The Iron Stallions (4 page)

‘If it moves, salute it,’ the corporal advised. ‘If it doesn’t, paint it.’

The ‘Let’s-get-back-to-some-real-soldiering’ attitude that had become prevalent since the Armistice was not so strong in the 19th as in some regiments, but it was clearly there, much to the disgust of the old soldiers. Some had signed up for a ‘pontoon’ – twenty-one years. Some were the dregs of humanity and believed in what they called ‘a nap hand’ – syphilis, gonorrhoea and five red marks on their crime sheets. Their paradise was a brothel or a bar, and it didn’t take them long to notice Josh.

‘You a deserter from another lot?’ one of them asked.

‘No, I’m not.’

‘How’s it you know so bloody much about the army then?’

‘You’re not really an old soldier, are you?’ Orne asked as they sat in the canteen. ‘You’re always being asked.’

‘No, I’m not an old soldier,’ Josh reassured him. ‘It’s just that I’ve heard my father talk.
And
my grandfather. They were both soldiers.’

‘In this lot?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s perhaps why Morby-Smith thought he knew you.’

By this time, Josh was aware of other names he knew. In A Squadron there was a Lieutenant Lord Ellesmere and he guessed he was the son of his grandfather’s old chief of staff. There were also a Radliffe and a Johnson, both names he’d come across in his grandfather’s writings. And among the other ranks and NCOs there was a Trumpeter Sparks who Josh guessed was some relation to that Trumpeter Sparks who’d sounded the charge at Balaclava; a Threader, who was surely connected to the Sergeant Threader who had died of enteric in Bloemfontein; even a Corporal Ackroyd, who came from the northern hills of Yorkshire and must have been a distant relation of the family at Braxby. The only name that seemed to be missing was Goff.

The army didn’t appear to have changed much since his father’s day, but Josh was surprisingly happy. At night he lay in a torpor that sprang from hard work and fresh air. On pay-day he swaggered with Trooper Orne to the Olde Light Horseman, the nearest pub. From the old soldiers he learned to cut the stitches from the lining of his SD tunic to make a pocket big enough to hold a packet of Woodbines without a bulge, how to tuck matches in his puttees, and how to swear because it was considered cissy not to.

He was careful, however, to write regularly to his mother, informing her he was well and that before long he’d be coming to see her. He had also written to Reeves, and even to Lamps, the headmaster, apologising for pushing him into the bushes. Feeling he had left nothing undone, he settled back to enjoy himself. It wasn’t hard because everything seemed simple.

Like his father and his grandfather, he was lightly built, though taller than they had been, and he had a natural military posture. Drill came easily and he was often brought forward to show the others how to perform intricate manoeuvres. He even knew how to handle a rifle, was a good shot, and was neat and tidy both in himself and in his bed space. He had learned the tricks of kit inspection from Tyas Ackroyd in his butler’s pantry, and the corporal wasn’t slow to note that he didn’t need showing.

Sword drill was another thing he was good at because Tyas Ackroyd had taught him that with the fire-irons when he was supposed to be cleaning them and the Squadron Sergeant-Major Instructor of Fencing and Gymnastics also made a point of keeping an eye on him.

‘Dismounted drill
seldom
arouses enthusiasm in the breast of a cavalryman,’ he said in his stiff instructor’s voice, stressing what he considered the important words with a shout. ‘That’s because we in the
cavalry
harbour a contemptuous disregard for people who go to war on
foot
.’ A stickler for courtesies, he halted in mid-stream to salute an officer in the middle distance who, warned by a sixth sense that someone was acknowledging him, flicked his right hand in return, then continued as if refreshed. ‘The light elastic step of a
Clutcher
makes a Life Guard
blench
, a dragoon pale and a hussar
run for his useless life
.’ The SSMIF’s voice rose. ‘I know you’re out every
night
, fly buttons at the quick release, boasting of your
prowess
to the girls, but let me tell you, you’ve got a
lot
to learn. A cavalryman who don’t know his
sword drill
is in danger of cutting off his horse’s
ear
, and without ’em, you’ll never know what he’s about. Yet, if you’re over-zealous you’ll be in danger of losing your
stirrup
, becoming unhorsed and landing on your silly little
heads
.’

