It was not in the open fight
We threw away the sword,
But in the lonely watching
In the darkness by the ford.
The waters lapped, the night-wind blew,
Full-armed the Fear was born and grew.
And we were flying ere we knew
From panic in the night.
--_Beoni Bar_.
Some people hold that an English Cavalry regiment cannot run. This is a
mistake. I have seen four hundred and thirty-seven sabres flying over the
face of the country in abject terror--have seen the best Regiment that
ever drew bridle wiped off the Army List for the space of two hours. If
you repeat this tale to the White Hussars they will, in all probability,
treat you severely. They are not proud of the incident.
You may know the White Hussars by their "side," which is greater than that
of all the Cavalry Regiments on the roster. If this is not a sufficient
mark, you may know them by their old brandy. It has been sixty years in
the Mess and is worth going far to taste. Ask for the "McGaire" old
brandy, and see that you get it. If the Mess Sergeant thinks that you are
uneducated, and that the genuine article will be lost on you, he will
treat you accordingly. He is a good man. But, when you are at Mess, you
must never talk to your hosts about forced marches or long-distance rides.
The Mess are very sensitive; and, if they think that you are laughing at
them, will tell you so.
As the White Hussars say, it was all the Colonel's fault. He was a new
man, and he ought never to have taken the Command. He said that the
Regiment was not smart enough. This to the White Hussars, who knew that
they could walk round any Horse and through any Guns, and over any Foot on
the face of the earth! That insult was the first cause of offence.
Then the Colonel cast the Drum-Horse--the Drum-Horse of the White Hussars!
Perhaps you do not see what an unspeakable crime he had committed. I will
try to make it clear. The soul of the Regiment lives in the Drum-Horse who
carries the silver kettle-drums. He is nearly always a big piebald Waler.
That is a point of honor; and a Regiment will spend anything you please on
a piebald. He is beyond the ordinary laws of casting. His work is very
light, and he only manoeuvres at a foot-pace. Wherefore, so long as he can
step out and look handsome, his well-being is assured. He knows more about
the Regiment than the Adjutant, and could not make a mistake if he tried.
The Drum-Horse of the White Hussars was only eighteen years old, and
perfectly equal to his duties. He had at least six years' more work in
him, and carried himself with all the pomp and dignity of a Drum-Major of
the Guards. The Regiment had paid Rs.1200 for him.
But the Colonel said that he must go, and he was cast in due form and
replaced by a washy, bay beast, as ugly as a mule, with a ewe-neck,
rat-tail, and cow-hocks. The Drummer detested that animal, and the best of
the Band-horses put back their ears and showed the whites of their eyes at
the very sight of him. They knew him for an upstart and no gentleman. I
fancy that the Colonel's ideas of smartness extended to the Band, and that
he wanted to make it take part in the regular parade movements. A Cavalry
Band is a sacred thing. It only turns out for Commanding Officers'
parades, and the Band Master is one degree more important than the
Colonel. He is a High Priest and the "Keel Row" is his holy song. The
"Keel Row" is the Cavalry Trot; and the man who has never heard that tune
rising, high and shrill, above the rattle of the Regiment going past the
saluting-base, has something yet to hear and understand.
When the Colonel cast the Drum-Horse of the White Hussars, there was
nearly a mutiny.
The officers were angry, the Regiment were furious, and the Bandsmen
swore--like troopers. The Drum-Horse was going to be put up to
auction--public auction--to be bought, perhaps, by a Parsee and put into a
cart! It was worse than exposing the Inner life of the Regiment to the
whole world, or selling the Mess Plate to a Jew--a Black Jew.
The Colonel was a mean man and a bully. He knew what the Regiment thought
about his action; and, when the troopers offered to buy the Drum-Horse, he
said that their offer was mutinous and forbidden by the Regulations.
But one of the Subalterns--Hogan-Yale, an Irishman--bought the Drum-Horse
for Rs. 160 at the sale, and the Colonel was wroth. Yale professed
repentance--he was unnaturally submissive--and said that, as he had only
made the purchase to save the horse from possible ill-treatment and
starvation, he would now shoot him and end the business. This appeared to
soothe the Colonel, for he wanted the Drum-Horse disposed of. He felt that
he had made a mistake, and could not of course acknowledge it. Meantime,
the presence of the Drum-Horse was an annoyance to him.
