Accurate and precise in every detail, they know the outs and ins of
platoon and company drill, and can handle scores and hundreds of men
with the ease and despatch of artists born to their work. Where
have these officers, fresh youngsters with budding moustaches and
white, delicate hands, learned all about frontage, file, flank,
and formation, alignment, echelon, incline, and interval? Words of
direction and command come so readily from their lips that I was
almost tempted to believe that they had learned as easily as they
taught, that their skill in giving orders could only be equalled by
the ease with which I supposed they had mastered the details of their
work. Later I came to know of the difficulty that confronts the young
men, raw from the Officers' Training Corps, when they take up their
preliminary duties as commanders of trained soldiers. No "rooky" fresh
to the ranks is the butt of so many jokes and such biting sarcasm as
the young officer is subjected to when he takes his place as a leader
of men.

Soon after my arrival in our town a score of young lieutenants came
to our parade ground, accompanied by two commanders, a keen-eyed
adjutant, brisk as a bell, and a white-haired colonel with very thin
legs, and putties which seemed to have been glued on to his shins. The
young gentlemen were destined for various regiments, and most of them
were fresh and spotless in their new uniforms. Some wore Glengarry
bonnets, kilts, and sporrans, some the black ribbons of Wales; one,
whose hat-badge proclaimed the Dublin Fusilier, was conspicuous by the
eyeglass he wore, and others were still arrayed in civilian garb, the
uniform of city and office life. Several units of my battalion were
taken off to drill in company with the strange officers. I was one of
the chosen.