Taking his sword, the SSMIF began to demonstrate. ‘Each command is preceded by the name of the
Regiment
. Like this: 19th Lancers – or it could be just B Squadron, in your case – draw
swords!
’ Like a streak of blue lightning, the blade flashed from the scabbard. ‘This use of the regimental name,’ the SSMIF continued, ‘is to distinguish the
élite
from the hordes of inferior cavalry and, of course, the unmentionable
infantry
, and is an order given by the King-Emperor to his
best
cavalry regiment.’

Crouching in a semi-squatting position, feet apart, toes in line as if in stirrup irons, they held the position for what seemed like hours at a stretch, their muscles sore and cramped. Swords flashed right or left as they were trained to use both blade and hilt against enemies both mounted and dismounted, and blood-curdling yells were encouraged as they were drilled to receive cavalry right or left.

‘The
throat
is always the point of aim,’ the SSMIF insisted. ‘But I want none of your cissy
prodding
, like
tarts
with knitting needles. Think of a
hussar
and yell “You dirty rotten
bastard
!” Before he knows where he is, you’ll have your weapon through his windpipe and you’ll see a pale yellow
liquid
in the blood channels of your blade. That’s hussar
blood
which we all know is weaker than
canteen beer
. Now then, Loftus, let’s have you out here for a
demonstration
.’

‘Personally,’ Orne said later over a pint in the canteen, ‘I can’t see the bloody point of all this muckin’ about with a sword. Before you could have it outa its scabbard, the buggers’d have got you with a machine gun.’

Life continued to be good. There was no responsibility and no need to think, and already Josh had noticed that the girls in the town were beginning to eye him.

‘You thinking of taking one of ’em into the woods?’ Dodgin said. ‘To see the ’orse with the green tail?’

They all knew what that meant. The railings that ran round the barracks, Josh decided, were not to keep the soldiers from getting out, but to stop the girls from getting in. The scripture readers who handed out tracts and sold books of what were supposed to be soldiers’ prayers, advised them to renounce the devil and not mix with the women who had been the downfall of many good men.

‘What they think it was made for?’ Dodgin asked. ‘Stirrin’ canteen tea?’

As the time drew near when they were to meet their horses, the old soldiers were quick to warn of the horrors of riding school.

‘Paint yer arse with iodine, son,’ one of them warned Josh. because I seen some sore backsides in me time. I seen blood running down legs, half filling wellington boots and gushing off the sweat flaps of saddles.’

Josh drew a big grey with a rear end like a furniture van. It looked placid but Josh had long since learned that a horse could be dangerous at both ends and he soon discovered the grey was ill tempered and inclined to rear when he was mounting. Resenting the ministrations of curry comb and dandy brush, it could also kick the stars out of the sky when in the mood.

In the saddle they were regarded by the riding instructor as if they were deformed.

‘You look like the bloody Salvation Army mounted section,’ he observed. ‘I can read the
News of the World
between your weak knees and the saddle flaps because there’s not an ounce of grip left in you! If you confined your riding to horses and not dirty sex-mad girls you’d be better for it!’

Sometimes Josh was up before ‘Stables’ had sounded, making sure he got one of the few forks that existed for mucking out. At that time of day the air was thick with the stench of horse urine and, clutching armloads of soiled straw to his chest, he staggered outside to deposit it in the brick-surrounded dunghills.

‘Shit to the right of ’em,’ Dodgin sang.

‘Shit to the left of ’em,

Shit to the front of ’em,

Some bastard ’ad blundered.’

He was a cheerful man, known as ‘Uncle’ because he was older than the rest, but though he knew all the tricks of the trade with women, he deferred to Josh every time when it came to the army.

‘Why’d you join, kid?’ he asked.

‘Because I wanted to,’ Josh said. ‘Why did
you
join?’

Dodgin grinned. ‘Unemployed. Sick of bein’ cold and ’ungry and ’avin’ wet feet.’ He looked at Ed Orne whose name, shortened to Head-On, had eventually given rise to a more spectacular nickname. ‘Why’d you join, Crash?’

‘Much the same,’ Orne said.

‘’Ow about you, Pressy?’

Prescott shrugged. Though he had put weight on, even now he didn’t seem to have been properly absorbed and remained pale, uncertain and the butt of barrack room humour.

‘You’ll settle down,’ Dodgin encouraged.

‘That’s what my boss said when I started work,’ Ed Orne observed.

