They came in at last far down the park, heralded by that unmistakable
half-grumble, half-grunt of guns on the move. The picketed horses heard
it first, and one of them neighed long and loud, which proved that he
had abandoned civilian habits. Horses in stables and mews seldom do more
than snicker, even when they are halves of separated pairs. But these
gentlemen had a corporate life of their own now, and knew what ‘pulling
together’ means.
When a battery comes into camp it ‘parks’ all six guns at the appointed
place, side by side in one mathematically straight line, and the
accuracy of the alignment is, like ceremonial-drill with the Foot, a
fair test of its attainments. The ground was no treat for parking.
Specimen trees and draining ditches had to be avoided and circumvented.
The gunners, their reins, the guns, the ground, were equally wet, and
the slob dropped away like gruel from the brake-shoes. And they were
Londoners—clerks, mechanics, shop assistants, and delivery men—anything
and everything that you please. But they were all home and at home in
their saddles and seats. They said nothing; their officers said little
enough to them. They came in across what had once been turf; wheeled
with tight traces; halted, unhooked; the wise teams stumped off to their
pickets, and, behold, the six guns were left precisely where they should
have been left to the fraction of an inch. You could see the wind
blowing the last few drops of wet from each leather muzzle-cover at
exactly the same angle. It was all old known evolutions, taken
unconsciously in the course of their day’s work by men well abreast of
it.
‘Our men have one advantage,’ said a voice. ‘As Territorials they were
introduced to unmade horses once a year at training. So they’ve never
been accustomed to made horses.’
‘And what do the horses say about it all?’ I asked, remembering what I
had seen on the road in the early days.
‘They said a good deal at first, but our chaps could make allowances for
‘em. They know now.’
Allah never intended the Gunner to talk. His own arm does that for him.
The batteries offsaddled in silence, though one noticed on all sides
little quiet caresses between man and beast—affectionate nuzzlings and
nose-slappings. Surely the Gunner’s relation to his horse is more
intimate even than the cavalryman’s; for a lost horse only turns cavalry
into infantry, but trouble in a gun team may mean death all round. And
this is the Gunner’s war. The young wet officers said so joyously as
they passed to and fro picking up scandal about breast-straps and
breechings, examining the collars of ammunition-wagon teams, and
listening to remarks on shoes. Local blacksmiths, assisted by the
battery itself, do the shoeing. There are master smiths and important
farriers, who have cheerfully thrown up good wages to help the game, and
their horses reward them by keeping fit. A fair proportion of the horses
are aged—there was never a Gunner yet satisfied with his team or its
rations till he had left the battery—but they do their work as
steadfastly and wholeheartedly as the men. I am persuaded the horses
like being in society and working out their daily problems of draught
and direction. The English, and Londoners particularly, are the kindest
and most reasonable of folk with animals. If it were not our business
strictly to underrate ourselves for the next few years, one would say
that the Territorial batteries had already done wonders. But perhaps it
is better to let it all go with the grudging admission wrung out of a
wringing wet bombardier, ‘Well, it isn’t so dam’ bad—considerin’.’
I left them taking their dinner in mess tins to their tents, with a
strenuous afternoon’s cleaning-up ahead of them. The big park held some
thousands of men. I had seen no more than a few hundreds, and had missed
the howitzer-batteries after all.
A cock pheasant chaperoned me down the drive, complaining loudly that
where he was used to walk with his ladies under the beech trees, some
unsporting people had built a miniature landscape with tiny villages,
churches, and factories, and came there daily to point cannon at it.
‘Keep away from that place,’ said I, ‘or you’ll find yourself in a
field-kitchen.’
‘Not me!’ he crowed. ‘I’m as sacred as golf-courses.’