24 THE HORSE AND THE WAR 



with ammonia gases. The horses are obviously used to what they have 

 helped to create, and their keenness and alertness show that they have suffered 

 no more than temporary inconvenience. They seem to know that something 

 unusual is going to happen. There is no motion on the ship ; the engines 

 have ceased to throb, and the movements of the animals in their narrow 

 stalls or pens seem more insistent. They know as well as we know that they 

 are going to emerge from their imprisonment into the sweet, fresh air and the 

 blinding light of day. The horses know'. The mules are distrustful, because 

 it is their one thought and principle in life to be suspicious and apprehensive. 

 They fear more trouble. 



So, out of the unsalubrious, gas-laden air and the forbidding gloom of 

 the decks below stairs the first of the horses come quietly and with marked 

 docility down the sloping " brows," or gangways, on to a foreign soil. They 

 blink in the sunshine, shake their heads and neglected manes, and quietly 

 submit to the first requirements of their new military existence. Some are 

 sullen and soberly matter-of-fact, seemingly devoid of all excitement and 

 emotions of any kind ; some are nervous and distraught, wild-eyed, and 

 betraying fear as if they cannot understand the violent upheavals that have 

 occurred in their usually uneventful existences. These latter snort like the 

 ancient war-horses were supposed to snort and breathe fire on the threshold 

 of battle. The war-horse of the twentieth century, if he be not placid and 

 unmoved, is at least mildly demonstrative when first " joining up " in England. 

 Perhaps he is too " used-up," too weary of the sea, to protest too much ; and 

 perhaps, also, what we took to be a snort of annoyance and a dilated eye of 

 apprehension were really nothing more than normal excitement that one 

 unpleasant phase was over and that something unknown was being entered 

 upon. 



But the calm and placid new-comer is in an overwhelming majority. He 

 carries himself bravely in spite of a soiled and unkempt appearance that 

 suggests anything but the idea of bravery and the chivalry of battle. Shall 

 we who saw and handled him then ever forget the impressions made by his 

 coming ? He came in several sizes and weights — the narrow, lightish-boned 

 rider ; the heavy " light draught," which is not as heavy and imposing as the 

 heavy agricultural horses of the United Kingdom ; and the light draught 

 with bone, size and activity for the Field Artillery and quick-moving horse 

 transport. This latter is the war-horse that has made history, and probably 

 there were twenty of him to one of any other kind. He would not have 

 impressed you then as he moved softly and quietly off the " brow." You 

 would, perhaps, have laughed at anything less beautiful and inspiring, and 

 you might have wondered at the boldness and seeming incompetence of our 

 buyers on the other side. He was shoeless, long-haired, tousled-maned, 

 ragged-hipped, and he almost dragged his tail on the ground, so long and full 

 and caked with dirt was it. His neck had gone light and mean, his backbone 

 stuck up like a knifeboard, and his ribs were pushing through his neglected 

 hide. 



Such was our war-horse in the rough, a true and faithful representation 

 of the raw material rendered thus unpresentable by the flesh-weariness of 



