The course was in a large field of very green pasture land, roped in and marked out with flags. The setting of the whole scene could not have been more beautiful. The field was surrounded with woods, and a typical French château stood at one end.
The various competitive events were, as I have already remarked, not confined to the Indian Cavalry Corps; officers of both British and French cavalry regiments participated, and the many different bright scarlet and blue uniforms worn by officers of French cavalry, together with the red and gold cap-bands and gorgets of British Generals and Staff and their many rows of ribbons, showed up as bright spots of colour amongst the crowd of khaki-clad soldiers, making the whole scene a really picturesque one.
The uniform of French cavalry officers, before the introduction of the universal pale blue uniform, was a creation truly marvellous; perhaps that is why they were the last to adopt the new field service dress. It consisted in bright red breeches, sky-blue short tunic with silver buttons, red and white facings distinguishing the chasseur from the dragoon; jack-boots and long spurs; a forage cap of sky blue, with silver-braid badges of rank. My description may not be quite accurate in its details; nevertheless, it is the impression left in my mind of the full-dress uniform of these gallant officers. Also there were present cuirassiers, with their breast-plates and helmets, from the back of which hung long crimson horsehair plumes.
One evening at Aire, another officer and myself were taking an after-dinner stroll along the road which leads to Berguette. We were discussing matters far removed from war, when our conversation and the peacefulness of a moonlight summer night were disturbed by a terrific explosion, which appeared to be quite close. It was followed by several more in quick succession. We stood still and, gazing upwards, could see nothing, though we heard the hum of an aeroplane or airship overhead in the distance. Returning to Aire, we found the inhabitants all out in the streets trying to catch a glimpse of the hostile aircraft. "Zeppelin" they murmured with one accord. Owing to the stillness of the night, the buzz of the engine certainly sounded louder than that of the usual aeroplane, which, however, it turned out to be. The damage done was insignificant. One or two bombs landed quite near a neighbouring station, which was being used as an ammunition railhead at the time. An ammunition train was standing loaded in a siding, but was untouched. The night-raider did not prolong his visit for very long, and by bedtime all was again quiet.
I remember a daylight aeroplane raid at Lillers one day. The Taube, flying very high, tried to bomb the station, but succeeded in damaging only a café just outside it and smashing, by the concussion of the exploding bombs, every pane of glass within a quarter of a mile radius. There were two or three casualties. A Frenchman who was the possessor of one leg only, had it damaged to such an extent that it too had to be amputated, which led him, no doubt, to reflect that troubles seldom come singly!
Chapter VIII
FROM BETHUNE TO YPRES
While we were stationed at Lillers, in the latter part of December 1914, a detachment of the Indian Cavalry was sent up in the rôle of infantry to the trenches beyond Béthune for a short spell, where they reinforced the Lahore and Meerut Divisions, the latter two Divisions comprising the Indian Corps (infantry). This corps was moved to another theatre of war at the beginning of 1916, after having borne the brunt of the fighting through two winters in France and Flanders and suffered many casualties. The cavalry on this occasion gave a good account of themselves in the fighting round Festubert and Givenchy. During the time that they were there we convoyed the motor-lorries with rations for the detachment in the trenches, but although our destination was shelled during this period and was within earshot of rifle fire in the trenches and the "rat-tat-tat" of machine guns, like so many gigantic typewriters at work, we never managed to be actually there whilst any excitement was on.
In this neighbourhood are the graves of many gallant Native troops, Gurkhas, Sikhs, Garhwalis, and Pathans of the Indian Corps. Our Dominion troops have rightly won universal praise and admiration for the gallant part they have played in the war and the way they have come forward of their own free will to fight, but it is to be regretted that our Indian troops have in this respect been somewhat neglected. The nature of their loyalty is different somehow to that of any of our other overseas troops. "For East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." Perhaps it is not generally known that every Native cavalryman provides his own horse or its equivalent value in money on enlistment. I shall never forget the Review of the Indian Cavalry Corps by the Prince of Wales in France; the way they gave "eyes right" as each squadron marched past the Prince left in one the impression that they really meant it and were saluting the future King-Emperor. These contingents, infantry and cavalry alike, came to a far-away, strange, cold land, and to a particularly bleak part of it at that, during the rainiest winter ever experienced in a proverbially wet part of the country, dressed only in their thin Indian khaki, be it remembered. They found themselves taking part in a kind of warfare that was entirely new to them, in deep trenches, frequently up to their middles in water, and always in thick mud and slush, such as they had never experienced before in their lives. Moreover, not only were they unused to shell fire, but they found their own particular methods and tactics of war in open country impossible under such circumstances; yet, in spite of all this, they upheld the fighting traditions of the Indian Army, and stuck it through the very heaviest of the fighting and under the worst climatic conditions it is possible to imagine. I am referring now chiefly to the Indian Infantry Corps.
During the nights and days which preceded the battle of Neuve Chapelle we heard guns away in the distance making a continuous bombardment, and a deep roar like thunder rent the air. This was the prelude to the attack. On March 9th Sir Douglas Haig's Special Order to the 1st Army was published.