|
"The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction." Emerson
My earliest memory is of a charming country house called Farrs, belonging to my grandfather, situated on a gentle rise overlooking the Dorsetshire town of Wimborne. Here I was born on the 20th of September 1870 and here I spent the first three and a half years of my life.
A few months before I was born my father had been in command of a battery of artillery at Greencastle on Lough Swilly in Northern Ireland looking across at Co. Derry where he had been born and brought up and when his forbears had been settled for many generations. Early that year he had been ordered to bring his battery to Woolwich in the ordinary course of army relief and had made the move accompanied by his wife and six young children including the eldest not quite ten and the youngest under eighteen months.
On arrival at Woolwich the family went temporarily into lodgings until such time as a house could be found. But before many weeks had passed my father fell seriously ill with typhoid fever, and in spite of the devoted nursing of my mother, the exertions of the doctor, and his own gallant struggle for life, his illness proved fatal, and my mother who adored him and to whom he had been a sort of demi-god all their married life, found herself a widow at the age of 29 with six small children and a seventh (myself) due in 3 or 4 months' time, and a total income of about three hundred pounds a year on which to bring up the family.
Their union had been an idea one, indeed it might be termed idyllic. Not that their life had been an easy one, for a soldier is usually kept fairly constantly on the move, and my father was no exception to the rule, as is testified by the fact that each of the seven children was born in a different place. My father and mother had in fact been kept constantly on the move during their eleven years of married life, and this, with an ever increasing brood of small children must have entailed constant hardship, difficulties and expense. But their devotion to one another and to the children was of such depth and strength as to make such trials and hardships of small account, and both of them took such troubles cheerfully and joyfully. Nothing mattered so long as they were together. What my father's sudden and tragic death while still in his early forties must have meant to my mother, no one I think can even imagine. Many years after my mother told me that for nearly a year after his death, she was buoyed up to an unshakable belief that the end of the world was coming almost at once and that she would in a very short time be united with him again and that there would be no more parting. This conviction enabled her to go on with her life with a serenity and calm which would otherwise have been impossible. Then when a year had passed, it suddenly came to her that she had been living under an illusion, and that the long years that lay ahead of her must be passed without him at her side - without his strength and comfort and help - and she broke down in a torrent of weeping.
My father and mother had first met when he was a captain holding an appointment in Woolwich Arsenal, and she was living in the neighbouring parish of Plumstead, of which her father, Rt Rev. William Acworth was the Vicar. She was a little slip of a girl, just 17 and he was her senior by some 11 years. But it was a case of love at first sight, and in the year 1859 when she was 18 they were married, and set up house in Woolwich Arsenal, where my sister, Joy, was born the following year. They were not fated, however, to be left long in peace, for rebellion arose in Canada and Imperial troops were hurriedly sent over there to aid the local authorities in restoring order. My father was posted to a battery sailing immediately, and my mother followed him with the baby as soon as arrangements could be made. It was nearly 4 years before my father's battery was sent back to England, and during the interval a son and another daughter had been born to them in Montreal and on St. Helen's Island on the St. Lawrence. On their return to England, the battery was quartered in Plymouth but before my parents could move into a house there, a fourth child, my brother Herbert, had been born at Oxford. After two years in Plymouth the battery was moved to Greencastle, on Lough Swilly in Antrim Ireland, and thence, two years later as I have already accounted, to Woolwich. Two more daughters had been born, one in Plymouth and one in Greencastle, making up the family to two boys and four girls.
A few years before my father's death, my grandfather had moved from Plumstead into a fairly large house called Farrs, some two miles from Wimborne in Dorset, which he had inherited. On my mother being left a widow my grandfather promptly invited to come to Farr with her children and make it her home. And here, some four months later, I was born, and here we all lived until my grandfather moved about the year 1875 when I was not quite 4 years old into another house in Somerset near the picturesque village of South Stoke, deep in the country and about four miles by road from Bath.
Of Farrs I remember very little, and that dimly. I have some recollection of a tortoise in the greenhouse. I faintly recall some laurel bushes to which my two youngest sisters and I used to steal away on occasion and "Hold a Service", which consisted in my climbing on to a branch and one of my sisters announcing in a thin piping voice "Here in the beginning the first chapter of the Book of Genesis", whereupon from my "pulpit" in the laurel bush I solemnly chanted the words "Bobbly, Bobbly, Bobbly" - and then "Service was over."
