text:
Category: 半套服务
Laila found herself caught in a net of terrible thoughts.
He would never come back. His parents had moved away forgood; the trip to Ghazni had been a ruse. An adult scheme tospare the two of them an upsetting farewell.
A land minehad gotten to him again. The way it did in 1981,when he was five, the last time his parents took him south toGhazni. That was shortly after Laila's third birthday. He'd beenlucky that time, losing only a leg; lucky that he'd survived atall.
Her head rang and rang with these thoughts.
Then one night Laila saw a tiny flashing light from down thestreet. A sound, something between a squeak and a
gasp,escaped herlips. She quickly fished her own flashlight fromunder the bed, but it wouldn't work. Laila banged it againsther palm, cursed the dead batteries. But it didn't matter. Hewas back. Laila sat on the edge of her bed, giddy with relief,and watched that beautiful, yellow eye winking on and off.
* * *On her way to Tariq's house the next day, Laila saw Khadimand a group of his friends across the street. Khadim wassquatting, drawing something in the dirt with a stick. When hesaw her, he dropped the stick and wiggled his fingers. He saidsomething and there was a round of chuckles. Laila droppedher head and hurried past.
"What did youdo1?" she exclaimed when Tariq opened thedoor. Only then did she remember that his uncle was abarber.
Tariq ran his hand over his newly shaved scalp and smiled,showing white, slightly uneven teeth.
"Like it?""You look like you're enlisting in the army.""You want to feel?" He lowered his head.
The tiny bristles scratched Laila's palm pleasantly. Tariq wasn'tlike some of the other boys, whose hair concealedcone-shaped skulls and unsightly lumps. Tariq's head wasperfectly curved and lump-free.
When he looked up, Laila saw that his cheeks and brow hadsunburned"What took you so long?" she said"My uncle was sick. Come on. Come inside."He led her down the hallway to the family room. Laila lovedeverything about this house. The shabby old rug in the familyroom, the patchwork quilt on the couch, the ordinary clutter ofTariq's life: his mother's bolts of fabric, her sewing needlesembedded in spools, the old magazines, the accordion case inthe corner waiting to be cracked open.
"Who is it?"It was his mother calling from the
"Laila," he answeredHe pulled her a chair. The family room was brightly lit andhad double windows that opened into the yard. On the sillwere empty jars in which Tariq's mother pickled eggplant andmade carrot marmalade.
"You mean ouraroos,our daughter-in-law,"his father announced,entering the room. He was a carpenter, a lean, white-hairedman in his early sixties. He had gaps between his front teeth,and the squinty eyes of someone who had spent most of hislife outdoors. He opened his arms and Laila went into them,greeted by his pleasant and familiar smell of sawdust. Theykissed on the cheek three times.
"You keep calling her that and she'll stop coming here,"Tariq's mother said, passing by them. She was carrying a traywith a large bowl, a serving spoon, and four smaller bowls onit. She set the tray on the table. "Don't mind the old man."She cupped Laila's face. "It's good to see you, my dear. Come,sit down. I brought back some water-soaked fruit with me."The table was bulky and made of a light, unfinishedwood-Tariq's father had built it, as well as the chairs. It wascovered with a moss green vinyl tablecloth with little magentacrescents and stars on it. Most of the living-room wall wastaken up with pictures of Tariq at various ages. In some of thevery early ones, he had two legs.
"I heard your brother was sick," Laila said to Tariq's father,dipping a spoon into her bowl of soaked raisins, pistachios, andapricots.
He was lighting a cigarette. "Yes, but he's fine now,shokr eKhoda, thanks to God.""Heart attack. His second," Tariq's mother said, giving herhusband an admonishing look.
Tariq's father blew smoke and winked at Laila. It struck heragain that Tariq's parents could easily pass for hisgrandparents. His mother hadn't had him until she'd been wellinto her forties.
"How is your father, my dear?" Tariq's mother said, lookingon over her bowl-As long as Laila had known her, Tariq'smother had worn a wig. It was turning a dull purple with age.
It was pulled low on her brow today, and Laila could see thegray hairs of her sideburns.Some days,it rode high on herforehead. But, to Laila, Tariq's mother never looked pitiable init- What Laila saw was the calm, self-assured face beneath thewig, the clever eyes, the pleasant, unhurried manners.
"He's fine," Laila said. "Still at Silo, of course. He's fine.""And your mother?""Good days. Bad ones too. The same-""Yes," Tariq's mother said thoughtfully, lowering her spoon intothe bowl "How hard it must be, how terribly hard, for amother to be away from her sons.""You're staying for lunch?" Tariq said-"You have to," said his mother. "I'm makingshorwa""I don't want to be amozahem. ""Imposing?" Tariq's mother said. "We leave for a couple ofweeks and you turn polite on us?""All right, I'll stay," Laila said, blushing and smiling.
"It's settled, then."The truth was, Laila loved eating meals at Tariq's house asmuch as she disliked eating them at hers. At Tariq's, there wasno eating alone; they always ate as a family. Laila liked theviolet plastic drinking glasses they used and the quarter lemonthat always floated in the water pitcher. She liked how theystarted each meal with a bowl of fresh yogurt, how theysqueezed sour oranges on everything, even their yogurt, andhow they made small, harmless jokes at each other's expense.
Over meals, conversation always flowed. Though Tariq and hisparents were ethnic Pashtuns, they spoke Farsi when Laila wasaround for her benefit, even though Laila more or lessunderstood their native Pashto, having learned it in school. Babisaid that there were tensions between their people-the Tajiks,who were a minority, and Tariq's people, the Pashtuns, whowere the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.Tajiks have alwaysfelt slighted, Babi had said.Pashiun kings ruled this country foralmost two hundred and'fifty years, Laila, and Tajiks for all ofnine months, back in 1929.
And you,Laila had asked,do you feel slighted, Babi?
Babi had wiped his eyeglasses clean with the hem of hisshirt.To me, it's nonsense -and very dangerous nonsense atthat-all this talk of I'm Tajik and you 're Pashiun and he'sHazara and she's Uzbek. We 're all Afghans, and that's all thatshould matter. But when one group rules over the others forso long…Theref s contempt. Rivalry. There is. There always hasbeen.
Maybe so. But Laila never felt it in Tariq's house, where thesematters never even came up. Her time with Tariq's familyalways felt natural to Laila, 佛山桑拿网2019论坛 effortless, uncomplicated bydifferences in tribe or language, or by the personal spites andgrudges that infected the air at her own home.
"How about a game of cards?" Tariq said.
"Yes, go upstairs," his mother said, swiping disapprovingly ather husband's cloud of smoke. "I'll getthe shorwa going."They lay on their stomachs in the middle of Tariq's room andtook turns dealing forpanjpar. Pedaling air with his foot, Tariqtold her about his trip. The peach saplings he had helped hisuncle plant. A garden snake he had captured.
This room was where Laila and Tariq did their homework,where they built playing-card towers and drew ridiculousportraits of each other. If it was raining, they leaned on thewindowsill, drinking warm, fizzy orange Fanta, and watched theswollen rain droplets trickle down the glass.
"All right, here's one," Laila 佛山夜生活luntan said, shuffling. "What goes aroundthe world but stays in a corner?""Wait." Tariq pushed himself up and swung his artificial leftleg around. Wincing, he lay on his side, leaning on his elbow.
"Hand me that pillow." He placed it under his leg. "There.
That's better."Laila remembered the first time he'd shown her his stump.
She'd been six. With one finger, she had poked the taut.
shiny skin just below his left knee. Her finger had found littlehard lumps there, and Tariq had told her they were spurs ofbone that sometimes grew after an amputation. She'd askedhim if his stump hurt, and he said it got sore at the end ofthe day, when it swelled and didn't fit the prosthesis like it wassupposed to, like a finger in a thimble.And sometimes it getsrubbed Especially when it's hot. Then I get rashes and blisters,but my mother has creams 佛山桑拿论坛蒲友交流 that help. It's not so bad.
Laila had burst into tears.
What are you crying for?He'd strapped his leg back on.Youasked to see it, you giryanok,you crybaby! If I'd known youwere going to bawl, I wouldn 'i have shown you.
"A stamp," he said.
"What?""The riddle. The answer is a stamp. We should go to the zooafter lunch." "You knew that one. Did you?" "Absolutely not.""You're a cheat.""And you're envious." "Of what?""My masculine smarts.""Yourmasculine smarts? Really? Tell me, who always wins atchess?""I let you win." He laughed. They both knew that wasn't true.
"And who failed math? Who do you come to for help withyour math homework even though you're a grade ahead?""I'd be two grades ahead if math didn't bore me.""I suppose geography bores you too.""How did you know? Now, shut up. So are we going to thezoo or not?"Laila smiled. 佛山桑拿0757 "We're going.""Good.""I missed you."There was a pause. Then Tariq turned to her with ahalf-grinning, half-grimacing look of distaste. "What's thematterwith you?"How many times had she, Hasina, and Giti said those samethree words to each other, Laila wondered, said it withouthesitation, after only two or three days of not seeing eachother? /missed you, Hasina Oh, I missed you too. In Tariq'sgrimace, Laila learned that boys differed from girls in thisregard. They didn't make a show of friendship. They felt nourge, no need, for this sort of talk. Laila imagined it had beenthis way for her brothers too. Boys, Laila came to see, treatedfriendship the way they treated the sun: its existenceundisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.
"I was trying to annoy you," she said.
He gave her a sidelong glance. "It worked."But 广东佛山桑拿论坛 she thought his grimace softened. And she thought thatmaybe the sunburn on his cheeks deepened momentarily.
