There is in the cavalry a greater percentage of gentleman rankers than in any other branch of the service, and there are more queer histories attaching to men in cavalry regiments than in units of the other arms. The gentleman ranker usually shakes down to a level with the rest of the regiment. It has never yet come within the writer’s knowledge that any officer accorded to a gentleman ranker different treatment from that enjoyed by the majority of the men, in spite of the assertions of melodrama writers on the subject. Favouritism in the cavalry, as in any branch of the service, is fatal to discipline, and is not indulged in to any great extent, certainly not to the benefit of gentlemen rankers as a whole. Work and efficiency stand first; social position in civilian life counts for nothing, and the gentleman ranker who joins the service with a view to a commission must prove himself fitted to hold it from a military point of view.
The gentleman ranker is frequently a remittance man, and in that case he is certain of many friends, for the frequenters of the canteen are usually short of money a day or two before pay-day comes round, and thus the man with a well-lined pocket is of material use to them. Disinterested friendships, however, are too common in the Army to call for comment, and many and many a case occurs of one cavalryman, quick at his work, helping another at cleaning saddlery or equipment after he has finished his own, without thought or hope of reward.
The mention of saddlery takes us back to stables, where the cavalryman goes far too often for his own peace of mind, although, as a matter of fact, the three stable parades per day which he has to undergo are absolutely necessary for the well-being of the horses. The really smart cavalryman is conspicuous not only for keeping his horse in exceptionally good condition, but also for the way in which he keeps the leather and steel-work of his saddle and head-dress. Regulations enact that all steel-work in the stables shall be kept free from rust, and slightly oiled, and leather-work shall be cleaned and kept in condition with soft soap and dubbin only. This regulation, however, is honoured in the breach rather than in the observance, for by the use of brick-dust followed by the application of a steel-link burnisher steel-work is given the appearance of brilliantly polished silver, and various patent compositions are used on leather to give it a glossy surface, this latter with very little regard for the preservation of the leather. All this means a lot of extra work in the stable for the cavalryman; it is induced in the first place by one man desiring to give his outfit a better appearance than the rest. The squadron officer approves of the polish and brilliance—or perhaps the troop officer is responsible—and as a result all the men take up what is merely extra work with no real resulting advantage. In some extra-smart units the men are even required by their superiors to scrub the stable wheelbarrows and burnish the forks used for turning over the bedding, but this, it must be confessed, is not a general practice. At the same time, the fetish of polish and burnish is worshipped far too well in cavalry units, with the occasional result that efficiency takes second place in time of peace to mere surface smartness.
As has already been stated in a different connection, the barrack-room life of the cavalryman is easier than that of the infantryman. Kit inspections and arms inspections take place at stated intervals, and barrack-rooms are kept clean, though not kept with such fussy exactness as in infantry units. The trained cavalryman in normal times finishes the main part of his work at midday. He then has his dinner, and after this makes down his bed as it will be for the night. Unless it is his turn for fatigue, he generally snoozes through the afternoon until about half-past four, when it is time to get ready for stable parade. In India especially a cavalryman has a light time of it, for there is allotted to each squadron a definite number of syces, or native grooms, who assist the men as well as the non-commissioned officers in the care of their horses, and who do a good deal of the necessary saddle-cleaning. Cavalry serving in Egypt also get a certain amount of assistance in their work, and, on the whole, a cavalryman is far better off on foreign service than he is in a home station. The advantages of the home station consist mainly in the presence of congenial society among the civilians of the station. The soldier abroad is a being apart, and for the most part civilians leave him very much alone. There remains, however, the ever-present football by way of consolation.
As in infantry units, bodies of signallers and scouts are necessary to the establishment of every cavalry regiment. Signallers, for the period of their training, are excused from all duties connected with horses and stable work. Cavalry scouts, on the other hand, have to use their horses in the course of their training, and thus attend stables like the rest of the men, although stable discipline in their case is somewhat relaxed. The cavalry scout requires more training than the infantry scout; with his horse he is able to go farther afield, and his work is more definitely that of reconnaissance and the obtaining of information which may be of more use to a brigade or divisional commander than that any infantryman is capable of obtaining without a horse to carry him.
To his other accomplishments the cavalryman is expected to add some slight knowledge of veterinary matters, in order that, when forced to depend on himself and his horse, he can find remedies for simple ailments, and keep the horse in a state of fitness. The shoeing-smith and farriers who form a special department of every cavalry regiment are under the control of the veterinary officer included in the establishment of each cavalry unit, and the veterinary officer constitutes the final court of appeal when anything affecting a “long-faced chum” is in question.
Sufficient has been said about the cavalryman on duty to show that his tasks are legion. His fitness to perform them has been attested on recent battlefields as well as on earlier historic occasions. Off duty and in time of peace he is, in the main, a fairly pleasant fellow, often a very shy one, and usually capable of using the King’s English in reasonable fashion. The average cavalryman has a sufficiency of aspirates, and, in the matter of intelligence, the nature of the duties he is called upon to perform voices his claims quite sufficiently.