THE YPRES TIMES
82
IN March, 1914, the White Nile was lower than it had been for many years.
All steamers running northwards were consequently late, and a subaltern,
who had been spending his leave big game shooting, was constrained to cable from
Khartoum to the Commandant of the Cavalry School, that an act of God prevented
him from reaching Netheravon by the 1st April.
There was little thought in his head that the King's Enemies would send him on his
travels again within six months.
Hectic days at the Cavalry Schoolthree or four horses to ride a day, either to school
or be schooled onoccasional dashes to catch the 1.40 at Salisbury to play polo in London
and back again for 6 a.m. parade the following day.
Then rumours of war, impatience with the Government and bets on the chances
and orders to mobilise. Would anyone there kill a German with his own hand
One Instructor was prepared to bet even money with every student there against it,
perhaps to encourage the cavalry spirit
Mobilisation was simple but strenuous. It took every hour of daylight and every hour
was a full one.
Horses arrived to make the Regiment up to war strength often ill shod and coats
of hair of at least two inches thick.
All draught horses had to be fitted into new harness from mobilisation store and tried
out in teams to see if they would go kindly together. Reservists had to be clothed and
equipped and got fit.
Yet they disembarked at Havre on the 17th August, and only one horse in the Brigade
fell out of its slings into the sea and that was fished out again.
Rest Camp at Havre meant a few hours before the train was ready, and time for a
bathe in the sea.
A dozen French interpreters joined up in the quaintest variety of uniform including
one volunteer without any uniform at all.
Inhabitants were enthusiastic with gifts of flowers and fruits and the Dragoons were
en fete and happy.
No time for more than a glad eye en passant or a kiss blown from the saddle. That
they could not talk French worried them not at all.
A great joke was the dyeing of all the grey horses with permanganate of potash
in a night all became liver chestnutsand the next day Entrapment always to the
unknown destination which proved to be Aulnoye, near Beauforta first experience
of billets.
Addresses of welcome from the Mayor and more flowers.
On this day the first instance on record of the mechanisation of cavalry occurred
in the form of a motor cycle smuggled out with the motor transport and delivered at
Beaufort. The owner whose first servant rode it throughout the retreat, saw little of
either, but his Commanding Officer had many reasons to bless the irregularity that brought
him so swift a despatch rider. (The cycle was blown up by a shell at Braisne on the Aisne
and the D.R. killed in 1917 at Monchy, near Arras.)
On 21st August they advanced South of Maubeuge, crossed the Belgian frontier at
Erquelinnes to take up an outpost line at Binche, the Brigade covering about ten
kilometres of front. For miles to the north every building seemed to be on fire.
At about 10 a.m. of the 22nd, the first real live enemy were seen. An officer's patrol
towards Nivelles saw large numbers of cavalry on that road, another to Haine St. Paul,
near La Louviere, had a scrap, and then two mounted men rode down to the crossing
of the river Senne into the small village of Peronnes.
