The Iron Stallions (8 page)

‘Drinks together,’ Josh said. ‘Then I suppose they hang feedbags on themselves and bed down for the night before going home tomorrow.’

‘Gets you,’ Reeves observed. ‘Never realised till now.’

It was true, Josh thought. The army was a funny institution. Composed of people who were not supposed to be given to emotion, it still brought you close to tears at times.

They ate at the Café Royal and because the weather was good they strolled in the park. As the two Reeves brothers paired off with their girl friends, Josh found himself with Ailsa, and because it was cold, she clung to his arm.

‘Not done in best cavalry circles,’ he observed. ‘Supposed to walk very straight, carry an umbrella, wear your bowler top-dead centre, avoid smoking in the streets and, above all, eschew strolling in Hyde Park with a pretty girl on your arm.’

Somehow – Josh decided later it was a put-up job – the Reeves brothers managed to lose them and he found himself with Ailsa on her own. Because it was sunny, he took her to Hampton Court and they ate a tea of cream cakes. In the evening, he suggested seeing her to her mother’s hotel before heading for the station to catch the train back to barracks.

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ she said. ‘I’ll see
you
to the station. Stations are places for goodbyes, not hotel foyers.’

On the platform, Ailsa stood very close to him. As the guard went along the train slamming doors, he touched Josh’s arm. ‘We’re going now, sir,’ he said.

‘Right.’ Josh looked down at Ailsa. She was gazing up at him in a way he’d never noticed before and, abruptly, he bent down and kissed her. She kissed him back eagerly, then stepped back, her eyes shining. ‘Don’t forget to write, Josh,’ she said.

As the train drew out, he saw her standing on the platform waving a handkerchief, small and forlorn, and he found himself wondering what he’d started.

Back at barracks he found the place in ferment. Rumour had it that the regiment was to amalgamate with the 23rd Lancers.

‘Good God,’ Reeves said. ‘They’re only a half-baked lot who were formed at the end of the last century! They don’t know one end of a horse from the other.’

‘19th/23rd Lancers,’ Josh murmured. ‘It sounds like a chemical formula.’

‘They wear blue,’ Ellesmere pointed out. ‘We wear green. What the devil will we wear now?’

‘Blue and green stripes, I expect,’ Reeves said.

‘What’s their motto?’

‘A star.’

‘What a bloody unimaginative lot! How about the title? Anybody know?’

‘First at everything. In Latin, of course.
Ubique primus
. Something like that.’

‘How the hell do you marry
Aut Primus Aut Nullus
with
Ubique Primus
?’

‘Since cavalrymen are supposed to be as good at love as they are at riding,’ Ellesmere said, ‘how about “Our arms are our defence”?’

‘My girl friend,’ Morby-Smith smiled, ‘would probably prefer “Our arms their recompense.’

‘How about a new one,’ Josh offered. ‘Love and ride away?’

‘If we’re going to be mechanised,’ Reeves said, ‘it ought to be “Screw and bolt.”’

Leduc’s saturnine face was smiling. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that we’d better stick to the conventional and make sure we keep
ours
. After all, the 23rd were only an East India Company Regiment. Bengal Light Cavalry, weren’t they? Came into the British Army in 1860.’

For the next three weeks, the Colonel, the adjutant and the squadron commanders seemed to have vanished without trace as they held urgent and acrimonious discussions with the colonel and senior officers of the 23rd as to what they were to wear and what their motto and title should be. The Colonel of the 19th proved to be either the tougher bargainer or the more seasoned campaigner, because he brought a few powerful names into the argument at War Office level and they ended up with the information that, though the 19th were to give up their green jackets for the blue of the 23rd, they were to retain the red plastron as it was common to both regiments, while overalls would remain the gold-striped green of the 19th.

‘Well, that’s something,’ Leduc observed. ‘We’ll still be able to borrow a pair from the Inniskillings if things go wrong.’

Compromise on the motto was to be achieved by placing the 19th’s clutching eagle on the background of a star, while the motto was to remain
Aut Primus Aut Nullus
. The 19th decided that if they had not won a major victory, at least they had come off best. But, as they settled back to enjoy their success, information arrived that the amalgamation had fallen through and instead they were to prepare themselves for mechanisation.

