Then followed the separate attack about which so much has been written. It appeared to the British Commander-in-Chief that the Russians were about to carry off the guns captured in the lost redoubts, and he directed the Cavalry to advance rapidly and try to prevent them. What exactly the Light Brigade was ordered or meant to do has been a matter of endless controversy; but this much is certain, that 673 officers and men, of five Regiments, charged a Russian battery in position at the end of a valley a mile or more in length, other Russian batteries and bodies of Infantry being on the sides of the valley, and some Russian Lancers and Hussars in rear of the battery attacked. The Thirteenth, now reduced to a strength of 8 officers and a little more than a hundred men, were with the Seventeenth Lancers in the front line. Behind them came the Eleventh, Fourth, and Eighth Hussars. In front of all, straight into the enemy’s guns, rode the Commander of the Brigade, Lord Cardigan. He had been much criticised for habitually sleeping on board his yacht, which lay in the harbour below, and other allegations were made against him, but there was at all events no question as to his courage. The charge was a mad one, due to some misconception. The Brigade reached its objective, but was practically destroyed in the course of the charge and return. When the remnants of the Light Brigade re-formed in rear of the Heavy Brigade, which had not been sent in, it was seen that the losses had been ruinous. The Thirteenth was represented by 1 wounded officer and 14 men. Others rejoined later, but the Regiment lost that day 3 officers and 11 others killed, 12 men taken prisoners, and 30 wounded. The officer in command, Captain Oldham, was among the killed. It was a fatal ride, and the Brigade was sacrificed to little purpose; but officers and men had obeyed their orders with splendid devotion, and it is no wonder that among the Regiments which formed the Brigade the memory of “Balaclava Day” is held in everlasting honour.

The Thirteenth was present a few days later at the bloody battle of Inkerman, where it had no chance of doing anything, and then went through the miseries of the Crimean winter, when men and horses suffered terribly from want of food and clothing. In February the effective strength of the Regiment, exclusive of officers, was 5 mounted men—namely, 1 sergeant, 1 trumpeter, and 3 privates. Lieut.-Colonel Doherty, who had been absent, ill, on the day of the famous charge, was now fit for service again, but that was the strength of his command. During the ensuing spring and summer, successive drafts brought up the number, and when the battle of the Tchernaya was fought in August 1855, the Thirteenth turned out 200 strong. They came, it is said, very near disaster again that day in consequence of an order by the Sardinian General della Marmora, to whom their services had been lent, and were only saved by the interposition of Marshal Pelissier from another hopeless charge at a Russian battery. After the fall of Sebastopol the Regiment had some more hard work in small expeditions, but no more severe fighting. On the 27th May 1856, they were back at Portsmouth.

After their return from the Crimea, the Thirteenth had ten years of peace service in the United Kingdom. There is nothing memorable about this period except that in 1861 or 1862 they became Hussars instead of Light Dragoons.

In 1866 the Regiment was suddenly ordered to Canada, where the Fenian conspiracy had given rise to some excitement; but the invasion proved a fiasco, and the Thirteenth saw no active service. They returned to England in 1869.

In 1870 the Thirteenth were once more ordered out to India, and there they remained for fourteen years. This time they were not sent to the south of the great peninsula, but to the north, to Hindustan proper, where there was more chance of stirring times. India, as one of the best of its Viceroys used to say, is a country where “the bottom is always dropping out of the bucket,” and the task of putting matters to rights generally falls to the troops in the north, where the bulk of the British garrison is always kept.

There was in fact some active work for the northern army while the Thirteenth formed a part of it, for in 1878 occurred the Second Afghan War, in the course of which there was much fighting in Kabul and Kandahar. But the Thirteenth had not the good fortune to see it. They were, it is true, sent to Kandahar in 1880, remaining across the border about a year, but in that part of the country the fighting was over, and they returned to India.

In 1884 the Thirteenth left India for home again, but they were sent by way of South Africa, where, in Natal, they spent a year. From Natal they returned to England. In the United Kingdom they spent the next fourteen years.

Thus it appears that from 1856 to 1899, forty-three years, the Regiment never had the good fortune to see a shot fired in anger. But a considerable part of that time was spent in various parts of the world, in Canada, Asia, and Africa, and the experience gained in such service is not without value. If at times prolonged absence from home may entail a certain loss of smartness, it has its compensations.

