The History of Lumsden's Horse. Various

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      Photo: F. Kapp & Co. B COMPANY LUMSDEN’S HORSE LEAVING CALCUTTA March 3, 1900

      Four days later welcome orders came for B Company to be ready for embarkation, and, early in the morning of March 3, Major Showers, in command of all that remained of Lumsden’s Horse on the Maidan, marched out of camp, escorted by Europeans and natives principally on horseback. For them the enthusiasm that had marked the departure of their comrades was revived with even greater fervour, and though this second leave-taking was less ceremonious than the first, it lacked nothing of the heart-stirring eloquence that rings through the voices of people when they are moved by great impulses. The Viceroy, when he addressed Colonel Lumsden and A Company, had spoken his farewell to the whole regiment. This second demonstration, though accompanied by many signs of official interest, was in all essential characteristics a popular movement in which all classes joined with the more impressive warmth because it was the last tribute they could pay to Lumsden’s Horse before the corps might be called upon to take its place in the fighting line. The Lieutenant-Governor (Sir John Woodburn) and the Bishop of Calcutta made eloquent speeches that were emphasised by repeated cheering; and with many cordial words of farewell ringing in their ears, to the musical accompaniment of ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ Major Showers and his hundred troopers embarked on board the ‘Ujina.’ After she had steamed down the Hugli there was no more work to be done by the committee, whose members had laboured with patriotic self-sacrifice to raise and equip Lumsden’s Horse and send the contingent forth a perfectly organised force in all respects. The executive committee then practically handed over all its authority to Sir Patrick Playfair, who never ceased for a moment to watch over the interests of the Contingent, for which he had already done so much. The following letter shows how greatly Lumsden’s Horse were indebted for their rapid and complete organisation to the business capacity and indefatigable industry of Sir Patrick Playfair:

      S.S. ‘Lindula,’ en route for South Africa: March 12, 1900.

      My dear Playfair—I have felt ever since leaving Calcutta that I never half thanked you for what you did for Lumsden’s Horse, and no one knows so well as myself, or appreciates more to the full, the work you did on its behalf. Now, when I have time to think calmly over the events of the past two months, I can see plainly that the successful issue things were brought to, financially and otherwise, was entirely due to your energy and guidance; and this without in the slightest degree depreciating the valuable services of your fellow-workers on the committee, as I feel confident one and all of them would coincide heartily with my sentiments. …

      Yours always,

      D.M. Lumsden.

CHAPTER III

       OUTWARD BOUND

       Table of Contents

      Life on board a troopship does not offer much material for graphic description, and none but a Kipling could give to its ordinary incidents an absorbing interest for general readers. Nevertheless, it has charms for those who look at it with eyes fresh to such scenes, and for Lumsden’s Horse, at any rate, there was a novelty in the situation not wholly unpleasant in spite of the many discomforts they had to endure and the distasteful duties necessarily imposed upon them. They were learning there a harder lesson than any of which their experiences in camp on the Maidan could have given the slightest conception. It is one thing to go a long voyage on board a liner as first-, second-, or even third-class passenger, but quite another to be penned up between decks in a crowded transport with native servants and Lascars, eating coarse Government rations served in the roughest fashion, doing the work of grooms and lackeys, and sleeping on bare planks in an atmosphere odorous with exhalations from stables and galleys. They had enlisted for a soldier’s life, however, prepared to take the rough with the smooth, and, being in for it, they made the best of their circumstances after the first rude shock of feeling what military service really means had worn off. Discipline may become a property of easiness anywhere else, but on board ship the line that separates rank from rank must be sharply drawn even in the case of a Volunteer company. Comradeship and interchange of friendly greetings between officers and men may still go on as of old; but they cannot make a trooper forget for a moment that certain privileges follow rank, and disabilities cling to those who have it not, while these facts are thrust upon him insistently at every turn and dinned into his ears by every bugle call to duty or to meals. It is well that we also should remember these things in estimating the sacrifices that Volunteers make when they give up the comforts, if not luxuries, of home life and go forth to fight for country and for empire as private soldiers. The privations, the rough fare, the hard marches in all weather, exposure to rapid alternations of heat and cold, fierce sunshine where there is no shelter by day, and pitiless rain from which there is no escape at night, hunger, wounds, and sickness—all these may be cheerfully borne because they are the lot of all ranks alike. Not so, however, with the petty humiliations and drudgery inseparable from many duties on board a transport, where the mere trooper finds that a soldier’s uniform is a badge of distinction truly, but the distinction at times brings with it something closely akin to a sense of humiliation. The company or regimental officers may do all they can to take the keen point off this goading sentiment, but it will wound where there is the least protection against it and rankle too. One must say to the credit of Lumsden’s Horse that they did not allow such considerations to trouble. There is no trace of discontent in their published contributions to Indian papers, of which some extracts from the ‘Englishman’ may be made by way of giving a picture of the voyage as troopers looked at it. We left the ‘Lindula’ steaming down the Hugli apparently well on her way towards South Africa. Though lost to the view of interested crowds who looked for her soon after dawn on the morning of February 27, she did not pursue an uninterrupted course. At this point a trooper of A Company takes up the story in a lively narrative, writing thus:

      The absurd antics which the river Hugli thinks it necessary to go through ere flowing to rest in the bosom of its old mammy Ocean compel mariners to sail on it by day alone, and then to go as cannily as a cat on hot bricks. On Tuesday morning we dashed off letters and telegrams, and with a sigh of relief despatched them by the post boat, thinking we were fairly off for Afric’s sandy shores. But no! We had not reckoned with the lead line, which recorded much the same number of feet and inches that the good ship ‘Lindula’ drew, so with a Heave! Ho! Holly! the anchor fell overboard, and then we were stuck for a whole day.

      Fancy getting up at 4.30 in the pitch dark! And no chance of shirking either, for the decks are swabbed down and clean as a child’s plate after a penny dinner by 5 A.M. of the clock. Five-thirty heralds a cup of tea, and 6 o’clock sets every nag aboard neighing and whinnying, for do they not know it to be feeding time, better even than the Sergeant-Major, who marches about with a little stick marking time? Then stables—a pleasant job for the deaf and dumb, but trying to a man who wishes to retain the lily-white unstained purity of his mind. Nine o’clock is the signal for the bugler to tootle ‘Mary! come to the cook-house door,’ and before he gets to the ‘y’ in Mary, A Company is tumbling head over heels down the fore companion.

      Spinning down the river with the banks gradually receding from sight raises everybody’s spirits, and a merry lot we are when from the СКАЧАТЬ