| Known as “The Bull”—Physique of a policeman—Cavalryman that took risks—Reforming a rabble—Making the staff step on it—Loneliness of a great commander—Attention to details wins battles. |
A squadron of New South Wales Lancers, part of the army of Lord Roberts, were camped outside Bloemfontein with the rest of French’s cavalry, waiting for the army to move. Cavalry are the curled darlings of the army. But for once in a way their luck was out, and they had been allotted camp within measurable and smellable distance of ground that had been used as a graveyard for mules. Every day the ambulances came out and took away enteric cases. Day after day the rain poured down till the horses stood shivering, hunched up on their lines, and the men huddled in their tents, grumbling incessantly. They stopped their grumbling only to raise a derisive cheer when the O.C. of their next-door squadron, the Australian Horse, had a dinner-bell rung for his mess at meal-times. Somehow, a dinner-bell seemed to be the last straw.
“Don’t those cows over there carry watches,” said one trooper. “Fancy ringin’ a dinner-bell! A man’d think they were runnin’ a bloody restaurant.”
The officers’ mess of the Lancers boasted no dinner-bell but every mess orderly was a carefully selected tee-totaller: and when in the depths of the depression a rum issue was announced, the officers drew their servants’ rum in addition to their own and settled down to make a night of it. They needed cheering up, too, for things were going badly with them. Their major had gone sick, discipline was slack, and an English officer—a young major named Allenby—had been given command of the squadron. The word was passed from one to another. Had anybody seen this Allenby? What was he like? Was it true that he had a prince with him as lieutenant? How do you speak to a prince when he wanted to camp his men on the best ground and to crowd you into a creek? Was it true that they were bringing a troop of Inniskillings to reinforce the Lancer squadron? Would the Inniskillings be decent chaps or would they be just a mass of flashness?
Midnight in the camp. The only sounds were the occasional rattle of a head collar from the horse-lines; the squelch, squelch of the picket’s feet as he foot-slogged backwards and forwards through the mud, and from the officers’ tent a sound of harsh male voices all singing different songs and singing them at the same time. Rum flowed like water. During a lull in the singing a voice made itself clear in the silence.
“The nex’ war,” it said, “I’ll march down to the wharf with the troops and I’ll sing ‘Sons of the Sea’ and ‘The Boys of the Old Brigade’ and then I’ll turn round and (hic) march right straight home again. Gosh, ain’t them mules high to-night! Anyhow, let’s drink the health of this Allenby. He mightn’t be such it bad sort.”
The cheering that followed the toast had hardly died away when a precise clear-cut English voice was heard from the darkness outside the tent.
“Is Captain C——there?” it asked. “Is Captain C——there?”
It was Allenby. He had just arrived.
The revellers were appalled. Visions of being sent home—which, after all, was the last thing that they wanted—struck cold chills down their spines. Those that were able to move under their own power slid out through the back door of the tent.
Somebody had to do something, and to do it quickly. The occasion always produces the man. And as I was a civilian and had met Major Allenby I appointed myself the Curtius who was to jump into the gulf. As I stepped out of the tent a trembling sentry held a lantern to my face and the great man recognized me.
“Oh, it’s you Paterson. What’s all this about?”
Not being able to think of anything better to say, I smiled a sickly smile and said:
“We were just drinking your health, sir. We hope you didn’t mind.”
“I heard you. But that’s no excuse for keeping the whole camp awake. You tell them to be in bed with all lights out, in five minutes, or I’ll have to do something about it.” Then he turned on his heel and the darkness swallowed him up.
All was quiet on the Bloemfontein front.
Daylight revealed him as a sinewy well-set-up man, at least six feet high, and broad and strong as a London policeman. In facial contour he bore a distinct resemblance to Kitchener, but he smiled often and his expression was free from the secret sorrow that always seemed to harry Kitchener’s soul. He set about the reorganization of the squadron with the enthusiasm of a scientist experimenting with a new sort of beetle. He neither bounced nor bullied anybody but explained things as carefully as a school-teacher dealing with a lot of children. He got hold of the blacksmiths, and told them that he would give them a certain time to get all the horses properly shod and that then he would come round to see that they had done it. He stirred up the cooks, and if he found any dirty utensils on an inspection, the man responsible was “for it.” He made the young officers take a pride in their troops; if a man was slovenly dressed, or a horse not properly cleaned, trouble always followed.
Soldiering is a trade and Allenby had learnt it. The work was just a routine to him, and he betrayed no more worry or irritability than a mechanic repairing a motor car. Of course the men growled at his strictness just as MacLaurin’s men growled at his insistence on saluting the troopships; but before long the new major began to get things into shape. He had the camp moved away from the mule cemetery; and owing to his position in the army as officer of a crack cavalry regiment the squadron were able to get rather more than their share of whatever extra issues were going, such as tinned fruit, tobacco, cigarettes, socks, or rum. The men began to carry themselves with a swagger, for were they not under command of an Inniskilling officer.
And then there was the Prince of Teck!
“I used to go down town,” said one man, “and if I wanted to have a drink I had to drink with the flies. Now I start to talk about our new officer, the Prince of Teck, and everybody wants to shout for me.”
