The History of Lumsden's Horse. Various
Читать онлайн книгу.
had chosen his men, and none could deny that they made a goodly show at manœuvres on the Maidan, where their camp was pitched within easy reach of the city. Though quartered there for six weeks in circumstances that exposed them to many temptations, those troopers behaved in a manner that would have been considered exemplary for the best regiment of disciplined Regulars. This is not surprising when we consider that in civil life they had been accustomed to exercise, command, and to exact obedience from others, even at the risk of their own lives. At the outset Colonel Lumsden made it a condition that he would have none but unmarried men in the ranks, and to this rule there were few known exceptions, though some Benedicts crept in undeclared. As a regiment, Lumsden’s Horse had an esprit de corps to maintain from the day of its birth under auspices that made the occasion imperial, and every man of it was tacitly pledged to prove himself a worthy recipient of the honour conferred upon him as one of India’s chosen representatives. How that feeling prevailed over all other considerations in the moment when Lumsden’s Horse played their manful part in battle for the first time, and how it held them together in a comradeship that was akin to brotherhood through after-months of hard campaigning, will appear as the narrative unfolds itself. It began to have an influence while the corps was as yet but an invertebrate skeleton, and it helps to explain the anxiety of Indian Volunteers to join the ranks of a force that was destined by the nature of things to become historical. One can understand, therefore, the alternations of hope and depression that passed over certain districts where men who had offered their services waited anxiously for the decision on which their chances of distinction hung. Some glimpses of this may be got through the letters received by Colonel Lumsden from all parts of India at that time, and from the diaries in which thoughts as well as actions are recorded by the men themselves. One begins his notes—two days after Colonel Lumsden’s call for Volunteers had been published—with the entry: ‘An express came from—— to say he had sent in the names of twenty men from C Company.’ After waiting impatiently several days for news that did not come, the diarist got his friend to send two telegrams, one to Colonel Lumsden, the other direct to the Adjutant-General at Calcutta, offering a complete company. The next day somebody turned up with news that they had been accepted. Jubilation on this score, however, lasted no longer than twenty-four hours, when it gave place to dejection caused by rumours that they ‘were not accepted after all.’ This wave of depression passed away as speedily in its turn, dispelled by the rays of hope that burst out radiantly on receipt of a chit from—— ‘asking me to come in at once.’ Under the next day’s date comes the crowning triumph of that anxious time, told very simply but in a way that makes one feel the nerves of those men throbbing through every word. ‘Started for Chick,’ runs the entry; ‘met——, who told me we really were accepted. Then we met—— dashing along on his bike. He had already upset a woman.’ A week later, after many festive farewells, that contingent was on its way to Calcutta and foregathering with other contingents, whose experiences had all been the same, for every man of them was buoyant at the prospect of seeing active service, and would have regarded it as a personal slight, if not an indelible stigma on his reputation for courage, if he had been left behind.
MYSORE AND COORG CONTINGENT
So day by day the ranks of Lumsden’s Horse gained strength until their numbers were complete and recruiting had to be stopped; while many candidates whom the Colonel would gladly have taken tried in vain for admission. It was a regiment of which any commanding officer might be proud, whether judged by physical or mental standards. A corps of planters it might have been justly called, for they outnumbered all of other occupations; but it represented many classes, and nearly every district in India where sport-loving Britishers are to be found. In its ranks were fifty-five indigo-planters, sixty-one tea-planters, thirty-one coffee-planters, and five of similar occupation not specifically designated. Beside these, the sixteen Civil Service men of various grades, three bank assistants, twelve railway officials, including civil engineers, three medical men from the planting districts, one inspector of mounted police, a brewer, a tutor, a journalist, and a few others whose peaceful days until then had been devoted to commerce, form a comparatively small proportion. Thus considerably more than half the fighting strength were planters. Among the remainder, townsmen must have been fairly represented, to say nothing of artificers who formed the Maxim Gun detachment under command of Captain Bernard Willoughby Holmes, whose services had been placed at Colonel Lumsden’s disposal by consent of the East India Railway Company. The Mercantile Marine also furnished its quota in the persons of a captain, a chief officer, a second officer, and two engineers of the British India Steam Navigation Company’s fleet, and a chief officer of the Hajee Cassim Line. A veterinary surgeon, police inspectors, policemen, clerks in the Military Accounts Department, travelling agents, hotel assistants, a photographer, a theatrical agent, and a superintendent of the Rangoon Boating Club joined the Transport, from which two very smart fellows were drawn into the ranks as troopers during the campaign, and one of them was subsequently gazetted to the West India Regiment as second lieutenant. Counting all these, the enrolled strength was just 300.
Then came the difficult and delicate task of appointing company officers and section commanders—a difficulty enhanced by the fact that many Volunteer officers had enlisted as troopers. I have said that the Government had given its unqualified approval to Colonel Lumsden’s project. This statement, however, applies only to the general scheme. It must be remembered that he had made no stipulation as to his own rank, or the right of selecting officers, and it was not in the nature of a British War Office to let the prerogative of veto slip entirely out of its hands. Colonel Lumsden’s own appointment as commanding officer came directly from headquarters, on the suggestion probably of Lord Curzon. Two other conditions, not very irksome, the military authorities made at Colonel Lumsden’s urgent request. These were that captains commanding companies should be Regular officers on active service, and that the adjutant, who would also act as quartermaster, should be appointed from the Staff Corps or have graduated in it. These nominations were left to the Commander-in-Chief in India, and in the ordinary course of things they involved the appointment of Regular non-commissioned officers as quartermaster-sergeants and company sergeant-majors. Other subordinate posts for which military experience or special training is necessary were also filled by Regulars, who thus relieved the Volunteer troopers of some laborious duties. An officer second in command, four captains acting as senior subalterns, four lieutenants, a medical officer, and a veterinary surgeon had still to be selected, and the choice must have involved many anxious moments, seeing how much depended on the unknown qualities that are hidden in all men and may lie dormant for years, only to be developed for good or ill in the crisis of an emergency. How Colonel Lumsden succeeded in this, as in every other preliminary task that he imposed upon himself, is now a matter of history to be dealt with in proper sequence. The wisdom of his selections could only be proved by events, and to these, as narrated by men who were best able to judge, appeal may be confidently made. Naturally, some who had held commissioned rank previously, and thought their claims to consideration indisputable, felt sore at being passed over in favour of others who were junior to them in the Volunteer service. But this irritation was not allowed to show itself or interfere with loyal subordination in all military duties.
To the inviolable pages of his diary one, whose merits were not at the time so well known as they ought to have been, confides the pregnant sentence: ‘Heard to-day that—— was to be a captain, I a corporal.’ There the entry ends, leaving a blank more eloquent than any scathing comment could have been. For all that, the captain and the corporal remained on the best of terms, and, though they ceased for discipline’s sake to call each other by their Christian names, there is reason to believe that both soon came to the conclusion that no very serious mistake had been made in estimating their relative fitness for command. At any rate, after a little friction they shaped themselves like round pegs to round holes. But that is the habit of Britishers, who, however unaccustomed to discipline, are not slow in recognising its inevitable necessity and its inestimable value. They come to see that without it no concerted movement, whether big or small, is certain of success. You cannot conduct military operations to a definite end, any more than you can navigate a ship or rule a family, if individuality is allowed to take the form of insubordination. These lessons Colonel Lumsden began to inculcate in his peculiarly persuasive way directly he had got his men together and