On the 20th November, 1914, our troop was taken down to a big dock and put on board what our masters called a transport. (I have heard them call it a ship, a tub—and other names as occasion demanded). We horses had a rough time all the way across; and judging by the manner in which our masters cursed when they came to feed us and perform their stable duties, or to lead us about the decks for exercise, I think they had a rough time, too. I remember a remarkable incident on our deck when we were somewhere in the tropics. (If you know anything about the tropics and about ships, you will know how we and our masters existed). Ginger, who never wore anything to speak of except a pair of shorts, shoes, and a grin, looked after the horses on my off side; he also used to hitch baskets on to a long rope, which disappeared through the deck above. “Haul away!” was all he ever said, and the basket disappeared. Later, a voice would echo from above: “Under below!” and Ginger would stand well back until it landed again. One day when the rope slipped, the chap up above forgot to say “Under below,” and the big basket fell down on Ginger and extinguished him. When he got clear, his conversation with the chap on top was so unrestrained and vivid that three horses broke out of their stalls and tried to climb up on deck. I did not mind—I had often heard the expressions Ginger used.
We reached Alexandria at last and were taken ashore. At first I thought that a peculiarity existed in the ground of Egypt, for it kept rocking and swaying under my feet like the movement of the ship; but this feeling went away in two or three days. We were taken to Gabbari, put into trucks, and rattled to Ma’adi, a pretty little suburb of Cairo. At Ma’adi we had plenty of feed, good stables which kept the sun off us during the day, and very little work while the boys were away at the Peninsula. Sometimes we went out on route marches and dummy stunts, and always on Sundays our masters used to take us out on to the desert behind the camp, to gallop us until we were tired. Those gallops were great sport. There would be horses all over the desert, some of them with riders clinging affectionately to their necks, others without riders, and all of them thoroughly enjoying the fun, and kicking their heels playfully into the air. We were at Ma’adi right up till February, 1916, and then we were pushed off to Serapeum and dumped in a camp close to the Canal. After the delights of Ma’adi, Serapeum came as a shock to me; and in a few days I was feeling very ill on account of the sand I had swallowed with my food. I could not stand, so I rolled about in agony. Up till then I had never had a day’s sickness, so this experience was quite a new one. The farrier-sergeant visited me on the evening of my collapse, administered a “ball” to me, and told Bill (my boss) that I would be all right in the morning. A lot he knew about horses! He ought never to have left that boot factory. He also told Bill to give me a bit more berseem. Bill stopped with me for a while, talking; then a whistle blew and he cleared out. “Good-night, Baldy” (that is the name I always got) he said as he departed, “you’ll be O.K. at reveille.” In the morning I was almost better, and by lunch time, when Bill gave me a big feed of berseem that he had pinched from somewhere, I was as good as ever again.
5th LIGHT HORSE BRIGADE ENTERING NABLUS
WATERING HORSES, ES SALT
HORSES THIRSTY
LIGHT HORSEMEN IN JUDEAN HILLS, JAN., 1918