In the autumn of 1899 the Boer republics issued their ultimatum to Great Britain, and crossed the border of Natal. The Thirteenth was among the Regiments immediately sent out to strengthen the British forces in South Africa; and as by the time it arrived Sir George White was besieged in Ladysmith, it was ordered to join General Buller’s relieving force in Natal. On the 12th December it was included in Lord Dundonald’s Cavalry Brigade. Three days later occurred Buller’s attempt to force the passage of the Tugela at Colenso, and the Thirteenth was in action throughout the day. The Adjutant, it may be observed, Captain Tremayne, was the son of one of the eight officers who charged at Balaclava. From this time until the 3rd March, the Thirteenth shared all the rough fighting that took place in trying to break through the strong semicircle of hills held by the Boers. Then the relieving force entered Ladysmith in triumph. After that the Thirteenth served throughout the war, and saw much hard work.

It was not until October 1902 that they returned to England, after an absence of nearly three years. In the course of the campaign they had lost eighty men killed in action or by disease, while four officers and forty-six men had been wounded, and a large number invalided home. The Regiment fully maintained its reputation, and received many honours.

Two uneventful years in England followed, and then for the third time the Thirteenth were sent out to India, where they were still serving in 1910. With the beginning of that year Barrett’s history of the Regiment ends. It had then been in existence nearly 200 years, and had served in nine wars, among which were the Peninsular War, the Waterloo Campaign, the Crimean War, and the South African War. In all of these it had done well and distinguished itself. Its reputation, whether in war or peace, stood high.

CHAPTER IV.
1910-1914—OUTBREAK OF THE GREAT WAR.

In the beginning of 1910 the Thirteenth Hussars had been more than five years in India, and again in the south, where their first Indian service had passed. The military station of Secunderabad, in the dominions of His Highness the Nizam, the greatest of the Mahomedan Chiefs of India, had long been one of the strategical points at which a considerable force of all arms was kept, and a British Cavalry regiment almost always formed part of the garrison. It is, or was then, as Indian stations go, one of the pleasantest and most sociable, with some sport to be got in the neighbourhood; and, owing to the size of the garrison, there was plenty of amusement, as well as work, in the Cantonment itself. The Nizam and those about him were always friendly and hospitable.

The Thirteenth were not to be in Secunderabad much longer, but in May, while they were still there, occurred the lamented death of King Edward VII., and the accession of King George. On the 9th May the officers of the Regiment, with a party of non-commissioned officers and men, attended at the British Residency at Hyderabad, the capital of the Nizam’s dominions, and there heard read the proclamation announcing the beginning of a new reign. It was to prove one of the most memorable in the history of India.

During the remainder of the hot season, which in the East is necessarily the slack season so far as military training is concerned, the regimental records contain notice of little beyond routine occurrences and sport of various kinds, the football and polo and tent-pegging with which men and officers while away the heat and tedium of an Indian summer. Then, as the heat slackened and another working season began, the Regiment received orders to move from the south of India to the north, to a station nearly a thousand miles away, among a totally different population and surroundings. The Thirteenth left Secunderabad in the middle of October, carrying with them the hearty good wishes of the garrison, and of the General Commanding the Cavalry Brigade, who warmly praised their work and discipline, and expressed his confidence that they would maintain in the north of India the good name they had borne in the south.

Arriving in the northern plains by train, they marched to their new station, meeting on the line of march the Seventeenth Lancers, with whom they had charged at Balaclava more than fifty years earlier. The two Regiments had not met since. The Thirteenth entertained the Lancers to a camp-fire concert, and then they went their ways again.

Meerut, where the Thirteenth were now to be quartered, was a well-known and favourite station. It was memorable as the place at which occurred the first serious outbreak of the Mutiny of 1857, since which time it had, from its central position and nearness to the ancient capital of Delhi, continued to be a large military station. In 1910 the memories of the Mutiny had grown dim, but Meerut was still an important place from a military point of view. It lay in the centre of “Hindustan,” the great northern block of territory which has been the seat of countless Empires, Hindu and Mahomedan—the real India upon which the vast Indian Peninsula has in a measure depended for thousands of years. In its broad plains and teeming cities was always concentrated the military power of succeeding conquerors, and the British, when they took the place of the Moghuls, had, like their predecessors, massed their strength on these northern plains.

