FW: Complaint

["Ray & Barb Elliston" <raymondj@travel-net.com>]

Sounds like time for another snippet from "Riding Cavalry".  You will
remember that we left Corporal Hornes and Herzog somewhere in the
Carpathians on 3 September 1939 after covering nearly 200 km in three days
with little opportunity for rest.  Our account picks up with this excerpt
from Corporal Hornes' journal.  "September 13.  At 6 AM, the squadron came
through Sambor.  We closed up to start the craziest ride of our entire
advance.  At first, we moved smoothly forward.  The sun shone relentlessly
down on the scorching dusty road.  We road on till midday.  Already the
Carpathians lay behind us, and the surrounding countryside was as flat as a
pancake.  We rode through a fairly broad stream to overtake the main column.
Then on through a village, with houses burning to left and right of us.  We
were scared that the horses might take fright, but they didn't take a blind
bit of notice.  It was scorchingly hot and we were even afraid that the
horses might catch fire.  Then we rode on through the night.  The horses
were stumbling, and the heads of the riders were nodding forward from
tiredness.  And still we kept slogging along that fearful road.  Now it was
pitch-dark, with the sky overcast for the first time since we'd entered
Poland.  It must have been around 11 PM, when we turned off from the road
and into a forest track, where we were finally called to a halt.  It was now
so cold that we had to cover the horses up.  As for us, we had no
alternative but to lie down on the bare earth.  But regardless of this we
were so tired that we fell asleep immediately.  I was put on "stable-guard"
between one and two o'clock, which meant I had to keep watch on the horses,
armed with a rifle.  In the distance, the guns of Lvov could be heard
thundering the whole night long.  The field kitchen happened to arrive
during my watch, and I was able to get a dishful of rice from it.  It was
only the next morning that we discovered that we had spent the whole night
right between the lines of a Polish cavalry regiment.  By an enormous stroke
of luck we had come upon a part of the wood that wasn't occupied by the
enemy.  In the morning, we were at last given a warm dinner.  It was rice
again, the second dishful I'd been able to get.  In the nearby machine gun
unit they pulled out an overcooked frog from the pan but luckily someone
caught sight of it in time.......  Probably for the first time since we
crossed the frontier, the horses were groomed today.  Suddenly at 10 AM we
were ordered to saddle up.  Apparently a Polish cavalry regiment was
marching out from Przemysl, trying to break through to Lvov.  The hilly,
wooded countryside was the type which could produce something unexpected out
of the blue at any time, and we were forced to ride on cautiously.  Two men
were sent on ahead, keeping within eyesight.  They would hurry at a gallop
from one hill to the next, then wave the troop on.  As another precaution,
lone horsemen were sent out alongside us on the ridges of the hills.
Suddenly, we saw new unfamiliar contours emerging from the thick dust cloud:
small, agile horses with bobbing heads ridden by Polish Uhlans in their
khaki uniforms, their long lances held with one end in the stirrup leather
and the other slung from the shoulder.  Their shining tips bobbed up and
down in time with the horses hooves.  At the same moment, our machine guns
opened fire and then came the crackle of rifle shots."

Ray Elliston

-----Original Message-----
From: Linda_Merims@ne.3com.com [mailto:Linda_Merims@ne.3com.com]
Sent: Friday, August 27, 1999 2:04 PM
To: ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: RC: Complaint






You are all failing miserably in your duty to entertain me this
afternoon.

;-)

Now, what I want to know is, if Manfred is having trouble getting his
rig driven across Nevada, how did he get it across Mongolia?  (Not
to mention the Pacific Ocean.)

Linda B. Merims
lbm@ici.net
Linda_Merims@ne.3com.com
Massachusetts, USA



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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.    
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/RideCamp   
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=