Yale took to himself a glass of the old brandy, three cheroots, and his
friend Martyn; and they all left the Mess together. Yale and Martyn
conferred for two hours in Yale's quarters; but only the bull-terrier who
keeps watch over Yale's boot-trees knows what they said. A horse, hooded
and sheeted to his ears, left Yale's stables and was taken, very
unwillingly, into the Civil Lines. Yale's groom went with him. Two men
broke into the Regimental Theatre and took several paint-pots and some
large scenery-brushes. Then night fell over the Cantonments, and there was
a noise as of a horse kicking his loose-box to pieces in Yale's stables.
Yale had a big, old, white Waler trap-horse.
The next day was a Thursday, and the men, hearing that Yale was going to
shoot the Drum-Horse in the evening, determined to give the beast a
regular regimental funeral--a finer one than they would have given the
Colonel had he died just then. They got a bullock-cart and some sacking,
and mounds and mounds of roses, and the body, under sacking, was carried
out to the place where the anthrax cases were cremated; two-thirds of the
Regiment following. There was no Band, but they all sang "The Place where
the old Horse died" as something respectful and appropriate to the
occasion. When the corpse was dumped into the grave and the men began
throwing down armfuls of roses to cover it, the Farrier-Sergeant ripped
out an oath and said aloud, "Why, it ain't the Drum-Horse any more than
it's me!" The Troop Sergeant-Majors asked him whether he had left his head
in the Canteen. The Farrier-Sergeant said that he knew the Drum-Horse's
feet as well as he knew his own; but he was silenced when he saw the
regimental number burned in on the poor stiff, upturned near-fore.
Thus was the Drum-Horse of the White Hussars buried; the Farrier-Sergeant
grumbling. The sacking that covered the corpse was smeared In places with
black paint; and the Farrier-Sergeant drew attention to this fact. But the
Troop Sergeant-Major of E Troop kicked him severely on the shin, and told
him that he was undoubtedly drunk.
On the Monday following the burial, the Colonel sought revenge on the
White Hussars. Unfortunately, being at that time temporarily in Command of
the Station, he ordered a Brigade field-day. He said that he wished to
make the Regiment "sweat for their damned insolence," and he carried out
his notion thoroughly. That Monday was one of the hardest days in the
memory of the White Hussars. They were thrown against a skeleton-enemy,
and pushed forward, and withdrawn, and dismounted, and "scientifically
handled" in every possible fashion over dusty country, till they sweated
profusely. Their only amusement came late in the day when they fell upon
the battery of Horse Artillery and chased it for two miles. This was a
personal question, and most of the troopers had money on the event; the
Gunners saying openly that they had the legs of the White Hussars. They
were wrong. A march-past concluded the campaign, and when the Regiment got
back to their Lines, the men were coated with dirt from spur to
chin-strap.
The White Hussars have one great and peculiar privilege. They won it at
Fontenoy, I think.
Many Regiments possess special rights such as wearing collars with undress
uniform, or a bow of riband between the shoulders, or red and white roses
in their helmets on certain days of the year. Some rights are connected
with regimental saints, and some with regimental successes. All are valued
highly; but none so highly as the right of the White Hussars to have the
Band playing when their horses are being watered in the Lines. Only one
tune is played, and that tune never varies. I don't know its real name,
but the White Hussars call it, "Take me to London again." It sounds very
pretty. The Regiment would sooner be struck off the roster than forego
their distinction.
After the "dismiss" was sounded, the officers rode off home to prepare for
stables; and the men filed into the lines riding easy. That is to say,
they opened their tight buttons, shifted their helmets, and began to joke
or to swear as the humor took them; the more careful slipping off and
easing girths and curbs. A good trooper values his mount exactly as much
as he values himself, and believes, or should believe, that the two
together are irresistible where women or men, girls or guns, are
concerned.
