บทที่ บทที่ 7 · Her Majesty’s Servants

Her Majesty’s Servants

You can work it out by Fractions or by simple Rule of Three,

But the way of Tweedle-dum is not the way of Tweedle-dee.

You can twist it, you can turn it, you can plait it till you drop,

But the way of Pilly Winky’s not the way of Winkie Pop!

It had been raining heavily for one whole month--raining on a camp

of thirty thousand men and thousands of camels, elephants, horses,

bullocks, and mules all gathered together at a place called Rawal Pindi,

to be reviewed by the Viceroy of India. He was receiving a visit from

the Amir of Afghanistan--a wild king of a very wild country. The Amir

had brought with him for a bodyguard eight hundred men and horses who

had never seen a camp or a locomotive before in their lives--savage

men and savage horses from somewhere at the back of Central Asia. Every

night a mob of these horses would be sure to break their heel ropes and

stampede up and down the camp through the mud in the dark, or the camels

would break loose and run about and fall over the ropes of the tents,

and you can imagine how pleasant that was for men trying to go to sleep.

My tent lay far away from the camel lines, and I thought it was safe.

But one night a man popped his head in and shouted, “Get out, quick!

They’re coming! My tent’s gone!”

I knew who “they” were, so I put on my boots and waterproof and scuttled

out into the slush. Little Vixen, my fox terrier, went out through the

other side; and then there was a roaring and a grunting and bubbling,

and I saw the tent cave in, as the pole snapped, and begin to dance

about like a mad ghost. A camel had blundered into it, and wet and angry

as I was, I could not help laughing. Then I ran on, because I did not

know how many camels might have got loose, and before long I was out of

sight of the camp, plowing my way through the mud.

At last I fell over the tail-end of a gun, and by that knew I was

somewhere near the artillery lines where the cannon were stacked at

night. As I did not want to plowter about any more in the drizzle and

the dark, I put my waterproof over the muzzle of one gun, and made a

sort of wigwam with two or three rammers that I found, and lay along the

tail of another gun, wondering where Vixen had got to, and where I might

be.

Just as I was getting ready to go to sleep I heard a jingle of harness

and a grunt, and a mule passed me shaking his wet ears. He belonged to

a screw-gun battery, for I could hear the rattle of the straps and rings

and chains and things on his saddle pad. The screw-guns are tiny little

cannon made in two pieces, that are screwed together when the time comes

to use them. They are taken up mountains, anywhere that a mule can find

a road, and they are very useful for fighting in rocky country.

Behind the mule there was a camel, with his big soft feet squelching

and slipping in the mud, and his neck bobbing to and fro like a

strayed hen’s. Luckily, I knew enough of beast language--not wild-beast

language, but camp-beast language, of course--from the natives to know

what he was saying.

He must have been the one that flopped into my tent, for he called to

the mule, “What shall I do? Where shall I go? I have fought with a white

thing that waved, and it took a stick and hit me on the neck.” (That was

my broken tent pole, and I was very glad to know it.) “Shall we run on?”

“Oh, it was you,” said the mule, “you and your friends, that have

been disturbing the camp? All right. You’ll be beaten for this in the

morning. But I may as well give you something on account now.”

I heard the harness jingle as the mule backed and caught the camel

two kicks in the ribs that rang like a drum. “Another time,” he said,

“you’ll know better than to run through a mule battery at night,

shouting `Thieves and fire!’ Sit down, and keep your silly neck quiet.”

The camel doubled up camel-fashion, like a two-foot rule, and sat down

whimpering. There was a regular beat of hoofs in the darkness, and a big

troop-horse cantered up as steadily as though he were on parade, jumped

a gun tail, and landed close to the mule.

“It’s disgraceful,” he said, blowing out his nostrils. “Those camels

have racketed through our lines again--the third time this week. How’s a

horse to keep his condition if he isn’t allowed to sleep. Who’s here?”