My memories of South Stoke, however, are far more alive and far reaching, and looking back I fancy that the six years I spent there from the age of 4 to the age 10 were in many ways the happiest of my life. Our family of seven naturally divided itself into two parts, the elder and the younger. My two youngest sisters and I were always known as "the little ones". Our horizon was bounded by the four walls of the nursery - whence our dear old nurse, Ellen Page, reigned supreme and was the repository of all our affections - and the school room, where Miss Haiwar, the governess, gentle but firm gave us an excellent elementary education as well as a good grounding in singing and the piano. At first I slept with my mother in her big bed, and every morning as I woke my eyes fell on the picture of my father in the uniform he wore in the Canadian winter, for this hung over the dressing table at the end of the bed. Possibly it was owing to this that I made up my mind for my very earliest days that I was to be a soldier, for I cannot recall ever imagining anything else. It was to me as natural that I should grow up to be a soldier as that I should grow up to be a man. For some reason too from my very earliest childhood I dreamt of and longed for adventure and romance when I was old enough to sally out into the world and search for them. In the long summer days when I was put to bed many hours before it was dark I used to smuggle to bed and hide under my pillow some book of travel. On the banks of the Amazon I remember was one, a thrilling book about Indians and crocodiles and poisoned arrows and hairbreadth escapes - I would take it out and read it avidly when I was supposed to be fast asleep. The long winter nights, were not so pleasant however for my mother's room was in a lonely party of the house, and when the weather was stormy and the wind howled and the rain beat against the windows, I used sometimes to feel rather scared although I despised myself for being a little coward.
One day a distant cousin of my mother's, a man of middle age who ought to have known better told me a tale of an old lady who went to bed and after turning out the light heard some sound under the bed and felt sure was a burglar hiding there. At last she could bear the suspicion no longer and called out "If there is a burglar under the bed, come out." Whereupon a hoarse deep voice replied "I will." The next minute a great masked man was standing by her bedside. This obviously improvised tale haunted me for months and I must have been 5 or 6 years old at the time - and sometimes during those wild winter nights, I used to fancy in the pitch darkness of my mother's room that perhaps a burglar was hiding under the bed. I would lie sweating with fear, trying to pluck up the courage to make sure whether there was indeed a burglar hiding there, and at last in a tremulous treble I would say the dread words "If there is a burglar under the bed, come out." and terrified that I should hear the awful response "I will" and that a horrible burglar would rise from under the bed and stand looking on me. How can I describe the immense relief when my childish challenge brought no reply and I realised that I was safe in that night at least.
One incident in those early school room days comes back to my mind as I write. Miss Haiwar was putting us through some calisthenic exercises of a sort, when a fit of obstinacy came over me and I stubbornly refused - for no particular reason - to do one of the exercises. Finally, after several refusals, Miss Haiwar took off her watch and said sternly "Now Charlie, I will give you three minutes to think it over, and if by the end of that time you have not done what I tell you I shall send you to bed when we come back from our walk and your dinner will be sent up to you." This was a terrible threat, not only was the disgrace of being sent to bed in itself an awful thought to me, but my disobedience and its punishment would become known to my grandfather immediately the family sat down to our mid-day meal, and my imagination picture all sorts of appalling (although in fact quite absurd and innocuous) results. So, while the school room clock was ticking out the three minutes I decided that my silly obstinacy was not worth the frightful punishment which it would entail if I persisted, and that I would tell Miss Haiwar that I would carry out her orders. Having made my resolve, I waited patiently and rather ashamed of myself. When suddenly Miss Haiwar put away her watch very firmly "The three minutes are up and you have not done as I told you. You will go to bed when we come back from our walk." At once I protested loudly that I was just going to obey, and explained that I was only waiting for the 3 minutes was up to tell her so, but she was adamant and said that it was too late now, and quickly resumed our lessons.
The whole of the rest of the morning I was miserable, and could not take my mind off the dreadful punishment looming ahead of me on the consequences which I vaguely imagined would ensue when the dinner hour arrived and my grandfather came to know of my disgrace. Our walk that morning lay over the fields and down a little wooded valley to the canal at its foot. In my misery I slipped away from the others as we made our way down the valley, and reaching the privacy of the wood, knelt down at the foot of a great tree and solemnly prayed to God that he would spare me from this terrible ordeal. But no answer came to my prayer, for when we got back and took off our boots as usual at the foot of the kitchen stairs I was off to my room, and dutifully undressed and climbed into the bed. What was the use, I though, of prayer to God? Evidently none at all. Then the gong sounded, and I heard the others trooping into the dining room. Soon, I should hear what my grandfather thought of it, and I shuddered. Presently Alice the maid appeared with my dinner on a tray, and as she put it down, in front of me, wholly unaware of my thoughts and fears, she said cheerfully "Queer thing, Master Charlie, but your grandpapa hasn't come back to lunch - must have been kept in Bath." And it was true. Once in a blue moon my grandfather would attend a Board of Guardians or some such meeting every month in Bath - was detained and could not get back in time and had to lunch in the town. And this extraordinary thing had actually chanced to happen today of all days. My prayer had been answered after all! I was so relieved and elated that when it was time for me to get up and go to afternoon lessons in the schoolroom I mischievously declined, and was only induced to do by the threat of further punishment.
