Lancers, was stationed in the West Cavalry Barracks, Aldershot, and on arrival there, on a wet and dreary November evening, the first people 1 met were the "orderly officer" and the regimental sergeant-major, both of whom showed a sympathetic interest in me. I was at once posted as No. 1514 to "G" Troop, the officer saying to me as I went off, "Give your watch to the sergeant-major of your troop, my lad," and, as I wrote home a few days later, I did so, "for it is unsafe to leave it lying about, and there is nowhere you can carry it with safety."
The regiment was commanded at the time by Colonel Whigham, who had originally served in the infantry. The adjutant, Lieutenant "Jimmy" Babington, was a fine horseman, a strict disciplinarian, and universally regarded as an ideal cavalry officer. He was more than that, as is shown by his selection in 1914, when nearly 6o years of age, to command one of the Kitchener Divisions. This he took out to France the following year, and from then onwards was continuously in command of the division or an army corps, in France or in Italy, until the end of the war, a task which proved to be beyond the physical powers of many a younger man in the hard and incessant fighting on the West Front.
"G" Troop was commanded by Captain Henry Graham, one of the most kind-hearted men under whom it has been my lot to serve. His subaltern, Lieutenant "Freddy" Blair, was somewhat of a terror to all shirkers and wrong-doers in the troop, but I have no recollection of having been on his black list; and I am sure that neither of us then thought that forty-one years later I would be Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Command and he would be my military secretary. But so it turned out.
The life of a recruit in 1877 was a very different matter from what it is now. The system introduced in 1871–72 by Mr. Cardwell—one of the greatest War Ministers the country has ever had—under which men enlisted for twelve years' regular service, had not yet had time to get into full swing. Regiments were, therefore, still composed mainly of old soldiers who, although very admirable comrades in some respects and with a commendable code of honour of their own, were in many cases—not in all—addicted to rough
