The cavalry also go out from the barracks with anticipations of good times ahead. Unlike the infantry, they have to keep formation when marching at ease as when marching at attention, for you cannot get a horse to rein back into the rank behind you or come up to the rank in front of you as easily as you yourself can drop back or go up, and, moreover, you cannot regain your place in the ranks at the call of "attention" as an infantryman can. But there are compensations. The "fours" of men divide into twos, of which each takes one side of the road; there is room in between the two inner men for the clouds of dust to roll about, and, although some of the stuff comes up, especially as regards the rear of the squadron, one is not so much down in it as the soldier on foot. One sees the country, too; the infantryman, keeping his place in his company, is just one of a crowd, and, in marching along and getting very tired--so the cavalryman says--he has no chance of looking about him and seeing what the country that he is marching through is like. One's horse does all the work, in the cavalry march, and one is merely a spectator, enjoying the fine day and the new scenery. It is good to be in the cavalry, and who would be an infantryman, when manoeuvres start? Patrol duty, for instance, and the isolated tasks that take patrols of three and four men to farmhouses where the milk is good and one is invited--yes, invited!--to pick fruit from the trees--what infantryman knows anything of joys like these? Assuredly it is a good thing that one chose to serve in the cavalry.
Supposing it is the first time one has gone out on manoeuvres, there are all sorts of pleasant speculations in which one can indulge. Guillaumette, the surly fellow, who when in barracks always occupies the next bed and snores so atrociously--he who is not always perfectly innocent of _faire suisse_, though he has the luck of a pig, and never gets caught at any of his mean tricks--Guillaumette will be going away when one returns to barracks at the end of the manoeuvres, and who shall say what pleasant kind of a comrade may not come from among the new recruits to take his place? Jacques, for instance, who belongs to the third _peloton_ has a first-year man in the next bed to him, one who is the son of a deputy, and has always plenty of money. When the deputy's son was for guard and was warned for duty so late that he could not possibly get ready in time, Jacques lent him kit and helped him to turn out, with the result that Jacques had five francs--five francs, think of it!--with which to go to the canteen. And, soon after one has got back off manoeuvres, the new recruits will be coming in; one will be a second-year man, then, with perhaps a deputy's son to sleep in the next bed and dispense five francs at a time to one who knows all the little ways of soldiering and can be of use. The possibilities, both of the manoeuvres themselves and of what comes after, are endless, and speculation on them is a pleasant business. Surly old Sergeant Lemaire, too, is almost sure to get promotion this year, and the _peloton_ will get another sergeant to take charge of it--certainly not one with a worse temper, for that would be impossible.