Our lessons in the school room I enjoyed. It was great fun imbibing all sorts of knowledge, and miss Haiwar had the gift of making it all interesting and avoiding drudgery and boredom. From 12 to 1 every day we three "little ones" when out for a walk with our governess and what fun those walks were! There were at least a score of them by lanes or footpaths and over fields and by streams and through woods in that lovely Somerset countryside. My sister Mindie, the eldest of us three and nearly 4 years my senior, was a genius at inventing stories, and she used to assign a character to each one of us, and then weave an exciting tale which we acted for days or even weeks during our daily walk, and in which we all took our parts, and delighted in the adventures and episodes which her imagination evolved. Every wood and stream and field and valley in that lovely hilly countryside held its image for me. The battles of the Civil War, particularly Edgehill and Newbury, were out in my imagination in the fields and valleys round the house. I used to look out from the school room window on to a tree-covered ridge and see Prince Rupert and his cavalry appear suddenly from the far side and charge down on Cromwell's Ironsides drawn up in the fields and orchards below. One of our favourite walks led by a path over some fields to a copse through which it straggled, and which in spring time was carpeted thick with primroses. We loved this copse, which we named "The Grove". To us it was a vast forest fully of mystery and romance. Sometimes it was the haunt of fascinating elves and all sorts of queer little people. At others, robbers lurked in the parts that were so much overgrown with brambles that we could not penetrate them. Later in my life when I discovered and became entranced with the Idylls of the King, it was through this wood, vividly remembered by me, that Arthur's Knights used to ride. here Enid meekly followed Geraint, here I pictured Gareth and Lynette, through this wood Queen Guinevere fled and King Arthur came riding to find her. What a shock I received when a few years ago I visited this wood and found it an untidy little neglected copse, a mass of bramble and undergrowth.
How many and what vivid memories does South Stoke hold for me - the tiny village with the steep hill running down the centre, the exquisite little church surrounded by its green churchyard, the big gate opening on to the precipitous grand drive leading down to the great straggling house, the garden and grounds surrounding it, the terrace beside the fruit-cornered south wall at the top of the garden - I can see them all as plainly today as if I were there on the spot.
I saw little those days of my mother and even less of my two elder sisters, 8 and 10 years my senior, nor of my brothers who were away at school and only home during the holidays. The summer holidays they used to spend collecting birds, shooting them with catapults and then skinning them with an art which was a perpetual wonder to me. Sometimes they would take me out "catapulting" with them, a thrilling adventure for me, and it became my great ambition to own a catapult myself. What was my delight when on I think my seventh birthday my brothers presented me with a catapult and a cartridge case full of shot. I was seized with the desire to go out and fire off my new toy at once. It made no difference what object I fired it at or whether I fired at any object at all, but fire it I must, and without delay. My mother however was nervous about allowing me to possess so damaging a weapon, and called me to her and warned me to be very careful, and explained solemnly that catapults sometimes fired backwards (where she got this quaint idea I can't imagine.) so that I must take great care what was behind me as well as what was in front. I promised her of course to exercise the greatest care, and ran out into the garden to try my new toy. An open terrace was round the house, and a wing of the house which contained the great drawing room - hardly ever used - jutted out from the rest of the building, and from here the lawn sloped down steeply to some laurel bushes below. I ran around the terrace till I came to the drawing room windows and there I stopped. here, I thought was the ideal place from which to fire my catapult. I would aim at the laurel bushes below and no possible harm could be done. I put a shot in the leather and was just about to draw the elastic when I suddenly remembered what my mother had said about catapults sometimes shooting backwards. If this happened, the shot would go straight through the drawing room window. Then a bright idea struck me. I ran down the steep slope till I reached the level where the laurel bushes were. I would stand in front of the laurel bushes and aim at the slope of the lawn, for then if the catapult did shoot backwards the shot would merely fly into the laurel bushes, and if the shot went forward as it should do, it would merely bury itself in the slope. Delighted with this idea I made all the preparations, and then pulled and released the elastic, firing at the slope. For a second I though I heard a slight sound as if something had gone through glass, and I experienced a sudden pang of anxiety. But I felt that with all my care nothing untoward could have happened, and I strolled off hands in pockets and returned to the house.
