The History of Lumsden's Horse. Various
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came a string of fatal objections. A smoking-concert was next suggested, and the young ladies thought that idea splendid, only—well, in short, it wouldn’t do. Then, as if it were the last resource to be thought of—a sort of forlorn hope—Sir Patrick hinted that a dance might meet the case. To that his fair interviewers demurred most effusively; but then and without any hypnotic suggestion, so Sir Patrick avers, they began to see that something might be urged in favour of it, and at last, with a unanimity that was wonderful, they decided that a dance was the only means of fitly celebrating the occasion. Having come to that conclusion, all their coy objections vanished in a moment. Sir Patrick saw his opportunity and seized it to persuade them that, as it was to be a ladies’ enterprise, they must manage it entirely themselves. Thereupon they formed a committee, of which Miss Pugh was elected Honorary Secretary, invited Lady Curzon of Kedleston to become patroness, and set to work with an energy which no mere man could hope to rival. They had of course to enlist masculine services for subordinate duties. This they did with a sweet despotism that made revolt impossible. The men had to accept without a murmur the positions assigned to them as stewards, and obeyed every mandate like the willing slaves we all should be in similar circumstances. The committee of ladies showed a business-like promptitude in settling every detail and a faculty for organisation which won from a military admirer the approving comment that they could conduct a campaign if they would only give their minds to it. This or some other feminine attribute had such an effect on the wine merchants of Calcutta that they sent champagne for the ball-supper and gallantly refused to accept payment. So the Calcutta Ball in honour of Lumsden’s Horse became an assured success almost from the moment of its happy inception. Brilliant beyond the dreams of a débutante, it left on many a susceptible heart impressions which neither time nor the changing scenes of warfare could dim, as the secret archives, to which an editor alone has access, attest; and in a less romantic way it proved the unselfish devotion of those ladies, who, after paying all expenses, handed over a balance of 6,000 rupees to the war-chest of Lumsden’s Horse.
Lieut. Sidey Lieut. Pugh Capt. Clifford Lieut. Crane Lieut. Neville Capt. Rutherfoord
Photo: Harrington & Co.
Capt. Chamney Major Showers Col. Lumsden Capt. Taylor Capt. Beresford
Capt. Noblett Vet.-Capt. Stevenson
OFFICERS OF THE CORPS
Such financial aids came not amiss at the moment. Government transports chartered by the Royal Indian Marine for taking troops to Natal were delayed on the return, and, one vessel having broken down, Colonel Lumsden found that he would have to encamp his men on the Maidan for two or three weeks longer than he had anticipated, and this entailed an additional expenditure of nearly 1,000l. for extra rations and comforts. To soldiers of Spartan mould, who pride themselves on discarding luxuries at the first call to arms, this might have seemed like pampering the Volunteer troopers; but it must be remembered that in India men cannot give up the habits of a lifetime all at once and come down to bare soldier’s rations without danger to their health. And Colonel Lumsden’s first object after getting his men was to keep them fit. His care in this respect was justified by events no less than his judgment in the selection of men for mental and physical attributes. At the end of a year’s campaigning he was able to boast that his losses from sickness were proportionately less than in any other regiment. This delay had its advantages in so far as it gave Colonel Lumsden and his officers a chance of training the troopers for their duties and accustoming them to their horses before the day of embarkation. The postponement, we may be sure, was no disappointment to the people of Calcutta, who felt that the Maidan would be a cheerless blank without Lumsden’s Horse. It will be well to give here a few details of organisation. By War Office order the corps was to consist of two companies, each commanded by a Regular officer, and the Government also appointed a Regular adjutant to assist Colonel Lumsden in executive work; while Colonel Eden C. Showers, Commandant of the Surma Valley Light Horse, offered to serve as Major, and was gazetted with that rank as second in command. When other officers had been selected, chiefly on the recommendation of commandants under whom they had served in Volunteer Corps, they were posted in the following order:
Staff.—Lieutenant-Colonel Dugald McTavish Lumsden, Commandant.
