Vanished Guardsman

Officers of the Household Cavalry flushed behind their monocles a fortnight ago, when it was learned that a horse bearing one of the immobile mounted sentries of Whitehall had fallen asleep at its post and collapsed under its rigid, ornately accoutred rider (TIME, May 6).

But the Household Cavalry's chagrin, acute though it was, could not compare to that of officers of the Foot Guards last week when they learned that a scarlet-coated, fur-busbied Scots Guardsman had vanished completely from his post at Buckingham Palace.

The discovery was not made by the ornate Corporal of the Guard, theoretically responsible for all sentries, but by a passing policeman, amazed to find one of the palace sentry boxes empty. The police-man reported this unusual fact to the Officer of the Guard.

Policeman and officer searched diligently. Two hundred yards from the empty sentry box they discovered a rifle, and the huge fur headpiece of the sentinel, lying like some dead beast in the bushes. Detectives from Scotland Yard joined the search, but no trace of the scarlet-coated, white-belted sentry could be found.

The "military correspondents" of London papers wrote that this was the first time in British history that a sentry had disappeared from a British Royal sentry post. They took comfort in the fact that the King was not in residence at Buckingham Palace when the vanishment occurred. "The matter is being treated," said the pontifical Times, "with some levity in the barracks of the Welsh and Coldstream Guards."