‘Can you imagine it?’ Josh said. ‘Cavalry barracks without a horse, the stables changed to garages, and instead of the smell of dung the stink of oil, petrol and exhausts.’

‘At least,’ Reeves pointed out, ‘we’ll have workshops and be able to get our cars repaired more cheaply. My brother says the RAF encourages officers to use workshop facilities for their cars so they’ll get to know more about engines in general. After all, there can be nothing worse than floating around at ten thousand feet and have the plugs oil up.’

The prospect of mechanisation produced vehement discussion.

‘How the hell can we go on calling ourselves lancers?’ one of the senior captains growled. ‘A lancer’s a horsed soldier armed with a lance. Sitting in a tank you’re nothing but a blasted mechanic.’

‘I think I’ll resign,’ another senior officer observed. ‘I got into a tank during the war and, having got out of it, have never experienced any desire to get in another. Dammit, tanks only go at a few miles an hour and they need petrol.’

Leduc joined in quietly. ‘And horses require fodder,’ he pointed out. ‘In 1917, the amount of fodder we needed stopped the army dead. Because we don’t understand it, we’re throwing away an opportunity. They discovered long since that by fitting an aeroplane engine they could get a Mark V tank up to twenty miles an hour. Let them do that and we’re back in business. In our present form, we’re an anachronism retained purely for traditional or sentimental reasons. And personally, having tried both, I’d far rather face machine guns surrounded by armour plate than sitting in a saddle like a tit on a mountain.’

It stopped the argument dead.

The great Fuller appeared, to make clear what was intended, or at least what
he
thought was intended.

‘Let’s face it,’ he said, ‘the Aldershot tattoo, though a fine spectacle, has nothing to do with soldiering and the only reason for it is the army’s love of fuss and feathers. We
need
tanks, but everybody’s scared stiff that one day we shall have a grubby tank man commanding a division. Should we disperse them throughout the whole of the army? Should they go at their own speed or should they go at a speed which the infantry feels they ought to go at? – the speed of a heavily-loaded soldier on foot, because if they don’t they’ll out-distance a marching man. And, anyway, how would they be supplied?’ He paused. ‘Why not put the infantry in tanks? Why not put artillery in tanks? Why not put supplies in tanks? And before anybody asks the usual question about how is it going to be afforded, let me point out that mass production’s arrived.’

It seemed to make sense and Josh found that more and more he was beginning to accept the idea of mechanisation, and even beginning to look forward to the arrival of the first powered vehicle in front of the stables, which was where they’d have to put it because there was nowhere else.

‘I’m glad to see you’re showing sense, my lad,’ Leduc said quietly. ‘Because we’re going to need tactics in the next war, not cenotaphics. We need a little more thought to keep our soldiers alive and a little less to mourning those who’re dead.’ It seemed a shocking sentiment, so soon after Armistice Day, but Leduc was unrepentant. ‘There’s too much emotion,’ he insisted. ‘And most of it’s civilian emotion. Civilians could never understand how a soldier could strip the boots off a dead man and put them on his own feet. But a soldier with bare feet never saw much wrong in it. It’s an attitude we’re going to need. In 1914, it was the French who wanted revenge for 1870, now it’s the Germans who want revenge for 1918.’

It gave Josh a lot to think about. There was still no sign of vehicles, however, and they were still dependent on the horse-drawn cart for supplies, and always there was the mind-numbing business of documentation, the filling in of forms to satisfy the War Office. Life became a round of office routine, stables, and leave. Because they hadn’t yet received vehicles, they still had to train recruits to ride. They were even still occupied with the business of breeding and choosing horses – all of which would probably end up pulling milk carts – the cost of saddlery they weren’t going to need, the fit of a rifle bucket, the quality of a picketing rope. While all the time, the Government, influenced by the depression that had the whole world by the throat, seemed to think only of cutting. Establishments were closed down, officers were retired early, regiments diminished in size, despite the fact that there were thousands of unemployed who would have been more than willing to exchange the dole queues for a uniform and three good meals a day.