“I’m the breech-piece mule of number two gun of the First Screw

Battery,” said the mule, “and the other’s one of your friends. He’s

waked me up too. Who are you?”

“Number Fifteen, E troop, Ninth Lancers--Dick Cunliffe’s horse. Stand

over a little, there.”

“Oh, beg your pardon,” said the mule. “It’s too dark to see much. Aren’t

these camels too sickening for anything? I walked out of my lines to get

a little peace and quiet here.”

“My lords,” said the camel humbly, “we dreamed bad dreams in the night,

and we were very much afraid. I am only a baggage camel of the 39th

Native Infantry, and I am not as brave as you are, my lords.”

“Then why didn’t you stay and carry baggage for the 39th Native

Infantry, instead of running all round the camp?” said the mule.

“They were such very bad dreams,” said the camel. “I am sorry. Listen!

What is that? Shall we run on again?”

“Sit down,” said the mule, “or you’ll snap your long stick-legs between

the guns.” He cocked one ear and listened. “Bullocks!” he said. “Gun

bullocks. On my word, you and your friends have waked the camp very

thoroughly. It takes a good deal of prodding to put up a gun-bullock.”

I heard a chain dragging along the ground, and a yoke of the great sulky

white bullocks that drag the heavy siege guns when the elephants won’t

go any nearer to the firing, came shouldering along together. And almost

stepping on the chain was another battery mule, calling wildly for

“Billy.”

“That’s one of our recruits,” said the old mule to the troop horse.

“He’s calling for me. Here, youngster, stop squealing. The dark never

hurt anybody yet.”

The gun-bullocks lay down together and began chewing the cud, but the

young mule huddled close to Billy.

“Things!” he said. “Fearful and horrible, Billy! They came into our

lines while we were asleep. D’you think they’ll kill us?”

“I’ve a very great mind to give you a number-one kicking,” said Billy.

“The idea of a fourteen-hand mule with your training disgracing the

battery before this gentleman!”

“Gently, gently!” said the troop-horse. “Remember they are always like

this to begin with. The first time I ever saw a man (it was in Australia

when I was a three-year-old) I ran for half a day, and if I’d seen a

camel, I should have been running still.”

Nearly all our horses for the English cavalry are brought to India from

Australia, and are broken in by the troopers themselves.

“True enough,” said Billy. “Stop shaking, youngster. The first time

they put the full harness with all its chains on my back I stood on

my forelegs and kicked every bit of it off. I hadn’t learned the real

science of kicking then, but the battery said they had never seen

anything like it.”

“But this wasn’t harness or anything that jingled,” said the young mule.

“You know I don’t mind that now, Billy. It was Things like trees, and

they fell up and down the lines and bubbled; and my head-rope broke, and

I couldn’t find my driver, and I couldn’t find you, Billy, so I ran off

with--with these gentlemen.”

“H’m!” said Billy. “As soon as I heard the camels were loose I came away

on my own account. When a battery--a screw-gun mule calls gun-bullocks

gentlemen, he must be very badly shaken up. Who are you fellows on the

ground there?”

The gun bullocks rolled their cuds, and answered both together: “The

seventh yoke of the first gun of the Big Gun Battery. We were asleep

when the camels came, but when we were trampled on we got up and walked

away. It is better to lie quiet in the mud than to be disturbed on good

bedding. We told your friend here that there was nothing to be afraid

of, but he knew so much that he thought otherwise. Wah!”

They went on chewing.

“That comes of being afraid,” said Billy. “You get laughed at by

gun-bullocks. I hope you like it, young un.”

The young mule’s teeth snapped, and I heard him say something about not

being afraid of any beefy old bullock in the world. But the bullocks

only clicked their horns together and went on chewing.

“Now, don’t be angry after you’ve been afraid. That’s the worst kind

of cowardice,” said the troop-horse. “Anybody can be forgiven for being

scared in the night, I think, if they see things they don’t understand.

