第 七 章 · 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!_