I have, since the declaration of war, been working 15 to 18 hours a day. On the day of mobilization I was ordered to buy 131 horses for my Battery, which I did between mid-day on the Wednesday & 11 a.m. on the Sunday, very good horses too I bought, they are all standing in the lines beside me now as I sit writing on my forage wagon, all hogged and trimmed & looking like regular Battery’s horses. On the Sunday we had to harness up & hook in our new horses & march to our war station 17 miles away, all done up to time. I have all my hunters here and one of the carriage horses.
Not long afterwards Vernon, who was now eighteen, had also joined the Battery; he and Cupid were now together again, which was a relief to them both as they settled into their new disciplined lives. Cupid and Polly were from now on to be Vernon’s personal horses. The first few months of the war were spent at a place called Abberton, just south of Colchester, where both men and horses lived under canvas until the weather deteriorated and then, as the days shortened and the bitter east winds howled their way across the North Sea, farm buildings, cottages, and any other available roof space was requisitioned by the military. Many of these places are now lost beneath the deep waters of the reservoir built in the 1930s.
On the day of mobilisation, the men of this Territorial Brigade, who had been part time soldiers, training at weekends and going on summer camp each year, suddenly found themselves full-time soldiers. They had had to leave their civilian jobs and their wives, mothers and families. Many of them had been farm labourers or ploughmen, some had worked on the railway others as draymen or in factories, and adjusting to their new life was not easy. Fortunately many of these men had at one time worked with horses, and because horses were the mainstay of army life, man and beast had to know each other and work well together, and it wasn’t long before a strong bond was built up between them.
On 22nd December 1914, Vernon wrote
We are billeted in a small cottage and the horses are in two stables about ½ mile apart. It has rained almost every day since I have been here and so the place is rather muddy! But it is ripping to have all these horses and several of our own amongst them, we have a good mixture of horses and men. One splendid man, an ex sailor, awful rough chap who has annexed two horses to look after, both of them frightful kickers, but good workers. He always collects all the bread over from meals and gives it to his horses. Another man has 2 beautiful roans & almost sleeps with them. Nearly all the men are careful and fond of their horses now. One gets a nice variety to ride and I have had some great cross- country rides.
Like the men, the horses had come from all walks of life. Some, like Cupid and her companions, had been hunters. Others had been carriage horses, some had come straight from farms and others had pulled brewery drays or milk floats, and this new disciplined life was difficult for them. The carriage horses and dray horses were not used to pulling guns and ammunition wagons, and they had to work as a team. The military saddles didn’t fit properly and were uncomfortable, the harness used by the army was different and hard to get used to, and the schooling for all of them was monotonous and hard work. Keeping a Brigade of artillery mobile was in itself a full time job; there were farriers and blacksmiths, saddlers and harness makers, wheelwrights and carpenters, all of whom worked tirelessly day and night to keep everything in working order, for this was a Territorial Brigade, and unlike the regular army their equipment was old, second hand, out of date and not up to the hard work put upon it by active service. Most importantly, the Brigade relied on fit and healthy horses, because without them it could go nowhere.
During the last two months of 1914 the Brigade was deployed on the Essex coast; a German invasion was very much expected and many long, cold nights were spent on the foreshore of Mersea Island and other such places waiting for dawn to break, with orders to open fire on any German warships or submarines that might be seen, and that could be heralding the invasion. They would watch and wait in silence in the perishing cold, listening to the waves breaking, and in the early hours great skeins of geese would fly over, as well as thousands of duck heading for their morning feed. When daylight finally came, only British warships could be seen patrolling the grey waters and never a shot did they fire. The invasion never came, and the remainder of the winter of 1914/1915 was spent monotonously on or around the Essex coast.
Cupid's War - Martin Laurie
Comincia dall'inizio