Then the Orderly-Officer gave the order, "Water horses," and the Regiment
loafed off to the squadron-troughs which were in rear of the stables and
between these and the barracks. There were four huge troughs, one for each
squadron, arranged _en échelon_, so that the whole Regiment could water in
ten minutes if it liked. But it lingered for seventeen, as a rule, while
the Band played.
The Band struck up as the squadrons filed off to the troughs, and the men
slipped their feet out of the stirrups and chaffed each other. The sun was
just setting in a big, hot bed of red cloud, and the road to the Civil
Lines seemed to run straight into the sun's eye. There was a little dot on
the road. It grew and grew till it showed as a horse, with a sort of
gridiron-thing on his back. The red cloud glared through the bars of the
gridiron. Some of the troopers shaded their eyes with their hands and
said--"What the mischief 'as that there 'orse got on 'im?"
In another minute they heard a neigh that every soul--horse and man--in
the Regiment knew, and saw, heading straight toward the Band, the dead
Drum-Horse of the White Hussars!
On his withers banged and bumped the kettledrums draped in crape, and on
his back, very stiff and soldierly, sat a bareheaded skeleton.
The Band stopped playing, and, for a moment, there was a hush.
Then some one in E Troop--men said it was the Troop-Sergeant-Major--swung
his horse round and yelled. No one can account exactly for what happened
afterward; but it seems that, at least, one man in each troop set an
example of panic, and the rest followed like sheep. The horses that had
barely put their muzzles into the troughs reared and capered; but as soon
as the Band broke, which it did when the ghost of the Drum-Horse was about
a furlong distant, all hooves followed suit, and the clatter of the
stampede--quite different from the orderly throb and roar of a movement on
parade, or the rough horse-play of watering in camp--made them only more
terrified. They felt that the men on their backs were afraid of something.
When horses once know that, all is over except the butchery.
Troop after troop turned from the troughs and ran--anywhere and
everywhere--like spilled quicksilver. It was a most extraordinary
spectacle, for men and horses were in all stages of easiness, and the
carbine-buckets flopping against their sides urged the horses on. Men were
shouting and cursing, and trying to pull clear of the Band which was being
chased by the Drum-Horse whose rider had fallen forward and seemed to be
spurring for a wager.
The Colonel had gone over to the Mess for a drink. Most of the officers
were with him, and the Subaltern of the Day was preparing to go down to
the lines, and receive the watering reports from the Troop-Sergeant-
Majors. When "Take me to London again" stopped, after twenty bars, every
one in the Mess said, "What on earth has happened?" A minute later, they
heard unmilitary noises, and saw, far across the plain, the White Hussars
scattered, and broken, and flying.
The Colonel was speechless with rage, for he thought that the Regiment had
risen against him or was unanimously drunk. The Band, a disorganized mob,
tore past, and at its heels labored the Drum-Horse--the dead and buried
Drum-Horse--with the jolting, clattering skeleton, Hogan-Yale whispered
softly to Martyn--"No wire will stand that treatment," and the Band, which
had doubled like a hare, came back again. But the rest of the Regiment was
gone, was rioting all over the Province, for the dusk had shut in and each
man was howling to his neighbor that the Drum-Horse was on his flank.
Troop-horses are far too tenderly treated as a rule. They can, on
emergencies, do a great deal, even with seventeen stone on their backs. As
the troopers found out.
How long this panic lasted I cannot say. I believe that when the moon rose
the men saw they had nothing to fear, and, by twos and threes and
half-troops, crept back into Cantonments very much ashamed of themselves.
Meantime, the Drum-Horse, disgusted at his treatment by old friends,
pulled up, wheeled round, and trotted up to the Mess veranda-steps for
bread. No one liked to run; but no one cared to go forward till the
Colonel made a movement and laid hold of the skeleton's foot. The Band had
halted some distance away, and now came back slowly. The Colonel called
it, individually and collectively, every evil name that occurred to him at
the time; for he had set his hand on the bosom of the Drum-Horse and found
flesh and blood. Then he beat the kettle-drums with his clenched fist, and
discovered that they were but made of silvered paper and bamboo. Next,
still swearing, he tried to drag the skeleton out of the saddle, but found
that it had been wired into the cantle. The sight of the Colonel, with his
arms round the skeleton's pelvis and his knee in the old Drum-Horse's
stomach, was striking. Not to say amusing. He worried the thing off in a
minute or two, and threw it down on the ground, saying to the Band--"Here,
you curs, that's what you're afraid of." The skeleton did not look pretty
in the twilight The Band-Sergeant seemed to recognize it, for he began to
chuckle and choke. "Shall I take it away, sir?" said the Band-Sergeant.
