CORRESPONDENCE.

THE " SPECTATOR" EXPERIMENTAL COMPANY.

[To THY EDITOR OP THY " SPECTATOR.1 •

Srn,—I submit to you my report upon the Experiment which, thanks to the patriotic generosity of your readers, we have so fortunately been enabled to carry out.

The bulk of the men assembled at Hounslow on Thursday, March 15th, and the remainder of those originally enrolled, in the course of the next few days. For example, Private Binns, now a trooper in the 15th Hussars, finished his work atLeeds on Saturday afternoon, March 17th, and mounting his bicycle, rode through the night and reported himself in camp on Sunday afternoon.

On Friday, March 16th, the morning after assembly, free gymnastics and running drill commenced at 7 a.m., and at 9 a.m. there was squad drill. The rest of the day was spent in fitting uniforms and boots. Next morning free gymnastics and running drill took place at 7 a.m., after which fitting clothing was continued, and in the afternoon the men went on " Pass." On Monday morning, in addition to work similar to that of Friday and Saturday, the first lesson was given in "field signals"; there was a lecture on "Discipline," and in the afternoon the Company went for the first time to the gymnasium. Next morning we commenced extended order drill, and on the day following the process of " scattering " from • fours was photographed by a representative of the County Gentleman. Rifles were served out on Friday, March 23rd—that is to say, on the eighth day of the training—and "firing exercises " were commenced on the 26th. On the 30th we had our first visitor, Prince Alexander

of Peck, who saw the men at their dinners, attended the 2 p.m. parade, and also the gymnasium from 3 to 4. Next day (Saturday) Brigadier-General Donald inspected the barrack- rooms and expressed warm approval of their appearance. On Monday, April 2nd, semaphore signalling was commenced, and also bayonet fighting. On the 3rd we taught knotting and lashing, and had a visit from General Sir Richard Harrison. On the 4th each section made a "trestle," and on the following day we constructed a " single-lock " bridge. On the 6th we had our first "attack drill "; on the 24th the miniature range was opened; and on the 26th the first lecture on outposts was delivered (preparatory to commencing "out- post drills," which were afterwards practised rather frequently), and the first lessons were given in Morse signalling.

The training progressed gradually, and yet with considerable rapidity. Every item of the programme was itself practised very carefully, with a view to securing the needful smartness or proficiency in it; but we endeavoured, by giving plenty of variety, to prevent the men from becoming bored. All this time a certain number of men were daily instructed in musketry with the Wilkinson Sub-Target, and also in the miniature range. The latter was, moreover, kept open after working hours for priiiate practice, and was always in use until dark. Tent-pitching was taught for the first time on May 4th, and on the 7th we were visited by the Secretary of State for War and the Adjutant-General. On the 9th the whole Company paraded for the first time in marching order, —sundry instructional parades having previously taken place by sections. On the 16th a scheme of night outposts• was rehearsed by day, after having been on the previous day explained in the course of the usual lecture, and on the evening of the 18th it was carried out with blank cartridge. On the 21st range-finding (with Barr and Stroud and Meko- meter) and judging distance were commenced simultaneously. On the 30th we had our first ceremonial parade and.march- past. On June 2nd the subject of the lecture was "March Discipline " and the care of feet, and upon that day, as well as upon Whit-Monday, we again practised marching-past. On June 5th the Company marched to Windsor, and was inspected by his Majesty the King, who graciously complimented the men on their performances, and mentioned that the Experiment in which we were engaged was of "considerable national import- ance." The officers lunched with the household and the men were entertained in the riding-school. The actual marching time for the twelve miles was, on the march to Windsor three hours fifteen minutes, and on the return journey three hours ten minutes. Two men fell out on the way hack. The men had not previously performed a route march, but had frequently covered five miles " trot and walk " between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. Throughout the training, from the first day until the return from Aldershot, running drill took place every morning at 7 a.m.; the distance at first was short, but was gradually increased until three miles, the intended limit, had been reached. When finally tested, every man in the Company completed the mile, with leggings, rifle, waisthelt and bayonet, and one pouch, under eight minutes.

Lectures were given, on most days, at 12.5, and lasted half- an-hour. The subjects were chosen, so far as possible (after a general foundation of knowledge bad been laid), with a view to explaining some forthcoming drill or exercise, or I devoted myself to criticising the performance of it. Occasionally, also, special matters were explained, with or without the aid of maps, to non-commissioned officers and candidates for pro- motion. The promotion of sixteen lance-corporals took place on June 13th, and the promotions of corporals and sergeants were dated respectively July 11th and August 9th.

After some little practice by sections in field entrenchments, carried out with difficulty owing to the extreme hardness of the ground, which caused waste of time, a series of competi- tions was arranged. No. 1 Section constructed a " fire trench protected against oblique fire of artillery "; No. 2 a " fire trench protected against reverse fire of infantry "; No. 3 placed a " hedge in a state of defence "; and No. 4 constructed a " gun-pit." In all cases the section commanders (Cadet) designed and traced the works, and superintended their construction, absolutely unaided. The gun-pit won, and Sergeant Currie, a very intelligent lad of eighteen years of age, deserves infinite credit on account of it. The work was quite faultless in every respect. Sergeant Currie has since enlisted in the Somersetahire Light Infantry, to which twelve in all have gone. After our return from Aldershot a competition, by files, in hasty entrenchments was carried out, partly with the " Beatta spade " and " Wemyss multimplement," and partly with full-sized tools. Great diligence, and in many cases no little skill, was displayed.