The next thing was that one morning a lot of the men appeared with the letters A.O.V. written large with indelible pencil on the front of their hats. These letters, they explained, stood for “Allenby’s Own Volunteers.” Allenby had them into the orderly room and fined each man for wilfully damaging a hat the property of Her Majesty.
“If they’re going to start writing criticisms of their officers on their hats,” he said, “they’ll be running a popularity competition—all blanks and no prizes—before we know where we are.”
Alexander of Teck though he was a royalty was also a keen professional soldier, and had learnt the routine of his job. He ran his hand up the horses’ backs to see if they were cleaned, ate the men’s food at meal-time inspection, and took his turn out on patrol like everybody else. He thoroughly enjoyed the sensation of being able to use any language he chose and to conduct himself like a human being—instead of having to weigh every word and study every gesture. A fine upstanding young fellow he could have gone on to the stage in the chorus of a comic opera and knocked the gallery girls for a row of tin-cans.
This same Lieutenant Teck afterwards visited Australia and had a reunion with some of his old comrades of the Lancer squadron. But in Australia he was on parade all the time—the royalty who had to say how nice everything was and how charming were the place and the people. Everything he said would be repeated; everything he did would be chronicled in the Press. He must have sighed for the old service days when he could let himself go a bit.
All this is by way of leading up to Allenby’s development into a Field-Marshal in the Great War. No doubt the thoroughness that he displayed in reorganizing a volunteer squadron of Lancers was the foundation of his thoroughness in organizing his attack on the Turks. But before moving on to Allenby in excelsis, the dictum of a colonel of infantry on military leadership is worth consideration.
“These cavalry chaps,” he said, “they have mostly got money and all of them have influence. If they make a mistake they get another job, so they can afford to take risks. But a P.B.I (poor b—— infantry) general has seldom any money; and if he makes a mistake there are scores of men waiting to jump on him and to get his job. That’s why a cavalryman makes the best general for the big jobs. He’ll have a go at anything while an infantryman has to play safe all the time. You watch this Allenby. He’s only a major now and I’m a colonel, but if the cards run his way he’ll be a Field-Marshal when I’m retired and trying to scrape up enough money to pay my insurance premiums. I’m too poor to take risks. If a cavalryman falls overboard they throw him a life-belt, but if one of us falls overboard they throw him a grindstone.”
And now, having introduced Allenby, let us get on to the big show in Palestine.
Cairo, Egypt 1917—Once again I find myself sitting in a tent in the desert waiting for Allenby to reorganize things. It recalls the old days in South Africa where he had to reorganize a Lancer squadron. Now he has to reorganize an army.
It is strange to look back on those South African days with French handling a small cavalry command in an obscure side street of the war; Haig plodding conscientiously through the duties of brigade major; Allenby knocking a rough Australian squadron into shape and wondering when, if ever he would get the command of his regiment. Had any of them any idea that he would one day carry a Field-Marshal’s baton?
Plenty of reorganization was needed on the Palestine front, as will be seen by the following few incidents. Things were at a standstill and an army never stands still. It either goes forward or backward. Generals out of a job to the number of ninety or so had accumulated in Shepheard’s Hotel where they either just existed beautifully or they made themselves busy about such jobs as reporting upon the waste of jam tins. Others became town commandants, or examiners of an army diet. So many were they that there was little room for junior officers in the hotel and no room at all for noncoms or the rank and file. These latter riff-raff were forbidden to enter the hotel, even to buy a drink or to meet a friend, lest they should come between the wind and the nobility of the staff officers. This created a very unpleasant feeling and the troops rioted outside Shepheard’s by way of voicing their protest. The trouble came at dinner-time in the evening. A hurried call was sent in, that all officers should leave the dining-room and go out and help by their prestige to quell the riot.
Two Australian officers had just bought a motor-car for their private use and were having a good dinner with a view to, later on driving their new acquisition out to the pyramids with some female youth and beauty on board. Belonging to a non-combatant unit, they easily persuaded themselves that they were not called upon to go out and quell riots; so they sat tight and wound up a satisfactory dinner with some excellent cognac. Then, the riot having subsided, they went out and found that out of three hundred motor-cars the troops had burnt just one—and that was their new car!
Some general or other must have been put on as O.C. of dress and deportment, for one day a full-page order came out that officers were on no account to wear socks that did not match the rest of their clothing. Hardly had this ukase made its appearance when two officers went into Shepheard’s Hotel one evening after dinner and made all present—generals included—hold up their feet to show their socks. They said that they were commissioned to see that the new order was being observed. Not a man dared keep his foot down, and the jokers got away with it.
G.H.Q. indignantly repudiated them, but no officer dared complain that he had been so pricelessly spoofed.
So great was the number of generals in charge of nothing in particular that the supply of motor-cars (fit for generals) reached its limit and an order was issued that all privately owned motor-cars (fit for generals) should be handed in at once. An Australian officer, Lieutenant O—— had brought over a very expensive car for the use of his wife who was staying in Egypt. Some lynx-eyed commandant must have spotted this car. Perhaps it was the cause of the order. At any rate, it was seized by the authorities on the same day that the order came out, and was placed in an army garage.
