88 THE HORSE AND THE WAR 



at the beginning of winter is both a foUy and a cruelty, since it must deprive 

 them of the warmth provided by Nature. They do say that the losses of 

 the winter and spring 191 6- 17 were assisted by the clipping which was general, 

 and the laws of logic and nature would seem to confirm the theory. But it 

 is a point on which the expert and the veterinary specialists do not quite 

 agree, and therefore there has been something of a compromise during the 

 1917-18 winter with certainly vastly improved results. The point made by 

 the Veterinary Service, however, is quite intelligible. They say that the 

 growing of a long coat hides mange and other serious skin troubles until it 

 is too late, when eventually detected, to effect a speedy cure. Remount 

 officers and others say that total clipping must cause great wastage from 

 debility and death, and that it is better to clip, if at all, in the late autumn or 

 very early winter. 1 am sure the veterinary officers agree that it is unde- 

 sirable to deprive animals of their winter coats. It therefore becomes a 

 question of arriving at the lesser of two evils, and I am sure the compromise 

 of the fourth winter of war has been the right and sane one. 



The voices of the guns, which some miles back were but a murmur 

 borne on the light wind of this late winter's day, had hardened into menace 

 and hateful insistency as one drew nearer to what is so lightl}^ and yet so 

 significantly alluded to as " the line." At disjointed intervals the " heavies " 

 were sending their screaming messengers of death away into the haze of the 

 grey distance when one " quiet " day I looked in on some animals whose 

 quarters were actually closest to our line. Here 1 saw field artillery horses 

 in waiting ; further away were the horses of a heavy battery ; and then there 

 were the horses of a D.A.C. section to see. 



Here were examples of the horse shelters dotted all over the devastated 

 country, and I need scarcely add that they were within the range of Boche 

 gun fire. But they have what advantages of immunity can be derived from 

 camouflage, while the men tending them live in huts similarly guarded or in 

 dug-outs. Enemy visitations at night from the air are not unexpected ; 

 but when our men think of danger in that way they have also the comforting 

 knowledge that our brave boys in the air are " strafing " and doing as much 

 and more o' nights behind the enemy lines. 



And the war-horse and his ever constant associate, the mule, just go on 

 living their lives as unconcernedly as if the country were not scarred and 

 burned so that its appearance is ugly, sinister and repulsive. They cannot 

 discriminate between a village which is dust and ruin and a church which 

 was once a monument to civilization and Christianity and is now but a skeleton 

 of tottering walls standing in mute condemnation of human hate and savagery, 

 and a village and church which stand whole and beautiful in the pale sun 

 of this winter's day. Our dumb helpers may live in the ghastly ruins of 

 what was once a prosperous town, where the cries of little children at play 

 mingled with the peaceful work-o'-day lives of their elders. Death and 

 devastation made it a hell, the awful fires of which have not yet flickered out. 



So when you go out beyond and survey the duck-board tracks which lead 



