The Rout Of The White Hussars
It was not in the open fight
We threw away the sword,
But in the lonely watching
In the darkness by the ford.
The waters lapped, the night-wind blew,
Full-armed the Fear was born and grew,
And we were flying ere we knew
From panic in the night.
Beoni Bar.
Some people hold that an English Cavalry regiment cannot run. This
is a mistake. I have seen four hundred and thirty-seven sabres
flying over the face of the country in abject terror--have seen the
best Regiment that ever drew bridle, wiped off the Army List for the
space of two hours. If you repeat this tale to the White Hussars
they will, in all probability, treat you severely. They are not
proud of the incident.
You may know the White Hussars by their "side," which is greater
than that of all the Cavalry Regiments on the roster. If this is
not a sufficient mark, you may know them by their old brandy. It
has been sixty years in the Mess and is worth going far to taste.
Ask for the "McGaire" old brandy, and see that you get it. If the
Mess Sergeant thinks that you are uneducated, and that the genuine
article will be lost on you, he will treat you accordingly. He is a
good man. But, when you are at Mess, you must never talk to your
hosts about forced marches or long-distance rides. The Mess are
very sensitive; and, if they think that you are laughing at them,
will tell you so.
As the White Hussars say, it was all the Colonel's fault. He was a
new man, and he ought never to have taken the Command. He said that
the Regiment was not smart enough. This to the White Hussars, who
knew they could walk round any Horse and through any Guns, and over
any Foot on the face of the earth! That insult was the first cause
of offence.
Then the Colonel cast the Drum-Horse--the Drum-Horse of the White
Hussars! Perhaps you do not see what an unspeakable crime he had
committed. I will try to make it clear. The soul of the Regiment
lives in the Drum-Horse, who carries the silver kettle-drums. He is
nearly always a big piebald Waler. That is a point of honor; and a
Regiment will spend anything you please on a piebald. He is beyond
the ordinary laws of casting. His work is very light, and he only
manoeuvres at a foot-pace. Wherefore, so long as he can step out
and look handsome, his well-being is assured. He knows more about
the Regiment than the Adjutant, and could not make a mistake if he
tried.
The Drum-Horse of the White Hussars was only eighteen years old, and
perfectly equal to his duties. He had at least six years' more work
in him, and carried himself with all the pomp and dignity of a Drum-
Major of the Guards. The Regiment had paid Rs. 1,200 for him.
But the Colonel said that he must go, and he was cast in due form
and replaced by a washy, bay beast as ugly as a mule, with a ewe-
neck, rat-tail, and cow-hocks. The Drummer detested that animal,
and the best of the Band-horses put back their ears and showed the
whites of their eyes at the very sight of him. They knew him for an
upstart and no gentleman. I fancy that the Colonel's ideas of
smartness extended to the Band, and that he wanted to make it take
part in the regular parade movements. A Cavalry Band is a sacred
thing. It only turns out for Commanding Officers' parades, and the
Band Master is one degree more important than the Colonel. He is a
High Priest and the "Keel Row" is his holy song. The "Keel Row" is
the Cavalry Trot; and the man who has never heard that tune rising,
high and shrill, above the rattle of the Regiment going past the
saluting-base, has something yet to hear and understand.
When the Colonel cast the Drum-horse of the White Hussars, there was
nearly a mutiny.
The officers were angry, the Regiment were furious, and the Bandsman
swore--like troopers. The Drum-Horse was going to be put up to
auction--public auction--to be bought, perhaps, by a Parsee and put
into a cart! It was worse than exposing the inner life of the
Regiment to the whole world, or selling the Mess Plate to a Jew--a
black Jew.
The Colonel was a mean man and a bully. He knew what the Regiment
thought about his action; and, when the troopers offered to buy the
Drum-Horse, he said that their offer was mutinous and forbidden by
the Regulations.
But one of the Subalterns--Hogan-Yale, an Irishman--bought the Drum-
Horse for Rs. 160 at the sale; and the Colonel was wroth. Yale
professed repentance--he was unnaturally submissive--and said that,
as he had only made the purchase to save the horse from possible
ill-treatment and starvation, he would now shoot him and end the
business. This appeared to soothe the Colonel, for he wanted the
Drum-Horse disposed of. He felt that he had made a mistake, and
could not of course acknowledge it. Meantime, the presence of the
Drum-Horse was an annoyance to him.