We’ve broken out of our pickets, again and again, four hundred and fifty

of us, just because a new recruit got to telling tales of whip snakes at

home in Australia till we were scared to death of the loose ends of our

head-ropes.”

“That’s all very well in camp,” said Billy. “I’m not above stampeding

myself, for the fun of the thing, when I haven’t been out for a day or

two. But what do you do on active service?”

“Oh, that’s quite another set of new shoes,” said the troop horse. “Dick

Cunliffe’s on my back then, and drives his knees into me, and all I have

to do is to watch where I am putting my feet, and to keep my hind legs

well under me, and be bridle-wise.”

“What’s bridle-wise?” said the young mule.

“By the Blue Gums of the Back Blocks,” snorted the troop-horse, “do you

mean to say that you aren’t taught to be bridle-wise in your business?

How can you do anything, unless you can spin round at once when the

rein is pressed on your neck? It means life or death to your man, and of

course that’s life and death to you. Get round with your hind legs under

you the instant you feel the rein on your neck. If you haven’t room to

swing round, rear up a little and come round on your hind legs. That’s

being bridle-wise.”

“We aren’t taught that way,” said Billy the mule stiffly. “We’re taught

to obey the man at our head: step off when he says so, and step in when

he says so. I suppose it comes to the same thing. Now, with all this

fine fancy business and rearing, which must be very bad for your hocks,

what do you do?”

“That depends,” said the troop-horse. “Generally I have to go in among a

lot of yelling, hairy men with knives--long shiny knives, worse than

the farrier’s knives--and I have to take care that Dick’s boot is just

touching the next man’s boot without crushing it. I can see Dick’s lance

to the right of my right eye, and I know I’m safe. I shouldn’t care to

be the man or horse that stood up to Dick and me when we’re in a hurry.”

“Don’t the knives hurt?” said the young mule.

“Well, I got one cut across the chest once, but that wasn’t Dick’s

fault--”

“A lot I should have cared whose fault it was, if it hurt!” said the

young mule.

“You must,” said the troop horse. “If you don’t trust your man, you may

as well run away at once. That’s what some of our horses do, and I don’t

blame them. As I was saying, it wasn’t Dick’s fault. The man was lying

on the ground, and I stretched myself not to tread on him, and he

slashed up at me. Next time I have to go over a man lying down I shall

step on him--hard.”

“H’m!” said Billy. “It sounds very foolish. Knives are dirty things

at any time. The proper thing to do is to climb up a mountain with a

well-balanced saddle, hang on by all four feet and your ears too, and

creep and crawl and wriggle along, till you come out hundreds of feet

above anyone else on a ledge where there’s just room enough for your

hoofs. Then you stand still and keep quiet--never ask a man to hold your

head, young un--keep quiet while the guns are being put together, and

then you watch the little poppy shells drop down into the tree-tops ever

so far below.”

“Don’t you ever trip?” said the troop-horse.

“They say that when a mule trips you can split a hen’s ear,” said Billy.

“Now and again perhaps a badly packed saddle will upset a mule, but it’s

very seldom. I wish I could show you our business. It’s beautiful. Why,

it took me three years to find out what the men were driving at. The

science of the thing is never to show up against the sky line, because,

if you do, you may get fired at. Remember that, young un. Always keep

hidden as much as possible, even if you have to go a mile out of your

way. I lead the battery when it comes to that sort of climbing.”

“Fired at without the chance of running into the people who are firing!”

said the troop-horse, thinking hard. “I couldn’t stand that. I should

want to charge--with Dick.”

“Oh, no, you wouldn’t. You know that as soon as the guns are in

position they’ll do all the charging. That’s scientific and neat. But

knives--pah!”

The baggage-camel had been bobbing his head to and fro for some time

past, anxious to get a word in edgewise. Then I heard him say, as he

cleared his throat, nervously:

“I--I--I have fought a little, but not in that climbing way or that

running way.”

“No. Now you mention it,” said Billy, “you don’t look as though you were

made for climbing or running--much. Well, how was it, old Hay-bales?”