* * *Laila didn't mean to tell him. She'd, in fact, decided that tellinghim would be a very bad idea. Someone would get hurt,because Tariq wouldn't be able to let it pass. But when theywere on the street later, heading down to thebus stop, she sawKhadim again, leaning against a wall He was surrounded by hisfriends, thumbs hooked in his belt loops. He grinned at herdefiantly.
And so she told Tariq. The story spilled out of her mouthbefore she could stop it.
"He did what?"She told him again.
He pointed to Khadim. "Him? He's the one? You're sure?""I'm sure."Tariq clenched his teeth and muttered something to himself inPashto that Laila didn't catch. "You wait here," he said, in Farsinow.
"No, Tariq-"He was already crossing 佛山夜生活888 the street.
Khadim was the first to see him. His grin faded, and hepushed himself off the wall. He unhooked his thumbs from thebelt loops and made himself more upright, taking on aself-conscious air of menace. The others followed his gaze.
Laila wished she hadn't said anything. What if they bandedtogether? How many of them were there-ten? eleven? twelve?
What if they hurt him?
Then Tariq stopped a few feet from Khadim and his band.
There was a moment of consideration, Laila thought, maybe achange of heart, and, when he bent down, she imagined hewould pretend his shoelace had come undone and walk backto her. Then his hands went to work, and she understood.
The others understood too when Tariq straightened up,standing on one leg. When he began hopping toward Khadim,then charging him, his unstrapped leg raised high over hisshoulder 佛山桑拿哪里好 like a sword.
The boys stepped aside in a hurry. They gave him a clearpath to Khadim.
Then it was all dust and fists and kicks and yelps.
Khadim never bothered Laila again.
* * *That night, as most nights, Laila set the dinner table for twoonly. Mammy said she wasn't hungry. On those nights that shewas, she made a point of taking a plate to her room beforeBabi even came home. She was usually asleep or lying awakein bed by the time Laila and Babi sat down to eat.
Babi came out of the bathroom, his hair-peppered white withflour when he'd come home-washed clean now and combedback.
"What are we having, Laila?""Leftoveraush soup.""Sounds good," he said, folding the towel with which he'ddried his hair. "So what are we working on tonight? Addingfractions?""Actually, converting fractions to mixed numbers.""Ah. Right."Every night 佛山夜生活qq群 after dinner, Babi helped Laila with her homeworkand gave her some of his own. This was only to keep Laila astep or two ahead of her class, not because he disapproved ofthe work assigned by the school-the propaganda teachingnotwithstanding. In fact, Babi thought that the one thing thecommunists had done right-or at least intended to-ironically,was in the field of education, the vocation from which they hadfired him. More specifically, the education of women. Thegovernment had sponsored literacy classes for all women.
Almost two-thirds of the students at Kabul University werewomen now, Babi said, women who were studying law,medicine, engineering.
Women have always had it hard in this country, Laila, butthey're probably more free now, under the communists, andhave more rights than they've ever had before,Babi said, alwayslowering 佛山桑拿会所600全套 his voice, aware of how intolerant Mammy was ofeven remotely positive talk of the communists.But it's true, Babisaid,it'sagood time to be a woman in Afghanistan. And you cantake advantage of that, Laila Of course, women's freedom -here, he shook his head ruefully-is also one of the reasonspeople out there took up arms in the first place.
By "out there," he didn't mean Kabul, which had always beenrelatively liberal and progressive. Here in Kabul, women taughtat the university, ran schools, held office in the government-No, Babi meant the tribal areas, especially the Pashtun regionsin the south or in the east near the Pakistani border, wherewomen were rarely seen on the streets and only then in burqaand accompanied by men. He meant those regions where menwho lived by ancient tribal laws had rebelled against thecommunists 佛山桑拿红场 and their decrees to liberate women, to abolishforced marriage, to raise the minimum marriage age to sixteenfor girls. There, men saw it as an insult to their centuries-oldtradition, Babi said, to be told by the government-and a godlessone at that-that their daughters had to leave home, attendschool, and work alongside men.
God forbid that should happen!Babi liked to say sarcastically.
Then he would sigh, and say,Laila, my love, the only enemy anAfghan cannot defeat is himselfBabi took his seat at the table, dipped bread into his bowlofaush.
Laila decided that she would tell him about what Tariq haddone to Khadim, over the meal, before they started in onfractions. But she never got the chance. Because, right then,there was a knock at the door, and, on the other side of thedoor, a stranger with news.
I need to speak to your parents,dokhiarjan" he said whenLaila opened the door. He was a stocky man, with a sharp,weather-roughened face. He wore a potato-colored coat, and abrown woolpakol on his head"Can I tell them who's here?"Then Babi's hand was on Laila's shoulder, and he gentlypulled her from the door.
"Why don't you go upstairs, Laila. Go on."As she moved toward the steps, Laila heard the visitor say toBabi that he had news from Panjshir. Mammy was in theroom now too. She had one hand clamped over her mouth,and her eyes were skipping from Babi to the man in thepakolLaila peeked from the top of the stairs. She watched thestranger sit down with her parents. He leaned toward them.
Said a few muted words. Then Babi's face was white, andgetting whiter, and he was looking at his hands, and Mammywas screaming, screaming, and tearing at her hair.
* * *The next morning, the day ofthefaiiha, a flock of neighborhoodwomen descended on the house and took charge ofpreparations for thekhatm dinner that would take place afterthe funeral Mammy sat on the couch the whole morning, herfingers working a handkerchief, her face bloated. She wastended to by a pair of sniffling women who took turns pattingMammy's hand gingerly, like she was the rarest and mostfragile doll in the world. Mammy did not seem aware of theirpresence.
Laila kneeled before her mother and took her hands.
"Mammy."Mammy's eyes drifted down. She blinked.
"We'll take care of her, Laila jan," one of the women saidwith an air of self-importance. Laila had been to funerals beforewhere she had seen women like this, women who relished allthings that had to do with death, official consolers who let noone trespass on their self-appointed duties.
"It's under control. You go on now, girl, and do somethingelse. Leave your mother be."Shooed away, Laila felt useless. She bounced from one roomto the next. She puttered around the kitchen for a while. Anuncharacteristically subdued Hasina and her mother came. Sodid Giti and her mother. When Giti saw Laila, she hurriedover, threw her bony arms around her, and gave Laila a verylong, and surprisingly strong, embrace. When she pulled back,tears had pooled in her eyes. "I am so sorry, Laila," she said.
Laila thanked her. The three girls sat outside in the yard untilone of the women assigned them the task of washing glassesand stacking plates on the table.
Babi too kept walking in and out of the house aimlessly,looking, it seemed, for something to do.
"Keep him away from me." That was the only time Mammysaid anything all morning.
Babi ended up sitting alone on a folding chair in the hallway,looking desolate and small Then one of the women told him hewas in the way there. He apologized and disappeared into hisstudy.
* * *That apternoon, the men went to a hall in Karteh-Seh thatBabi had rented for thefatiha. The women came to the house.
Laila took her spot beside Mammy, next to the living-roomentrance where it was customary for the family of the deceasedto sit. Mourners removed their shoes at the door, nodded atacquaintances as they crossed the room, and sat on foldingchairs arranged along the walls. Laila saw Wajma, the elderlymidwife who had delivered her. She saw Tariq's mother too,wearing a black scarf over the wig. She gave Laila a nod anda slow, sad, close-lipped smile.
From a cassette player, a man's nasal voice chanted versesfrom the Koran. In between, the women sighed and shiftedand sniffled. There were muted coughs, murmurs, and,periodically, someone let out a theatrical, sorrow-drenched sob.
佛山夜生活哪里有好玩 佛山夜生活好玩的地方
Nevertheless, little or nothing was done to make good defects in the years that followed. The dishonesty of the officers and the indiscipline of the men in Ireland was past all belief; but it was only with extreme difficulty that Elizabeth was induced to remedy the evil, which brought untold misery and oppression upon the forlorn Irish, by the simple process of paying her soldiers their wages. It was not until 1567, when the movements of Philip the Second gave the alarm of invasion, that a corps of arquebusiers, four thousand strong, was formed for the defence of the coast towns from Newcastle to Plymouth, and prizes were given for the encouragement of marksmanship with the new weapon. Even so, practice with the bow was still enjoined upon the villagers, as
though no better arm could be discovered for them.[116]
Then came the rebellion, which but narrowly missed a most serious character, of the Catholic nobility in the North. Disloyalty was widespread in Yorkshire, and it was proverbial that the Yorkshire levies would not move without pay; but Elizabeth was too economical to send the train-bands from London to nip the insurrection in the bud, and only at the last moment consented to provide money for the payment of the troops on the spot. The difficulties of the commanders were frightful. The numbers that came to muster were far short of the true complement; horsemen were hardly to be obtained by any shift, and the footmen that presented themselves came with bows and bills only, there being but sixty firearms, and not a single pike, among two thousand five hundred infantry.
The[133] rebels, on the other hand, were very well equipped, and had a force of cavalry armed after the newest pattern of the Reiters. "If we had but a thousand horse with pistols and lances, five hundred pikes and as many arquebuses," wrote Elizabeth's commanders, "we should soon despatch the matter"; but even so trifling a contingent as this could not be produced except after infinite difficulty and delay.[117]
For all this Elizabeth was responsible; but the peril was so great that it stirred even her avaricious soul. From this year bows and bills began slowly to make way for pikes and firearms; and a manuscript treatise in the State Papers shows that the reform was brought under the immediate notice of the Royal Council.[118]
An alarm of invasion by the French in the following year led also to a general stirring of the sluggish forces of the shire. The French ambassador reported that one hundred and twenty thousand men could take the field in different parts of the country; and the muster-rolls showed the incredible total of close on six hundred thousand men. Yet when we look into these muster-rolls we find simply a list of able-bodied men and of serviceable arms in each shire without attempt at organisation. In truth, throughout the long reign of Elizabeth we feel that in military matters one effort and one only is at work, namely, in Carlyle's words, to stretch the old formula to cover the new fact, to botch and patch and strain the antiquated web woven by the Statute of Winchester and newly dyed by the Statute of Philip and Mary to some semblance of the pattern given by the armies of France and Spain.
