The History of Lumsden's Horse. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ and continuous cheers. A little way more and the pilot brig heaves in sight, and soon we lie to in her neighbourhood, listening to round after round of hoarse cheering from the white-hatted figures aboard. Our pilot drops over the side, accompanied by a great sheaf of our last messages to friends, and we get up steam, waving good-bye to India, and begin our voyage, never a man of us for whom the future does not loom big with adventurous hopes; never a man of us reckoning of the toil or peril. Young British blood, hot and eager, keen to flow more swiftly, keen to taste of the life that has given the world so many great names, so many great deeds. India, au revoir!

      The gentle reader must not imagine that we have nothing to do. Breakfast finished at 10 o’clock, the bugles wax busy, and call after call resounds through the ship, summoning sections to various tasks. One of the earliest parades of the voyage was that to practise the fire alarm and ‘boats.’ Every man has his appointed place, and lest any should hurry unduly for the boats, sentries have been told off to guard these, having their rifles loaded with ball cartridges, and orders to shoot the first man who may attempt a rush. This extremely important matter has been thoroughly impressed on our minds by practice, and should the alarm be given in stern reality we all know where to make for.

      Needless to say, rifle exercise is one of the chief things to which we must pay attention, and morning and afternoon the words of command ring through the ship as squad after squad is put through its facings. Fatigues are innumerable. Bringing forage and stores on deck is a daily task; oiling and packing away saddlery; cleaning spare arms; painting side arms; marking equipment and a dozen other things. Then a signalling class is terribly busy, and a row of otherwise intelligent-looking lads wave their arms wildly to the accompaniment of strange sounds bellowed by the signalling instructor.

      When the rifle exercises have sunk into the minds of men, they are allowed to practise shooting. Every day, at 12 and 2, parties assemble on the quarter-deck and shoot at wine cases, biscuit boxes, bits of paper, anything that affords a mark. In spite of the rolling and pitching of the ship, and, what is worse, the vibration caused by the screw, wonderful practice is made. A bit of paper a few inches square is hit several times at 200 yards, and as the larger obstacles recede they are repeatedly struck. Men firing have to judge their own distances, and the practice on the whole has been marvellously good. The Maxim gun has had a turn, too, and a very terrible weapon it is. In spite of the extreme disadvantage under which it labours when placed on a moving platform, excellent shooting has been made with it. An ordinary beer barrel at 800 and 1,000 yards was douched with spray, and then struck after three or four shots had been fired. The noise is atrocious, but it is grand to see the bullets striking the water, one! two! three! four! ever nearing the mark, and then, five! Plump in.

      Though we have lots of work to do we don’t forget to play, and many are the tasks indulged in. One of the favourite amusements is boxing, and morning and evening a ring is formed wherein all may enter for a round or two. A few matches have been got up, and desperate battles have been fought betwixt champions of the various sections. Naturally party feeling runs high on these occasions, and everybody in the ship, from the Colonel and the Captain down to Carpenter Chinaman John, takes up a place outside the ring, watching the fray with bated breath. The end is usually a black eye or blood drawn, neither of which temporary inconveniences prevents furious and friendly handshakings at the finish. Singlestick has supporters, but none so many as the gentle art of boxing. Cockfighting has many votaries, and wrestling a few, for both of these elegant diversions may be partaken of in the comparative dark. Duty and pleasure are combined in tubbing. A sail bath four feet deep and some six square is slung and filled with sea water. The bather, dressed ‘altogether,’ stands well back and runs at the bath, rolling in head over heels. Number one is followed quickly by more, one on top of the other, until the bath is nothing but a struggling mass of arms and legs. Then the hose is turned on, and every man must take his turn or pay the penalty of being thrust underneath.

      On our first Saturday night at sea the skipper—Captain Steuart—was kind enough to permit a smoking-concert to be held on the quarter-deck, where the saloon piano had been comfortably ensconced on a raised stage ornamented with flags. Corporal Blair took the public fancy tremendously with some of the comic songs that soldiers delight in. Corporal Skelton’s recitation about the Volunteer Instructor who complains of his squad that ‘They Largifies,’ fairly brought the house down. Among others who gave us pleasure were the brothers Wright and Private Woods, who, à trois, drew much melody from the banjo. The following morning (Sunday) we had service on deck, the Colonel and the Captain reading the Lessons. The little book so thoughtfully presented to every man by Mrs. Pugh was used.

