"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".
Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"
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| ....this a copy of the original - the old stone was falling apart so it was replaced in 1903 by public subscription... |
Now that's a life!
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Fascinating.. the pickie pays to be embiggened.. 😊 |
| "The front page of the Scientific American on March 2, 1872, had a story of a new model of the Gatling gun produced by Colt's Armory. It was called the battery gun and featured a Broadwell drum with 400 cartridges. Here it is shown in a proposed mount for camels (elephants were also considered)". Piccie courtesy Wiki |
There are two things to bear in mind here.. one, if you fired that thing past the ear of an already overexcited camel while still mounted, you'd probably find yourself in Bucharest or Paris before the damned thing stopped running - the intent was that the gun would be fired from the camel when it was on it's knees/dismounted.. and two? There was never, ever, any record of camel (or elephant come to that) mounted gatlings actually being fielded - for transport yes, but not as mobile artillery.. 😏
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Laters, as the young people are want to say...
Very interesting life for William. I am sort of glad I was an accountant as I am sure many of his colleagues did not share his luck. 😁
ReplyDeleteVery interesting and useful information about the camels. I have just finished a dervish army and have a number of camels left over with no idea of what to do with them and the army needs some heavy support. Thanks for the post Steve.
Cheers Ben - amazed he made 112 - that's old even with todays NHS!
DeleteI have seen that gravestone - pure chance, holidaying at Longnor a few years ago and spotted it while looking around the church. Quite some story!
ReplyDeleteThanks D-i-S - what I liked most about the story was that the locals were clearly very proud of him - proud enough to put hand in pocket and subscribe to his new stone..
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