India -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, English
On the Monday following the burial, the Colonel sought revenge on the
White Hussars. Unfortunately, being at that time temporarily in Command of
the Station, he ordered a Brigade field-day. He said that he wished to
make the Regiment "sweat for their damned insolence," and he carried out
his notion thoroughly. That Monday was one of the hardest days in the
memory of the White Hussars. They were thrown against a skeleton-enemy,
and pushed forward, and withdrawn, and dismounted, and "scientifically
handled" in every possible fashion over dusty country, till they sweated
profusely. Their only amusement came late in the day when they fell upon
the battery of Horse Artillery and chased it for two miles. This was a
personal question, and most of the troopers had money on the event; the
Gunners saying openly that they had the legs of the White Hussars. They
were wrong. A march-past concluded the campaign, and when the Regiment got
back to their Lines, the men were coated with dirt from spur to
chin-strap.
The White Hussars have one great and peculiar privilege. They won it at
Fontenoy, I think.
Many Regiments possess special rights such as wearing collars with undress
uniform, or a bow of riband between the shoulders, or red and white roses
in their helmets on certain days of the year. Some rights are connected
with regimental saints, and some with regimental successes. All are valued
highly; but none so highly as the right of the White Hussars to have the
Band playing when their horses are being watered in the Lines. Only one
tune is played, and that tune never varies. I don't know its real name,
but the White Hussars call it, "Take me to London again." It sounds very
pretty. The Regiment would sooner be struck off the roster than forego
their distinction.
After the "dismiss" was sounded, the officers rode off home to prepare for
stables; and the men filed into the lines riding easy. That is to say,
they opened their tight buttons, shifted their helmets, and began to joke
or to swear as the humor took them; the more careful slipping off and
easing girths and curbs. A good trooper values his mount exactly as much
as he values himself, and believes, or should believe, that the two
together are irresistible where women or men, girls or guns, are
concerned.
Then the Orderly-Officer gave the order, "Water horses," and the Regiment
loafed off to the squadron-troughs which were in rear of the stables and
between these and the barracks. There were four huge troughs, one for each
squadron, arranged _en échelon_, so that the whole Regiment could water in
ten minutes if it liked. But it lingered for seventeen, as a rule, while
the Band played.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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