The driver of the Field Artillery has even more of riding-school work to do than the average cavalryman. It would be idle to say that he is a better rider, for the average cavalryman is as good a rider as it is possible for a man to be. Artillery horses, however, are heavy and unhandy compared with cavalry mounts, and the driver has not only to drive the horse he rides, but has also to lead and control the horse abreast of his own. The principal responsibility for the path which the gun takes lies with the lead or foremost driver, though almost as much responsibility is entailed on the man controlling the wheel or rearmost horses, and, compared with these two, the centre driver has an easy time of it in mounted drill and field work.
Notwithstanding the extremely hard work to which drivers of artillery are subjected, the same trouble over harness as obtains over cavalry saddlery is experienced in some batteries. “Soft soap and oil” are the cleaning materials prescribed by the regulations, but certain battery commanders enforce the use of steel-link burnishers on steel-work, and brilliant polish on leather, the last-named polish being obtained by the use of a mysterious combination of heel-ball, turpentine, harness composition, and, according to legend, old soldiers’ breath. The mixture is known among the drivers as “fake,” and “fake and burnish” is synonymous with unending work in the stables. It is the fetish of smartness, a misdirected enthusiasm, which brings things like this to pass and inflicts extra work on men whose energies should be devoted solely to the attaining of fitness for active service, where “fake and burnish” have no place.
The Royal Horse and Royal Field Artillery are the only branches of the service in which substantial prizes are given annually to encourage men in their work. In each battery three money prizes are offered for competition among the drivers; the amounts offered are substantial, and the general result is a spirit of healthy emulation, though far too often, and with the full sanction of the battery officer, this degenerates into the “fake and burnish” craze. This, however, is not the fault of the prize-giving system, but of the officers who not only permit, but encourage and even order this unnecessary work, which, while entailing added labour on the men, assists in the deterioration of the leather-work in harness. For all leatherwork requires constant feeding with oil in order to keep it fit and pliant, while the “fake” dries the fibres of the leather and starves it, rendering it liable to cracking and perishing.
The branch of the Artillery of which least is heard is that of the Royal Garrison Artillery, whose hundred companies are scattered about the British Empire in obscure corners, engaged in the work of coast defence and the management of siege guns. It is fortunate for the garrison gunners that they have no “long-faced chums” to worry about, for they are admittedly the hardest-worked branch of the service as it is. Gibraltar houses several companies; you will find some of them managing the big guns at Dover, and at every protected port. They are big men, all; strong men, and lithe and active, for their work involves the hauling about of heavy weights, combined with cat-like quickness in loading and firing their many-patterned charges. The horse and field gunner have each to learn one pattern of gun thoroughly, but the garrison gunner, employed almost entirely in garrisoning defensive fortifications, has to learn the use of half a hundred patterns, from the little one-pounder quick-firer to the big gun on its disappearing platform, and the 13·4-inch siege-gun. The horse and field gunner may complete their education some day, for the pattern of field-gun changes but seldom, and the present pattern is not likely to be improved on for some years to come. The garrison gunner, however, is the victim of experiment, for every new gun that comes out, after being tested and passed either at Lydd or Shoeburyness, is handed on to the garrison gunners for use, and there is a new set of equipment and mechanism to be mastered. In order to ascertain the quality of their work, one has only to get permission to visit the nearest fort, when it will be seen that the guns are cared for like babies, nursed and polished and covered away with full appreciation of their power and value.
Garrison gunners suffer from worse stations than any other branch of the service. They are planted away on lonely coast stations for two or three years at a time, and Aden, the bane of foreign service in the infantryman’s estimation, is a pleasant place compared with some which garrison gunners are compelled to inhabit for a period. Lonely islands in the West Indies, isolated places on the Indian and African coast, forts placed far away from contact with civilians in the British Isles—all these fall to the lot of the garrison gunner, and the nature of his work is such that, unlike his fellows in the field and horse artillery, he gets neither infantry nor cavalry escort.
Reckoned in with the Garrison Artillery are the nine Mountain Batteries, which, organised for service on such hilly country as is provided by the Indian frontier, form a not inconspicuous part of the British Army. In these batteries the guns are carried in sections on pack animals; Kipling has immortalised the Mountain Batteries in his verses on “The Screw Guns,” a title which conveys an allusion to the fact that the guns of the Mountain Batteries screw and fit together for use. The use of these guns can be but local, for they are not sufficiently mobile to oppose to ordinary field-guns on level ground, nor is the projectile that they throw of sufficient weight to give them a chance in a duel with field-guns. They are, however, extremely useful things for the purpose for which they are intended; they form a necessary factor in the maintenance of order on the north-west frontier of India, and, together with their gun crews, they instil a certain measure of respect into the turbulent tribes of that uneasy land.
A consideration of the various branches of the service would be incomplete if mention of the Royal Engineers were omitted. The Engineers are looked on as a sister service to the Royal Artillery, and consist of various troops, companies, and sections, according to the technical work they are called on to perform. Thus there are field troops of mounted engineers for service with cavalry, field companies for duty with the field army, fortress companies for service in conjunction with the garrison gunners, balloon sections and telegraph sections for the use of the intelligence department, and pontoon companies for field bridging work. Every engineer of full age is expected to be a trained tradesman when he enlists, and the special qualifications demanded of this branch of the service are acknowledged by a higher rate of pay than that accorded to any other arm. The motto of the Engineers, “Ubique,” is fully justified, for they are not only expected to be, but are, capable of every class of work, from making a pepper-caster out of a condensed-milk tin to throwing across a river a bridge capable of conveying siege-guns. There is no end to their activities, and no end to their enterprise, and in the opinion of many the Engineers, officers and men alike, are the most capable and efficient body of men in any branch of the Government service.
Their work is little seen; to their lot falls the task of constructing the barbed-wire entanglements with the assistance of which infantry battalions can put up a magnificent defence against any kind of attack; the Engineers are responsible for the construction of the bridge by means of which the cavalry arrive unexpectedly on the other side of the river and spoil the enemy’s plans by getting round his flank; it is the Engineers, again, who repair the blown-up railway line and permit of the transport of trainloads of troops to an unexpected point of vantage, thus again upsetting the plans of the enemy. One hears of the magnificent defence maintained by the infantry; one hears of the brilliant exploits of the cavalry on the flank of the enemy; one hears also of the skill of the commander who moved the troops with such suddenness and disconcerted his enemy; but the work of the Engineers, who made these things possible, generally goes unrecognised outside military circles, and the Engineers themselves have to reap their satisfaction out of the knowledge of work well done.