‘It’s also a habit of warders and zoo-keepers,’ Josh smiled. There was little time for private activities. Life consisted of parade, drills, and the never-ending care of saddles, and harness, which were inspected by everybody from the section NCO to the squadron leader, while the horses themselves took up endless time.

‘They’ll tell you it’s a waste of time grooming, wisping and making an ’orse’s coat shine like a shillin’ up a sweep’s arse,’ the rough-rider sergeant informed them. ‘But remember ’e’s
your
’orse. You bed ’im down nice on soft straw, fill ’is guts with good oats, linseed, bran mash and ’ay, and lead I’m to water and to piss–’

‘Then one day,’ Dodgin’s voice came from the next stall, ‘when you ain’t looking ’e’ll lash out with both ’inds and kick your bleedin’ brains out.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ the sergeant said. ‘’Orses never let you down. So just you be careful with that there dock sponge, Dodgin. Mof, nostrils an’ dock in that order.’ Is dock’s ’is arse so don’t go spongin’ that first. You wouldn’t like ’aving your mouf cleaned out with an ’orse-pissy sponge and no more does ’e.’

Though Josh remained happy, he hadn’t gone unnoticed.

‘Loftus,’ the sergeant informed Lieutenant Morby-Smith in an aside. ‘’E’s picked a lot up from somewhere. Watch ’im in riding school, sir. ’E handles ’is ’orse as if ’e was born on it. The others fall off and you can always read the paper between their backsides and the saddle, but not ’im. ’E’s part of the animal, sir. ’E’s been well taught. And if you chuck an order at ’em they’ve never ’eard afore, while most of them just mill around, or stop and look stupid, ’e knows exactly what to do.’

‘Give any trouble?’ Morby-Smith asked.

‘None at all, sir. A good influence, in fact.’

‘Let’s take advantage of it then,’ Morby-Smith suggested. ‘Let’s give him a skater.’

Josh’s single chevron was greeted with yells of delight from his room-mates.

‘Well done, Josh,’ Orne grinned. ‘But don’t get big-headed. Don’t forget you were in the ranks yourself once.’

The corporal’s attitude was different. ‘It’s
your
job now to get ’em up in the mornin’, he pointed out. ‘Get ’em outa bed. Wake ’em. Shout at ’em, bite ’em if you like, but get ’em on their feet.’

The sergeant was more encouraging. ‘Keep your nose clean, lad,’ he said, ‘and there’ll soon be another. I’ve been watchin’ you, and given time there’ll be three. You’ve got the makin’s of a good soldier. See you behave yourself.’

By this time, Josh had saved enough to add to what was left of the twenty-five pounds he’d won, to buy himself a second-hand suit of blues – high-necked tunic with chain-mail epaulettes, and skin-tight overalls to go over his wellington boots. When he walked out with Trooper Orne he felt like a God and never once thought of school.

‘Let’s celebrate your skater,’ Orne said. ‘And not with tea, neither.’

It was pay night and they could expect the old soldiers to return drunk enough to fight, be sick, urinate in the barrack block or be dragged unconscious to the guardroom, so it seemed a good idea to join them at least part of the way.

The canteen was rowdy, raucous and full of smoke, and an impromptu concert was developing. One of the old sweats called Bawtry got to his feet and began to sing a song he’d picked up in India.

‘Sixteen annas one rupee.

Damn and fuck the bobajee,

Sergeant-major, hollow-ground razor,

Queen Victoria bloody fine man–’

‘Learned it off a syce,’ he explained. ‘He had a book of English swear words he called
The Book of Most Wicket English, All Foul Words
. But the silly bastard didn’t understand any of ’em and once when a horse put its left fore on his bare toes he thumped it on the nose and called it “a fucking liar.”’

The cavalry songs started, and the new recruits, suffering the torments of riding school, started up to the tune of
My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean
.

‘I’ve been in the saddle for hours.

And stuck it as long as I could,

But now I can stick it no longer,

My poor arse is not made of wood.

Sergeant, oh, sergeant,

Give back my stirrups to me, to me–’

As the beer flowed, noise gave way to sentiment.
Tipperary, The Long Long Trail
and all the other songs which had carried the British army round France for four years, sung softly by men who wore ribbons, were followed by Tosti’s
Parted
and Tosselli’s
Serenade
. Inevitably these were followed by
Trumpeter
,
What Are You Sounding Now
? and a lance-corporal with long bowed cavalry legs and the visage of a poacher was pushed up on a stool to sing in a strangled tenor.