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Old 07-06-2006, 05:14 AM   #35
The Squatter of Amon Rûdh
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Pipe Dream without escape

Quote:
Originally Posted by mark12_30
I remember Squatter mentioning that as an officer Tolkien had a personal servant, to look after his horse and his tack, and his other items; and that Sam's character (and relationship to Frodo) was probably heavily based n this. ....Squatter?

The whole narrative, to me, has the aura of a dream. I can't imagine even a superb hunter making it through the trenches unharmed. But perhaps I have the wrong mental image of the situation.
Tolkien was an officer in an infantry, not a cavalry regiment. Fusilier regiments are named for the light muskets that they carried in an earlier era, which were not issued to cavalry. Although the infantry did use horses, it was for portage, pulling carts and carrying baggage. Stationed in the reserve trenches as Signals Officer, Tolkien would have been concerned with semaphore, morse code, field telephones and runners, even, at a pinch, carrier pigeons, which were the staple forms of communication on the Western Front. He was unlikely to have had a horse or, for that matter, any tack as part of his combat duties.

It was customary at the time of the First War for a British officer to be assigned a private or NCO to act as his batman, or personal servant. This man would be responsible for looking after the officer's uniform and equipment, cooking his meals and cleaning his quarters. This is a survival from the days of gentleman soldiers and personal valets, a world which the First World War helped to hasten to its end. In cavalry regiments, non-commissioned ranks would act as grooms and stable hands, as in the Royal Flying Corps (merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to form the Royal Air Force in 1918), which was largely composed of cavalrymen at its inception, they acted as fitters, riggers, armourers and mechanics.

Tolkien's 'dream', if indeed he ever did dream it, is just that: pure fantasy. Possibly he had ridden a horse as part of his military training, but he had never ridden in a cavalry action and may never have seen live, mounted Uhlans. In fact the last British cavalry charge took place during the Boer War (1899-1902). This is a classic pursuit dream, in which the dreamer is chased by something terrifying, yet is somehow prevented from escaping at speed. The same helplessness would be felt in the dream of the overwhelming wave that reportedly troubled Tolkien, so I'm inclined to accept that the dream at least could have been experienced.

The battlefields of the Western Front were completely impossible ground for horses: their legs sank up to the knees in mud, the ground was broken, dotted about with irregular holes of all sizes and strewn with sharp wreckage. A cavalry chase would only occur behind the lines on one side or another, where the battlefields gave way to ordinary French countryside. I'm not even sure whether the Uhlans had skull-and-crossbones hat badges. The skull and bones (with the motto "Or Glory") was and is the badge of the Duke of Cambridge's Own 17th Lancers (now the Queen's Royal Lancers). Dreams are invariably not true to life.

It's a fascinating piece of correspondance that you've quoted, davem. It's always interesting to hear stories like that, however embellished they may have been in the transmission. It certainly seems the sort of dream that a certain type of man might have experienced on the Western Front and I'm grateful that you've shared it.

Quote:
Though I'm no Squatter, I'd deem it extremely unlikely that this tale describes events that really happened.
I'm no Underhill, but I agree (see above).
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