“The proper way,” said the camel. “We all sat down--”

“Oh, my crupper and breastplate!” said the troop-horse under his breath.

“Sat down!”

“We sat down--a hundred of us,” the camel went on, “in a big square, and

the men piled our packs and saddles, outside the square, and they fired

over our backs, the men did, on all sides of the square.”

“What sort of men? Any men that came along?” said the troop-horse. “They

teach us in riding school to lie down and let our masters fire across

us, but Dick Cunliffe is the only man I’d trust to do that. It tickles

my girths, and, besides, I can’t see with my head on the ground.”

“What does it matter who fires across you?” said the camel. “There are

plenty of men and plenty of other camels close by, and a great many

clouds of smoke. I am not frightened then. I sit still and wait.”

“And yet,” said Billy, “you dream bad dreams and upset the camp at

night. Well, well! Before I’d lie down, not to speak of sitting down,

and let a man fire across me, my heels and his head would have something

to say to each other. Did you ever hear anything so awful as that?”

There was a long silence, and then one of the gun bullocks lifted up his

big head and said, “This is very foolish indeed. There is only one way

of fighting.”

“Oh, go on,” said Billy. “Please don’t mind me. I suppose you fellows

fight standing on your tails?”

“Only one way,” said the two together. (They must have been twins.)

“This is that way. To put all twenty yoke of us to the big gun as soon

as Two Tails trumpets.” (“Two Tails” is camp slang for the elephant.)

“What does Two Tails trumpet for?” said the young mule.

“To show that he is not going any nearer to the smoke on the other

side. Two Tails is a great coward. Then we tug the big gun all

together--Heya--Hullah! Heeyah! Hullah! We do not climb like cats nor

run like calves. We go across the level plain, twenty yoke of us, till

we are unyoked again, and we graze while the big guns talk across the

plain to some town with mud walls, and pieces of the wall fall out, and

the dust goes up as though many cattle were coming home.”

“Oh! And you choose that time for grazing?” said the young mule.

“That time or any other. Eating is always good. We eat till we are yoked

up again and tug the gun back to where Two Tails is waiting for it.

Sometimes there are big guns in the city that speak back, and some of

us are killed, and then there is all the more grazing for those that are

left. This is Fate. None the less, Two Tails is a great coward. That is

the proper way to fight. We are brothers from Hapur. Our father was a

sacred bull of Shiva. We have spoken.”

“Well, I’ve certainly learned something tonight,” said the troop-horse.

“Do you gentlemen of the screw-gun battery feel inclined to eat when you

are being fired at with big guns, and Two Tails is behind you?”

“About as much as we feel inclined to sit down and let men sprawl all

over us, or run into people with knives. I never heard such stuff. A

mountain ledge, a well-balanced load, a driver you can trust to let you

pick your own way, and I’m your mule. But--the other things--no!” said

Billy, with a stamp of his foot.

“Of course,” said the troop horse, “everyone is not made in the same

way, and I can quite see that your family, on your father’s side, would

fail to understand a great many things.”

“Never you mind my family on my father’s side,” said Billy angrily, for

every mule hates to be reminded that his father was a donkey. “My father

was a Southern gentleman, and he could pull down and bite and kick into

rags every horse he came across. Remember that, you big brown Brumby!”

Brumby means wild horse without any breeding. Imagine the feelings of

Sunol if a car-horse called her a “skate,” and you can imagine how the

Australian horse felt. I saw the white of his eye glitter in the dark.

“See here, you son of an imported Malaga jackass,” he said between

his teeth, “I’d have you know that I’m related on my mother’s side to

Carbine, winner of the Melbourne Cup, and where I come from we aren’t

accustomed to being ridden over roughshod by any parrot-mouthed,

pig-headed mule in a pop-gun pea-shooter battery. Are you ready?”