But when we turn from the Queen to the people we perceive the energy of a very different force. The [134]English army indeed was not created by a sovereign or a minister; it created itself in despite of them. The superior equipment of the northern rebels over that of the forces of the Queen was typical of the whole course of English military progress in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The army was conceived in rebellion, born in rebellion, nurtured in rebellion. Protestantism all over Europe went hand in hand with rebellion; and Elizabeth, always irresolute and incapable of conviction, was distracted between a political preference for Protestantism and a natural abhorrence of disloyalty. For years she struggled by the most contemptible trickery to be true to both these opposing principles, and for a time, by the help of extraordinary good fortune, she attained the success which only a false woman could compass. But long before she could make up her mind, the people had taken matters into their own hands, and thereby begun the creation of our present army. It was on May Day 1572, four years later than the first rising of the Low Countries against Spain, that the army took its birth from a review of Londoners before the Queen at Greenwich. In the ranks that day were many captains and soldiers who had served in Scotland, Ireland, and France, and were now adrift without employment on the world. Subscriptions were raised by sympathetic Protestants in the city, and three hundred of them were organised into a company and sent to fight for the Dutch under Captain Thomas Morgan. From this beginning we must presently trace the history of the English regiments in the Low Countries to the eve of the Civil War; and for the next seventy years therefore our story must flow in two distinct streams—the slender thread that runs through England itself, and the broader flood which glides on with ever-increasing volume in the Low Countries, on the Neckar, and even in distant Pomerania. And since at every great national crisis the two streams for a time unite, the lesser tributary may be dismissed forthwith by a brief review of the[135] progress of the military art in England to the close of the sixteenth century.
London as usual led the van of military improvement. In the year following the departure of Morgan's company, three thousand men of the train-bands were formed into a special corps, which was mustered three times a week for exercise, and having been armed with weapons of the newest pattern was regularly drilled by experienced officers on the once famous ground at Mile End. William Shakespeare, it is evident, was one of the spectators that went from time to time to see them, and no doubt laughed his fill at the failings of the recruits. These were sometimes not a little serious. Thus one caliverman left his scouring-stick in the barrel, and accidentally shot it into the side of a comrade, whereof the comrade died; so that the whole body of calivermen gained the enjoyment of a military funeral in St. Paul's Churchyard, whither they followed the corpse with trailing pikes and solemn countenances, and at the close of the ceremony fired their pieces over the grave.[119]
Something therefore had at least been learned from the landsknechts, and other changes were coming fast. The old white coat and red cross seems to have disappeared abruptly at the beginning of the reign, and coats, or, as they were called, cassocks,[120] generally red or blue, were provided by shires and boroughs in their stead. Once, indeed, these bright hues are found condemned as too conspicuous for active service in Ireland, and some dark or sad colour, such as russet, is recommended in its stead,—a curious anticipation of our modern khaki.[121] Again, to turn to smaller changes, the word petty captain had dropped out of use since 1563, to yield place to the title of lieutenant, and the word ensign seems to have been accepted generally at about the same time. Sergeant had been the title of the expert at drill since 1528, but [136]in 1585 there is a distinct order that the men appointed to instruct the bands of the shires shall be called corporals.[122] Two years later we find officers of higher rank asking for a new denomination, and proposing that they may bear the title of colonel and the officers next below them that of sergeant-major, or, as we now call it, major. It was indeed time, for the word regiment came likewise into use at the same period, and a regiment without a colonel is naught. Before the end of the century the term infantry had also passed into the language, while the flags of the infantry, from their diversity of hues, had gained the name of colours.[123]
But far more striking than these superficial changes is the sudden deluge of military pamphlets which burst over England from the year 1587 onwards. The earliest military treatise, so far as I have been able to discover, that was delivered to the English in the vulgar tongue is The Ordering of Souldiours in battelray, by Peter Whitehorn, which was published in 1560. This book produced, no doubt, some effect in its time, but it is of small import compared with those that follow. The earliest written by an Englishman, though not published until four years after his death, was 佛山桑拿论坛浦友 the work of one William Garrard, gentleman, who had served with the King of Spain for fourteen years and died in 1587. It is a remorseless criticism of the existing English military system. The author sweeps away bows and bills in a single contemptuous sentence, and lays it down for a dogma that there are but two weapons, for the tall man the pike and for the little nimble man the arquebus. But in the matter of equipment, he notes that the English are lamentably deficient. As good an arquebus could be made in England as in any country, but the armourers had already learned to make cheap and nasty weapons for common sale to the poor men of the shire. [137]Again, other nations carried their powder in flasks or metal cartridges, but the English actually carried theirs loose in their pockets, ready to be kindled by the first spark or spoiled by the first shower, and in any case 广州佛山桑拿论坛 certain to suffer from waste. Such slovenliness, says the indignant Garrard, is fit only "for wanton skirmish before ladies"; it is impossible for such arquebusiers to attain to the desirable consummation of "a violent, speedy, and thundering discharge." The pikemen, again, instead of a light poniard carried "monstrous daggers like a cutler's shop," fitter for ornament than use. Moreover, the dress of both was open to objection. Colour was a matter of indifference, though some fine hue such as scarlet was preferable for the honour of the military profession, but all military garments should be profitable and commodious, whereas nothing could hamper the limbs more than the great bolstered and bombasted hose that were then in fashion. I cannot resist the temptation of transcribing Garrard's picture of the march of the ideal soldier, and the delicate appeal to the soldier's 佛山桑拿一条龙 vanity.
"Let the pikeman march with a good grace, holding up his head gallantly, his face full of gravity and state and such as is fit for his person; and let his body be straight and as much upright as possible; and that which most important is that they have their eyes always upon their companions which are in rank with them and before them, going just one with another, and keeping perfect distance without committing the least error in pace or step. And every pace and motion with one accord and consent they ought to make at one instant of time. And in this sort all the ranks ought to go sometimes softly, sometimes fast, according to the stroke of the drum…. So shall they go just and even with a gallant and sumptuous pace; for by doing so they shall be esteemed, honoured and commended of the lookers on, who shall take wonderful delight to behold them."
Earlier in appearance though not earlier composed[138] than Garrard's was a 佛山桑拿上门服务电话 shorter work by one Barnaby Rich, which appeared in 1587, and wherein the writer had the courage to condemn the practice of emptying the gaols into the ranks; but the great military book of the year was a translation from the French of La Noue, one of the noblest and ablest of the Huguenot commanders. Though written of course for Frenchmen, the soundness of doctrine in respect of discipline and equipment and the commendations of the Spanish system were of value to all; while of still greater import to England was the impassioned advocacy of the missile tactics of the Reiters for cavalry. But perhaps most striking of all in the light of later events is the deep note of Puritanism to which every page of the treatise is attuned. In La Noue's Huguenot regiments there were no cards, no dice, no swearing, no women, no leaving the colours for plunder or even for forage, but stern discipline at all times and public prayers morning and evening. It is difficult to suppress the conjecture that this book had been read and digested by Oliver 佛山桑拿按摩一条龙服务 Cromwell.
The strong opinions expressed in these books of course provoked controversy. Sir John Smyth, knight, an officer of some repute, boldly took up the cudgels on the other side, and undertook to prove even in 1591 that the archer was more formidable than the arquebusier and the arrow than the bullet, which was an argument only too welcome to old-fashioned insular Englishmen. On the other hand, he enters minutely 佛山桑拿按摩论坛07 and intelligently into points of drill and man?uvre, condemns the bombasted hose as vehemently as Garrard himself, and prescribes a more serviceable dress for the soldier. From him we learn our first knowledge of the manual exercise of the pike, how it should be advanced and how shouldered with comely and soldierlike grace, and how men should always step off with the right foot. From him also we obtain sound instruction for the shock attack of cavalry, and some mention of the Hungarian light horsemen, called "ussarons"; and from him finally we gather information of the extraordinary inefficiency[139] even at the close of the reign of the shire-levies of England, of the neglect of the arms and the corruption of the muster-masters.
Roger Williams, whom I have already quoted, also entered the lists at this time with an account 佛山桑拿会所上门服务 of the Spanish organisation, and combated warmly for the superiority of the lance over the pistol as the weapon of cavalry; and a translation by Sir Edward Hoby from the Spanish of Mendoza (1597) also upheld the cause of shock-action. Hard upon these followed a version of the striking work of Martin du Bellay, with its complete scheme for what we now call the short-service system; and in the same year (1598) appeared a dialogue by one Barret, which sought to close the whole controversy. A conservative gentleman who upholds bows and bills is utterly demolished by a captain who pleads for pike and musket, would abolish the shire-levies bodily as useless, and would substitute a reorganised force on the favourite model, already once adopted in France, of the Roman legion. But Barret knew his countrymen and expected little. "Such as have followed the wars," he says, "are despised of every man until a very pinch of need doth come"; and military reform then as now could not be pushed forward except under pressure of a scare of war.