Meerut, it may be noticed, was also a centre of sport, the site of an annual polo tournament, and within reach of good shooting and “pig-sticking.” The Thirteenth arrived just in time to join in the polo tournament, and to be soundly beaten by their Balaclava comrades of the Seventeenth Lancers. They were also beaten soon afterwards at another tournament at Lucknow, this time by the Rifle Brigade; but every one cannot win, and the Thirteenth were at all events to the fore in every kind of sport.

Meanwhile the usual work of military training began again—drill and swimming camps, and marches, and musketry, and inspections, and much more—the steady hard work of which civilians as a rule have no knowledge, but very real and useful work for all that, as the old Army was to show in the dark days which were coming.

Then followed the summer of 1911, and in the autumn the 13th received news of the death of their Colonel-in-Chief, General Sir Baker Russell. He was succeeded by General Sir Robert Baden-Powell.

But this year, 1911, was not to close with another round of customary training. King George had shown from the first, as his father and Queen Victoria had shown before him, a keen interest in his Indian Empire. As Prince of Wales he had visited the country already; now he had decided to visit it again as King-Emperor, and to take his seat in person upon the Imperial throne. It was a momentous decision, and was to have a great effect upon the Chiefs and people of India—how great an effect those only can know who have studied and in some measure understood the traditions and feelings which thousands of years of kingly rule have implanted in the Indian mind. Happily King George understood, and had resolved to take the unprecedented step of leaving England for months to gratify the desire of his Indian subjects. In the whole history of India no such ceremonial had ever been held, for vast as the Empire of the Moghuls had been, it had never embraced the whole of the Eastern dominions now under the British Crown, nor had it formed part of a wider Empire extending to all the continents of the world.

Among the preparations being made to invest the ceremonial with due pomp and splendour, was the assembly at the Imperial Camp of a military force drawn from the Army of India. The occasion was not primarily a military one, and the numbers of the force were limited; but 50,000 troops, British and Indian, were being drawn together to represent the armed might of the greatest power in the East, and to show that if ever he chose, the British Emperor of India would be able to throw into the scale of any world-conflict an army in which the military efficiency of the West would be blended with the loyal devotion and numbers of the Indian fighting races. Among the Regiments which had the honour of being included in the representative force at Delhi was the Thirteenth Hussars.

The various pageants which took place have been described in detail by Fortescue, the historian of the British Army, who accompanied the King to India. The great Durbar at which the King took his seat upon the throne was a wonderful scene, all classes of the Indian population joining to do him honour, from the humblest to the great feudatory chiefs and their retainers, blazing with jewels and gorgeous clothing and antique armour. The Thirteenth did their part among the soldiers, of whom Fortescue says: “The troops formed the most essential part of the pageant.” Besides the Durbar, there were many other interesting ceremonies and amusements—the presentation of colours, receptions, polo and football matches, and so on. But the whole did not last many days. The vast encampment, covering twenty-five square miles, which had risen as if by magic, with its myriads of tents and its luxurious gardens, from the solitude of a barren plain, was gone before the end of the year. The Chiefs of India marched away with their brilliant retinues, the troops and the people were scattered in every direction, and the plains about Delhi relapsed into something like their old lonely peace. But before he went the King had announced with dramatic suddenness, to the astonishment of the great assembly, that Delhi was again to be the capital of India, and that the British Empire, which had risen from the sea, and had hitherto had a seaport for its capital, was for the future to be centred, as former Empires had been, on the plains of Hindustan, surrounded by the territories of the Indian chiefs and the lands of the great Indian fighting races. It was a landmark in the history of India.

To the officers and men of a British Cavalry Regiment the full significance of the ceremonial could hardly perhaps be apparent, and certainly they could not foresee the world-war which was soon to show how fortunate in its consequences had been the King’s act in coming to India at the beginning of his reign. Pageants are hardly to the mind of a soldier. Still, the Thirteenth had their part in it, and did well what they had to do. The Regiment was conspicuous among those reviewed by the King, and at the close of the ceremonial it was selected for the honour of furnishing a squadron to escort the Queen during her visit to another ancient capital, Agra. The squadron was under the command of Captain W. H. Eve. Fortescue writes of it: “We had remarked the Regiment at Delhi; but even so we were not quite prepared for what we saw on that Sunday. All the officers of the suite agreed that the escort was the most perfect they had ever seen, so admirably were the distance and the dressing preserved. This may seem to be a small matter, but such details count for much in the discipline of a regiment, for those that are careful in small matters are unlikely to be careless in great. Moreover, it is a real pleasure in this imperfect world to see anything faultlessly done.”