“On your hind legs!” squealed Billy. They both reared up facing each

other, and I was expecting a furious fight, when a gurgly, rumbly

voice, called out of the darkness to the right--“Children, what are you

fighting about there? Be quiet.”

Both beasts dropped down with a snort of disgust, for neither horse nor

mule can bear to listen to an elephant’s voice.

“It’s Two Tails!” said the troop-horse. “I can’t stand him. A tail at

each end isn’t fair!”

“My feelings exactly,” said Billy, crowding into the troop-horse for

company. “We’re very alike in some things.”

“I suppose we’ve inherited them from our mothers,” said the troop horse.

“It’s not worth quarreling about. Hi! Two Tails, are you tied up?”

“Yes,” said Two Tails, with a laugh all up his trunk. “I’m picketed for

the night. I’ve heard what you fellows have been saying. But don’t be

afraid. I’m not coming over.”

The bullocks and the camel said, half aloud, “Afraid of Two Tails--what

nonsense!” And the bullocks went on, “We are sorry that you heard, but

it is true. Two Tails, why are you afraid of the guns when they fire?”

“Well,” said Two Tails, rubbing one hind leg against the other, exactly

like a little boy saying a poem, “I don’t quite know whether you’d

understand.”

“We don’t, but we have to pull the guns,” said the bullocks.

“I know it, and I know you are a good deal braver than you think

you are. But it’s different with me. My battery captain called me a

Pachydermatous Anachronism the other day.”

“That’s another way of fighting, I suppose?” said Billy, who was

recovering his spirits.

“You don’t know what that means, of course, but I do. It means betwixt

and between, and that is just where I am. I can see inside my head what

will happen when a shell bursts, and you bullocks can’t.”

“I can,” said the troop-horse. “At least a little bit. I try not to

think about it.”

“I can see more than you, and I do think about it. I know there’s a

great deal of me to take care of, and I know that nobody knows how to

cure me when I’m sick. All they can do is to stop my driver’s pay till I

get well, and I can’t trust my driver.”

“Ah!” said the troop horse. “That explains it. I can trust Dick.”

“You could put a whole regiment of Dicks on my back without making me

feel any better. I know just enough to be uncomfortable, and not enough

to go on in spite of it.”

“We do not understand,” said the bullocks.

“I know you don’t. I’m not talking to you. You don’t know what blood

is.”

“We do,” said the bullocks. “It is red stuff that soaks into the ground

and smells.”

The troop-horse gave a kick and a bound and a snort.

“Don’t talk of it,” he said. “I can smell it now, just thinking of it.

It makes me want to run--when I haven’t Dick on my back.”

“But it is not here,” said the camel and the bullocks. “Why are you so

stupid?”

“It’s vile stuff,” said Billy. “I don’t want to run, but I don’t want to

talk about it.”

“There you are!” said Two Tails, waving his tail to explain.

“Surely. Yes, we have been here all night,” said the bullocks.

Two Tails stamped his foot till the iron ring on it jingled. “Oh, I’m

not talking to you. You can’t see inside your heads.”

“No. We see out of our four eyes,” said the bullocks. “We see straight

in front of us.”

“If I could do that and nothing else, you wouldn’t be needed to pull the

big guns at all. If I was like my captain--he can see things inside his

head before the firing begins, and he shakes all over, but he knows too

much to run away--if I was like him I could pull the guns. But if I were

as wise as all that I should never be here. I should be a king in the

forest, as I used to be, sleeping half the day and bathing when I liked.

I haven’t had a good bath for a month.”

“That’s all very fine,” said Billy. “But giving a thing a long name

doesn’t make it any better.”

“H’sh!” said the troop horse. “I think I understand what Two Tails

means.”

“You’ll understand better in a minute,” said Two Tails angrily. “Now you

just explain to me why you don’t like this!”

He began trumpeting furiously at the top of his trumpet.

“Stop that!” said Billy and the troop horse together, and I could

hear them stamp and shiver. An elephant’s trumpeting is always nasty,

especially on a dark night.

