Government camels, carrying the day’s supply of grain for the cavalry and artillery horses comes next, as well as what are called troop stores, viz horse-clothing, head and heel ropes, pickets, nose bags, spare shoes etc. The supply of grain for one day, for 8,000 horses, would require 200 camels for its conveyance. And now comes the private baggage; the tents of the ‘sybarite’ officers; the spare clothing, blankets, pots and pans of the soldiers, European and Native.73
Unless there was a vital operational necessity, it was important not to march during the heat of the day, and armies often broke camp while it was still dark. But whatever the hour, the procedure was the same. Captain Innes Munro was in Eyre Coote’s army in 1780:
The first [drum-] ruffle is no sooner made by the senior corps in camp than there is a general stir throughout the whole army. The lascars knock down the tent pins; the dubash prepares breakfast for his master; the cook boils water for tea; the coolies pick up their loads; the soldiers are warming up some curry and rice and receiving their morning drams; the carriage bullocks are brought up from the rear; down fall the tents like trees in a forest yielding to the stroke of the woodcutter. While the officers finish their breakfast some cold meat is packed up for the march. By this time also swarms of the black race have kindled blazing fires in every corner of the camp, and such of those connexions as had agreed the night before to keep company on the line of march are now heard, man, woman and child, bellowing aloud each other’s names in the most discordant sound.
The assembly now beats off, and, breakfast over, the tents are packed upon the bullocks’ backs, as are the rice and other public stores; the baggage is mounted upon the coolies’ heads, the officers’ foot boys sling their brandy bottle, a tumbler, and an earthen pot of cool water, carrying also a chair or camp stool upon each of their heads. The soldiers are by this time fallen into their ranks, and all the officers attend, when the horse-keepers are ordered to bring up the horses to the rear of the regiment. The pickets having joined, all the drums of the army strike up the march, and the whole line steps off, the followers with the baggage being commanded to keep upon the most convenient flank of the army; but this last order is very rarely obeyed, for the baggage and multitude extend to such a length and depth that the whole line, which generally marches by files, becomes a perfect convoy.74
In the hot-weather season the march started very early indeed. On the advance to Multan, John Clark Kennedy reported that:
The weather is intensely hot, and we are like the birds that fly by night. Reveille sounds at midnight. Everyone rubs his eyes and calls for his bearer. A hurried word, a biscuit and something to drink. We assemble as best we can in the dark. The generals take their places and then, after an hour of seeming confusion, tents being struck, camp followers making an awful noise, camels doing ditto, we are on the march …
Our route has been marked out by heaps of earth by the sappers who have gone on ahead the day before with the Q[uarter] M[aster] G[eneral]. When the bugle sounds every man is down on the ground and nine out of ten asleep in a moment. The halt over, we push on again and shortly after daybreak reach our camping site. As some of our tents have been struck the day before and sent in advance we find them pitched. All hands now turn in for a sleep. Breakfast at eight, after which most sleep again but I always make a point of reading and writing.75
Assistant Surgeon Dunlop described the same scene:
Then comes an extraordinary assemblage of men, women and children, ponies, mules, asses and bullocks and carts laden with all sorts of conceivable and inconceivable things: grain, salt, cloths, sweetmeats and tobacco, silks, garlic, shawls, potatoes, stockings and slippers, turners’, carpenters’ and blacksmiths’ shops and forges, tailors and cobblers, saddlers and perfumers, fiddlers, nautch-girls and jugglers which help to make up an Indian bazaar … What a sea of camels! What a forest of camels’ heads and humps, and grain bags! What plaintive moanings of anxious mothers, and lost, bewildered cubs! What gutteral, gurgling groanings in the long throats of salacious and pugnacious males! What shouts of men! What resounding of sticks! as the vast mass is driven slowly along, browsing as they go, and leaving not one green leaf behind them.
Dunlop added Charles Napier’s wonderful summation: ‘Such is the picture of the baggage of an Indian army: Smithfield market alone can rival it.’76
Although men often grew attached to their horses and elephants, the baggage camels were rarely companionable creatures. In 1880 Brigadier General H. F. Brooke and a companion received six camels and one driver long before dawn on a chilly Afghan morning. The driver not only ‘seemed perfectly ignorant of everything connected with camels’, but was ‘a wild villager from the neighbouring hills’ who spoke (and, it seemed, only understood) an unintelligible tongue. When, after much time and endless difficulties, just two of the camels were ready:
a demon entered the two loaded camels (camels sit down to be loaded) and kicked the whole of their loads off. In the first instance this was rather ludicrous, and we laughed at it, and began again; but when 4 o’clock came, and daylight (which means intense heat) began to appear, and yet not one camel could be induced to let the load remain on their backs, things looked serious, and we despaired of getting off at all.
They had not gone a mile before the loads were on the ground once more, and they had to be repacked again and again.77
The 3rd Light Dragoons went off to the First Afghan War in January 1842 with 576 fighting men in its ranks, but with ‘upwards of a thousand camels laden with treasure, arms, ammunition, clothing and stores of every description’. On 7 March Captain Walter Unett told how:
We crossed the Sutlej on the 22nd ultimo, by a bridge of boats, and were obliged to pass over in single file, which took two whole days … We were detained seven days crossing the Ravi … This is a great misfortune, as we were ordered to do the 31 marches to Peshawar in 21 days. You can have no idea of crossing a river in boats. We have camels with us and many have actually to be lifted into the boats. They are the most obstinate devils alive … 78
Private Tubb Goodward of HM’s 16th Lancers did not even have the luxury of boats in December 1843:
Commenced to move long before daylight to get the tents and baggage packed in good time for fording the river, thinking from the immense quantity of baggage that had to pass over, there would be great confusion … The Infantry who passed over first was at the ford by 6 o’clock where they had to ford, to do which they had to pull off their trousers, the water in parts being full four feet deep, which was anything but pleasant this cold morning. However, they reached the opposite shore in safety. Following close to them was the Artillery … The Cavalry … passed over without any casualties but a few wet legs particularly those who had low horses … On reaching the opposite bank had to wait a full hour for the Artillery, who previous to fording had to take all the ammunition boxes off the wagons to keep them dry and send them over in a boat and reload them, which being done again resumed our march, the road running for about three miles in a deep ravine.79
John Pearman of the 3rd Light Dragons forded the Sutlej in early 1849:
We received the order to undress, take off our boots, draws and trowsers, tie them round our necks and then mount our horses to take the ford, which we did by file or in twos, a row of camels above stream and a row below us. So into the water we went, and cold it was, most of it snow water from the Kashmir mountains.80
These