      Crossing the line was a most unexciting experience, for no Father Neptune came on board, nor did any of the other time-honoured things befall us. Alas! for the merchant navy! We did not see Ceylon at all, but during the night we passed, in the distance, a light which shone out from somewhere on its coast. That was our last sight of the outside world until we had crossed the great Indian Ocean.

      On the whole, the horses have had a good time, very different from that endured by shiploads coming over from Australia. Most of them get a grooming of sorts every day, and many get an hour’s walking exercise round a small circle once or twice in the week. It is wonderful to behold an animal with legs puffed out like tea cosies begin his little tour and finish up with extremities clean cut as those of a racehorse.

      Still, there is a good deal of sickness among them in various forms of fever and colic. First, Private Case, from Behar, lost a very clever little horse. Since then two more have died, one a valuable mare, the property of Lieutenant Crane, of Behar, and the other the charger of Private Atkinson, from Mussoorie.

      The fifth officer of the ship, a braw lad frae Glescae, finds it very trying to hear us miscall the different parts—‘pairts,’ he says—of his beloved she. ‘A ship’s no like a house, wi’ upstairs an’ doonstairs,’ he plaintively remonstrates. And when any of us join him in a cigar and throw the stump out of the ‘window’ instead of the ‘scuttle,’ the poor man almost cries. One continually finds him gravely pointing out to little knots of men the absurdity of referring to the back or the front of a ship. He explains how it ought to be ‘forrard’ and ‘aft,’ and ‘above’ and ‘below.’ Then someone will mildly query where ‘astarn’ comes in, and how it is possible to distinguish between port and starboard. And he tells. But, all the same, we continue to search for each other upstairs and down; we lie on the floor, forgetting it is deck, and it still passes our comprehension how ‘loo’ard’ can be at one side of the ship one day and the opposite to-morrow. This fifth officer is a bit of a humourist, too, and, finding an appreciative audience, plays off a rich fund of nautical yarns that have gathered raciness in the course of long centuries since they were translated from the Portuguese of Vasco da Gama. The narrator evidently thinks that Lumsden’s Horse are as credulous as ‘the Marines.’ Perhaps he takes them to be a mounted variety of that species, and, being a naturalist among other things, he has a scientific motive for studying their peculiarities.

      Colonel Lumsden confirmed the following non-commissioned appointments in A Company, some of which were provisionally made before leaving Calcutta:

      Regimental Sergeant-Major: C.M. Marsham (Behar L.H.); Company Sergeant-Major E.N. Mansfield (Punjaub L.H.); Sergeants: H. Fox (Behar L.H.), E.M.S. McNamara (Behar L.H.), R.S. Stowell (Poona V.R.), and W. Walker (Assam V.L.H.); Lance-Sergeants: F.L. Elliott (Assam V.L.H.), D.S. Fraser (Oudh L.H.), J. Lee Stewart (Coorg and Mysore R.), and R.E. Dale (E.I.R.V.C.); Corporals: Percy Jones (Behar L.H.), G. Lawrie (Oudh L.H.), E. Llewhellin (Behar L.H.), and H. Marsham (Behar L.H.); Lance-Corporals: A.M. Firth (Behar L.H.), A.C. Walker (Assam Valley L.H.), E.J. Ballard (Punjaub L.H.), H.F. Blair (Behar L.H.), D.J. Keating (Calcutta Port Defence), W.S. Lemon (Calcutta V.R.), A. Macgillivray (Behar L.H.), and J.W.A. Skelton (Assam V.L.H.).

      Transport Establishment: Lance-Corporals R.P. Estabrook, C.T. Power, J. Charles, S.W. Cullen, and G.W. Palmer.

      It could not be expected that 150 men would be together on board ship for three СКАЧАТЬ