Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE ARMY. 309 driver must be instructed in riding, driving, fitting and care of harness, and the care and grooming of horses. The gunner of each branch—Horse, Field, and Garrison Artillery—is taught to serve, lay, and fire his sun, and how to dismount, move, and mount it. The horse gunner is also taught to ride ; while the garrison gunner has to be instructed in the care of stores, maga- zines, and ammunition, and eventually to know all about range- and position-finding instruments, combined with no mean acquain- tanceship with hydraulics, machinery, and bridges; field companies, ready for any engineering work ; balloon sections ; rail- way companies, one of which is .stationed at Woolwich and is employed on the arsenal railways, and another at Chatham, where it has charge of a Government line ; fortress companies, whose duties are confined to the construction, attack, and defence of fortresses; and submarine miners, attired more like sailors than soldiers, who see to the defence of our harbours and tidal estuaries. The Army Service Corps is composed of clerks, artisans, drivers, butchers, bakers, and electricity. In the Royal Artillery, there- fore, men are classified as ist, 2nd, or 3rd class, according to professional knowledge; and certain appointments can only be held by first-class gunners. All men who enlist for dismounted units of the Royal Engineers must have a specified trade. The scientific corps, as it is correctly termed, comprises various branches which, from their names alone, signify the posses- sion of considerable technical skill. There are bridging battalions ; telegraph com- panies, provided with portable telegraph and telephone material ; field depots, com- prising a field park with apparatus for printing, photography, etc., and a mounted detachment, supplied with tools and explo- sives for destroying railways, roads, and shoeing smiths; the Army Medical Corps is a trained body of men whose duties as hospital orderlies and bearers need not be dilated upon, and the corps of Ordnance artificers provides qualified artificers for the repair and maintenance of the material belonging to the Garrison Artillery siege train, etc. To join the last named men must be of good character, competent fitters with some knowledge of mechanical drawing, and serve on probation for a year. The everyday life of a soldier may be said to commence at 6 a.m., and terminate at 10 p.m. with “Lights out.” His actual working hours, however—guards and fatigues excepted—may be approximately given as from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. The reveille sound- ing is the signal for the troops to rise and