We had a brilliantly successful Divisional Horse Show last Saturday. It proved a real triumph for the —— Hussars of our brigade—to my mind the best cavalry regiment in the Army. They romped home easy firsts for the cup presented by the G.O.C. to the regiment that got the greatest number of points in the competitions. The classes for heavy and light chargers brought out some magnificent horses. The well-known C.O. of the —— Hussars was very much in evidence in all these classes. He is a striking personality. With his hard, shrewd, red face, his wonderfully thin legs, light-coloured breeches, beautifully-cut tunic and high hat cocked over his left ear, he looked the personification of the cavalry officer as we read about him in novels. It would seem as though these cavalry officers had been fashioned by nature to sit on a horse. I suppose it is heredity. Certainly they are all of a type.
An interesting unofficial incident was provided by a man in the 4th Dragoon Guards producing a fine bay horse which he wagered 30 to 1 against any officer riding. It was a real American buck-jumper. This challenge was enough for the dare-devil subalterns of the —— Hussars, and one of them, Beach-Hay, a splendid horseman, promptly closed with the offer. For twenty minutes or so he tried to mount, without succeeding; finally he muffled the horse's head in a cloak and got on his back. Then he dug his spurs in and set off at a gallop over the wide plain where the show was being held. All went well for some time until suddenly, without any warning, the horse put his feet together, arched his back, and leapt several feet into the air, at the same time turning to the left sharply. This the horse repeated several times, up hill, down hill, sideways. How Beach-Hay managed to keep his seat no one could tell; it was marvellous the way he stuck on. At last the spirited animal contrived to get the rider well forward on his neck, and then Hay slipped off and the horse was away over the plain at full gallop, riderless. He was chased and caught at last after a long run. Then up stepped a wily old trooper of the 5th Dragoon Guards who used to be a jockey. He saw that the horse was now tired out and got on his back without difficulty, and as the animal by this time was utterly fagged, he found little trouble in keeping his seat. All the honours, however, belonged to the young subaltern.
Did you see that wonderful record of R. B. B. Jones[7] of Dulwich? He shot no fewer than fifteen Boches in a scrap in the craters on the Vimy Ridge before himself being killed. I remember him more than well—a short, sturdy fellow, a very good shot, and an excellent diver and gymnast. He did not go in much for cricket or for football. Poor chap! Yet such a death, I think, is far more to be coveted than an ignoble life far from danger and risk. I often think of those lines of Adam Lindsay Gordon:
No game was ever yet worth a rap for a rational man to play,
Into which no accident, no mishap, could possibly find its way.
June 16th, 1916.
I have had another fit of the blues over this wretched transfer. Why should it be given to all the fellows I know to be in the thick of real fighting—a life which anyone should be proud to live—while to me, aged twenty, standing six feet, about forty inches round the chest, Rugby footballer, swimmer, fluent French speaker, and Balliol scholar, it is given to load up rations? Loathing this Supply work, I have already applied for a transfer to the Horse Transport Section. Oh! that I had only obeyed the dictates of my own conscience and enlisted in the H.A.C. at the start of the war, instead of staying on at school to get a paltry scholarship which the odds are 10 to 1 on my never being able to use! What I pray for is a job in which the following elements are constantly present: (1) hard work; (2) real brain work, employing, if possible, my knowledge of languages; (3) constant danger, or, at least, the constant chance of it; (4) if possible, horses to ride. For such a job I would willingly give ten years of my life.
June 22nd, 1916.
I am glad to say that I'm not finding my new job so absolutely hopeless as I expected. It is in many ways not at all uninteresting to be attached to a Supply Column. After a long time with men whose one interest in life is horses, I now find myself with men who eat, drink, live and breathe motors. My experience has already taught me that England has a splendid system of mechanical transport. Our column numbers no fewer than 150 lorries, 6 motor-cars, and 20 motor-bikes, and about 600 personnel, not to speak of a big travelling workshop and two or three break-down lorries. When you consider that this is merely the means of supplying one single division, you will faintly realise what a part mechanical transport plays in this war. There is no horse-train to a cavalry division, and the lorries deliver rations direct to the regimental quartermasters, so you stand a good chance of seeing all the fun if with the M.T. My duty is to make arrangements for translating the ration figures rendered daily to me by the Cavalry Brigades into terms of meat, bread, biscuit, forage, etc., and arrange for these to be loaded at railhead on to the lorries; then, in company with the M.T. officer of the day, to take these rations up to the units, at the same time obtaining the next day's feeding strength from the Brigade Supply Officers.
This particular M.T. column delivered rations in the front line trenches back in 1914, and once a portion of it was captured by the Boches and recaptured by the 18th Hussars.
The M.T. officers are a very efficient lot, and know their job from A to Z. Among them is Captain Hugh Vivian, a member of the famous firm of Vivian & Son, of Swansea and Landore, so near to our ancestral home. He is O.C. to the section of lorries to which I am attached—a most intellectual man of charming manners, who has travelled all over Europe and speaks French and German fluently. He is one of the ablest men I have met in the Army and I find him one of the best of fellows. He may have to leave us shortly, because his thorough knowledge of the metal trades has marked him out to the authorities as a man invaluable for the production of munitions at home.