So matters drifted on to the close of the sixteenth century and beyond it. The military spirit was abroad, and the military pen busy beyond precedent. The character of the old soldier became a favourite with beggars and vagabonds, and was rewarded so freely at the hands of the charitable that it was necessary to suppress the imposture by special statute. Yet in spite of all this simmering and seething nothing was done in England for the English army. Soldiers who wished to learn their profession sought service elsewhere than with the Queen; even in Ireland the value of a company sank to fifty pounds;[124] and the most conspicuous type of warrior that was to be found at home was the worst.[140] Shakespeare, who saw everything and into the heart of everything, marked these impostors and reproduced them with such genial satire, such incomparable humour, that in our delight in the dramatist we overlook the military historian. Yet he is as truly the painter of the English army in his own day as was Marryat of the navy in later years. Falstaff the fraudulent captain, Pistol the swaggering ensign, Bardolph the rascally corporal, Nym the impostor who affects military brevity, Parolles, "the damnable both sides rogue," nay, even Fluellen, a brave and honest man but a pedant, soaked in classical affectations and seeking his model for everything in Pompey's camp—all these had their counterparts in every shire of England and were probably to be seen daily on the drill ground at the Mile End. Not in these poor pages but in Shakespeare's must the military student read the history of the Elizabethan soldier.
The arrival of the first English volunteers, under Thomas Morgan, in the Low Countries was, as fate willed it, most happily timed to synchronise with the movement that laid the foundation of Dutch Independence. In April 1572 an audacious enterprise of the fleet of Dutch privateers under the Count de la Marek had led to the surprise and capture of the town of Brill, a success which at once fired the train of revolt in the seven provinces north of the Waal and shook the hand of Spain from town after town first in Holland and Zealand, and later in Friesland, Gelderland, Utrecht, and Overyssel. The incident, which time was to prove so far reaching in its results, was a curious commentary on the latest phase of Elizabeth's policy. She had just reconciled herself with Alva and forbidden De la Marck's privateers to enter English ports: the sea-rover's reply was to beard Alva in his own stronghold and deal Elizabeth's friend a blow from which he never recovered. The whole island of Walcheren, excepting Middelburg, fell into the hands of the insurgents, and Alva, who was a splendid soldier, whatever his other failings, lost no time in attempting to recover the port of Flushing. By the irony of fate Morgan's volunteers arrived in the very nick of time to save it, and in the sally which brought them first face to face with the dreaded troops of Spain they made a brilliant beginning for the new British Army. Of the three hundred, fifty were killed outright in this action, the first of fifty thousand or twice fifty thousand who were to lay their bones in Holland during the next seventy years.
Morgan, having rescued Flushing, at once wrote letters to England to point out the importance of the town which he held and to beg for reinforcements. In the autumn accordingly appeared Colonel Sir Humphrey Gilbert, with a regiment, the first of many English regiments that were to enter the Dutch service, of ten companies and fourteen hundred men, raw troops under a raw leader. Morgan would have been the better commander, but he was a modest unambitious man; Gilbert, on the other hand, suffered from fatal ignorance of his own incapacity. Sir Humphrey at once launched out boldly into complicated operations which he was utterly incompetent to direct, was outwitted and outman?uvred, fell back on swearing when things went wrong, and not only lost his own head but completely broke the spirit of his men. The new regiment in fact behaved very far from well. "I am to blame to judge their minds," wrote Roger Williams, the ablest of Morgan's officers, after Gilbert's first defeat, "but let me speak truth. I believe they were afraid." He adds elsewhere a gentle but telling criticism, that lays the blame on the right shoulders. "A commander that enters the enemy's countries ought to know the places that he doth attempt: if not he ought to be furnished with guides." So ignorant were even educated Englishmen of the alphabet of war. Gilbert, however, did not learn his lesson quickly. A slight success, wherein the English displayed conspicuous gallantry, heated his ambition once more to boiling-point; he essayed another adventure in the grand manner, failed utterly, and sailed home with the scanty remnant of his regiment, a sadder and wiser man.
Morgan meanwhile had gone home and raised ten more companies, with which however he could do very little. The men were not paid on their disembarkation in Holland, as William of Nassau had promised them, and they became discontented and insubordinate. Morgan naturally took their part, and the result was, that after some few petty engagements against the[143] Spaniards, he took his departure in dudgeon and sailed with the seven hundred men that were left to him to England. He had done good work, and his name deserves to be remembered; for he was the first man who made perfect arquebusiers of the English, and the first who taught them to love the musket. Fifty years had flown since the Spaniards had shown the way, and the English were only just beginning to follow. Roger Williams on Morgan's retirement took service with the Spaniards for a time, in order to learn his duty the better, and presently returned, without reproach, to wield the knowledge that he had gained against themselves. To such shifts were British officers reduced who wished to master their profession.
August.
To follow the actions of sundry other corps of volunteers during the succeeding years would be tedious. I pass at once to the landing in July 1577 of a company of three hundred Englishmen under the command of John Norris, one of the first and most eminent of the new school of officers who were the fathers of our Army. He had learned his work first in Ireland, and later in France under a great disciplinarian, the Admiral Coligny. He too arrived at a critical time. A few months after his disembarkation, while he was still in garrison at Antwerp, Don John of Austria surprised the Army of the States at Gemblours, and not only defeated it but shattered it to fragments. Six months later Don John attempted to repeat the blow against a second Army of the States, a heterogeneous force of English, Scotch, and Flemings, under the command of the veteran Huguenot, De la Noue. Having but fourteen thousand men against thirty thousand of the finest troops in Europe, De la Noue took up a strong position at Rymenant, near Malines, and stood on the defensive. After trying in vain to draw him from his entrenchments Don John finally launched a desperate attack on the quarter held by the English and Scotch under Norris. Four companies of Scots bore the first brunt of the assault, but were presently reinforced, just[144] in time, by Norris's eleven companies of English; and then the struggle became as desperate as ever was fought by British soldiers. The Spanish troops were the flower of the army, the Old Regiment,[125] which had not its peer in Europe; but with all their magnificent training and discipline they could not carry the position. Three times they forced the British back, and three times when success seemed assured they were met by a resistance that would not be broken, and were hurled back in their turn. The day was intensely hot, and the British, scorning all armour, fought in their shirt-sleeves, but they fought hard, and not only hard but, thanks to John Norris, in good order. Norris himself, always in the thickest of the fight, had three horses killed under him in succession, but never lost hold of his men; and at last the famous infantry of Spain drew back, beaten, and Don John abandoned the attack. It was a great day for old "Bras de fer" De la Noue, but a still greater for John Norris and his British. They had, by general admission, not only saved the day, but they had repulsed the most formidable troops in the world.
During the years that follow Norris and his companies were incessantly engaged, generally victorious, though once at least defeated with heavy loss; their gallant leader, though frequently wounded, reappearing always whenever work was to be done. Their highest trial was when they encountered the greatest General of the day, Alexander of Parma, and the whole Spanish army with him, in a rearguard action, and beat them off with such persistent bravery that the French volunteers after the engagement crowded to their colours and begged to be allowed to serve under them. Norris indeed was the Moore of the sixteenth century, alike as a teacher in the camp and as a General in the field.
July 10.
Nevertheless, brilliant as his service was, he could not stay the victorious advance of the Spaniards. After ten years of fighting the Dutch States had lost almost the whole of Spanish Flanders except a few large towns and[145] the sea-coast from Dunkirk to Ostend, and still Elizabeth would not move to help the Dutch insurgents in a task, no less vital to England than to them, which lay beyond their strength. At last the assassination of William the Silent forced her to make up her uncertain mind to the inevitable rupture with Spain. The United Provinces were in the utmost need; the strong hand of Alexander of Parma was at the throat of Antwerp, and unless its grip could be relaxed the city must inevitably fall. The States threw themselves upon the English Queen, entreating her even to make them a part of her realm, and at last, after much paltry haggling, Elizabeth consented to send them four or five thousand men, taking over the towns of Brill, Flushing, Rammekins, and Ostend as security for their obligations towards her. Elizabeth was always careful to look after the money.
This agreement being at last concluded the press-gang[126] was at once set to work in England; four thousand men were raised and dressed in red coats, and within a fortnight after the signing of the Treaty they had crossed the North Sea, only to find that Antwerp was already in Parma's hands and that they had come too late. Norris, however, at once took the force in hand, and was carrying on active operations with brilliant success when he was stopped by a peremptory rebuke from the Queen; the troops had been transported for the relief of Antwerp, and she would not have them employed on any other service. The States, naturally exasperated by this contemptible double-dealing, received the troops reluctantly into the cautionary towns and left them with no very good grace to take care of themselves. Elizabeth, as her nature was, had refused to send a penny of money or an ounce of supplies, and the soldiers, ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-lodged, began to melt away by hundreds through death and desertion.
In December, however, Robert, Earl of Leicester, was sent out as Commander-in-Chief of the forces in the Low Countries, and as he brought with him a reinforcement of cavalry, and also money sufficient to pay the arrears of the soldiers' wages, it was hoped that matters would be placed on a better footing. But it was not to be. Elizabeth was not yet in earnest in breaking with Spain, and Leicester, gathering an inkling of her intentions from her refusal to provide him with additional funds, went very unwillingly to take up his command. On arriving in Holland he found things even worse than he had anticipated. The men were in a shocking state, dying fast of cold and hunger; they had not a penny wherewith to supply themselves; and their clothing was so deficient that for very nakedness they were ashamed to appear in public. Leicester with all his faults had evidently a genuine tenderness for his unfortunate soldiers; he wrote letter after letter pressing vehemently for money, but Elizabeth would not give a farthing. The natural consequences followed. By February half the men were dead, and the half that remained alive were in a state of suppressed mutiny. No good officer would accept a command in the army on such terms, and the companies fell into the hands of unscrupulous swindlers who sent their men out to plunder and did not omit to take their own share, rejoicing over every soldier who died or deserted for the money that would pass into their pockets when the long-deferred pay-day should come. There have been many sovereigns and many ministers in England who have neglected and betrayed their soldiers, but none more wantonly, wilfully, and scandalously than Elizabeth.