Fortescue’s words may perhaps seem exaggerated: smartness and discipline are not necessarily the same thing. But they are nearly allied, and there is perhaps no greater mistake made by civilians in judging soldiers than the contempt for drill and “the barrack-yard” which is so readily expressed. Henderson writes in ‘The Science of War’: “It is unfortunately to be apprehended that few, except professional soldiers, understand the nature or the value of discipline.” And he shows very clearly how necessary is the “habit of obedience” for efficient action in war. It was not for nothing that the great American soldier Stonewall Jackson began his career in the Civil War by drilling his undisciplined soldiery until he made himself detested by the officers and men who afterwards learnt to worship him. His brigade stood “like a stone wall” in their first battle when all was melting around them, and earned him the splendid nickname which has become immortal. History teems with instances of the supreme value of the trained soldier in war. Never was it shown more conspicuously than in that wonderful month of the retreat from Mons, when the little army of British regulars went back day after day before the overwhelming numbers of their enemy, only to turn on him at the end and prove to him that in spite of all their losses and sufferings their spirit and efficiency were still unbroken. “It is open to those in whose ears the very name of discipline smacks of slavery, to assert that a powerful instinct of obedience dwarfs the intellect, turns the man into a machine, and rusts his power of reasoning; and in this there is a shadow of truth, but it is only a shadow.” It is a question which has been often debated, and in which, primâ facie, the contemptuous critic seems to have much right on his side; but to few who have seen war will his view commend itself. The Regiment which shows up well in the manœuvres of the parade-ground will rarely fail to show itself efficient in the field. Like everything else, the principle is capable of abuse, and may be carried too far, but it is a sound principle in the main. Certainly the squadron which won Fortescue’s admiration went very straight when it was tried a few years later in something more than escort duty.

The Durbar and its attendant ceremonies at an end, the Thirteenth marched back to Meerut, and the old life of military training and sport began again. There were rifle meetings and inspections, drill and manœuvres, courses in musketry and signalling and machine-guns, polo and races; and then the hot weather of India came once more with its blinding sandstorms and weary nights of heat, when sleep was hard to get and life seemed hardly worth living. There was some sickness too, and the terrible spectre of plague cast its shadow over the Regiment. The men faced the shadow cheerily enough, playing football and hockey and having boxing competitions after the manner of the British soldier; but one or two died, and the Regiment had to be inoculated. The officers kept themselves fit with polo and the swimming-bath. July brought some welcome rain, two or three good showers a week, and the Review report of the General Commanding the Northern Army was received: “A fine regiment, fit for service.” But it was a trying time, as an Indian hot weather in the plains always is. India is a picturesque country, full of beauty and romance for those who have eyes to see, but it has its drawbacks. English women face them as well as men. The following extracts are from the letters of a lady who decided to brave the heat with the Regiment.

February 15, 1912.—“The weather has suddenly got very hot.... The Inter-Regimental week starts on the 4th of next month, and goes on for about a fortnight. To feel I’ve got to entertain people for a fortnight is a nightmare!—this place doesn’t suit me, and I never feel well. At the last moment —— may be sent up to the hills with the invalid party, but it doesn’t look like it, and he’s not down for a day’s leave of any description.”

February 21, 1912.—“We have heard nothing about the Regiment being moved this year, so I suppose we shall stay on here. I have decided to try and stick out the hot weather with ——. I should like to have come home, but if I do —— won’t go away at all by himself, and if I have to go away and go somewhere to a hill station he will come too if he can get any leave. Of course every one tells me that no woman can do a hot weather here, but I shall try....”

April 3.—“We have had a nice cool week, for which everybody is very thankful. There was a terrific thunderstorm at the end of last week, and the temperature dropped from 103 to 83, so you can imagine it was a change. We all shivered, but it was lovely. It is warming up again now, and the last two days have been 100 or over in the shade in the middle of the day.

“The early routine has started now and —— has to be up at 4.45, and gets done about 10.30, when he comes in and has breakfast. We generally lie down in the afternoon and try and sleep, getting up about 4 for tea, before going to polo or playing tennis. Nearly every one has gone away on leave, and the place is very empty and desolate.”