To convey an approximate idea of the manner in which a day's work was in normal circumstances divided, the following may be found useful :-6 a.m., reveille; 6.30 a.m., coffee and biscuits ; 7 a.m. to 8 a.m., running drill, free gymnastics, physical drill, bayonet fighting ; 8 a.m., breakfast; 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., drill; 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., cleaning up, &c. ; 11 a.m. to 12 noon, tactical or other practical instruction ; 12.5 p.m. to 12.35 p.m., lecture; 1 p.m., dinner ; 1.45 p.m. to 2.40 p.m., signalling ; 2.45, march to gymnasium at the barracks ; 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., gymnastics, and then return to camp ; 5 p.m., tea ; 5.30 p.m. to 6 p.m. (latterly), communicating drill for non- commissioned officers. Many of the men, from soon after tea, and often until dark, practised signalling, or jumping over the escalading course. There was a half-holiday on Wednes- days ; and on Saturdays, after " General Fatigue" and barrack- room inspection, the men were allowed to go on " Pass " in plain clothes until 11 p.m. on Sunday. Occasionally there was a night outpost exercise, in which case the men had a cup of " Oxo " for supper and were excused from 7 a.m. parade on the following morning. From time to time the Company proceeded by train to carry out tactical exercises on Chobham Common or elsewhere. Erroneously supposing Chobham Common to be Government ground, I regretfully confess to having been a trespasser upon it ; but notwithstanding my having thus offended, Lord Onslow heaped coals of fire upon my bead by readily giving permission for further use of his land. The additional funds provided by generous subscribers enabled us to make these expeditions, to the exceeding benefit of all concerned. Finally, we proceeded to Aldershot on Monday, August 27th, and remained there until September lat. I wish very much that we had remained longer, and have no doubt that the men would gladly have done so. The fact is that I was nervous about difficulties with the Military Police in the town of Aldershot ; I feared that our men might be chaffed by Regular soldiers and show fight, in which case the Military Police might not have been strictly impartial. Such fears were actually groundless, the Regulars were exceedingly friendly, and the Military Police (so I was assured by a sergeant of that admirable force) "had never had to do with a. quieter set of men." I smiled at this, reflecting that the sergeant was unacquainted with the private life of the Spectator Experimental Company, who, although fortunately lamb-like enough in the streets of Aldershot and Hounslow, were much addicted • to horseplay and practical joking in their own quarters.

• Since these words were written, a speech made by me at Sheffield has become notorious. It was misunderstood by another speaker and also in- completely reported, with the result that it has been made to appear as if I had aspersed the quality of the Sputator men. I need scarcely say that nothing was further from my thoughts; I have never in my life seen a more promising lot of young soldiers. My speech was not intended to express, and did not express, the slightest alteration of opinion in regard to the Spectator Company. What that opinion has always been was made familiar to your above all, the habit of discipline. The leaven of veteran readers in the letters that appeared in your columns over my signature almost non-commissioned officers and old soldiers in a Regular weekly during the rust six months.

THE LESSONS OF THE EXPERIMENT.

Before the training commenced I asked various officers of all ranks, from Generals downwards, this question : "If you were given one hundred recruits, and a free hand, could you in six months make them as well drilled a company and better trained than any you yourself have ever commanded? " In no case was the reply in the negative. I will now answer, after the event, this same question by asserting that only one company ever under my own command, H Company, 2nd Battalion Somersetshire Light Infantry, trained at Devonport under exceptionally favourable conditions in 1895, can stand comparison with the Spectator Experimental Com- pany in September, 1906. H Company was not quite so smart at drill, and was perhaps equal, certainly not better, from the training point of view. At Devon- port I had the advantage of free access to the lands of my brother-in-law and of other relatives, and had the one and only chance in all my service ; without it H Company would have been as inferior to the Spectator Company as any other company that I have known. But there is another side to the picture. In actual war, the Spectator Company would for some time, at all events, have been greatly inferior to H Com- pany. Why ? Merely because, though knowledge of soldiering can easily be imparted in six months, it is impossible in that time to turn boys of seventeen into men of twenty- five, or to inculcate the understanding and experience, and, company would make all the difference.* Therefore let us not be deceived ; the lesson of the Spectator Company is not that a fighting unit equal to the worst of our Regulars can be made in six months, but that if captains of Regular com- panies had the advantages that I enjoyed at Hounslow, their men would be ever so much better trained than they are; and secondly, that we can, by means of a six months' course of recruits' training, followed by, say, a score of drills and exercises and a week in camp annually, on Volun- teer lines, produce a Reserve Army fit to relieve from garrison duty all Regulars on the outbreak of a great war, and, after a brief final preparation, to fight European conscripts. I con- sider that had the Spectator Company continued to exist for the next five years, and undergone the intermittent training that I have suggested, annually during that period, it would have been at the end not quite so smart on parade, yet never- theless at least twice as valuable as a fighting unit; it would, when thus matured, have been fit to fight any company of its own size, in all the world, except a company of the Brigade of Guards or a company of one of our Line battalions in India.

