Poor chaps! But it is a very long time ago.
I should like to be a soldier.

It is better than going to the best schools, and to Oxford afterwards, even if it is Balliol you go to.
Oswald wanted to go to South Africa for a bugler, but father would not let him.

And it is true that Oswald does not yet know how to bugle, though he can play the infantry 'advance', and the 'charge' and the 'halt' on a penny whistle.

Alice taught them to him with the piano, out of the red book Father's cousin had when he was in the Fighting Fifth.
Oswald cannot play the 'retire', and he would scorn to do so.

But I suppose a bugler has to play what he is told, no matter how galling to the young boy's proud spirit.
The next day, being thoroughly armed, we put on everything red, white and blue that we could think of--night-shirts are good for white, and you don't know what you can do with red socks and blue jerseys till you try--and we waited by the churchyard wall for the soldiers.