April 18.—“There is no news to tell you from here—the hot weather is always a dreary time of forced inaction and perpetual discomfort. We are sleeping out of doors every night now with no sheets or blankets to cover us, so you can imagine it is pretty warm. One generally falls into a dead sleep just before the dawn, which is the only cool time during the twenty-four hours. I change my clothes five times during the day—it is one form of exercise. We are both keeping fit, which is the great thing....

“We had a terrific sandstorm here on Tuesday. We could see it coming for miles as the sky was a bright yellow; unfortunately we were caught in it as we were out driving; it was filthy, and we got covered from head to foot with sand. The storm lasted two hours, but we didn’t get a drop of rain. If only we had had some rain it would have been cooler for a few days.”

So it went on for many months longer, through the blazing hot weather and the sultry depressing rains. Then began another cold season.

On the 1st November the Thirteenth won the final in the Meerut Polo Tournament, after a desperate struggle with the King’s Dragoon Guards. An officer of the Regiment who had been studying the more scientific parts of his profession left for the Staff College at Camberley.4 There was a Cavalry concentration camp, where a considerable mounted force was assembled for Divisional training, followed by manœuvres of several Divisions together. In the midst of all this soldier work the year was closed by an incident which startled and shocked India. It had been arranged that on the 23rd of December the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, was to make a State entry into the new capital, and some of the Thirteenth had been sent to join in the ceremonial. The Regimental Diary records very briefly that “a dastardly outrage occurred, a bomb being thrown at the Viceroy, which resulted in his serious injury.” It was a painful commentary upon the enthusiastic greeting which had been given to the King-Emperor on the same spot just a year before, and a reminder that in India there exists always a root of sedition and danger which must not be disregarded. Peace in India is armed vigilance. But happily disloyal sentiment is confined to a small minority, and the heart of the great Empire is sound. So Englishmen felt. They showed a fine example of coolness and moderation in face of the treacherous attempt at murder, and all went on again as before. If the traitors had expected to intimidate the white man they were wholly mistaken.

On the 1st of January 1913, ceremonial parades were as usual held throughout the country to celebrate the assumption by Queen Victoria, more than thirty years before, of the title of Empress of India, and over the momentarily troubled waters the ship of Empire sailed forward undisturbed upon its stately way.

During the rest of the year there was from the point of view of the Thirteenth nothing of much importance to record. The Regimental Diary mentions that the English system of messing was introduced for the first time in India; that “C” Squadron won a silver challenge cup for shooting open to all squadrons, batteries, and companies in the Division; and that there was a short spell of “experimental training” in camp, when the Regiment lived entirely on the resources of the neighbouring country. Beyond these incidents, the Diary touches upon little but the doings of the men at cricket and boxing, and “skill-at-arms” competitions, and hockey and football tournaments. Hot work they must have been, for there is this entry referring to the months of July and August: “During these two months the average temperature was about 98. The weather was very trying and injurious to health, mainly due to the rain, followed immediately by sunshine, which caused vapours to rise from the ground.” To every one who has served in India this quaintly worded sentence brings back a familiar picture. The British soldier who has “heard the réveillé from Birr to Bareilly” knows only too well the dreariness of the late summer, when the faces of the women and children grow white in the reek from the rain-sodden ground.

On the 25th of October, Balaclava Day, the first “Old Comrades Dinner” was held in London, and the Diary notes that among those present were two Balaclava veterans.

With this month of October 1913, began the last working season of the old order. Everything then seemed peaceful enough, and no one thought that before a year had passed England would be fighting desperately in the greatest war of all time. For the Thirteenth Hussars attention was focussed on the usual incidents of an Indian “cold weather.” The Diary records that the regimental machine-gun detachment distinguished itself at the Meerut Rifle Meeting by winning a match open to all India, and that there were some tactical field-days with V Battery of the Horse Artillery. The Regiment was to be associated with V Battery in much hard fighting before they had done with each other. Finally, at the close of the cold season, the Commander-in-Chief in India came down to Meerut, and there was a “Garrison Ceremonial Parade,” in which the Thirteenth took part. All went well with them, and the inspection was entirely satisfactory. It was the last they were to undergo before being tested by the ordeal of war.