"Yes," said the Colonel, "take it to Hell, and ride there yourselves!"
The Band-Sergeant saluted, hoisted the skeleton across his saddle-bow, and
led off to the stables. Then the Colonel began to make inquiries for the
rest of the Regiment, and the language he used was wonderful, He would
disband the Regiment--he would court-martial every soul in it--he would
not command such a set of rabble, and so on, and so on. As the men dropped
in, his language grew wilder, until at last it exceeded the utmost limits
of free speech allowed even to a Colonel of Horse.
Martyn took Hogan-Yale aside and suggested compulsory retirement from the
Service as a necessity when all was discovered. Martyn was the weaker man
of the two. Hogan-Yale put up his eyebrows and remarked, firstly, that he
was the son of a Lord, and, secondly, that he was as innocent as the babe
unborn of the theatrical resurrection of the Drum-Horse.
"My instructions," said Yale, with a singularly sweet smile, "were that
the Drum-Horse should be sent back as impressively as possible. I ask you,
_am_ I responsible if a mule-headed friend sends him back in such a manner
as to disturb the peace of mind of a regiment of Her Majesty's Cavalry?"
Martyn said, "You are a great man, and will in time become a General; but
I'd give my chance of a troop to be safe out of this affair."
Providence saved Martyn and Hogan-Yale. The Second-in-Command led the
Colonel away to the little curtained alcove wherein the Subalterns of the
White Hussars were accustomed to play poker of nights; and there, after
many oaths on the Colonel's part, they talked together in low tones. I
fancy that the Second-in-Command must have represented the scare as the
work of some trooper whom it would be hopeless to detect; and I know that
he dwelt upon the sin and the shame of making a public laughing-stock of
the scare.
"They will call us," said the Second-in-Command, who had really a fine
imagination--"they will call us the 'Fly-by-Nights'; they will call us the
'Ghost Hunters'; they will nickname us from one end of the Army List to
the other. All the explanation in the world won't make outsiders
understand that the officers were away when the panic began. For the honor
of the Regiment and for your own sake keep this thing quiet."
The Colonel was so exhausted with anger that soothing him down was not so
difficult as might be imagined. He was made to see, gently and by degrees,
that it was obviously impossible to court-martial the whole Regiment and
equally impossible to proceed against any subaltern who, in his belief,
had any concern in the hoax.
"But the beast's alive! He's never been shot at all!" shouted the Colonel.
"It's flat flagrant disobedience! I've known a man broke for less--dam
sight less. They're mocking me, I tell you, Mutman! They're mocking me!"
Once more, the Second-in-Command set himself to soothe the Colonel, and
wrestled with him for half an hour. At the end of that time, the
Regimental Sergeant-Major reported himself. The situation was rather novel
to him; but he was not a man to be put out by circumstances. He saluted
and said, "Regiment all comeback, Sir." Then, to propitiate the
Colonel--"An' none of the 'orses any the worse, Sir,"
The Colonel only snorted and answered--"You'd better tuck the men into
their cots, then, and see that they don't wake up and cry in the night"
The Sergeant withdrew.
His little stroke of humor pleased the Colonel, and, further, he felt
slightly ashamed of the language he had been using. The Second-in-Command
worried him again, and the two sat talking far into the night.
Next day but one, there was a Commanding Officer's parade, and the Colonel
harangued the White Hussars vigorously. The pith of his speech was that,
since the Drum-Horse in his old age had proved himself capable of cutting
up the whole Regiment, he should return to his post of pride at the head
of the Band, _but_ the Regiment were a set of ruffians with bad
consciences.
The White Hussars shouted, and threw everything movable about them into
the air, and when the parade was over, they cheered the Colonel till they
couldn't speak. No cheers were put up for Lieutenant Hogan-Yale, who
smiled very sweetly in the background.