More difficult problems arise, however, regarding questions of military etiquette.  Not King’s Regulations, nor Military Law, nor any handbook devotes even a sub-paragraph to light and leading upon certain points which we have here to consider every day.  For example, if a subaltern glissading on ski down the village street, maintaining his precarious balance by the aid of a “stick” in each hand, meets a General, also on ski and also a novice, what should happen?  What does happen we know by demonstration:  the subaltern brandishes both sticks round his head, slides forward five yards, smartly crosses the points of his ski and then, plunging forward, buries his head in the wayside drift, while the General Officer sits down and says what he thinks.  But we do not know if these gestures of natural courtesy are such as our mentors would approve.  No authority has set up for us any ideal in such matters.  From official rules of deportment the British soldier knows how to salute when on foot or mounted on bicycle, horse, mule, camel, elephant, motor-lorry or yak, but no provision has been made for the case of an army scooting on ski.  So here we are at large in the Arctic Circle, coping with new conditions by the light of nature, and paying such perilous “compliments” to senior officers as our innate courtesy and sense, of balance suggest and permit.

Further, consider the question of dress.  Even the gunners, who in the late war used to wear riding-breeches of their favourite colour, no matter what it was, the kind of footgear they most fancied, and any old variety of hat they thought becoming, are shocked by the fantastic kit that is countenanced in this latitude.  It must be borne in mind that most of us are old campaigners and old nomads whose tailors have grown accustomed to build us appropriate gear for various climes.  Fashions for fighting in France, in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, have gained a hold upon our affections, to say nothing of those designs for civil breadwinning or moss-dodging in Central Africa, Bond Street, Kirkcaldy or Dawson City.  The consequence is that here, pretty well out of A.P.M. range, sartorial individualism flourishes unchecked.  Thus the eye is startled to behold a fur headdress as big as a busby, an ordinary service tunic, gaberdine breeches, shooting stockings and Shackleton boots, going about as component parts of one officer’s make-up; or snow-goggles worn with flannel trousers, or sharp-toothed Boreas defied by a bare head and a chamois-leather jerkin; or the choice flowers of Savile Row associated with Canadian moccasins.

What idea will the North Russians retain of the outward appearance of the typical British officer?  How will the little Lapps, befurred and smiling, who come sliding to market behind the trotting reindeer, report of us to the smaller Lapps at home?  In any case I hope we shall found a legend of a well-meaning if peculiar and patchwork people.

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