In the summer of 1914 came the fateful news of the murders at Serajevo, and before long it began to be seen that events were tending towards a great European conflict into which England might possibly be drawn. Every one remembers the excitement of the month that followed. In India, as elsewhere all over the world, it was intense. After so many years of peace, or at all events so many years in which England had looked on at European wars without bearing any part in them, it was difficult for Englishmen to believe that the long-standing German menace had really come to a head, and that “The Day” was upon us. It seemed more probable that England would again stand aside, and that whatever the Continental nations might do, no British Army would be sent to shed its blood on European battlefields. Even when Germany turned upon France, and it became certain that we should see war close to our own shores—war by which our own deepest interests must be endangered—it seemed doubtful whether England would take upon herself the tremendous responsibility of throwing her sword into the scale. Until the 4th of August the issue remained in suspense. Then the doubt came to an end, and on the following day it was known all over the British Empire that the old country had chosen the path of honour.

In no part of the Empire had the suspense been more acute than in India, which was full of martial traditions, and, in spite of local treason here and there, full also of goodwill to the British Crown. The sudden knowledge that Great Britain was at war stilled at once the voice of sedition, and was the signal for an outburst of loyalty on the part of Chiefs and people which astonished our enemies, if not ourselves, though it was no new thing;5 and it need hardly be said that in the military cantonments scattered over the face of the country, where the soldiers of the King’s Army, British and Indian, were gathered in constant readiness for war, the announcement was received with joy and eager hope. They might not be privileged to join in the central conflict on the battlefields of Europe, but surely they would have some share in the fighting, some chance of service and honour.

Meerut was no exception, and among all the King’s Regiments there was none which looked forward to the war more eagerly and hopefully than the Thirteenth, with its memories of the Peninsula and Waterloo and Balaclava. Some days before war was declared all officers on leave in the country had been urgently recalled, and when on the 5th of August the Regiment learnt from a telegram to the Meerut Club that the sword had been drawn, it was ready for immediate service. On the 9th of August the Meerut Division was ordered to mobilise. Then followed some weeks of anxiety, during which the Thirteenth were alternately elated and cast down by contradictory rumours. Early in September they received orders to prepare a large draft of men and horses for the Eighth Hussars, which threw them into the depths of depression; then they got, but could hardly rely upon, private reports that they were not to be left in India. It was a trying time.

Meanwhile it had been raining hard, and this added to the general depression. Polo became impossible, and neither officers nor men had anything to relieve the tedium of waiting. The following extracts from the letters of a junior officer may be worth quoting:—

Lieutenant G. R. Watson Smyth—August 9-12.—“I do not know whether this letter will ever reach you, or where I shall be if it does. At the present moment we are awaiting the order to mobilise: it is sure to arrive at any moment now if the Regiment is to go on service. We don’t know if it is decided to take the Meerut Cavalry Brigade, but ... it is possible that the infantry of the Division may be taken. Whether they will be taken to garrison Egypt or to fight at home is another matter. As I said, though, we are just waiting for the telegraphic order before we start shoeing our horses and sharpening our swords....

“It is now two and a half hours since we should have got our orders, and I am beginning to fear that we shall not get them....

“I have just gone to the Club, and a wire has come in saying that the Brigade is not for it. Rotten luck....

“The Native Regiments here are in a sort of fever of excitement, and are longing to have a go at somebody....

“Skinner’s Horse are in Meerut with us now. They are an extraordinarily good and very sporting lot.6

“There has only been one day’s polo for the last month, as all the grounds are under water, and the rain never stopped long enough to let them dry....”

August 30.—“We are carrying on in the same way as if there were no war in the world.... It really is a bit too thick that here are we, the most efficient Cavalry in the world, stuck in this horrid country.... Not a hope of our going to war. We have just heard that they are mobilising three other Brigades, and that the Viceroy is coming with the Court to live at Meerut this cold weather. His escort is one British Cavalry and one British Infantry Regiment with a battery of horse guns. This means that we shall stay here and do escort to him the whole time that the war is on....”

September 17.—“We are becoming deadened to joy or sorrow. It is a perfectly horrible existence, and unfortunately there is no hope of its changing for the better.

“We have had six inches of rain since midnight, and it is still raining—the country will probably be flooded....

“There is a small polo tournament coming off here next week; it ought to give us something to think about, but I am afraid that no one can raise any enthusiasm about anything, as we are all bored stiff.”

October 8.—“There is as usual nothing to say this mail except that our chances of getting out look blacker than ever....

“I think I told you that we have been having a little polo tournament on the American system. I am glad to say that we won it....

“We are going into camp with the squadron on Saturday for a fortnight. It will be bad, but a lot better than barracks.”