July.
Nevertheless, as the spring of 1586 approached, it behoved Leicester to open a campaign of some kind. Parma was advancing along the line of the Maas, evidently bent on taking every fortified town on the river, and it was necessary if possible to check him. The Generals, however, were ill-matched; Parma easily brushed aside Leicester's feeble opposition, and having[147] secured the line of the Maas turned next to that of the Rhine. Meanwhile a large reinforcement of men, unarmed and untrained, had been sent from England; and Leicester concentrated his forces, summoning all the garrisons of the cautionary towns to join him at Arnheim. Philip Sidney came from his government at Flushing, Lord Willoughby came from Bergen-op-Zoom, John Norris and his brother Henry hurried up likewise, the veteran Roger Williams joined them, and lastly, in the retinue of Lord Willoughby, came a young man of greater promise than any, named Francis Vere. The plan of operations was soon determined; since Parma could not be checked on the Rhine, he must be called away from it by a diversion in the north on the Yssel, where the Spaniards still held the towns of Doesburg and Zutphen.
All turned out as had been expected. Doesburg was easily captured, and Parma no sooner heard that Leicester was before Zutphen than he abandoned his operations on the Rhine and marched north to relieve it. Halting on the evening of the 21st of September at some distance from the town, he sent forward a convoy of supplies towards it, protected by an escort of three thousand men under the command of the Marquis of Pescayra.[127] The convoy was to start at midnight, and it was reckoned that it would be within a mile and a half of Zutphen by daybreak. Pescayra was then to halt at an appointed place, send a messenger into the town and concert arrangements with the Governor for a sortie to facilitate the entrance of the convoy.
Oct. 2.
Intelligence of Parma's design was duly brought to Leicester, who, calling John Norris, ordered him to take two hundred horse and three hundred foot and lie with them in ambuscade by the road by which the convoy was expected to arrive. Norris readily picked out two hundred horse, ordered Sir William Stanley to follow them with three hundred pikemen, and before dawn of the 22nd had successfully taken up the position[148] assigned to him. No force appears to have been detailed by Leicester to support the ambushed party, and no scouts to have been sent forward by Norris to give warning of the enemy's approach. The morning broke with dense impenetrable fog, amid which the English could hear a distant sound of rumbling waggons and tramping men. Presently Norris was joined by all the adventurous gentlemen—Lord Essex, Lord Audley, Lord North, and many others—who were to be found in Leicester's camp: they had not been able to resist the temptation of an action, and came galloping up with their retinue at their heels to see the sport. The sounds of the approaching convoy became more distinct, but nothing could be seen till the fog suddenly rolled away and revealed straight before them the three thousand Spaniards, horse and foot, marching by their waggons in beautiful order.
The English gentlemen threw all discipline to the winds at the sight: they never dreamed of anything but a direct attack, and one and all went at once, each in his own way, to work. Young Lord Essex called on his squadron of troopers to follow him, and couching his lance flew straight upon the enemy's cavalry, overthrew the foremost man and horse, flung away his broken lance for his curtel-axe, and with his handful of men hard after him burst into a heavy Spanish column and shivered it to pieces. The routed Spaniards fled in disorder to the shelter of their musketeers, with Essex still spurring at their heels; and then Spanish discipline told. The musketeers fired a volley which brought down many of the English horses and compelled the rest to wheel about. Then the action became simply a series of furious personal combats. Sir Philip Sidney's horse was killed under him at the first charge, but he mounted another and plunged into the hottest of the fight. Lord North, unable owing to a recent wound to draw on more than one boot, dashed in half-booted as he was and fought as busily as any. Sir William Russell swung his curtel-axe so murderously that the[149] Spaniards vowed he was a devil and no man. Lord Willoughby was so beset with enemies that only great good fortune and immense personal strength served to pluck him out. Sir William Stanley's horse was struck by seven bullets but found strength to carry him safe out of action. And meanwhile the drivers of the waggons had fled, and English and Spanish soldiers were tugging the heads of the teams this way and that with oaths and yells and curses; but still Spanish discipline told, and still the convoy moved slowly forward. Again and again the Spanish horsemen shrank before the English cavaliers, but the firm ranks of the musketeers always gave them shelter, and, charge as the English might, the waggons crept on and on till they fairly entered the town. Nothing was gained by the action. The attack, if supported, might have been fatal to Pescayra, but no support could be looked for from Leicester, and there was so little intelligence in the onslaught that no one seems to have attempted even to hamstring the waggon-horses. Zutphen therefore remains no more than one of the maddest of the many mad exploits performed by English officers of cavalry, and is remembered chiefly through the death of one of the noblest of them. Before the action, Philip Sidney had given the thigh-pieces of his armour to the Lord Marshal, Sir William Pelham; at its close he was seen riding painfully back, with the unprotected thigh shattered by a musket bullet. He lingered in agony for some days and then died. His body was brought back to England to be followed to St. Paul's Churchyard by the London train-bands and laid to rest, as befitted a good and gallant soldier, under the smoke of their volleys.[128]
Yet another scene of desperate valour was witnessed at Zutphen before the campaign came to an end. One principal protection of the town was an external[150] sconce,[129] which on a former occasion had resisted the troops of the States for a whole year, and was now carried by the English by assault. The breach was barely practicable, the footing on the treacherous sandy soil being so uncertain that the storming party could hardly mount it. Their leader, Edward Stanley, however, was not to be turned back. Dashing alone into the breach he caught the head of a Spanish soldier's pike that was thrust out against him and tried to wrench the weapon from his grasp. Both men struggled hard for a time, while a dozen pikes were broken against Stanley's cuirass and a score of bullets whistled about his ears. At last Stanley, without quitting his hold, allowed the Spaniard to raise the pike, used the purchase so gained to help him up the wall, scrambled over the parapet and leaped down alone into the press of the enemy with his sword. His men, redoubling their efforts, hoisted each other up the breach after him and the sconce was won. Stanley, marvellous to say, escaped unhurt, and received not only warm commendation in Leicester's despatches, but a pension for life from Leicester's own pocket, for the most daring act that is recorded of the whole of that long war.
The plot of the Spanish Armada now began to thicken, and the scene must be shifted for a moment to England. In the Low Countries Parma was looking about for a port of embarkation from which to ship his men across the North Sea. He fixed upon Sluys, and in spite of a desperate resistance from a handful of gallant Englishmen, led by Roger Williams, he succeeded in capturing it after a siege of three months. At the end of 1587 Leicester resigned his command and returned to England; and in the following year all the best officers, and many of the English companies, were gathered together in the camp at Tilbury. Leicester was in chief command, with John[151] Norris for his second, and Roger Williams among others for assistant, but these officers were not on very friendly terms with each other; and, indeed, the less said of Tilbury Camp as a whole the better. Contemporary writers indeed aver that it was a pleasant sight to see the soldiers march in from the various shires, "with cheerful countenances, courageous words and gestures, leaping and dancing";[130] but such a display was a better indication of loyalty than of discipline, and sadly different from the pace, full of gravity and state, which had been enjoined by the best authorities. There was, moreover, great disorder and deformity of apparel; most of the men wore their armour very uncomely, and the whole army refused point-blank to use the headpieces issued from the Tower. Ammunition again was short, provisions were scanty, organisation was extremely defective, and the general confusion incredible. Four thousand men who had marched, pursuant to orders, twenty miles into Tilbury, found that they must go that distance from the camp again before they could find a loaf of bread or a barrel of beer. A thousand Londoners who were likewise in the march were ordered to halt unless they could bring their own provisions with them. Leicester might safely remark that "great dilatory wants are found upon all sudden hurly-burlies,"[131] but there was no excuse for such chaos after the incessant warnings of the past thirty years. Elizabeth must bear the chief share of the blame. The woman who in her imbecile parsimony starved the fleet that went forth to fight the Armada could not be expected to show better feeling towards the army. It was no thanks to the Queen that the Spanish invasion was repelled.
I shall not follow the veterans John Norris and Lord Willoughby on their expeditions to Corunna and Brittany in the following year. Far more important to us is the rise of a great leader, and the opening of a new era in the war of the Low Countries. [152]On Leicester's resignation of the chief command, there was appointed to succeed him a man whose name must ever be venerated in the British Army, Prince Maurice of Nassau,[132] second son of William the Silent. Though but twenty years of age when selected as Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the United Provinces, he had already made up his mind that if the War of Independence were to end in victory it must be fought not, as heretofore, with a mob of irregular levies, but with a trained, disciplined, and organised army. His own natural bent lay chiefly towards mathematics, which he cultivated as a means to the mastery of military engineering, and eventually reduced to practice by so sedulous a use of the spade in all military operations as to provoke many a sneer from soldiers of a more primitive type. But Maurice knew his own mind, and was not to be deterred by sneers. His principal assistant was his cousin, Louis William, Stadtholder of Friesland, an industrious student of classical antiquity with the rare faculty of adapting old systems to modern requirements. To his diligence was due the instruction of the army in drill and discipline, and to his influence must be ascribed Maurice's admiration for the Tactics of ?lian.[133] His new and elaborate man?uvres also elicited the scorn of the old school of officers,[134] but he too was not easily discouraged; and the two cousins worked hand-in-hand, the one at the broader principles, the other at the hardly less important details, of their profession, until they raised up an army which supplanted the Spanish as the model for Europe. Not the least [153]weighty of Maurice's reforms was the regular payment of the men, and the stern repression of fraudulent practices among the officers. In a word, he appreciated the value of sound administration no less that of pure military skill and training in the conduct of a war.
