Writing to his father a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards speaks in this way of his charger: "Dolly goes very well. She doesn't always get corn, so is a bit thin. Thanks for remembering my best friend. I always pinch the smallest thing for her, if it be only a muddy crust. She greatly enjoyed the sugar you sent for her."
Trooper S. Stanley, Royal Scots Greys, wrote thus: "I owe my own life and that of perhaps a whole army to my old horse. I was on outpost duty at a lonely spot, and though I could not hear or see anything my horse kept neighing and betraying signs of restlessness. I got down and came on a German crouching in the long grass. He had a sword bayonet, and evidently meant to get me unawares, and then the post would have been rushed. I didn't wait to ask his intentions, but let him have a ticket for another country. His yells brought his mates down, but I got away, and the row alarmed the guard and spoiled their attempt at surprising us. You bet the old nag had a special feed that night."
[CHAPTER XXVIII]
What the French and Belgians Think
After studying our soldiers for a considerable time a special correspondent of L'Independance wrote: "'Tommy' ... loves to laugh; he has clear eyes and smokes almost continually a cigarette or a pipe. He is a sportsman, who views war as a continuation of the sports he practises in peace times. No one could be more placid than he. He does not know what it is to be nervous. Two 'Tommies' at the beginning of the war were driving a motor-wagon from Rheims to Amiens. They missed the way, and arrived at Rouen. 'This is not the way,' someone told them, 'towards Amiens; you will perhaps meet Germans.' 'That doesn't matter. If we meet them we will shoot them,' was the reply. That is the state of 'Tommy's' soul. He is convinced that everything will be right. He never loses an opportunity of taking 'un tub' as thoroughly as decency permits in the circumstances. And for nothing in the world will he neglect to shave with care. Recently there arrived at an hotel, over which flew the Red Cross flag, a wounded English soldier. He had a piece of shell in the right hand, two bullets in his left shoulder, and one in his stomach. He went, first of all, to the barber's shop on the ground floor of the hotel. They pointed out to him that the ambulance entrance was at the side. 'I see,' he said, 'but I must be shaved first'!"
A French officer was also surprised at the extensive toilet of our soldiers: "At Ypres I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Tommy Atkins, whose smart appearance and jovial manner I greatly admired. He's a perfect soldier. I saw him one morning making his toilet when Taubes were flying over our heads and dropping bombs not far away. He shaved first, and then, with a bucket of hot water standing on the step of a railway carriage, washed himself, much soap and rubbing with a large towel. I lost sight of him just when he was putting his tooth-brush into a pot of paste to clean his teeth."
The correspondent of the Petit Parisien wrote that he was impressed by the excellent spirits and devotion to duty of the British troops, and the fraternal solicitude of the officers for their men.
"Ah, those British soldiers!" exclaimed a French officer. "In my regiment you only hear such expressions as 'Quel soldats!', 'Ils sont superb.' How splendidly they behave! In their discipline and their respect for their officers they are magnificent."