“We all seem to be affected in various ways,” he went on, blowing his
nose. “Now, you gentlemen were alarmed, I believe, when I trumpeted.”
“Not alarmed, exactly,” said the troop-horse, “but it made me feel as
though I had hornets where my saddle ought to be. Don’t begin again.”
“I’m frightened of a little dog, and the camel here is frightened by bad
dreams in the night.”
“It is very lucky for us that we haven’t all got to fight in the same
way,” said the troop-horse.
“What I want to know,” said the young mule, who had been quiet for a
long time--“what I want to know is, why we have to fight at all.”
“Because we’re told to,” said the troop-horse, with a snort of contempt.
“Orders,” said Billy the mule, and his teeth snapped.
“Hukm hai!” (It is an order!), said the camel with a gurgle, and Two
Tails and the bullocks repeated, “Hukm hai!”
“Yes, but who gives the orders?” said the recruit-mule.
“The man who walks at your head--Or sits on your back--Or holds the nose
rope--Or twists your tail,” said Billy and the troop-horse and the camel
and the bullocks one after the other.
“But who gives them the orders?”
“Now you want to know too much, young un,” said Billy, “and that is one
way of getting kicked. All you have to do is to obey the man at your
head and ask no questions.”
“He’s quite right,” said Two Tails. “I can’t always obey, because I’m
betwixt and between. But Billy’s right. Obey the man next to you who
gives the order, or you’ll stop all the battery, besides getting a
thrashing.”
The gun-bullocks got up to go. “Morning is coming,” they said. “We will
go back to our lines. It is true that we only see out of our eyes, and
we are not very clever. But still, we are the only people to-night who
have not been afraid. Good-night, you brave people.”
Nobody answered, and the troop-horse said, to change the conversation,
“Where’s that little dog? A dog means a man somewhere about.”
“Here I am,” yapped Vixen, “under the gun tail with my man. You big,
blundering beast of a camel you, you upset our tent. My man’s very
angry.”
“Phew!” said the bullocks. “He must be white!”
“Of course he is,” said Vixen. “Do you suppose I’m looked after by a
black bullock-driver?”
“Huah! Ouach! Ugh!” said the bullocks. “Let us get away quickly.”
They plunged forward in the mud, and managed somehow to run their yoke
on the pole of an ammunition wagon, where it jammed.
“Now you have done it,” said Billy calmly. “Don’t struggle. You’re hung
up till daylight. What on earth’s the matter?”
The bullocks went off into the long hissing snorts that Indian cattle
give, and pushed and crowded and slued and stamped and slipped and
nearly fell down in the mud, grunting savagely.
“You’ll break your necks in a minute,” said the troop-horse. “What’s the
matter with white men? I live with ’em.”
“They--eat--us! Pull!” said the near bullock. The yoke snapped with a
twang, and they lumbered off together.
I never knew before what made Indian cattle so scared of Englishmen.
We eat beef--a thing that no cattle-driver touches--and of course the
cattle do not like it.
“May I be flogged with my own pad-chains! Who’d have thought of two big
lumps like those losing their heads?” said Billy.
“Never mind. I’m going to look at this man. Most of the white men, I
know, have things in their pockets,” said the troop-horse.
“I’ll leave you, then. I can’t say I’m over-fond of ’em myself. Besides,
white men who haven’t a place to sleep in are more than likely to be
thieves, and I’ve a good deal of Government property on my back. Come
along, young un, and we’ll go back to our lines. Good-night, Australia!
See you on parade to-morrow, I suppose. Good-night, old Hay-bale!--try
to control your feelings, won’t you? Good-night, Two Tails! If you pass
us on the ground tomorrow, don’t trumpet. It spoils our formation.”
Billy the Mule stumped off with the swaggering limp of an old
campaigner, as the troop-horse’s head came nuzzling into my breast, and
I gave him biscuits, while Vixen, who is a most conceited little dog,
told him fibs about the scores of horses that she and I kept.
“I’m coming to the parade to-morrow in my dog-cart,” she said. “Where
will you be?”
“On the left hand of the second squadron. I set the time for all my
troop, little lady,” he said politely. “Now I must go back to Dick. My
tail’s all muddy, and he’ll have two hours’ hard work dressing me for
parade.”
The big parade of all the thirty thousand men was held that afternoon,
and Vixen and I had a good place close to the Viceroy and the Amir of
Afghanistan, with high, big black hat of astrakhan wool and the great
diamond star in the center. The first part of the review was all
sunshine, and the regiments went by in wave upon wave of legs all moving
together, and guns all in a line, till our eyes grew dizzy. Then the
cavalry came up, to the beautiful cavalry canter of “Bonnie Dundee,” and
Vixen cocked her ear where she sat on the dog-cart. The second squadron
of the Lancers shot by, and there was the troop-horse, with his tail
like spun silk, his head pulled into his breast, one ear forward and one
back, setting the time for all his squadron, his legs going as smoothly
as waltz music. Then the big guns came by, and I saw Two Tails and two
other elephants harnessed in line to a forty-pounder siege gun, while
twenty yoke of oxen walked behind. The seventh pair had a new yoke, and
they looked rather stiff and tired. Last came the screw guns, and Billy
the mule carried himself as though he commanded all the troops, and his
harness was oiled and polished till it winked. I gave a cheer all by
myself for Billy the mule, but he never looked right or left.
The rain began to fall again, and for a while it was too misty to see
what the troops were doing. They had made a big half circle across the
plain, and were spreading out into a line. That line grew and grew and
grew till it was three-quarters of a mile long from wing to wing--one
solid wall of men, horses, and guns. Then it came on straight toward the
Viceroy and the Amir, and as it got nearer the ground began to shake,
like the deck of a steamer when the engines are going fast.
Unless you have been there you cannot imagine what a frightening effect
this steady come-down of troops has on the spectators, even when they
know it is only a review. I looked at the Amir. Up till then he had not
shown the shadow of a sign of astonishment or anything else. But now his
eyes began to get bigger and bigger, and he picked up the reins on his
horse’s neck and looked behind him. For a minute it seemed as though he
were going to draw his sword and slash his way out through the English
men and women in the carriages at the back. Then the advance stopped
dead, the ground stood still, the whole line saluted, and thirty bands
began to play all together. That was the end of the review, and the
regiments went off to their camps in the rain, and an infantry band
struck up with--
The animals went in two by two,
Hurrah!
The animals went in two by two,
The elephant and the battery mul’,
and they all got into the Ark
For to get out of the rain!
Then I heard an old grizzled, long-haired Central Asian chief, who had
come down with the Amir, asking questions of a native officer.
“Now,” said he, “in what manner was this wonderful thing done?”
And the officer answered, “An order was given, and they obeyed.”
“But are the beasts as wise as the men?” said the chief.
“They obey, as the men do. Mule, horse, elephant, or bullock, he
obeys his driver, and the driver his sergeant, and the sergeant his
lieutenant, and the lieutenant his captain, and the captain his major,
and the major his colonel, and the colonel his brigadier commanding
three regiments, and the brigadier the general, who obeys the Viceroy,
who is the servant of the Empress. Thus it is done.”
“Would it were so in Afghanistan!” said the chief, “for there we obey
only our own wills.”
“And for that reason,” said the native officer, twirling his mustache,
“your Amir whom you do not obey must come here and take orders from our
Viceroy.”