212 THE YPRES TIMES other horses not unnaturally had been disturbed by these attentions, but Daisy, without appearing to look at the dog or changing her stride, neatly and cleanly kicked him under the chin and continued on the even tenor of her way. When the dog had recovered from his back-somersault he wisely decided that the game was not worth playing. The campaign in Palestine was very arduous and strenuous for the horses, but Daisy was always fit and did all that was asked of her, and was the real friend that only such a horse can be. My last ride on her was from half-way between Jerusalem and the Jordan to Jaffa returning home to England, and as I said good-bye to her I wondered if I should ever see her again. During my absence, the battery was transferred to France, leaving the horses behind. I hope she went to someone who appreciated her qualities not showy, but very sound. C. F. M. Jerry. As the War struggled on to its last stage our teams declined to a level so low that it became an almost insoluble problem to keep the whole Battery mobile. Teams con sisting of four animals were all that could be provided and, except in the case of the gun-teams, these were composed of anything at all that could be called horses or mules. One of the animals provided by Remounts out of the dregs of their stock was Jerry. Originally he had probably been a pony in a country butcher's cart. He was a nondescript bay of about 14 hands without weight or substance, poorly muscled and altogether rather a vulgar little galloway." One of the six sergeants had a mount with pretensions to value as a team-horse, and he unwillingly took Jerry in exchange for it, surprisingly reporting that he couldn't want a handier saddle-horse. Later, as various horses and mules on the march showed signs of imminent collapse from exhaustion, Jerry often took the place of the weakest team-horse in the column and proved himself a useful worker in an emergency. Eleven a.m. on November 11th, found us in a village called Ostiches in Belgium. We halted outside a brewery and billeted horses and men in a farm belonging to M. Dubrule, the brewer's brother. After a few days the kind and hospitable brewer came to ask if I could lend him a horse to pull his two-wheeled trap in search of yeast for the brewery. I inspected the trap and the harness. The collar was a narrow wooden affair with a long pointed top, the kind commonly used by country people in the North of France. None of our animals, so far as I knew, had ever worn any kind of collar except a breast-collar. I told M. Dubrule that I doubted if any of our horses could be induced to put his head through a contraption of that kind, although we were perfectly willing to try. I went myself for Jerry, the most likely animal I could think of. I led him up to the strange vehicle, took up the fantastic collar, and showed it him, expecting a decided and possibly violent protest. But Jerry's vérsatility was equal to the occasion. He greeted his new job by holding out his head sideways so that I could slip the collar over it more easily, and then trotted off through the village as though he had never done anything else in all his life. It was just a delightful instance of the willingness of every member of a fine Battery to do anything whatever that was needed of him, a willing spirit that ran through the whole unit like a glowing stripe in a piece of cloth. That stripe was of pure gold. A. D. T. N.B.The illustrations of this Article have been reproduced by the kindness of William Potter, Publisher, of Amateur Gunners."

HISTORISCHE KRANTEN

The Ypres Times (1921-1936) | 1935 | | pagina 22