Draw Swords! In the Horse Artillery

by George Manville Fenn

But soon he forgot all about the cost; there was no room in his mind for such a thing, with all that military panoply before his eyes. He had to buckle on the belt, too, and walk to and fro with the sabretache flapping against his leg, while he felt strange and awkward; but that was of no consequence, for a side-peep in the looking-glass showed that it appeared magnificent.

He was about to unbuckle the belt and take it off, but hesitated, feeling that it would not be in his way. But the boy was strong-minded; he had made up his mind to try everything separately, and he determined to keep to his plan. So the belt was taken off, sabretache and all, and the case opened to draw out that jacket.

Yes, that jacket with its gorgeous cross-braiding of gold forming quite a cuirass over the padded breast, and running in cords and lines and scrolls over the seams at the back and about the collar and cuffs. It was heavy, and was certain to be very hot to wear, especially in the tremendous heat of India and the violent effort of riding at a furious gallop. But what of that? Who would mind heat in a uniform so brilliant?

The jacket was laid down with a sigh of satisfaction, and the breeches taken up.

There is not much to be admired in a pair of breeches, be they ever so well cut; but still they were satisfactory, for, in their perfect whiteness, they threw up the beauty of the jacket and made a most effective contrast with the high, black jack-boots—the uniform of the Bengal Horse Artillery-man of those days being a compromise between that of our own corps and a Life Guardsman.

The temptation was strong to try the white garments, and then draw on the high, black boots in their pristine glossiness; but that was deferred till a more convenient season, for there was the capital of the human column to examine—that glistening, gorgeous helmet of gilded metal, with its protecting Roman pattern comb, surmounted by a plume of scarlet horsehair, to stream right back and wave and spread over the burnished metal, to cool and shade from the torrid beams of the sun, while the front bore its decoration of leopard-skin, emblematic of the fierce swiftness of the animal’s attack and the dash and power of the Flying Artillery, that arm of the service which had done so much in the subjugation of the warlike potentates of India and their savage armies.

It was almost idol-worship, and Dick’s cheeks wore a heightened colour as he examined his casque inside and out, gave it a wave in the air to make the plume swish, tapped it with his knuckles, and held it at arm’s-length as proudly as any young knight of old donning his helmet for the first time.

At last he put it on, adjusted the scaled chin-strap, gave his head a shake to see if it fitted on tightly, and then turned to the glass and wished, “Oh, if they could only see me now!”

But they were far away in the little Devon town, where Dr Darrell went quietly on with his daily tasks as a general practitioner, and Mrs Darrell sighed as she performed her domestic duties and counted the days that must elapse before the next mail came in, wondering whether it would bring a letter from her boy in far-away Bengal, and feeling many a motherly shiver of dread about fevers and cholera and wounds, and accidents with horses, or cannons which might go off when her boy was in front.

And the boy made all this fuss about a suit of clothes and the accoutrements just brought to his quarters from the military tailor’s.