Yale took to himself a glass of the old brandy, three cheroots, and
his friend, Martyn; and they all left the Mess together. Yale and
Martyn conferred for two hours in Yale's quarters; but only the
bull-terrier who keeps watch over Yale's boot-trees knows what they
said. A horse, hooded and sheeted to his ears, left Yale's stables
and was taken, very unwillingly, into the Civil Lines. Yale's groom
went with him. Two men broke into the Regimental Theatre and took
several paint-pots and some large scenery brushes. Then night fell
over the Cantonments, and there was a noise as of a horse kicking
his loose-box to pieces in Yale's stables. Yale had a big, old,
white Waler trap-horse.
The next day was a Thursday, and the men, hearing that Yale was
going to shoot the Drum-Horse in the evening, determined to give the
beast a regular regimental funeral--a finer one than they would have
given the Colonel had he died just then. They got a bullock-cart
and some sacking, and mounds and mounds of roses, and the body,
under sacking, was carried out to the place where the anthrax cases
were cremated; two-thirds of the Regiment followed. There was no
Band, but they all sang "The Place where the old Horse died" as
something respectful and appropriate to the occasion. When the
corpse was dumped into the grave and the men began throwing down
armfuls of roses to cover it, the Farrier-Sergeant ripped out an
oath and said aloud:--"Why, it ain't the Drum-Horse any more than
it's me!" The Troop-Sergeant-Majors asked him whether he had left
his head in the Canteen. The Farrier-Sergeant said that he knew the
Drum-Horse's feet as well as he knew his own; but he was silenced
when he saw the regimental number burnt in on the poor stiff,
upturned near-fore.
Thus was the Drum-Horse of the White Hussars buried; the Farrier-
Sergeant grumbling. The sacking that covered the corpse was smeared
in places with black paint; and the Farrier-Sergeant drew attention
to this fact. But the Troop-Sergeant-Major of E Troop kicked him
severely on the shin, and told him that he was undoubtedly drunk.
On the Monday following the burial, the Colonel sought revenge on
the White Hussars. Unfortunately, being at that time temporarily in
Command of the Station, he ordered a Brigade field-day. He said
that he wished to make the regiment "sweat for their damned
insolence," and he carried out his notion thoroughly. That Monday
was one of the hardest days in the memory of the White Hussars.
They were thrown against a skeleton-enemy, and pushed forward, and
withdrawn, and dismounted, and "scientifically handled" in every
possible fashion over dusty country, till they sweated profusely.
Their only amusement came late in the day, when they fell upon the
battery of Horse Artillery and chased it for two mile's. This was a
personal question, and most of the troopers had money on the event;
the Gunners saying openly that they had the legs of the White
Hussars. They were wrong. A march-past concluded the campaign, and
when the Regiment got back to their Lines, the men were coated with
dirt from spur to chin-strap.
The White Hussars have one great and peculiar privilege. They won
it at Fontenoy, I think.
Many Regiments possess special rights, such as wearing collars with
undress uniform, or a bow of ribbon between the shoulders, or red
and white roses in their helmets on certain days of the year. Some
rights are connected with regimental saints, and some with
regimental successes. All are valued highly; but none so highly as
the right of the White Hussars to have the Band playing when their
horses are being watered in the Lines. Only one tune is played.
and that tune never varies. I don't know its real name, but the
White Hussars call it:--"Take me to London again." It sound's very
pretty. The Regiment would sooner be struck off the roster than
forego their distinction.
After the "dismiss" was sounded, the officers rode off home to
prepare for stables; and the men filed into the lines, riding easy.
That is to say, they opened their tight buttons, shifted their
helmets, and began to joke or to swear as the humor took them; the
more careful slipping off and easing girths and curbs. A good
trooper values his mount exactly as much as he values himself, and
believes, or should believe, that the two together are irresistible
where women or men, girl's or gun's, are concerned.
Then the Orderly-Officer gave the order:--"Water horses," and the
Regiment loafed off to the squadron-troughs, which were in rear of
the stables and between these and the barracks. There were four
huge troughs, one for each squadron, arranged en echelon, so that
the whole Regiment could water in ten minutes if it liked. But it
lingered for seventeen, as a rule, while the Band played.
The band struck up as the squadrons filed off the troughs and the
men slipped their feet out of the stirrups and chaffed each other.
The sun was just setting in a big, hot bed of red cloud, and the
road to the Civil Lines seemed to run straight into the sun's eye.
There was a little dot on the road. It grew and grew till it showed
as a horse, with a sort of gridiron thing on his back. The red
cloud glared through the bars of the gridiron. Some of the troopers
shaded their eyes with their hands and said:--"What the mischief as
that there 'orse got on 'im!"