“I shan’t stop,” said Two Tails. “Won’t you explain that, please?

Hhrrmph! Rrrt! Rrrmph! Rrrhha!” Then he stopped suddenly, and I heard

a little whimper in the dark, and knew that Vixen had found me at last.

She knew as well as I did that if there is one thing in the world the

elephant is more afraid of than another it is a little barking dog. So

she stopped to bully Two Tails in his pickets, and yapped round his big

feet. Two Tails shuffled and squeaked. “Go away, little dog!” he said.

“Don’t snuff at my ankles, or I’ll kick at you. Good little dog--nice

little doggie, then! Go home, you yelping little beast! Oh, why doesn’t

someone take her away? She’ll bite me in a minute.”

“Seems to me,” said Billy to the troop horse, “that our friend Two Tails

is afraid of most things. Now, if I had a full meal for every dog I’ve

kicked across the parade-ground I should be as fat as Two Tails nearly.”

I whistled, and Vixen ran up to me, muddy all over, and licked my nose,

and told me a long tale about hunting for me all through the camp. I

never let her know that I understood beast talk, or she would have

taken all sorts of liberties. So I buttoned her into the breast of my

overcoat, and Two Tails shuffled and stamped and growled to himself.

“Extraordinary! Most extraordinary!” he said. “It runs in our family.

Now, where has that nasty little beast gone to?”

I heard him feeling about with his trunk.

“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.”

Parade Song of the Camp Animals

ELEPHANTS OF THE GUN TEAMS

We lent to Alexander the strength of Hercules,

The wisdom of our foreheads, the cunning of our knees;

We bowed our necks to service: they ne’er were loosed again,--

Make way there--way for the ten-foot teams

Of the Forty-Pounder train!

GUN BULLOCKS

Those heroes in their harnesses avoid a cannon-ball,

And what they know of powder upsets them one and all;

Then we come into action and tug the guns again--

Make way there--way for the twenty yoke

Of the Forty-Pounder train!

CAVALRY HORSES

By the brand on my shoulder, the finest of tunes

Is played by the Lancers, Hussars, and Dragoons,

And it’s sweeter than “Stables” or “Water” to me--

The Cavalry Canter of “Bonnie Dundee”!

Then feed us and break us and handle and groom,

And give us good riders and plenty of room,

And launch us in column of squadron and see

The way of the war-horse to “Bonnie Dundee”!

SCREW-GUN MULES

As me and my companions were scrambling up a hill,

The path was lost in rolling stones, but we went forward still;

For we can wriggle and climb, my lads, and turn up everywhere,

Oh, it’s our delight on a mountain height, with a leg or two to

spare!

Good luck to every sergeant, then, that lets us pick our road;

Bad luck to all the driver-men that cannot pack a load:

For we can wriggle and climb, my lads, and turn up everywhere,

Oh, it’s our delight on a mountain height, with a leg or two to

spare!

COMMISSARIAT CAMELS

We haven’t a camelty tune of our own

To help us trollop along,

But every neck is a hair trombone

(_Rtt-ta-ta-ta!_ is a hair trombone!)

And this our marching-song:

_Can’t! Don’t! Sha’n’t! Won’t!_

Pass it along the line!

Somebody’s pack has slid from his back,

Wish it were only mine!

Somebody’s load has tipped off in the road--

Cheer for a halt and a row!

_Urrr! Yarrh! Grr! Arrh!_

Somebody’s catching it now!

ALL THE BEASTS TOGETHER

Children of the Camp are we,

Serving each in his degree;

Children of the yoke and goad,

Pack and harness, pad and load.

See our line across the plain,

Like a heel-rope bent again,

Reaching, writhing, rolling far,

Sweeping all away to war!

While the men that walk beside,

Dusty, silent, heavy-eyed,

Cannot tell why we or they

March and suffer day by day.

_Children of the Camp are we,

Serving each in his degree;

Children of the yoke and goad,

Pack and harness, pad and load!_