gether with his
clothing and various belongings, as an item in a list of things to be
taken over. I knew him already by reputation, and I remembered some of
the occasions when he had appeared on parade. Also I knew that two
successive Company Commanders had managed in turn to exchange him with
some unsuspecting newly appointed O.C. Company for something more
tractable. This last process, indeed, accounted for my having to take
him over instead of the mild creature with the duck-waddle action which
my predecessor had ridden or, let me say, sat.

It became then my lot to take over Frank, or, to put it more correctly,
I was issued with him. That is part of the military principle of fixing
responsibility. Things are not issued to you; you are issued with them,
and you alone are accountable. I was issued with Frank and all his
harness and appointments and, incidentally, his parlour tricks. This was
the formal introduction. I didn't meet him at close range until later.
When I was issued with him I didn't even know his name. No previous
owner had ever thought of asking it, and had they asked they would not
have believed that a horse could be called Frank. On general principles
it seems wrong, but on nearer acquaintance I found that Frank was
exactly the name for him. The great thing about him was that if he
thought a thing he said it.

For example, when I first mounted him he thought he would prefer to
remain in the stable where he had been for the best part of a week. He
said so quite candidly. I am nothing very great as a handler of wild
animals, and he gave me three minutes made up of every action in his
_repertoire_--no limited one. At the end of it I very kindly dismounted.
I didn't want him to think I was not intelligent enough to understand
what he meant, and moreover I hated the idea of marring our first
meeting by refusing so unmistakable a request. So he was led back to his
quarters and the incident closed, if not with mutual goodwill at least
with some degree of satisfaction fairly evenly distributed among the
parties.

It was, I remember, on the next morning that the Mess Sergeant noticed a
shortage of lump sugar in one of the basins. I mention this merely
because it fixes in my mind the first day on which I had a comfortable
ride. Frank started out in a good temper and came home at his best pace,
hoping to get some more sugar. That, at least, is how I read his
meaning, and I pursued my policy of not misundersta