Major Eden C. Showers, Second in Command.
Captain Neville C. Taylor, 14th Bengal Lancers, Adjutant and Quartermaster.
Captain Samuel Arthur Powell, Medical Officer.
Veterinary Captain William Stevenson, M.R.C.V.S., Veterinary Surgeon.
A Company.—Captain James Hugh Brownlow Beresford, 3rd Sikhs (commanding), Captain John Brownley Rutherfoord, Lieutenants Charles Edward Crane and George Augustus Neville.
B Company.—Captain Louis Hemington Noblett, Royal Irish Rifles (commanding), Captain Henry Chamney, Captain Frank Clifford, Lieutenants Charles Lyon Sidey and Herbert Owain Pugh.
Maxim Gun Detachment.—Captain Bernard Willoughby Holmes (commanding).
Each company had a Regular non-commissioned officer as Company Sergeant-Major and another Regular as Company Quartermaster-Sergeant for office duties under the Regimental Quartermaster-Sergeant. Regulars from the Artillery, Cavalry, and Infantry were also attached as Farrier-Sergeants, Saddlers, and Signallers, and from the Indian Commissariat as Transport Sergeant. The Maxim Gun Contingent, under Captain Holmes was raised and equipped by the East India Railway Company, who offered its services to Colonel Lumsden. The Calcutta Committee had decided, with the sanction of the Government, that Lumsden’s Horse should not want for adequate regimental transport in the field, but, on the contrary, should leave India as a thoroughly organised unit in that respect, with a complete train of transport carts, ponies, and pack mules, all properly equipped. It is hardly necessary to say that the grant of transport, saddlery, and draught harness, for which provision was made in the mobilisation order, did not comprise all that the committee desired; but the inexhaustible Ordnance Stores were again open to be requisitioned ‘on payment,’ and carts of the Indian Army Transport pattern were drawn in a similar way from the Commissariat Department. The ponies and mules, however, had to be collected by agents in the hill districts of Assam and Thibet, a distance of 1,000 miles from Calcutta. When all this was done, the corps could justly be considered fit for active service, and it is certain that no contingent, Volunteer or Regular, landed in South Africa with a more efficient transport than Lumsden’s Horse. It came near being upset, however, by a War Office decision. Almost at the last minute Colonel Lumsden was told that the native drivers would not be permitted to accompany the corps, and that no natives could go except one personal servant for each officer and a limited number of syces, or grooms, in the proportion of one to each charger, as laid down in the mobilisation scheme. This allowance of three native attendants to every officer was on a sufficiently liberal scale, but it did not meet the requirements for transport purposes. Therefore Colonel Lumsden had to enlist European drivers, of whom twenty-six were needed for each company. In ordinary circumstances Anglo-Indian prejudices would have combined to make this an insuperable difficulty; but so keen was the anxiety of men to see war service in South Africa that they volunteered to go in any capacity not necessarily menial, and so Colonel Lumsden got the full complement of drivers together just as readily as lie had filled the ranks with fighting men. War Office conditions stipulated that officers and troopers of the corps must provide their own horses and saddlery, though nearly all of the latter might be drawn from Ordnance Stores at cost price. Naturally the supply of suitable animals for Mounted Infantry work had to be made a corps affair from the outset. Very few of the enlisted troopers owned horses of a class that they would have cared to ride through the rough work of a campaign, even if they could be always sure of having their own; and Colonel Lumsden was not likely to countenance any claims of private ownership when once horses were numbered as of the troop. He therefore informed every man who brought a horse with him that it must be considered corps property, and might not be appropriated by its owner without the commanding officer’s sanction. No other arrangement could have worked satisfactorily. In consideration of this understanding Colonel Lumsden promised that he would endeavour to obtain from Government a scale of compensation for horses thus appropriated, and in the event of being