October 12.—“I am writing this in our squadron camp.... We have made friends with the local Nabob, and he has lent us an elephant to go out shooting on. It is rather fun shooting off his back, as one never knows what the next shot will be at: it may be a buck or quail or partridge or snipe, or anything. He is a jolly good retriever and will pick up anything that is dead, but he hates to if it is only wounded.... The old man who lent us the hathi (elephant), has just come in to complain that two of our men have shot two peacocks, which are sacred birds to Hindus. As there are very strict orders against shooting peacocks ... I hope that they get it in the neck. They are both in my troop.”

That is an old cause of trouble. The British soldier finds it hard to resist at times the temptation to shoot a wild peacock, and add a “turkey” to his rations; but the Government of India is rightly strict on the subject. It is an instance of the care one has to take to avoid hurting Indian feelings.

India, October 25, 1914.—“As perhaps you may guess from the above vague address, we are off to the war.... We got the order at 4 A.M. ... to pack up and come in to barracks at once as the Regiment was mobilising. We had everything packed up by 5 A.M., and the squadron left at 5.30. Considering that this was all done in the dark and that it was raining as well, I think that it is rather a good show.... They limit our kit to 35 lbs., which is only two blankets, a change of clothes, an extra pair of boots, and a valise to carry the lot—not very much to sleep in with a temperature of 20 or 30....

“It is rather a coincidence that we got the order to mobilise on Balaclava day, isn’t it?”

Balaclava day! Sixty years had passed, and the thought of it was still ready to the minds of those who were now taking the Regiment into another war. That is what a feat of arms in which his Regiment shared means to the soldier—an ever-living memory and example.

The suspense was over. “It is great news,” wrote the Captain commanding the squadron, “far better than we dared hope for, and you may imagine how we are all feeling.” He was the same officer who had commanded the Queen’s escort three years before—the model escort. Now he was going to show whether the men who had won so much admiration in a pageant of peace time would do equally well in the field.

Nothing remained but to complete the number of men and horses, both now below strength in consequence of the draft lately sent to the Eighth Hussars, and to make the final arrangements for a quick departure. Men and horses were found from other regiments, and during the first ten days of November the packing and preparations were completed. Officers disposed of their horses and furniture; many of the polo ponies were taken over by the Remount Department for service as Infantry officers’ chargers; the regimental mess was closed; the heavy baggage and valuable books were sent to England; and the Regiment’s period of peace service in India was at an end.

CHAPTER V.
THE INDIAN ARMY—BEGINNING OF WAR.

The Empire of India, with its population of more than three hundred millions, is held by an army which, compared with the hosts of European nations, is a small one. Great Britain has never had in India much more than seventy thousand British troops, not one man to four thousand of the population—a conclusive proof, if any were needed, of the fact that British rule in India is based rather on the goodwill of the Indians than on force. No doubt in the last resort the white soldier is the mainstay of the Government against sedition and revolt; but if sedition and revolt were ever more than partial they would need a much larger garrison to suppress them. Three hundred millions of people would not be indefinitely “kept down” by an army of seventy thousand foreigners, however brave and well disciplined. The truth is that the British supremacy in India, though it has at times involved hard fighting, was founded upon the consent and active co-operation of the Indian races, and is maintained by the same means.

Not only is the number of British troops in India comparatively small, but the British Government has not feared to raise and keep up alongside of them an army of Indian regular troops twice as strong, and to arm and make efficient for war other bodies of men drawn from the population, notably some fine contingents of soldiery in the Feudatory chiefships. Altogether it may perhaps be roughly computed that at the outbreak of the War in 1914 the Crown had at its disposal in India, counting local volunteers, perhaps a hundred thousand armed white men and two hundred thousand Indians. This force had to maintain internal order throughout a country as large as all Europe excluding Russia, and to defend the frontiers against any aggression from without. It was regarded, and organised, not as two armies sundered by the colour-line and mutually suspicious of one another, but as one army in which the white regiments and Indian regiments served side by side, as they had served for many generations in many wars, mutually trusting one another and fighting as comrades against any enemy who might threaten the interests of the Indian Empire.