The tactical organisation of the new army was not so perfect as, with the Spanish model before us, we might with reason have expected. The tactical unit of infantry was the company, and the regiment still consisted of an uncertain number of companies temporarily united under the command of a colonel. The composition of the companies again was uncertain. The normal strength was one hundred and thirteen men, which was later reduced to eighty, but colonels had double companies—some even double regiments—and there appears to have been no very great exactitude, probably because men could only be persuaded to serve under the captain of their choice. The officers of a company were of course captain, lieutenant, and ensign; the non-commissioned officers included two sergeants and three corporals, as well as a "gentleman of the arms," who was responsible for the condition of the weapons. Lastly, there were two drummers, who, it should be noted, like the trumpeters in the cavalry, were not the mere signal-makers that they now are, but the men regularly employed in all communications with the enemy, and as such expected to possess not only discretion but some skill in languages. They received far higher pay than the common soldier, and if they did a tithe of that which was expected of them they were worth every penny of it.
Every company was divided into three corporalships, each of which was the peculiar care of one of the three corporals and of one of the three officers. In equipment there were at first three descriptions of arms—halberds, pikes, and muskets—of which however the halberds soon disappeared, leaving pikes and shot in equal numbers, but with an ever-growing tendency towards preponderance of shot. The normal formation of a company was[154] in ten ranks; and the men were never less than three feet apart from each other, such open order being essential to the execution of the prescribed evolutions. To increase the front, the ranks were doubled by moving the even ranks into the intervals of the odd; to diminish the front, the files were doubled by the converse process.[135] To take ground to flank or rear every man turned to right or left or about on his own ground, and it is worth remarking that the best men were always stationed in the front rank and the next best in the tenth, and that while the captain was posted in front of his company, the lieutenant, except in a charge, remained always in the rear.
The musketeers were usually drawn up in two divisions, one on either flank of the pikes; and the problem that eternally confronted the captain was how to handle the two elements in effective combination and yet contrive never to confuse them. In action the musketeers generally moved in advance of the pikes, firing by ranks in succession, according to Pescayra's method, and filing to the rear to reload. Sometimes they were extended across the front of the pikes, but more often they kept their place on the flanks. Meanwhile the pikemen, heavily weighted by helmet, corselet, and tassets (thigh-pieces), moved stolidly on: as they drew nearer the enemy the musketeers fell back until they were first aligned with them, and then abreast of the fifth or sixth rank. If neither side gave way, matters came to push of pike and a general charge, wherein the musketeers ceased firing and fell in with the butt, a method of fighting which was peculiarly favoured by the English. To resist cavalry the musketeers fled for shelter under the pikes, generally in considerable disorder, and the[155] outer ranks of pikemen, lunging forward, stayed the butts of their pikes against the hollow of the left foot.
The cavalry was divided at first into lancers and carbineers, the former being fully covered with armour to the knee; but the lance, in deference to the fashion of the Reiters, was soon[136] discarded for the pistol. The carbineers carried a carbine[137] with a wheel-lock, and were trained to shoot from the saddle, the ranks firing in succession according to Pescayra's system. The tactical unit was the troop or cornet, which, after many changes, was finally fixed at a strength of one hundred and twenty men, and divided, like the company, into three corporalships. Captain, lieutenant and cornet, three corporals, a trumpeter, a farrier, and a quartermaster made up the higher ranks of the troop, no such title as a sergeant appearing in the cavalry. Of artillery I shall say nothing, since the Dutch organisation was in this respect peculiar, and could not serve like that of the infantry and cavalry as a model for the English.
Concurrently with the rise of Maurice as Commander-in-Chief must be noted that of a new English General, whose name is bound up for ever with the actions of his countrymen in the Low Countries. Francis Vere came of the old fighting stock of the Earls of Oxford. The seventh Earl had fought with the Black Prince at Cre?y and Poitiers, the twelfth with King Harry at Agincourt, and succeeding holders of the title had distinguished themselves on the Lancastrian side in the Wars of the Roses. Francis, grandson of the fifteenth Earl, was born about 1560, came to Holland with Leicester in 1585, and after brilliant service at the defence of Sluys and elsewhere rose to be sergeant-major of infantry, a sure proof that he was not only a gallant man but an adept in his profession. Finally, in August 1589 he was appointed sergeant-major-general of the Queen's forces [156]in the Low Countries, where he was joined by two gallant brothers, Horace and Robert, who worthily upheld the honour of the name.
His task, as that of every officer who had to do with such a woman as Elizabeth, was at first no easy one. His force being very small required constant reinforcement, and was accordingly strengthened by five hundred of the "very scum of the world," such being the description of recruit that Elizabeth preferred to supply. He took care, however, to procure for himself better material, and at the opening of 1591 had no fewer than eight thousand men under his command. But as fast as he trained them into soldiers Elizabeth required their services for her own purposes, and frittered them away in petty meaningless operations in France, filling their place with some more of the very scum of the world, which could be swept out of the gaols and taverns at a moment's notice. The system was in fact that of drafting, in its most vicious form. Vere for a time bore it in silence, but at last he protested, and like all of Elizabeth's best men was soundly abused for his pains. Still the Queen knew his value well enough to withdraw not only his troops but himself from the expedition to Cadiz, and the disastrous island-voyage to the Azores.
A far more serious difficulty was the corruption of departments and contractors at home and the vicious system of paying the men. The wages of a private at eightpence a day were reckoned for the year at £12 : 13 : 4, of which £4 : 2 : 6 was deducted for two suits of summer and winter clothing,[138] £6 : 18 : 6 paid in imprests at the rate of 2s. 8d. a week, and the balance, £1 : 2 : 6, alone made over in money. Even in theory the allowance does not sound liberal, but in practice it was ruinous. The men drew their pay and clothing from their captains, and the captains received the money in uncertain instalments, the balance due to[157] them being made good at the close of every six months. This in itself was wasteful, since it enabled the captain to put in his own pocket the wages of soldiers who had died or had been discharged in the interval. But apart from this the captains frequently withheld the clothing altogether, or served out material of uncertain quality, charging the men treble the just price for the same; or again they would make their own contract for victualling the men, of course to their own profit, in lieu of paying to them the weekly 2s. 8d. which was due to them for subsistence. How widely the practice may have obtained among officers it is difficult to say, but the system was presently altered to the advantage alike of the State and the soldier by the officials in London. The officers also had their complaints, not a whit less sweeping, against those officials, and they preferred them in uncompromising terms. Such representations were not likely to meet with encouragement. Elizabeth was not friendly to soldiers, and hated to be troubled with obligations towards men who had faithfully served her. An Act had been passed in 1593 throwing the relief of crippled or destitute soldiers on their parishes, and she could not see what more they could want. Bloody Mary had shown them compassion; not so would Good Queen Bess; she would not be pestered with the sight of the "miserable creatures." As to the complaints of officers, she had heard enough of their ways, and would take the word of the Treasurer of the Forces against theirs. Still Vere and his captains persisted, and at last the shameful truth was revealed that the Treasurer himself was the culprit, and had for years been cheating alike his Queen, her officers, and her men.
佛山桑拿按摩一条龙图片 佛山南海桑拿休闲会所	,佛山桑拿会所上门
A railway manager is not alone concerned in the working {414}of his line, and in the doings of his staff, day by day. He looks
forward to the requirements of the line and to the constitution of the staff at least five or ten years hence, and he wants to make sure that, as the experienced men around him are lost to the service, others will be at hand equally, or even still better, qualified to take their place. He further realises that in an undertaking in which, notwithstanding its magnitude, so much depends on the unit, that unit should be encouraged, and enabled, to attain to the highest practicable stage of efficiency.
This tendency is leading to results that are likely to be both far-reaching and wide-spreading. It is a matter not only of giving to railway workers, and especially to those in the clerical and operative departments, a higher degree of technical knowledge, but, also, of rendering them equal to responsibility, of fostering their efficiency still further through their social, physical and material well-being, and of retaining them for the railway service notwithstanding (in the case of the clerical staff) the allurements of traders who look upon well-trained goods clerks, especially, as desirable assistants in the counting-house, and seek to attract them with the offer of a somewhat better wage.
The training and the higher education of railway workers have undergone important developments alike in the United Kingdom, in the United States, in Germany, in France, and elsewhere.
In the early days of the railway the most eligible person for the position of general manager was thought to be some retired naval or military officer, accustomed to controlling large bodies of men; and the first appointments were based on this principle. But experience soon showed that in undertakings where technical, commercial and economic considerations were all-important, the real recommendations for leading positions were to be found, rather, in proved capacity and in thorough knowledge of railway operation and management.
Under the company system, as it prevails in the United Kingdom and the United States, railwaymen, of whatever class, are now generally taken on as boys, are trained for the position to which they are found to be adapted, and rise to higher posts according to capacity and opportunity—for these must needs go together. In this way it is not unusual for the general {415}manager on an English railway to have started as an office boy. Many a head of department to-day entered the service as junior clerk, and worked his way up to his present position; there are station-masters who began as ticket clerks; there are guards who gained their first knowledge of railway work as station porters, while engine-drivers are recruited from firemen, and firemen from engine-cleaners.
