VOYAGE TO FRANCE.
The voyage of the Thirteenth across the Indian Ocean was not disturbed
by any hostile attack or demonstration, nor by bad weather, and the
six-abreast formation was kept until the convoy was near Aden, when a
new formation in two lines ahead, or two ships abreast, was taken up.
Shortly after passing Aden the _Dupleix_ parted company to coal at the
French port of Jibuti, and her place was taken by the _Northbrook_, a
vessel of the Royal Indian Marine. So far all had gone well.
The wife of an officer of the Thirteenth had left Bombay for England in
a passenger steamer a day or two after the Regiment, and she writes in
a letter of the time: “On Saturday, 28th of November, we caught sight
of our Indian convoy at about nine in the morning. An Admiral asked the
Captain to go quite close, as there were so many wives on board whose
husbands were in the convoy. So he very kindly altered his course, and
we went quite close so that we were able to pick out the different
ships, and could actually through glasses see the ships with horses on
board.” It was a courteous act, and no doubt gave pleasure, if a rather
pathetic pleasure, to all concerned.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: IN THE SUEZ CANAL. DECEMBER 1914]
Though matters had gone well, the voyage had not been altogether
without suffering for man and beast. Even at the best season of the
year the heat in the Eastern seas can be very trying, and though
British troops going on service were no longer exposed to the horrible
discomforts of Crimean days, but conveyed in such splendid vessels as
those of the Union-Castle Line, the Thirteenth had some unpleasant
times. An officer wrote to his wife: “You know what the weather has
been like, but you can have no conception of what it has been below
in the horse decks: absolute hell. All across the Arabian Sea it was
dead calm and a following wind, and the first day and a half in the
Red Sea was even worse. We have worked like slaves with the horses,
off and on all day: men stripped, officers in shirt sleeves, and all
pouring with sweat; the horses panting for breath, and all we could do
by continually moving them, sluicing with vinegar and water, and all
sorts of things, to keep them alive. It was heart-breaking. I hope I’ll
never go through such a time again.... All the days in the Arabian Sea
seemed to get hotter and hotter, and the horses worse and worse; and
the first day in the Red Sea, last Friday the 20th, was worse still,
and one of my best horses, No. 133, 4th Troop, a nice bay from Saugar,
with pink rings round his eyes, died from heat-stroke. Then one of ‘B’
Squadron died, and it was desperate. Two or three times they have had
the ship round in a circle, to face the wind and try and get some air
below for the horses, and it has been a great relief.... You wouldn’t
believe how tame all the horses are now. You can do anything with them.
Poor devils, they have had a frightful time. Saturday again was very
hot, but the wind gradually came round ahead, and by evening there
was a good breeze; and yesterday and to-day has been lovely: a stiff
breeze ahead and quite cool. It is like heaven, and the horses are like
different creatures and picking up fast. It is sure to last now, I
think, right in to Suez, and I hope our troubles are over.... The men
have worked like slaves, and so have we for that matter.”
Another officer, Lieutenant Watson Smyth, writes of the start at
Bombay, after five or six hours spent in slinging horses into the hold:
“At 8.30 I went down to the horse deck, and never have I met such heat.
The horses were packed in pens of five, and were all, all over in a
white lather; The temperature was taken by the Vet. and it was 133.
This is 6 degrees more than the highest recorded in India, so you can
see it was real hot....”
_November 29, 1914._--“It has been very hot indeed the last few days,
and the horses are feeling it very much. Only two have died so far....
I think I said that most of my squadron are in the fore-hold, and the
other squadrons are on the decks above it round the hatchway, so that
if anything has to be taken out of their decks by a crane it has to be
hung over the hold while being hoisted. One of the horses I mentioned
died in one of their decks, and when slung up to be dropped overboard,
slipped out of the sling and fell forty feet into the hold. Luckily he
only grazed one of our horses, another half-inch and it would have been
killed. I have decided to take that horse for a charger, as if he can
have an escape like that nothing else is likely to hurt him.”
It was a rough experience, and not a very good preparation for the cold
of a winter in Northern France; but for the moment the discomfort was
over, and throughout the voyage not many horses died. The Thirteenth
lost four or five in all. Three-quarters of the troop horses were
Indian country-breds, and the rest Australians, and therefore also
accustomed to some heat. But the country-breds were rather light for
British Cavalry, and hardly fitted at best to face snow and wet.
