THE FINISHED ARTICLE 



39 



France. He takes his place in the gun team with a duck-like partiality for 

 water, and every day that passes he thickens and muscles-up in a way 

 that gratifies the representatives of the Remount Service. This rapidity of 

 acclimatisation and fluent adaptability to entirely new conditions as regards 

 stabling, and his stout resistance to all ills of the flesh, excepting, perhaps, 

 certain skin troubles more or less indigenous to the land of his origin, are 

 features of his apprenticeship to the making of war. No doubt the ideal 

 thing w^ould be to give him plenty of time in which to acclimatise, for the 

 reason that his improvement is probably more apparent than real ; but in 

 war-time ideals must be scrapped or adjusted and shaped by circumstances. 

 That is why the Yankee hght draught is passed out of his novitiate in this 

 country and is ready in an incredibly short time to resume his interrupted 

 journey to France. 



Here I am reminded again of the colour question. He is, as already noted, 

 chiefly grey, steel grey or black, sometimes bay, and infrequently chestnut. 

 Shattered is the notion that greys are not desirable for modern war because 

 they are too conspicuous. This is the era of camouflage, with its devices and 

 weird tricks to deceive. Colour does not possess that importance which 

 attached to it before the advent of the camouflage officer. 



To see him as one of a team of gun horses is to enjoy a delightful spectacle. 

 He is active, willing, under instant command, and he is imposing. Ask any 

 officer of Field Artillery and, where the lighter kind of horses with galloping 

 conformation are concerned, any officer of Horse x\rtillery ; they will, I am 

 sure, give him an excellent " chit." Ask them which type of horse has best 

 withstood the rigours and exhausting exposure of active service in Flanders, 

 and they will unhesitatingly declare in favour of our friend from America. 

 The heavy horse of this country has succumbed while the half-bred Percherons 

 have still been resisting mud, wind, rain, gruelling hard work and pneumonia. 

 And the extraordinary thing is that in the fifth year of war America can still 

 supply them and that the quahty is as good as ever. Certainly it is just as 

 well that this should be so, since it is quite certain that no European country 

 could have maintained its armies for a three years' war except by purchase 

 abroad. The mystery is how America came to have so many horses available, 

 and how they were broken and utilized over there. 



Apart from questions of conformation, weight and temperament, the 

 real test of the war-horse must be one of endurance, of the capacity to resist 

 exposure and hardship, to survive longest the trying conditions imposed by 

 picketing on mud and in the open behind the fighting lines. It is the crucial 

 test, and the horse which has answered it best is the American light draught. 

 There is nothing in extenuation to be said for other draught horses after that. 

 The " Yank " has beaten them all. It is reasonable to infer from this that 

 while the transition of the stable-kept English horse to the mud and exposure 

 of France is a doubtful one, the same thing, where the American is con- 

 cerned, is made possible by reason of the conditions under which the latter 

 has been bred and reared on the " runs " of the United States and Canada. 



Every horse bought for the Army must of necessity be introduced straight- 

 away to some degree of exposure as compared with his pre-military career. 