One thing more before I conclude with a brief statistical statement of results. Very flattering remarks have been made about the extraordinary steadiness, and the smartness, of the Experimental Company on parade. I will explain how this apparent miracle came to be achieved. It was not because of the time devoted to drill—this was all too little—but because of the numerous visits paid throughout the training by distinguished officers and others. The men were so often put on their mettle, and determined to do their level best, that without any special efforts upon the part of their instructors their " best" became, undeniably, very good indeed. To me, at all events, the standard of drill arrived at was astonishing, and beyond my fondest hopes. When I explain for the benefit of practical soldiers that I had but one drill instructor per section, and that the strongest section included twenty-nine men and the weakest twenty-four, they will, I think, agree with me that first-rate drill, without the aid of special circum- stances, could scarcely have resulted.

It remains now to give the statistics already promised :— MEASUREMENTS (AVERAGE).

At the end of At the end of

On joining. 3 months. 6 months.

Height 5 ft. 7i in. ...

5 ft. 81 in. ... 5 ft. 8} in.

Chest 35 in. ... 361 in. ...

36, in.

Weight 134 lb. ... 142 lb. ... 1414 lb.

The average age on joining was nineteen years ten months, the ages ranging from seventeen to twenty-four. The very hot weather during the latter part of the training naturally resulted in a loss of weight as compared with the measurements taken at the end of the first three months.

GYMNASTIC RESULTS.

The men were set eight exercises by Colonel Bolt (the Inspector of Gymnasia), and tested accordingly by Lieutenant Hutchison, Coldstream Guards, Superintendent of Gymnasia at Chelsea Barracks. Colonel Bolt had seen the Company himself about a month before the inspection, and informs me that, having regard to the superior physique displayed, he had directed Lieutenant Hutchison not to err upon the side of generosity when awarding marks. The results were as under :—Full marks, 80; qualifica- tion, 40; highest individual score, 79; lowest, 63; average, 6913, or nearly 87 per cent.

MUSKETRY.

Of 103 men belonging to the Company at the time, 94 com- pleted the course, Table B, for trained soldiers. The Recruit's Course, Table A, was omitted ; but the use of the Wilkinson Sub-Target afforded a very efficient substitute. The results were as follows :—Marksmen, 31; first-class shots, 50; second-class, 13 ; third-class, nit ; Company average, 196.84. Twenty men who had failed to "qualify" (i.e., to make 90 points in the preliminary prac- tices) were nevertheless permitted to fire, and of these four became marksmen. Good and bad luck were evenly divided ; two men failed to be marksmen by one point only, but, upon the other hand, one secured that honour by making the exact 210, and we were " saved by an acid-drop " from having a third-class shot, the worst man making the exact 125.

In field-firing at Aldershot, the percentage of hits, made with

" short rifles," borrowed for the occasion from the Grenadier Guards, was 579. There were twenty-eight hits scored on the long-range artillery target at twelve hundred yards as measured with the Barr and Stroud Range-finder. These scores, considering the very bad light, were good.

SIGNALLING.

There passed the inspecting officer, Lieutenant Stone, Somerset Light Infantry In Morse, 42 non-commissioned officers and men; in semaphore, 67 non-commissioned officers and men. Afterwards, on a second attempt a month later, 16 more men passed in semaphore, making 83 in all. It is noteworthy that we had not the services of a certificated signalling instructor, except for the last month, during which Sergeant Aitken, Depdt, Royal Fusiliers, did wonders with sixteen selected non-commissioned officers and men in Morse signalling.

TRAINING RESULTS.

The opinions of Sir John French, and those which some of your readers formed from personal observation, were, I am glad to say, very favourable. My own I have already given, I 'trust impartially. Official Reports are being prepared for the Army Council, and will, I hope, be published in duo course. Meanwhile, though I am no great believer in "paper soldiering," it is interesting to note the results of the written examinations of candidates for the ranks of sergeant and corporal. In tactics and field engineering the questions consisted to a great extent of extracts from Sandhurst, Militia Competitive, and Promotion examinations. In tactics, Lance-Sergeant May, a lad of seventeen, made 91 marks out of 100; and Sergeant White, aged nineteen (now a trooper in the 15th Hussars), made 89. Several scores of 75 to 85 were made in both tactics and field engineering.

CONDUCT.

The behaviour of the men was exceedingly good. Offences which in the Regular Army would have involved entries in defaulter sheets were very rare.

FINANCE.

Owing to certain charges, due to the public, for gas, water, &c., and for damages, not yet having been presented, we are still unable to close the accounts, the greater part of which, however, have been already audited.

—I am, Sir, &c., A. W. A. POLLOCK, Lieut.-Colonel.

Wingfield, Godalming, September 27th.