CHAPTER X 



Work at the Front 



IT is one thing seeing a horse or mule at the front — or shall I sa}/, just at 

 the back of the front ? — in the bloom of good health, and quite another 

 seeing him away down the Lines of Communication in the horse hospitals 

 after he has " cracked up " on actice service. The one is at his full strength, 

 and the horse lover must feel heartened as he sees him pulhng and hauling 

 and contentedly plodding along war's way while still retaining the grit and 

 stamina to do so. The other, which has begun to fail, is sick and sorry now. 

 The machinery which has kept him keyed up as a category " A " individual 

 runs down with a suddenness which is incredible when once he has started to 

 go the wrong way. He passes into sympathetic management and restful 

 quarters, and in due course we will follow his career during this phase of 

 temporary eclipse. For the present let us keep company with the war-horse 

 or mule which is doing his bit, for the health}' are as in the proportion of 

 9 to I to the sick. 



Not long ago I asked a highly-placed general officer whose business it 

 is to know all about our animals in the war what impressed him most about 

 the horses and mules at work in France, and he unhesitatingh^ replied : " Their 

 good condition." Well, you have to see to believe, and I can honestly say 

 that I did not see a single really unfit horse. A ver}^ few were probably 

 showing signs of the daily grind and might have been qualifying for a rest 

 and special feeding at the base hospitals or convalescent horse depots, but I 

 did not see a case of debility or exhaustion still being retained at the front. 

 And, of course, I saw many thousands of animals. 



Why this should be so is still something of a mystery to me. You will 

 pass divisions either coming out of the line for rest or others going up. The}^ 

 seemed to be miles long as the guns, limbers, and transport rumbled and 

 rattled over the pave or newly-metalled roads. Without an exception their 

 animals were wonderfully good, and sometimes I thought the mules were 

 better than the horses, and then I would incline to favour the horses rather 

 than the mules. I visited here and there, and quite unannounced, horse- 

 standings of some divisional ammunition column. Royal Field Artillery horses, 

 heavy battery horses, and so on. Some were within shelters just off the 

 roadside, others were among the ruins of a shell-blasted village. I looked 

 first for thin and debilitated horses like some of the wrecks I had made 



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