In another minute they heard a neigh that every soul--horse and man--
in the Regiment knew, and saw, heading straight towards the Band,
the dead Drum-Horse of the White Hussars!
On his withers banged and bumped the kettle-drums draped in crape,
and on his back, very stiff and soldierly, sat a bare-headed
skeleton.
The band stopped playing, and, for a moment, there was a hush.
Then some one in E troop--men said it was the Troop-Sergeant-Major--
swung his horse round and yelled. No one can account exactly for
what happened afterwards; but it seems that, at least, one man in
each troop set an example of panic, and the rest followed like
sheep. The horses that had barely put their muzzles into the
trough's reared and capered; but, as soon as the Band broke, which
it did when the ghost of the Drum-Horse was about a furlong distant,
all hooves followed suit, and the clatter of the stampede--quite
different from the orderly throb and roar of a movement on parade,
or the rough horse-play of watering in camp--made them only more
terrified. They felt that the men on their backs were afraid of
something. When horses once know THAT, all is over except the
butchery.
Troop after troop turned from the troughs and ran--anywhere, and
everywhere--like spit quicksilver. It was a most extraordinary
spectacle, for men and horses were in all stages of easiness, and
the carbine-buckets flopping against their sides urged the horses
on. Men were shouting and cursing, and trying to pull clear of the
Band which was being chased by the Drum-Horse whose rider had fallen
forward and seemed to be spurring for a wager.
The Colonel had gone over to the Mess for a drink. Most of the
officers were with him, and the Subaltern of the Day was preparing
to go down to the lines, and receive the watering reports from the
Troop-Sergeant Majors. When "Take me to London again" stopped,
after twenty bars, every one in the Mess said:--"What on earth has
happened?" A minute later, they heard unmilitary noises, and saw,
far across the plain, the White Hussars scattered, and broken, and
flying.
The Colonel was speechless with rage, for he thought that the
Regiment had risen against him or was unanimously drunk. The Band,
a disorganized mob, tore past, and at it's heels labored the Drum-
Horse--the dead and buried Drum-Horse--with the jolting, clattering
skeleton. Hogan-Yale whispered softly to Martyn:--"No wire will
stand that treatment," and the Band, which had doubled like a hare,
came back again. But the rest of the Regiment was gone, was rioting
all over the Province, for the dusk had shut in and each man was
howling to his neighbor that the Drum-Horse was on his flank.
Troop-Horses are far too tenderly treated as a rule. They can, on
emergencies, do a great deal, even with seventeen stone on their
backs. As the troopers found out.
How long this panic lasted I cannot say. I believe that when the
moon rose the men saw they had nothing to fear, and, by twos and
threes and half-troops, crept back into Cantonments very much
ashamed of themselves. Meantime, the Drum-Horse, disgusted at his
treatment by old friends, pulled up, wheeled round, and trotted up
to the Mess verandah-steps for bread. No one liked to run; but no
one cared to go forward till the Colonel made a movement and laid
hold of the skeleton's foot. The Band had halted some distance
away, and now came back slowly. The Colonel called it, individually
and collectively, every evil name that occurred to him at the time;
for he had set his hand on the bosom of the Drum-Horse and found
flesh and blood. Then he beat the kettle-drums with his clenched
fist, and discovered that they were but made of silvered paper and
bamboo. Next, still swearing, he tried to drag the skeleton out of
the saddle, but found that it had been wired into the cantle. The
sight of the Colonel, with his arms round the skeleton's pelvis and
his knee in the old Drum-Horse's stomach, was striking. Not to say
amusing. He worried the thing off in a minute or two, and threw it
down on the ground, saying to the Band:--"Here, you curs, that's
what you're afraid of." The skeleton did not look pretty in the
twilight. The Band-Sergeant seemed to recognize it, for he began to
chuckle and choke. "Shall I take it away, sir?" said the Band-
Sergeant. "Yes," said the Colonel, "take it to Hell, and ride there
yourselves!"
The Band-Sergeant saluted, hoisted the skeleton across his saddle-
bow, and led off to the stables. Then the Colonel began to make
inquiries for the rest of the Regiment, and the language he used was
wonderful. He would disband the Regiment--he would court-martial
every soul in it--he would not command such a set of rabble, and so
on, and so on. As the men dropped in, his language grew wilder,
until at last it exceeded the utmost limits of free speech allowed
even to a Colonel of Horse.
