CHAPTER V 



The Gallant Mule 



MULES are a fascinating subject, whether dealt with on paper by the man 

 with a pen or by the artist with a brush. Most men who wield neither 

 a pen nor a brush would desire no other acquaintance since they have no under- 

 standing of the fascination. Perhaps I should not say " most men." Most 

 men are in the Army, and what gentleman in khaki has not some slight nodding^ 

 acquaintance with his mule confrere in the Army ? They are both battling in 

 the same cause, both living on Army rations, and both, no doubt, longing for 

 victory and the end of war. Many men, therefore, do not despise the mule- 

 only the few who do not know him and do not want to know him. The diffi' 

 culty, from a writer's point of view, is to know exactly how to treat him. 

 Seriously or lightly ? As a beast of burden and haulage which has assisted 

 enormously the Allies' waging of war and will continue to do so until the closing 

 of the book ? Or as an animal with more eccentricities of character and 

 undeniable virtues than any other creature on God's earth — as, in fact, just a 

 mule ? Where to begin and where to end ? It seems to me that one is forced 

 into a compromise, and that a middle course is the only one to take ; for if you 

 must dilate on his extraordinary utihty you must of necessity take into the 

 reckoning his oddities and dehneate those donkey characteristics that defy 

 temper and patience and more often than not transform your serious attitude 

 to mirthful mocking and weird despair. How can you treat consistently a 

 conglomerate mixture of stoHdity, stubbornness, slyness, willingness, temper, 

 sullenness, humour, contentment, waywardness and cunning with no knowledge- 

 of which vice or virtue is going to assert itself next ? 



It is no use wondering how many tens of thousands of mules have been 

 brought to Europe from North and South America, chiefly the North, since 

 August of '14, all conscripted in the Allies' cause. The figures must be an 

 after- the- war revelation, but I know many of us would like to possess, say, war 

 bonds for as many as we have seen and handled. And we are still ahve to tell a 

 tale of admiration ! Perhaps if I say a quarter of a million I shall not be very 

 wide of the mark. If the real horse of the war has been the light draught from 

 America, the mule has been, and is, just as essential in his own peculiar way. 

 Often and often he has done what the horse has failed to do. He has survived 

 and outlasted him, and, maybe, has shown his perversity by apparent enjoy- 



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