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Updated: May 10, 2025
A group of soldiers were lounging on the stone seat in front of the village estaminet. Being off duty, they were reveling in that popular martial pastime known to the Tommy as "grousing" and to the Yankee doughboy as "airing a grouch." Top-Sergeant Mahan, formerly of the regular army, was haranguing the others. Some listened approvingly, others dissentingly and others not at all.
Young Graham grousing?" "No, no oh, no," hastily asserted Doyle, the soul of honour. "No, not at all. Only mentioned not getting a parade, and it seemed to me a pity. There's a lot in the good old established religion." "Is there?" said the other thoughtfully. "I'm not so sure to-day. The men don't like being ordered to pray. They prefer to come voluntarily." Doyle got fierce.
Their salient duties embrace shining buttons, carrying up officers' rations, dodging parades, scrubbing out sergeants' and officers' mess, squad drill, guards, and C.B., picking up paper near the billets, grousing and growing thin on short rations during spare moments they are used for fighting.
Well, it wasn't amusing to them, it seems, but they "stuck it." They were ready to go again. That was the spirit of it all. They "stuck it," gamely, without grousing, without swanking, without any other thought than suffering all the hardships and all the thrills of war like men who know the gravity of the game, and the risks, and the duty to which they have pledged themselves.
All were of one mind in holding that Britain's faith and honor bound her to accept the war when Germany violated Belgium, and that it must be fought through until the Prussian military autocracy which began it was broken. There were restricted rations in England; but no starvation and no sign of it. There were partisan criticisms and plenty of "grousing."
Faith, but the County Cork would suit me completely; a roomy loose-box wid straw litter an' a leak-proof roof. Tubby. Yes, with full meals coming regularly. A bay mare. I've got a two-year-old in Devon I'd like to see again. Monty. I've no quarrel with Leicestershire myself. Gunpack horse. Garn! Wot abaht good old London? Chestnut. Steady, Alf, what are you grousing about?
Here was a N.C.O., a real good fellow too, who could give an order and point a moral without the use of a blistering oath; a man who was a man, cool under fire, ready for any dangerous venture, cheerful always, never grousing, always generous and open as a soldier should be, never preaching, never openly praying, never asking men to do what he would not do himself.
He had made a drawing of two Tommies in a wee bit of a hole in a field that was being swept by shells and missiles of every sort. One was grousing to his mate, and the other said to him: "If you know a better 'ole go 'ide in it!" I said we all turned and ran for cover. But there was one braw laddie who did nothing of the sort. He would not run such tricks were not for him!
Straightforwardness and genuine honesty are demanded; and all cant, hypocrisy, double dealing, shirking, and unreality are scathingly condemned. Persistent cheerfulness in the midst of monotony, drudgery, suffering, danger, or death, is admired and maintained by the majority. This is not incompatible with the "grousing" or grumbling which the Englishman regards as his prerogative.
I walked round amongst those boys—one hundred and eighty limbless! I found one boy without legs and without an arm. He was just a trunk, and his comrades, those who could, were carrying him around. He was the sunshine in the whole place—not a grouse. They are doing no grousing—your boys there. When they see you they just say, “Cheerio.”
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