LITMIR.BIZ

      Photo: F. Kapp & Co. HORSES IN CAMP AT CALCUTTA

      They were not all tyros in war. Burma ribbons on the breasts of some Surma Valley Volunteers who were at Manipur told of previous service in the field, though against enemies very different from the ‘slim,’ evasive Boer. Others who wore no badges of distinction were believed to have fought in more than one campaign; at least, the fair visitors declared that such a martial mien as some men bore could only have been acquired on active service: it bespoke a consciousness of great deeds gallantly done. The heroes of these flattering tributes lived up to their reputations by putting on an air of mystery, which the Colonel alone could have dispelled, for none but he knew the history of every man in the regiment. Still, nobody would have thought of looking for suspected Boers or Boer spies in the ranks of Lumsden’s Horse. A good story, however, is told in this connection at the expense of an officer who overheard two men in the uniform of Lumsden’s Horse talking, in a tongue that was not English, at one of the hotel bars. The officer, not recognising either of them, listened curiously, and caught a few phrases which he declared to be German by the sound (and he claimed familiarity with that, though he did not know enough of the language to repeat the words he had heard). ‘It was German, and no mistake,’ he said, ‘and those two men in our uniform were talking it fluently. What could they be but Boer spies?’ One had a distinctly Boer face, he thought, and, deciding that something ought to be done at once, he assumed his most nonchalant air and asked the two men politely for their names. In reply they gave names so common in England that he could only regard them as aliases. His suspicions being thus seemingly confirmed, he took into his confidence two brother-officers, who, when the two ‘spies’ were pointed out to them, saw the possibility of playing off a joke on the amateur detective, for they recognised in the one with a ‘distinctly Boer face’ a young planter from Behar whose fresh, boyish appearance had won for him the nickname of ‘Baby.’ He looked innocent enough to be capable of anything. Admitting that both these men had come with them from up country, the two mischievous friends added, ‘But we don’t know much about them.’ That was enough for the investigator, who rose at dawn next morning to prepare a circumstantial report for submission to the Colonel. He declared this to be ‘his duty,’ and announced a stern determination to go through with it in spite of pretended protestations from many comrades who had somehow got wind of the story. Their pleadings and wily persuasions only served to goad him on. The responsibility of silence, which they sought to impose upon him, was too much for one in his position to bear, so he hurried off towards the Colonel’s tent, eager to make his startling disclosures. On the way, however, he met a trooper, who unwittingly ‘gave the whole show away’; and the crestfallen officer learned that the men whom he was going to denounce as Boer spies had been coffee-planting for several years in Coorg, and that the language they talked when exchanging confidences in a public place was not German but Canarese. Such incidents as these helped to while away the tedium of life in camp when the iron hand of discipline was beginning to make itself felt lightly but firmly. A very little humour provokes much mirth when other entertainments are scarce. By that time even the sing-songs in camp were being cut short, and the only note of revolt that Lumsden’s Horse were ever known to have sounded arose on that account. It did not grow loud enough to reach the commanding officer’s ears, but is recorded in the diary of a trooper who, after describing a very pleasant little camp-fire concert, says: ‘We were all packed off to bed at 9.30 by the Sergeant-Major, to our indignation.’