THE WANKIN APPRECIATION STATION
Nov. 11th, 2009 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
titusnowlThis unfortunately-named member of the 2nd London Irish Battalion was acquainted to me by Rifleman Patrick MacGill in his 1915 memoir of camp life, The Amateur Army. Here is an excerpt from the chapter "The Coffee-Shop and Wankin."
Wankin is eternally in trouble, although his agility in dodging pickets and his skill in making a week's C.B. a veritable holiday are the talk of the regiment. All the officers know him, and many of them who have been victims of his smart repartee fear him more than they care to acknowledge...
On one occasion the major suffered when a battalion kit inspection took place early one December morning. Wankin had sold his spare pair of boots, the pair that is always kept on top of the kit-bag; but when the major inspected Wankin's kit the boots were there, newly polished and freed from the most microscopic speck of dust. Someone tittered during the inspection, then another, and the major smelt a rat. He lifted Wankin's kit-bag in his hand and found Wankin's feet tucked under it -- Wankin's feet in stockinged soles. The major was justly indignant. "One step to the front, left turn," he roared. "March in front of every rank in the battalion and see what you think of it!"
With stockinged feet, cold, but still wearing an inscrutable smile of impudence, Wankin paraded in front of a thousand grinning faces and in due course got back to his kit and beside the sarcastic major.
"What do you think of it?" asked the latter.
"I don't think much of it, sir," Wankin replied. "It's the dirtiest regiment I ever inspected."
Wankin is eternally in trouble, although his agility in dodging pickets and his skill in making a week's C.B. a veritable holiday are the talk of the regiment. All the officers know him, and many of them who have been victims of his smart repartee fear him more than they care to acknowledge...
On one occasion the major suffered when a battalion kit inspection took place early one December morning. Wankin had sold his spare pair of boots, the pair that is always kept on top of the kit-bag; but when the major inspected Wankin's kit the boots were there, newly polished and freed from the most microscopic speck of dust. Someone tittered during the inspection, then another, and the major smelt a rat. He lifted Wankin's kit-bag in his hand and found Wankin's feet tucked under it -- Wankin's feet in stockinged soles. The major was justly indignant. "One step to the front, left turn," he roared. "March in front of every rank in the battalion and see what you think of it!"
With stockinged feet, cold, but still wearing an inscrutable smile of impudence, Wankin paraded in front of a thousand grinning faces and in due course got back to his kit and beside the sarcastic major.
"What do you think of it?" asked the latter.
"I don't think much of it, sir," Wankin replied. "It's the dirtiest regiment I ever inspected."