Josh’s attachment to Ailsa Reeves seemed to have become permanent. He often wondered if he were wise to allow himself to he swept along, but she was determined and he found he hadn’t the heart to repulse her. There was no engagement – there couldn’t be until Josh reached the rank of major, and, with promotion as it was, that seemed aeons away. The only alternative seemed to be to await the magic age of thirty, when the authorities were inclined to look more kindly on marriage. Somehow, though, it rang no bells for Josh. He was fond of Ailsa but he often wondered if he could live with her for the rest of his life? Did he, in fact, know what love was? Or was he actually in love with her and unaware of it?

The marriage of his cousin, Elena von Hartmann, to a German industrialist set him thinking again. Because his grandmother considered herself too old to make the long journey across Europe, the family went without her and found the Hartmanns torn with dissension. Elena’s sister, Carlota, was barely on speaking terms with her, because she said her husband-to-be was supporting the National Socialists. Her younger brother, Karl-August, however, quite clearly supported Elena, while Konstantin seemed completely baffled.

He was less concerned with the dislike or otherwise for Elena’s fiancé than with the condition of his country. Because of the state of the deutschmark, it was impossible to do business and barter had replaced ordinary monetary payments. There were food riots and despair and for many fortunes and savings accumulated during a lifetime had vanished in a night.

‘And because my grandfather placed most of our funds in Switzerland,’ Konstantin said, ‘we’re being accused by the National Socialists of being unpatriotic.’

‘That’s rubbish,’ Josh exploded. ‘Hitler’s nothing but a demagogue.’

‘He’s head of a growing party,’ Konstantin pointed out. ‘And he’s pledged to put Germany back on her feet.’

By contrast, England appeared remarkably stable. There were well over a million unemployed and trade seemed to have come to a standstill, while the general strike, which had paralysed the country, had done no good for anybody. The 19th had been moved to Ripon, which was close to Josh’s home but was also in the middle of the depressed areas of the North, and squads had to be sent out to guard against sabotage. Reeves Minor, now fully qualified as a pilot, had been occupied in flying the government newspaper – the only one printed – about the country, while his brother, Toby Reeves of the 19th, on leave, in mufti, and his own master, had learned to drive an engine for a lark and had arrived in London with the remains of a set of crossing gates hanging on the front buffers. After the seething dissension of Germany, however, even the unemployed seemed well behaved and played football with the police who were on hand in case of trouble.

While Josh was on leave, his Uncle Robert appeared, immaculately dressed in a careless country way. He tried hard to live up to his title but it was really nothing but a sham. In exchange for contributions to his election campaign fund, Lloyd George had distributed titles to undischarged bankrupts, and a variety of newspaper proprietors and editors who had backed him. There had been so many Welsh honours, Cardiff had been named the City of Dreadful Knights, and the OBE had been handed out to so many shady characters it had become known as the Order of the Bad Egg. Though Robert had never been involved with the law, there had been a few near misses and Josh was always a little wary of him.

‘Like a word with you, my boy,’ he announced as he arrived. ‘Business.’

‘Better sit down, Uncle,’ Josh said. ‘How about a drink?’

‘Scotch,’ Robert said. ‘Make it a good sized one, too.’

Over the decanter, Josh eyed his uncle. Robert had grown fat. He had never been as good-looking as Josh’s father and now even the few good features he possessed had disappeared in the folds of flesh surrounding his face.

‘How’re you getting on in the Regiment?’ he asked as Josh handed him his glass.

‘No complaints.’

Robert shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose we’ve got to have an army, and if we’ve got to have an army we’ve got to have someone to run it. You don’t seem to be advancing very fast, though. How do you manage? They don’t pay you much, I know. This country always believed in having its soldiers on the cheap.’

For a moment, Josh wondered if his Uncle Robert were doing some research for a project to increase soldiers’ pay. Now that he sat in the House of Lords, he liked, Josh knew, to be seen to be doing his job. He was involved with a few minor charities which didn’t stop him running the Cosgro combine, but perhaps he was growing ambitious. Perhaps he was after a viscountcy and hoped he’d get it by doing something for the army; after all, he still called himself Colonel Lord Gough on Armistice Day, because he’d managed to scrape up to that rank in the Yeomanry before resigning when there’d been a danger of being sent to France.

Robert’s next words put him right. ‘Thought I might be able to help you,’ he said. ‘Financially. I’ve got a proposition to put to you.’