IX
HORSE SENSE
Time—NIGHT
SCENE.—A shell-pitted plain and a cavalry regiment under canvas thereon. It is not yet "Lights out," and on the right hand the semi-transparent tents and bivouacs glow like giant Chinese lanterns inhabited by shadow figures. From an Officers' mess tent comes the twinkle of a gramophone, rendering classics from "Keep Smiling." In a bivouac an opposition mouth-organ saws at "The Rosary." On the left hand is a dark mass of horses, picketed in parallel lines. They lounge, hips drooping, heads low, in a pleasant after-dinner doze. The Guard lolls against a post, lantern at his feet, droning a fitful accompaniment to the distant mouth-organ. "The hours I spent wiv thee, dear 'eart, are.—Stan' still, Ginger—like a string of pearls ter me—ee ... Grrr, Nellie, stop kickin!" The range of desolate hills in the background is flickering with gun-flashes and grumbling with drum-fire—the Boche evensong.
A bay horse (shifting his weight from one leg to the other). Somebody's catching it in the neck to-night.
A chestnut. Yep. Now if this was 1914, with that racket loose, we'd be standing to.
A gun-pack horse. Why?
Chestnut. Wind up, sonny. Why in 1914 our saddles grew into our backs like the ivy and the oak. In 1914——
A black horse. Oh, dry up about 1914, old soldier; tell us about the Battle of Hastings and how you came to let William's own Mounted Blunderbusses run all over you.
A bay horse. Yes, and how you gave the field ten stone and a beating in the retreat to Corunna. What are your personal recollections of Napoleon, Rufus?
Chestnut. You blinkin' conscripts, you!