THE HOME GUARD

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 150, 21 December 1940, Page 22

THE HOME GUARD

MOUNTIES OF EXMOOR

HOW THEY GET THEIR MEN

FARMERS ON PATROL

The driver peered through the mists that precede the dawn, that lay heavily over the top of Molland Common, on the outskirts of Exmoor, wrote Dudley Barker in the "Daily Herald" recently. "Somebody ahead, I think," he murmured, slowing the car down. We heard a little clatter of hooves. Then we saw the rider, gun slung across his shoulder, arm. upraised to stop us. "Identity cards, please," he • said., That is how the Home Guard keeps watch over the open moors and forests of Exmoor, in North Devon. In the villages and the towns there are Home Guardsmen on foot, but over j the heather and down the combes of the moor itself, fine landing-ground for parachutists, the farmers have organised themselves into cavalry troops, mounted on their own sturdy cobs. There are not, of course, a great many of them, but there are sufficient to keep a perfect vigil over the whole of Exmoor, from the Lorna Doone country down to the south. . When dawn breaks, you can see them patrolling in couples, breasting their horses quietly over a skyline in silhouette, staring steadily from the high places where the heather takes on its purple in the new light. The Home Guard who halted us was a darkskinned, wiry Devon farmer named William Westacott. There were little fringes of whisker on his cheeks, and he spoke in a rapid, musical (but to me completely unintelligible) North Devon accent. ALL KNOW THE MOORS. Like most of the others he had been born in a. nearby valley, and had rarely left it, save to serve in the Field Artillery in the last war. He led us to a tiny hut on the" hilltop, where several more of the patrolling farmers had gathered. The night's work was nearly done, almost it was time to get out into the fields to start the day's work on the harvest. Their horses were tethered out of sight in a quarry, and the men sat in their hut, smoking, talking to each other, staring over a living map of North Devon that stretched in a fiftymile circle from their feet. Every man there had known that moor from childhood, and could say where every patch of swamp lay into which an invading parachutist might be driven, where the safe tracks ran,'and how best their horses could be hurried over the moor to some lonely farmhouse with a telephone, so that the news could go out to the nearest township, and thence to the waiting battalions of military. Every night, after the harvest carts have trundled home, a few of them saddle their horses and turn their heads to the open moorland. They meet in couples at prearranged points, and in couples they patrol the heights and the entrances to the forests. If ever they see the enemy, one horseman will ride fast for a telephone, the other will sidle deviously nearer, keeping the Nazis in sight, ready to guide the troops to their hiding place. . | . HEADQUARTERS IN HUTS. They have their armlets, but not vet their uniforms, so that they ride in breeches and old farm coats. Their battle headquarters are tiny huts on the moor (their section headquarters more comfortably placed beneath the low ceiling of a lonely moorside inn). -• They are content to farm all day and ride out at night, that the lands their ancestors cultivated may be kept clean of invaders. And if any Nazis descend on to Exmoor, be certain of this—some brown-coated farmer will be galloping over the hillside to spread the alarm, and from all the farms that dawn will ride the modern Doones of Doone Valley. These riders of the moor seem to me almost a perfect example of what the Home Guard should be—l mean, of course, in spirit, for we cannot all go riding horses across romantic moors. Few of them have ever been soldiers, for farmers must till, not fight. But they have a few old cavalrymen to teach them the essence of the thing. The troop I visited, based on the village of North Molton, has an estate painter named Smith, ex-cavalry sergeant, to instruct it. And as leader it has Captain Sayers, a former cavalry officer, who bow keeps a riding stable, farms a bit, and talks about the Home Guard with as good sense as any exofficer I have met so far, and with better sense than, most WATCHING A PARADE. The spit and polish brigade would not get far with the Doones. But a man who treats them as free English yeomen, ready to fight like hell for their own homes, has produced a troop of surprisingly efficient cavalry. I watched one of their parades in the steep village square. Only on Sunday can they parade in strength, so on Sunday the lord lieutenant of the county himself had driven over to watch them. They handled their horses, completely untrained to this sort of thing, with admirable skill. For, after all, even if they do not ride prettily, they have scrambled about on horseback almost since they could walk. They paced successfully through a few exercises, some on tall horses, some on short ponies, some in caps and some in bowler hats, their rifles slung across their shoulders. Then they set out for manoeuvres on the moor. Here I became the enemy. With a tablecloth borrowed from the hotel to represent my parachute, I hid myself among the heather, and the patrol cast around to find me. For a while nothing happened. A bee was climbing a stalk just before my face, the sun was warm, there was a heather scent everywhere. Once I heard a little scurry of hooves, but when I looked, nothing was there. Perhaps it had been a few sheep, scared by my flapping tablecloth. ■ Again nothing. Then, on a far ridge, I could see a few riflemen dismounted. The cavalry, then, were coming. I made a note to tell Captain Sayers that his infantry could not take cover, then I waited again. I did not hear or see the cavalry until they were only 20 yards from me, and were charging straight at me. I doubt whether I had time to swing my tommy gun round on them. I rather fancy I was wiped out. Then home they trotted, in ones and twos, through the magnificent countryside unrolled around us. "Milking time now," they explained.