For details as to what the American railway companies are doing in the matter of "Education for Efficiency in Railroad Service" I must refer the reader to a bulletin written by J. Shirley Eaton and published, under this title, by the United States Bureau of Education. Here I can do no more than reproduce the following extract, giving in brief Mr Eaton's view on the general situation as he finds it on the other side of the Atlantic:—
"Railroads, as a whole, through a representative body such as the American Railway Association, should in a comprehensive way take up the matter of the education of railway employees. As they now have committees devoted to standards of construction, maintenance, and operating practice, they should also have a standing committee, of a character to command confidence, who should sedulously foster a closer relation between the railroad and educational agencies. This could be done by roughly grouping railroad service into classes according to the requirements of service, indicating the efficiency required in a broad way, and studying the curricula and course of experience leading up to such efficiency. Such a body should officially gather all railroad literature and accumulate the nucleus of a railroad museum. In various ways the teaching force of educational agencies, training toward railroad employ, could be drawn into study and discussion of the practical everyday problems of railroad work. The large public policies involved in railroad operation are to-day left to the doctrinaire or accidental publicist, when they should be a subject of study and effective presentation by the highest grade of trained experts which the associate railroads could draw into their service. On the other hand, such a standing committee could stimulate and guide the practice of railroads in their methods of handling and instructing apprentices. Between the instruction and practice in the service on the one side, and the instruction outside {416}the service on the other side, they could foster a closer relation, making them mutually supplementary. In developing approved plans for recruiting the service they would necessarily indicate the lines of a more direct access than now exists from the various schools to apprenticeships in the service, and suggest the best methods by which such apprenticeships would be gradually merged into the full status of regular employ at the point of special fitness."
On this side of the Atlantic the railway servants' education movement has assumed two phases—(1) secondary or technical education of junior members of railway staffs in mechanics' institutions or kindred organisations, created or materially supported by the railway companies, and already carried on during a period of, in some instances, over sixty years; and (2) a "higher education" movement, of a much more advanced type, developed since about 1903, and conducted either in special classes held at the railway offices or in connection with a University, a mechanics' institution, a local educational body, or otherwise.
It is impossible in the space at my command to give a detailed account of what every railway company in the United Kingdom is doing in these directions. Some typical examples must suffice.
To begin with mechanics' institutions and other kindred bodies, these are by no means purely educational in their scheme of operations. They include many social and recreative features which, in effect, should play a no less important part than educational efforts in promoting the general efficiency of the railway worker by helping to give him a sound body, a contented mind, and a cheerful disposition as well as more skilful fingers or a better-cultivated brain. In the United States, judging from what Mr Eaton says on the subject, all such "welfare" work as this, though carefully fostered, is regarded by the railroad companies as a purely business proposition; and he does not attempt to credit them with any higher motive than regard for the almighty dollar. Here, however, while there has been full recognition of the financial value of increased efficiency, the companies have, also, not failed to realise their moral obligations towards their staffs. Hence in seeking to promote the welfare of their employees they have been inspired by motives of humanity, {417}goodwill and honourable feeling in addition to, or even as distinct from, any pecuniary advantage the shareholders themselves might eventually gain therefrom.
Crewe Mechanics' Institution dates back to 1844, when the Grand Junction Railway Company provided a library and reading-room, and, also, gave a donation for the purchase of books for the men employed in the railway works then being set up in what was, at that time, a purely agricultural district. In the following year this library and reading-room developed into a Mechanics' Institution, the primary object of the railway company being to afford to the younger members of their staff at Crewe greater facilities for acquiring theory in classes at the Institution to supplement the practical knowledge they were acquiring in the works, though the benefits of the Institution were also to be open to residents of Crewe who were not in the company's employ. The management was vested in a council elected annually by the directors and the members conjointly; and this arrangement has continued ever since.
Larger premises were provided in 1846, in which year the Grand Junction combined with the London and Birmingham and Manchester and Birmingham Companies to form the London and North-Western Railway Company. The classes were added to from time to time until they covered the whole range of subjects likely to be of service to the students. Beginning, however, with the 1910-11 session, the art, literary and commercial classes which had been held at the Institute for sixty-four years were transferred to the local education authority, the Institute retaining the scientific and technological subjects. In addition to the ordinary work of the classes, the more recent developments of the "higher education" movement have led to systematic courses of instruction—extending over four-year periods—in (1) pure science, (2) mechanical engineering, (3) electrical engineering and (4) building construction. An Institution diploma is given to each student who completes a course satisfactorily. Visits are, also, paid to engineering works, electrical generating stations, etc. Most of the teachers are engaged at the Crewe works, and the instruction given is thus of the most practical kind.
One feature of the Institution is the electrical engineering laboratory, provided by the directors of the London and {418}North-Western Railway, who have further arranged for a number of apprentices to attend at the laboratory one afternoon every week to receive instruction, their wages being paid to them as though they were still on duty in the works. There is, also, a mechanics' shop, with lathes, drilling machines, etc., 佛山夜网 electrically driven.
Since 1855 the directors of the London and North-Western have given an annual donation of £20 for books to be awarded as prizes to successful students employed in their locomotive department and various other prizes and scholarships, including Whitworth scholarships, are also awarded. The Institution is affiliated with the union of Lancashire and Cheshire Institutes, the City and Guilds of London Institute and the Board of Education, each of which bodies holds examinations and awards prizes and certificates. The library has now over 12,000 volumes.
In addition to the reading-room the Institution has coffee, smoking and recreation-rooms. Special attention is being paid to the social side of the Institution's work through the appointment of a "Teachers' Committee for Social and Recreative Development," the particular purpose of this committee being to organise 佛山桑拿全套 sports and entertainments and to secure the formation of a literary society.
At Wolverton there is a Science and Art Institute at which many classes are held, and, although none of these are directly under the management of the London and North-Western Company, as at Crewe, the very successful and numerous courses in engineering subjects and railway-carriage building conducted by the committee of management, working in connection with the Bucks County Council, receive the active support and encouragement of the company's directors.
Science, commercial, art and domestic economy classes are also held at the L. & N.-W. Institute at Earlstown, where definite courses of instruction, in groups of subjects, and extending over at least two years, are given.
The Great Eastern Railway Mechanics' Institution, established in 1851 at Stratford New Town, has made generous provision 佛山夜生活哪里好玩 for the education, recreation and social life of employees of that company resident in London, East. The Institution comprises a library of 9000 volumes; reading-room; baths (patronised by 10,000 bathers in the course of {419}the year); a large hall for lectures, entertainments, balls or concerts; and a billiard-room, three quoit pitches and a rifle range, the last-mentioned being the gift of the Great Eastern directors. Science, art, technological, commercial and other evening classes to the number of over forty were held in the Institution during the Session of 1910-11. Among the subjects taught were: machine construction, applied mechanics, mathematics, electrical engineering, heat-engines, motor-car engineering, rail-carriage building, drawing, book-keeping, shorthand, physical culture, the mandoline and the violin; while still other classes included an orchestral class and ladies' classes in "first aid" and "home 佛山桑拿莞式服务 nursing."
A series of practical classes, in connection with the same Institution, is also held during working hours in the Great Eastern Railway Company's works at Stratford. Arrangements are further made to extend the usefulness of these classes by visits to engineering works and electrical generating stations. Examinations are conducted in connection with the Board of Education, the City and Guilds of London Institute and the Society of Arts, and prizes, certificates and scholarships are awarded to successful students. The total number of students attending the various classes in 1910-11 was 958. The Institution at the end of 1910 had 1471 members, of whom all but 79 were in the employ of the railway company.
In 1903 the directors of the Great Eastern Railway Company gave a further proof of their appreciation of the educational work thus being carried on by granting to employee-students in the locomotive, carriage and waggon department who could fulfil certain conditions leave of absence with full pay for one or more 佛山桑拿上门服务 winter sessions of about six months each, in order to afford them increased facilities for taking up the higher branches of technical study. Opportunities are also given to such students for visits to manufactories, works in progress, etc. Of the twenty-one students who had taken advantage of the arrangements in question down to the end of 1910, four had obtained the University degree of B.Sc. (Faculty of Engineering); four had passed the intermediate examination for the same degree; two had obtained Whitworth scholarships, and five had been awarded Whitworth exhibitions.
{420}
Clubs formed in connection with the Institution include an athletic club, a rifle club, a quoit club, a cricket club and a football club. Concerts, illustrated lectures and various entertainments are given in the Institution during the course of each session.
The Midland Railway Institute at Derby, also going back to 1851, had a membership in 1910 of 2621. Classes in French and shorthand are held, but technical subjects are not taught, special facilities in this respect for the company's staff being provided by a large municipal technical college in the town. The Institute has a library of over 17,000 volumes, a well-stocked reading-room, a dining hall, a restaurant (for the salaried staff), a café (for the wages staff), committee rooms and a billiard-room; while the various associations include an engineering club (which holds fortnightly meetings during the winter months for the reading and the discussion of papers, and, also, pays visits to engineering works), a natural history society (which holds indoor meetings and organises Saturday rambles), a dramatic society, a fishing club, a photographic society and a whist and billiard club.
A Mechanics' Institute and Technical School opened at Horwich in 1888 was mainly due to a grant of £5000 by the directors of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company and to the gift of the "Samuel Fielden" wing by the widow of that gentleman, for many years a director of the company. In October, 1910, there were 2224 members, of whom all but 53 were in the employ of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company. The leading features of the Institute include a dining hall, reading, magazine and smoke-rooms, a library of about 13,000 volumes, a lecture hall with seating accommodation for 900 persons, the Fielden gymnasium, a miniature rifle-range, class-rooms, and chemical and mechanical laboratories.
Science, art, technical, commercial and preparatory classes are conducted at the Institute in connection with the Board of Education, London, and the instruction given includes a continuous course of study designed to enable engineering students to make the best use of classes of direct service to them. The special arrangements thus made comprise a preliminary technical course (extended over two years), a mechanical engineering course (five years) and an electrical {421}engineering course (four years). The classes of the Institute (exclusive of those for ambulance work) were attended in 1910-11 by over 500 students. Examinations are conducted by the union of Lancashire and Cheshire Institutes, the Royal Society of Arts, the City and Guilds of London Institute, and the Board of Education, and numerous prizes and exhibitions are awarded.
