      Sam Willis's entertaining article about Charles Johnson's scandalous works popularising robbers, pirates and highwaymen (Murder and Mayhem in Georgian Britain, March) reignites a long controversy about the true identity of the author. Although the so

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Past Is A Foreign Country

      Jan 26, 2022

      Penelope Corfield (Yale University Press £25) PENELOPE CORFIELD has set herself an ambitious task: how to distil the complex, overarching narratives of the British-Irish 18th century—from shifting dynasties, multiple national identities and parliam

      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jan 19, 2023

      While I agree with Fern Riddell that we shouldn’t treat audiences of historical dramas as stupid (The Conversation, Christmas), most people in any audience are not as well-versed in the subject as the programme-makers. Period dramas such as The Crown

      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Oct 27, 2022

      The excellent article by Robert Blackmore (Why We Need to Get Our Facts Straight, November) reminded me of the time I first got interested in debating and politics. In my final year in junior school in 1962 I read a history book on British heroes, an

      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Dec 28, 2021

      In Tracy Borman’s feature on Princess Charlotte of Wales, she refers to the whole of the kingdom going into deep mourning for several weeks after the death of the princess. Indeed, the impact was felt as far away as the small parish of Llanfihangel A

      3 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Feb 16, 2023

      really enjoyed the article on British Restaurants (Eat for Victory, January). A lesser-known aspect is their role during the Second World War in providing a hot lunch service to schoolchildren. By 1942 the local school in the village of Knowle, then

      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Feb 23, 2023

      What a glorious start to 2023, with a long-awaited essay on a tome, beloved of so many children of the 1970s [FT427:28-35]. Billy Rough’s feature captured precisely the love we all have for Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain – arguably the finest

      10 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Jul 6, 2023

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      9 min read

    • Article

      What Happened To Britain's Volunteer Army? Kitchener’s Mob

      Jul 9, 2020

      Popular imagination holds that the volunteer army raised by Lord Kitchener in the opening weeks of the Great War was formed in the wake of a great recruiting campaign; that thousands lined up outside the recruiting offices; and that Kitchener’s Army,

      7 min read

    • Article

      With God On Our Side

      Jan 23, 2020

      With God On Our Side
      4 min read

    • Article

      Treasure Trove

      Jan 6, 2022

      Treasure Trove
      6 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Mar 16, 2023

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      6 min read

    • Article

      New Light On The Dark Ages

      Jun 9, 2022

      New Light On The Dark Ages
      8 min read

    • Article

      Renaissance Prince

      Apr 29, 2021

      PHYSICIST, PHYSICIAN, LINGUIST, ENGINEER, and — besides much else — life insurance actuary, Thomas Young (1773-1829) has been called “the last man who knew everything”. At the bicentenary of his birth, the Science Museum suggested Young “probably had

      3 min read

    • Article

      Books & co

      Aug 12, 2022

      by Lindsey Fitzharris Many of us have heard of Gillies, the innovative doctor who – beavering away in the secluded grounds of Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, Kent – revolutionised the surgery undertaken to restore the faces of servicemen horrifically

      5 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Aug 6, 2020

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Modest Man

      Oct 17, 2019

      The Modest Man
      5 min read

    Reviews for On the King's Service

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      On the King's Service - Innes Logan

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the King's Service, by Innes Logan

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: On the King's Service

      Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms

      Author: Innes Logan

      Release Date: November 3, 2005 [EBook #16992]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE KING'S SERVICE ***

      Produced by Irma Spehar, Emmy and the Online Distributed

      Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was

      produced from images generously made available by The

      Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

      ON THE

      KING'S SERVICE

      Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms

      BY THE REV.

      INNES LOGAN, M.A.

      CHAPLAIN TO THE FORCES

      SEPT. 1914-MAY 1916

      HODDER AND STOUGHTON

      LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

      MCMXVII

      TO MY WIFE

      This little book is written as a slight tribute of love and respect for those with whom the writer had, for over twenty months, the honour of association.

      United Free Church of Scotland Manse, Braemar.

      CONTENTS

      MUSTERING MEN

      CHAPTER I

      MUSTERING MEN

      I

      Those gaunt unlovely buildings

      The War Office built Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow, to look exactly like a gaol, but these gaunt unlovely buildings, packed beyond endurance with men of the new army, were at least in some way in touch with what was happening elsewhere. Even in that first month of the war it seemed callous to be breathing the sweet, clear air of Braemar, or to let one's eyes linger on the matchless beauty of mountain and glen. The grey spire of my church rising gracefully among the silver birches and the dark firs, bosomed deep in purple hills, pointed to some harder way than that. Stevenson, who wrote part of Treasure Island here, called it 'the wale (pick) of Scotland,' but just because it was so we saw more clearly the agony of Belgium and the men of our heroic little Regular Army dying to keep us inviolate.

      Up to the 10th of September recruits poured in in such numbers that it was hard to cope with the situation in the most superficial way. On that date the standard was raised, and, as though a sluice had been dropped across a mill dam, the stream stopped suddenly and completely. I suppose that was the object of the new regulation, but it caused misunderstanding, and to this day the spontaneous rush of the first month of the war has never been repeated. Beyond doubt the numbers were too great to be properly handled. Men slept in the garrison church, in the riding school, on the floor in over-crowded barrack-rooms, in leaky tents without bottoms to them. There were no recreation rooms. It rained a great deal, and once wet a man with no change of clothing or underclothing remained wet for days in his meagre civilian suit. There were too few blankets, no braziers, and the cheap black shoes of civil life were soon in tatters. Everybody became abominably verminous, and though the food was good enough in its way the cooks were overwhelmed, and it was often uneatable. Nobody was to blame, and in an astonishingly short time order began to emerge, but in those early days one enormous 'grouse' went up continually from the new army that was not yet an army, and those conditions were partly responsible for the fact that when the standard was lowered again the flow of recruits was so much less than before. This, the faculty for hearty grousing, in the army whimsical, humorous, shrewd, sometimes biting, never down-hearted, is evidently an old national custom, for Chaucer uses the word half a dozen times. But the aggravated discomfort of men soft from indoor life was really pitiful.

      Before long all recruits except those for the Royal Field Artillery were sent elsewhere, and the barracks became a great depot for this arm of the service, with Colonel Forde in command. What marvels were done in those early days, and how hard pushed the country was, will be realised when it is understood that for months a body of men numbering never less than two thousand, and sometimes as many as three times that number, had only two field guns for training purposes, and that officers had to be sent out to the Expeditionary Force who had worn a uniform only for three, four, or five weeks.

      II

      Why the First Hundred Thousand Enlisted

      The first hundred thousand had some characteristics of their own

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1