What to do? O——’s wife was not of the type that turns the other cheek to the smiter and she insisted that her husband must do something and do it quickly. Recourse was had to an English colonel of supply who had graduated with honours in the art of improving on any orders that did not happen to suit him.
“These G.H.Q. people here,” he said, “have as many fads as a centipede has legs. Are you game to go into the garage and take your car?”
Being prepared to do anything rather than face his wife without the car, O—— walked boldly into the garage where a mechanic had just finished polishing this very car. At sight of O—— he saluted smartly and stood to attention.
“Any petrol in her,” said O——
“Yes,sir. Plenty.”
“Right. Just give her a swing will you.”
He drove the car down to where his English friend was waiting and here a gap had been made in the wall of a great hollow square of horse-feed, a rampart of incredible height and thickness. Making a hole in it was like digging out the Culebra cut; but it was done and the car was popped inside, and the wall was built up again. The whole Palestine force could have marched round and round the rampart, as the Israelites marched round the walls of Jericho, without seeing a sign of the car inside.
“I look on that,” said the supply colonel, “as one of the neatest jobs ever I did.”
The usual “please explains” followed and the officer in charge of O——’s unit was asked to explain what had become of the car and he replied that he would make every effort to ascertain. When a man promises to make every effort, that is invariably the end of the matter; for he can keep on replying that he is making every effort till the correspondence dies of old age. Female diplomacy then took a hand, for O——’s wife who had considerable social eminence offered to provide a car to help Lady MacMahon in her Red Cross work. This was accepted, and the car with Lady MacMahon in it was driven right past Shepheard’s Hotel under the very eyes of the ninety generals until they got so used to the sight as to take no further notice.
Such then was the state of things prior to the advent of Alllenby—troops rioting, ofticers disregarding orders, and generals wearing wrongly coloured socks. Then came Allenby. And everything was altered in the twinkling of an eye.
It was a changed Allenby who came to take command in Egypt fourteen years after the South African war. He had been through the shambles of Mons where he had dismounted his cavalry and thrown them into the fighting line in a vain effort to stop the German rush. He had lost his son in the war; and being a full-fleshed man, the heat of Egypt tried him severely, and made him harder than ever. Where he had been granite before he was steel now.
He came to inspect our horse depot—a great lonely figure of a man, riding silently in front of an obviously terrified staff. He seemed quite glad to recognize a friend in me. For a Remount officer is like a Field-Marshal, he has no hope of promotion and no friends whatever in the army. After chatting about the old South African days, he said:
“I am afraid I am becoming very hard to get on with. I want to get this war over and if anything goes wrong I lose my temper and cut loose on them. I haven’t got down to finding fault with the Remount service yet, but it seems to me that your Australian horses are a common hairy-legged lot, compared to the horses that your Lancers brought to South Africa.”
I explained to him that the Lancers’ horses were a specially picked lot of police horses, fully trained, and in superb condition; and that it would be impossible to get enough of such horses to make any practical difference in this war.
Then we came to the cook-house. No matter what an inspecting general’s fads may be, there is one iron rule that he must look in at the cook-house and ask some questions about the men’s food. Our chief cook was an old South African man. When Allenby saw the ribbon he asked about the man’s service, whether he was married and how many children he had. Then came the question as to what sort of food was being issued to the troops. Having been a shearer’s cook, our chef was beyond being rattled, even by a Field-Marshal, and he answered very glibly:
“They gets stoo, sir, and plum puddin’” he said, “and any amount of tinned fruit. The chow in this war, sir, is Guv’ment ’Ouse compared to what we got in South Africa.” This for the benefit of any potential grumblers within hearing.
“Very good,” said Allenby. “Very good. I’m glad to hear it. Carry on. Now,” he said, hauling out a notebook, “I want to go to the tenth division.”
Then the blow fell.
The tenth division were on their way from India or Mesopotamia and it was not definitely known to the staff whether they had arrived in camp or were some distance away. A staff officer stepped forward with: “If you please, sir——” But Allenby cut him short.
“I don’t want to hear you talk,” he said. “I’ve enough men following me about to staff the whole British Army and you can’t find me a division.”
Another brass-hatted hero stepped into the breach.
“Just at present, sir——”
“I don’t want to hear you talk, either. I want to get on with this inspection. Where’s this division?”
Just as things were at their blackest an orderly came running with a telephone message, giving the location of the missing myrmidons, and the staff cars drove off, followed by the worshipping glances of our cooks who hadn’t missed a word of the engagement.
“That’s the sort of general for me,” said the chief cook. “A bloke that knows his own mind. My word, he did roar up them staff officers a treat. Do ’em good. Take some of the flashness out of ’em.”
Thus was accomplished the second coming of Allenby. The troops did not write “Allenby’s Own Volunteers” on their hats; but by some sort of mass psychology they felt that such capers as running riots, disobeying orders, and burning motor-cars were definitely “off.”
Men who met him were asked by others “What’s this new bloke like?”
“He’s the sort of bloke that when he tells you to do a thing you know you’d better get up and do it. He’s the boss, this cove.”
They christened him “The Bull” straight away.