The Thirteenth found the banks of the Suez Canal lined with troops,
largely Indian, who were expecting an attack from the Turkish army
gathered in the desert to the north, but no attack came while the
convoy was in the Canal.
Meanwhile, though still ignorant of their destination and very anxious
to know it, they were cheered by a letter from an officer who had seen
some fighting on the French Front. “He says the German Cavalry won’t
face ours at all, and that their Infantry shoot rottenly. He says their
Artillery, machine-guns, aeroplanes--anything mechanical, in fact--are
perfect--and nearly all the casualties are from gun-fire. He says,
man for man they are no match for us, and it is all simply a question
of numbers. He says the patrol-work of the German Cavalry is too
childish.” This confident letter was not altogether wrong in its views,
as was afterwards shown by Lord French’s despatches and other evidence.
Needless to say, the Thirteenth longed to be face to face with the
famous Uhlans.[9]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: IN THE SUEZ CANAL. DECEMBER 1914]
Port Said was full of troops and of French cruisers and destroyers, a
very bright and busy scene. There the Thirteenth at last learnt their
destination. What they had longed for had come. They were to go on
to Marseilles, and from there to the Western Front. It was to be real
work, against a European enemy.
The passage across the Mediterranean, if rough, was uneventful, and by
the middle of December the Regiment was landed on French soil. “We have
arrived all fit and well and jolly,” Captain Eve wrote, “and have had a
very busy day.... It is beautifully mild and fine. All the horses are
well, and mine flourishing.”
The next day the Regiment went on by rail to Orleans. It was an
interesting journey, and the French people all along the line gave
the Regiment a hearty welcome. “French Red Cross people at all large
stations, and lots of soldiers: also lots of enthusiasm, singing,
giving the men country wine, and so on. They gave us cigarettes,
coffee, tea, flowers, and so on, and were all very nice. Altogether it
was very interesting and I enjoyed it. I had to give one badge away to
a girl who asked for it, and to kiss another’s hand, which I hated. The
men made a tremendous noise, but behaved very well indeed, except that
two or three of mine got rather drunk on the last night. But it was
very difficult for them. I find I can get on a little with my French if
I am not hurried....”
That entry was very English, and very English too the thoughts of
hunting stirred up by the French _campagne_: “We came a round-about
way, not straight, and at one part came through some awfully nice
country just like home, say the Duke’s country, enclosed property, and
some stone-wall country too, and small coverts, and hilly. I got quite
excited looking out at it.”
But the journey was soon over. A little after midnight, on the 17th
of December, the Regiment arrived at a siding near their camp: “It
was bitterly cold, with a white frost and icy wind, and we had to
turn out, detrain, and load up all our kit, saddles, and arms on to
motor lorries, and then march, leading our horses six miles out to
our camp here in pitch darkness.... We left the station about 2.45
A.M., and reached camp about 5 A.M., and groped about
till we somehow got our lines down.” It was not a pleasant beginning
to their soldiering in France, a curious contrast to the heat of the
Red Sea--“the worst and coldest camp, I think, I have ever seen,
about six inches deep in liquid mud, on the top of an exposed hill,
with a bitter wind blowing. We are in tents, V.[10] and I sharing an
80-lb. one. We are very warm and comfortable, lots of warm straw on
the ground, and our valises on top of it, and the men are in tents
too, but the poor unfortunate horses are having a terrible time....
They stand always in a bog. The watering-place, about three-quarters
of a mile away, is literally up to your knees nearly in liquid mud.”
Lance-Corporal Bowie’s diary says of the arrival at Orleans: “Here we
detrained at once in the midst of a terrific hailstorm, afterwards
saddling up and leading our horses through the city to the village of
La-Source, a distance of nine miles. Our stay at this camp proved to be
a very severe test for both men and horses, as we were still clothed
in our Indian khaki; at the same time it rained heavily for hours, and
was also bitterly cold. The place in which the rough water-troughs had
been fitted up, being in a valley, became practically a sea of mud, in
places reaching up to our horses’ bellies.”
At this camp the Regiment found some more of their officers awaiting
them, which brought them up to full strength again.