Useful service from an educational standpoint is also rendered by the Institution's engineering and scientific club, at whose meetings the papers read and discussed have been on such subjects as "Prevention of Waste in Engineering," "Evaporation and Latent Heat," "Electric Motor-cars and their Repairs," etc. Other affiliated societies or clubs include a photographic society, an ambulance corps and a miniature rifle club (also affiliated to the National Rifle Association and the Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs). Popular lectures are given on six Saturday evenings during the winter session.
Other railway institutes are to be found at Swindon (Great Western Railway), at Vauxhall and Eastleigh (London and South-Western Railway), at York and various other centres on the North-Eastern Railway, and elsewhere.
I pass on to deal with recent developments of the higher education movement in the railway service as operated (1) by the companies themselves, or (2) by the companies in combination with outside educational authorities.
The Great Western Railway Company, on the recommendation of their general manager, Sir James C. Inglis, inaugurated at Paddington station in 1903 a school of railway signalling, designed to offer to the employees of the company a definite means by which they could acquire technical knowledge of railway working and management. The classes are conducted by the company's signalling expert, and the instruction given is based on the object lessons afforded by a model railway junction, furnished with a complete set of signalling appliances on the standard lines as laid down by the Board of Trade requirements. The experiment was so complete a success that similar schools, provided with similar models, have since been set up at various centres throughout the company's system.
In the "Great Western Railway Magazine" for November, 1911, it was announced that a revised circular dealing with {422}these classes was then in course of preparation, and that it would include the following clause, setting out an important amendment of the scheme:—
"In order to maintain the value of the certificates awarded and the standard of efficiency of certificate holders, each holder will in future be invited to sit for re-examination before the expiry of five years from the date of his certificate. Endorsement certificates will be awarded to candidates who successfully pass the second and subsequent examinations. This step is felt to be desirable having regard to changing conditions and developments in connection with modern railway working. The date of the last certificate will be taken into account in connection with appointments, promotions, etc."
Other classes at Paddington, controlled by the chief goods manager, afford instruction in railway accounts, and enable the clerical staff to gain a better insight into matters connected with the receipt, transport and delivery of goods, and, also, the preparation of accounts and statistics both for the Railway Clearing House and for the company's audit office. Shorthand classes are also held.
Annual examinations take place in connection with all these various classes, and the students passing them receive certificates which are naturally taken into account when questions as to advancement arise. On the occasion of the distribution of certificates on January 14, 1910, the chief goods manager, Mr T. H. Rendell, said that facilities for gaining information on railway subjects were far more numerous to-day than they were forty years ago, when he joined the service. "Continuation classes of any kind," he proceeded, "were then conspicuous by their absence, and practically the only classes of this kind were those held at the Birkbeck Institute, which he attended, though he had to pay a substantial fee in respect to each subject taken. Formerly there was no organised method of acquiring knowledge of railway working, and they learnt to do right chiefly by being blamed for doing wrong."
The London and North-Western Railway Company established block telegraph signalling classes in 1910, the instruction given being facilitated by a complete working model of a double-line junction, fitted with signals and {423}interlocking; a set of standard block instruments and bells; an electric train staff apparatus for single line working, and various diagrams. The lectures, given in the shareholders' meeting-room at Euston by the company's expert in signalling, were attended by students representing nearly all the different departments on the station, and the results of the examinations subsequently held were so satisfactory that the company have since established similar classes at various other centres, in addition.
To ensure the general efficiency of their clerical staff the London and North-Western Company hold (1) an educational examination which a boy must pass before he enters the service; (2) a further examination, at the end of two years, to test the clerk's knowledge of shorthand, railway geography and the railway work on which he has been engaged; and (3) an examination before the clerk's salary is advanced beyond £50 per annum, it being necessary for him to show a thorough knowledge of shorthand, and to write a paper on such subjects as block working, train working or development of traffic.
The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company have also established, at their head offices in Manchester, a School for Signalling, the complete equipment with which it is furnished including a full-sized lever frame. Instruction is given free both to the head office staff and to the staff at the stations within a radius of twelve miles. Special lectures, also, have occasionally been given to the staff in the chief engineer's department by that officer's assistants. Another feature of the educational work of the Lancashire and Yorkshire is the sending round to the various locomotive sheds of what is known as an instruction van. A full description of this van will be found in the "Railway Gazette" for January 22, 1909.
The Great Central Railway Company, to meet their requirements more particularly at the head offices and in connection with their Continental business, adopted in 1908 a scheme designed to enable them to secure the services of a certain number of young men with higher educational qualifications than were usually possessed by those who previously presented themselves for junior clerkships. The company accordingly offer six positions annually to members of the existing staff, under twenty-five years of age, who display the highest standard of knowledge and ability in a competitive {424}examination, the successful candidates in each year being promoted to an advanced scale of pay, and taking a "higher grade course of training," which, it is thought, should fit them to hold positions of responsibility in the future.
This higher grade course consists of periods of work, varying from three to twelve months, in eight of the principal departments, viz. the engineering, locomotive-running, goods, traffic, rolling stock, stores, marine and general manager's departments. The entire course covers a period of four years. During his stay in each of these departments the student is required to pursue a course of reading in the theory of the work in which he is engaged in that particular section; he is given an opportunity to acquire practical knowledge of the work; he must report at the end of every month to the head of the department on the progress he has made, and, on leaving any one section, he is to send an essay to the general manager, showing the knowledge he has gained. Heads of departments or sections are also required to submit confidential reports to the general manager on the ability displayed by the student while under their supervision.
The North-Eastern Railway Company have an elaborate educational system which resolves itself into (1) preliminary tests; (2) Part I., and (3) Part II., of a secondary examination. The subjects for examination in Part I. of the secondary examination are—(i) Regulations for train signalling by block telegraph and general rules and regulations; (ii) goods station accounts; (iii) passenger station
accounts; (iv) shorthand and typewriting or practical telegraphy. Those in Part II. are—Railway subjects: (i) Railway operating; (ii) railway economics (general); (iii) railway and commercial geography of the United Kingdom; (iv) law relating to the conveyance of goods and passengers by railway. Other subjects: (v) Mathematics; (vi) commercial arithmetic and book-keeping; (vii) methods employed in import and export trade of Great Britain; (viii) French; (ix) German. Instead of examining candidates in Nos. v, vi, vii, viii and ix the company will, as a general rule, accept certificates of proficiency in these subjects of recent date obtained at various specified examinations elsewhere. Each candidate is required to pass in railway operating and three other subjects, one of which must be (ii), (iii) or (iv) of the railway
subjects.
It will be seen that while the subjects for Part I. cover the practical work at a station, those for Part II. deal more with the principles of railway operation. To assist clerks in preparing for these tests the company have issued several brief textbooks; they have arranged for the delivery of series of lectures; they are utilising railway institutes for the purpose of instruction, and they offer facilities for the circulation of standard works on railway subjects. The company also conduct at various centres railway block-telegraph signalling instruction classes fully provided with the necessary apparatus, examinations being held and certificates awarded.
2015FINA women's water polo team won the fourth Kazan is expected to stunning bloom
4 old and 9 new, the average age is 21 years old, the new team is less than 8 months.On June 14, the 2015 FINA Women's Water Polo Finals came to an end. The Chinese team lost to the European powerhouse Netherlands 5 to 10 in the competition for the third place, and handed over the fourth transcript of the finals.After the game, Ge Weiqing, the coach of the Chinese women's water polo team, said in an interview with Tencent Sports that this result was acceptable. The Chinese team of Kazan World Championships had the lowest goal to enter the quarterfinals, and even hit medals.The Chinese women's water polo team won the fourth place and the Dutch team competed for the third place at the beginning. The young Chinese team learned two lessons from the previous game and strengthened the pressure on the offensive formation.Procrastination.The Chinese team's decisive shot forced the opponent's goalkeeper to save again and again, the two sides scored very tightly.Seeing that the opponents can't be beat for a long time, the experienced Dutch team has also repeatedly called for a pause to temporarily stop the rhythm.With only the last 4 seconds left in the third quarter, the Dutch team really succeeded and expanded the advantage to 7-4.In the fourth quarter, the Netherlands used the goals of No. 4, No. 3 and No. 11 to hit the ternary again. The Chinese team regained a goal with a beautiful attack of Zhao Zihan in both hands, but still defeated 5 to 10 and finally wonWon the fourth in this year's finals. After the game, the Chinese team's foreign teacher, Azevedo from the United States, said that the night's defeat was because the Chinese girls were really tired.Ge Weiqing, the coach of the Chinese women's water polo team, said that the fourth place this year is not good compared with last year's runner-up, but it is acceptable.This year is different from last year. Most of this year's team are new players. In the finals, the Chinese team did not start well: the first two games of the group lost to Italy and the United States 6 to 11 and 5 to 11, respectively, but the players were not discouraged, not played one game after anotherEven better, they played 9-7 against Russia in the final round of the group stage. They lost to the world-class powerhouse Australia with a slight disadvantage of 3-5 in the semifinals and stopped in the semifinals.The game against Australia increased their self-confidence.Ge Weiqing said. On July 24, the 2015 World Championships will kick off in Kazan, Russia.Speaking of the goals of the Chinese team, Ge Weiqing believes that the Chinese team is expected to perform amazingly in the Kazan World Championships.Some people may think that we are better at playing, but in fact our physical fitness and technical tactics rank in the forefront in the world.The minimum goal should be to enter the quarterfinals, and even fight for a medal.(Special correspondent Ying Hongxia)
佛山南海桑拿休闲会所佛山夜生活什么价格佛山桑拿0757n佛山桑拿妈咪电话佛山桑拿蒲友论坛