Some of these enemies had been fought at a great distance from India—in China, in Persia, in Egypt, and in other countries across the sea; but until now Indian troops had not been employed in the battlefields of Europe. More than a hundred years before a great “sepoy General,” who had learnt his trade in India, had commanded British armies against the soldiers of Napoleon; and countless other British officers and men had served both in India and Europe. India had, in fact, to quote Henderson’s ‘Science of War,’ been “the great training-ground” of the British Army. And Indian troops had at times, in Asia and Africa, crossed swords with European enemies. Nevertheless, the Indian Army, as such, had not fought in Europe, and the British officers who commanded Indian soldiers had not often served, even individually, in European wars. No Indian soldiery fought in the Peninsular War, or at Waterloo, or in the Crimea, or even in the Boer War, though a contingent of white troops from India did go out to South Africa then, and saved Natal. England, in fact, had hitherto regarded the Indian Army, and the vast reserves of Indian races on which that Army could draw, as a source of strength only for her outlying wars, not as a portion of the Imperial power upon which she could rely if attacked in Europe. That may be said in spite of the fact that on one occasion the far-sighted Beaconsfield had as a demonstration brought a few Indian troops to the Mediterranean.

Unluckily, it may be observed here, this view, and other reasons, prevented the Indian Army in recent times from being brought up to the mark required for scientific warfare in Europe. While the Home Army was being modernised and improved in every way after the Sudan campaigns and the Boer War, the Indian Army was left without similar attention. It was quite fit for Asiatic warfare, but in training, arms, and equipment, its splendid officers and men found themselves at a great disadvantage when employed against European troops of the latest model.

This, however, was not understood by Great Britain.

Now that she found herself involved in a conflict with the greatest military power the world has ever seen, and woefully short of British troops in England to support the comparatively small force she could send to the help of France, her eyes turned to her great dependency; and fully assured of the loyalty of India, in spite of the seditious movements of the past few years, she decided to make use of the reserve of trained strength she had hitherto set aside, and to let the Army in India, British and Indian, have its share in fighting the common enemy on European soil. It was a bold decision, full of important consequences for India and for the Empire; but it was taken, and the call was sent out.

So, when the Thirteenth Hussars received their orders for the front, they were summoned not as an individual Regiment of British Cavalry, but as part of the Meerut Cavalry Brigade, made up of one British and two Indian Regiments, the 3rd and 18th. This Brigade in its turn formed part of an Indian Cavalry Division, the 2nd, and the 2nd Division formed part of an Indian Cavalry Corps.

On the 13th of November the Thirteenth left Meerut by train, in three detachments, and went down to Bombay, where they were to embark. What their destination was they did not know for certain, but it was believed to be somewhere west of Suez. As a fact, their destination was Marseilles, but during the two days they remained in Bombay waiting to embark, they received no definite news of this.

Bombay, the great western port of India, with its magnificent harbour and wooded hills and teeming city, was at this time a very busy scene. It had originally come to Charles II. as a portion of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, and had been transferred by him to the East India Company for an annual payment of £10, a striking exemplification of the almost magical development of the British Empire in India. Now it was of great value as a commercial port, and as the harbour from which the Indian Government was to carry on the activities entailed by the war. But a Regiment embarking for service had little time for thinking of such matters, for there was much to be done in the two days that elapsed before the troops went on board. On the 17th of November everything was ready, and the embarkation began. Many of the horses were piteously frightened at their novel experience, some of them “screaming like children” as they were slung up into the air and lowered into the hold; but they soon got over their terror, and the men worked splendidly in the Indian heat, the sweat streaming down their faces and through their coats. Before night men and horses were all safely on board, and there had been no mishaps.

The strength of the Regiment when it embarked, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Symons, was 20 officers,7 including the Medical Officer, 499 other ranks, including the Assistant-Surgeon, 560 horses, and 1 pony. Several officers were on leave in England, and some of them were expected to join later; but others had already gone to the Front, of whom 2 had been killed and 2 wounded.8 The Regiment was distributed in two transports—Headquarters and three squadrons, “A,” “B,” and “D,” on board the Dunluce Castle, “C” Squadron and the machine-gun detachment on board the Risaldar. During the 18th of November the vessels remained at anchor, for they were to form part of a convoy, and some of the other ships were not quite ready to sail; but on the 19th all was in order, and then at 9 o’clock in the morning the whole convoy, to the number of 26, weighed anchor and steamed slowly out over the sunlit waters of the harbour. Outside, the convoy stopped to pick up a few more ships joining from another port, and then the whole formed up, six abreast, and, led by an escorting cruiser, sailed away to the westward. It was a fine sight, though a sad one for the women of the Regiment, who were left behind on shore. Many of them had looked their last upon their men. But that is war.