Martyn took Hogan-Yale aside and suggested compulsory retirement
from the service as a necessity when all was discovered. Martyn was
the weaker man of the two, Hogan-Yale put up his eyebrows and
remarked, firstly, that he was the son of a Lord, and secondly, that
he was as innocent as the babe unborn of the theatrical resurrection
of the Drum-Horse.
"My instructions," said Yale, with a singularly sweet smile, "were
that the Drum-Horse should be sent back as impressively as possible.
I ask you, AM I responsible if a mule-headed friend sends him back
in such a manner as to disturb the peace of mind of a regiment of
Her Majesty's Cavalry?"
Martyn said:--"you are a great man and will in time become a
General; but I'd give my chance of a troop to be safe out of this
affair."
Providence saved Martyn and Hogan-Yale. The Second-in-Command led
the Colonel away to the little curtained alcove wherein the
subalterns of the white Hussars were accustomed to play poker of
nights; and there, after many oaths on the Colonel's part, they
talked together in low tones. I fancy that the Second-in-Command
must have represented the scare as the work of some trooper whom it
would be hopeless to detect; and I know that he dwelt upon the sin
and the shame of making a public laughingstock of the scare.
"They will call us," said the Second-in-Command, who had really a
fine imagination, "they will call us the 'Fly-by-Nights'; they will
call us the 'Ghost Hunters'; they will nickname us from one end of
the Army list to the other. All the explanations in the world won't
make outsiders understand that the officers were away when the panic
began. For the honor of the Regiment and for your own sake keep
this thing quiet."
The Colonel was so exhausted with anger that soothing him down was
not so difficult as might be imagined. He was made to see, gently
and by degrees, that it was obviously impossible to court-martial
the whole Regiment, and equally impossible to proceed against any
subaltern who, in his belief, had any concern in the hoax.
"But the beast's alive! He's never been shot at all!" shouted the
Colonel. "It's flat, flagrant disobedience! I've known a man broke
for less, d----d sight less. They're mocking me, I tell you, Mutman!
They're mocking me!"
Once more, the Second-in-Command set himself to sooth the Colonel,
and wrestled with him for half-an-hour. At the end of that time,
the Regimental Sergeant-Major reported himself. The situation was
rather novel tell to him; but he was not a man to be put out by
circumstances. He saluted and said: "Regiment all come back, Sir."
Then, to propitiate the Colonel:--"An' none of the horses any the
worse, Sir."
The Colonel only snorted and answered:--"You'd better tuck the men
into their cots, then, and see that they don't wake up and cry in
the night." The Sergeant withdrew.
His little stroke of humor pleased the Colonel, and, further, he
felt slightly ashamed of the language he had been using. The
Second-in-Command worried him again, and the two sat talking far
into the night.
Next day but one, there was a Commanding Officer's parade, and the
Colonel harangued the White Hussars vigorously. The pith of his
speech was that, since the Drum-Horse in his old age had proved
himself capable of cutting up the Whole Regiment, he should return
to his post of pride at the head of the band, BUT the Regiment were
a set of ruffians with bad consciences.
The White Hussars shouted, and threw everything movable about them
into the air, and when the parade was over, they cheered the Colonel
till they couldn't speak. No cheers were put up for Lieutenant
Hogan-Yale, who smiled very sweetly in the background.
Said the Second-in-Command to the Colonel, unofficially:--"These
little things ensure popularity, and do not the least affect
discipline."
"But I went back on my word," said the Colonel.
"Never mind," said the Second-in-Command. "The White Hussars will
follow you anywhere from to-day. Regiment's are just like women.
They will do anything for trinketry."
A week later, Hogan-Yale received an extraordinary letter from some
one who signed himself "Secretary Charity and Zeal, 3709, E. C.,"
and asked for "the return of our skeleton which we have reason to
believe is in your possession."
"Who the deuce is this lunatic who trades in bones?" said Hogan-
Yale.
"Beg your pardon, Sir," said the Band-Sergeant, "but the skeleton is
with me, an' I'll return it if you'll pay the carriage into the
Civil Lines. There's a coffin with it, Sir."
Hogan-Yale smiled and handed two rupees to the Band-Sergeant,
saying:--"Write the date on the skull, will you?"
If you doubt this story, and know where to go, you can see the date
on the skeleton. But don't mention the matter to the White Hussars.
I happen to know something about it, because I prepared the Drum-
Horse for his resurrection. He did not take kindly to the skeleton
at all.
-THE END-
Rudyard Kipling's short story: The Rout Of The White Hussars
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