After two or three days they moved to a slightly more sheltered place,
and the weather began to change. By Christmas Day it was bitterly cold,
but bright and still, with a warm sun, and all was going better. Plenty
of warm clothing was being served out to the men, and it was possible
to get exercise again; and the food was excellent, good meat and
vegetables, and tobacco. The warm clothing indeed was more than the men
and horses could carry, and the quantity of blankets and other things
had to be reduced to a more reasonable and serviceable scale. To quote
Lance-Corporal Bowie again: “On Christmas Day 1914, every one received
a post-card photo of the King and Queen, and also a gift from Princess
Mary, which consisted of a pipe and an embossed brass box containing
tobacco and cigarettes. A majority of us also received a Christmas
parcel, which we owed to the generosity of the ladies connected with
the Regiment, at the same time being completely overloaded with warm
underwear, woollen cardigans, waistcoats, mittens, &c. But the waste
of our new kits which we were compelled to obtain before leaving India
was disgraceful, almost everything being burnt with the exception
of some which we had dumped at Marseilles, which, needless to say, we
never saw again. On the morning of the 31st of December we were all
very glad to march out of this muddy camp, an incident worthy of note
being that the men were so overloaded with kit (many of them having on
two of almost everything as regards underclothing, having nowhere else
to carry it), that they found it an awful struggle to mount, feeling
more like a well-dressed Christmas-tree than a cavalryman. However,
having all got mounted, we marched direct to Orleans Station, where we
at once entrained for Berguette (Pas-de-Calais), where we arrived at 3
A.M. on 1st January 1915. Detraining here, we marched up to a
village called Enquin-les-Mines, a distance of some kilometres, where
we were allotted billets which consisted of old barns, &c., for the
men, whilst we made our horses comfortable under archways, &c.”
[Illustration: Major T. H. S. MARCHANT, D.S.O.]
[Illustration: Col. A. SYMONS, C.M.G.]
[Illustration: Major W. A. KENNARD, D.S.O.
(_Died of pneumonia, December 1918, at Etaples_)]
[Illustration: Bt. Col. W. PEPYS, D.S.O.]
[Illustration: Lieut.-Col. E. F. TWIST
(_Wounded at Lajj, 5th March 1917_)]
Certainly the British soldier in this war was equipped and fed as he
had never been before, and the Thirteenth ended the year very happily
on the whole. It was a contrast to their winter in the Crimea sixty
years earlier.
Christmas good wishes and photographs from the King and Queen and
Princess Mary came to assure them that they were not forgotten in
England. And if the prayer of Their Majesties, “May God protect you and
bring you home safe!” was not to be fulfilled for all of them, they
faced what was to come with confidence and eagerness, longing only for
more stirring work, and a chance of doing their share of honourable
service.
It was a pause in the fighting then. The great retreat on Paris and
the battle of the Marne were over, and the baffled enemy had made his
first attempt to strike out to the westward for the Channel ports. He
had been stopped after desperate fighting by the wasted regiments of
our little army, and the troops on both sides were settling down into
the long trench warfare of the next four years. The British part of the
line was woefully short of men, and guns and munitions of all kinds;
and to those who knew the real state of affairs the outlook was very
dark, for in England there were no trained reserves to send to the
Front--plenty of brave men, but no soldiers. Happily the country did
not know in what peril its army was, and contingents were coming from
India and Canada and Australia and New Zealand, and the confidence of
the men at the Front was unfailing, and all hoped that the worst was
over. It seems wonderful now that such confidence should have prevailed
at the Front, and so little real anxiety in England; but the fighting
men were full of the belief that they were man for man so superior to
the enemy that he could never break through. Such gloomy faces as there
were could be found only in England, not among the fighting men. In
spite of snow and mud and suffering of all kinds, there was no gloom
with them.
[Illustration: Bt. Lieut-Col. E. J. CARTER]
[Illustration: Major R. F. COX]
[Illustration: Capt. LORD HUNTINGFIELD]
[Illustration: Capt. NORMAN NEILL
Brig.-Major, 7th British Cavalry Brigade
(_Killed at Zwarteleen, 6th November 1914_)]
[Illustration: Bt. Major R. S. HAMILTON-GRACE
G.S.O. 2nd Hdqrs. Cav. Corps
(_Killed in Motor accident at Burgues, 4th August 1915_)]
[Illustration: Capt. F. C. COVELL]
[Illustration: Bt. Major H. LL. JONES, D.S.O.
(_Wounded in France with 4th Dragoon Guards, 28th October 1914_)]