A few days afterwards my mother came to me with a serious air and led me into the little-used drawing room and taking me up to one of the windows pointed to a small hole drilled through the glass, and asked me very seriously whether I had done this with my catapult. I flushed guiltily and said no, I certainly had not. She asked me if I was quite sure, and I replied yes, quite sure. "Well" said my mother. "since you tell me that you didn't do it, I must believe you, for I know that no boy of mine would tell a lie. But I have decided that it is too dangerous to you have a catapult at your age so I am going to take it from you and put it away for the present, and I will give it back to you when you are a little older." She then very quietly led me out of the room, sent me to fetch my catapult, and put it away in my presence in a chest of drawers in her room, and dismissed me without another word.
This tiny episode made so vast an impression on me that I have never forgotten it and I have no doubt it had a permanent effect on my whole character. In my heart, I felt certain that my mother knew that I had told her a lie. Her "no boy of mine would tell a lie", so that she had been forced to believe me since it was unthinkable to her that I should so disgrace her as to tell a lie. In some such way my childish logic ran, and as a result I felt the sting of acute shame and an almost unbreakable pricking of conscience. I ought of course to have gone to my mother and confessed. But I did not do so and the subject was never mentioned again. I forget if I ever got the catapult back, and it makes no matter. My lesson was learned and never forgotten. Ever since I reached the years of distinction I have regarded my mother's action as the very height of wisdom and insight. Talk of the judgement of Solomon, this was a far better instance of wisdom and understanding. The very artistry of it rouses my admiration whenever I think of it. No wonder that I realise what an immensely powerful influence for good my mother had on me. She was herself a saint if ever there was one, and an entirely human and understanding one. Utterly selfless, she devoted her life from the day married, to her husband and her children and gave everything she possessed to them. Deeply religious, the daily and hourly practice of all the Christian virtues seemed to come natural to her, and to require no painstaking effort as is so often the case with the sternly virtuous. Self-discipline she had without doubt, and her life was infused with a certain spartan simplicity, whilst she held her emotions strongly in check and hid them under a veil of deep reserve. In consequence we all grew up with hardly a suspicion of the immense love she cherished for us and we only gradually came to realise it.
But underneath this restraint and reserve and self repression lay a wholly charming capacity for enjoyment and a profound interest in nature and music and art and all the lovely things of life; beautiful scenery, wild flowers, the singing of birds, the glory of sunsets and sunrises, chats with the village folk or men working in the fields - all these things and others like them evoked an instant response from her inmost heart. There was hardly a wild flower that she did not know, and she loved to sketch or paint them. She did not turn her back on the ugly things of life if they came her way or forced themselves on her attention, though they pained and hurt her sensitive nature. She tried to understand them, and always "judged gently", and endeavoured honestly to return good for evil and somehow to turn the ugliness, if not into beauty at least into something less ugly. It was automatic in her to mother any ugly duckling that came across her path, and with everyone she ever met to "be to their virtues very kind, and to their faults a little blind." Of her goodness and charity to those in need there was no end, but her generosity was always carried out under a cloak, and most of it was known only to the recipients, and many of those never knew the author.
When I was 10 years old I was sent to school at Bath College where my eldest brother already was, but whereas he was in the Sixth Form, I started in the Junior School, so we saw little of one another. But I was only two terms at Bath College when my mother decided to leave South Stoke and take up residence in Ireland and send the two elder brothers to Trinity College, Dublin. So in 1881 we moved over to Ireland, my mother taking with her my second sister, my brothers and myself, and we settled down in a small house at Monkstown on the shores of Dublin Bay some 4 or 5 miles from Dublin and 2 from Kingstown where the first mail steamers from Holyhead arrived. My eldest sister and the two youngest remained at South Stoke.
I was sent to an excellent day school in Kingstown called Corrig School, where at first I was twitted for my "English Accent", but I very soon picked up sufficient of the Irish brogue to pass muster, though I sloughed it off when I went back to school in England some four years later. I throughly enjoyed my school days in Ireland, and regard the curriculum then in force as definitely superior to those in vogue in most other Public Schools in England. For one thing, the English language was taught very thoroughly and very efficiently, with illustrations from the old masters of English prose. And a wide range of subjects expressed to the boys a first class general education well fitted to assist them in any profession or work they might take up after leaving school or college.
My greatest friends in Monkstown and at Corrig were the four Peacocke boys, the son of Canon Peacocke, Rector of Monkston and subsequently Archbishop of Dublin. My contemporary in age then was Gerald, the third son. We used to play tennis and football together, boat and bathe together, and go for long country walks or still longer exercises to the score or more of beauty spots all round Dublin and Kingstown. The very names are romantic and beautiful - Stillorgan, Fox Rock, the valley of the Dargle, the Powerscourt Waterfall, Three Rock, Dalkey, Kilking, the stile of Howarth and so on.
Just behind our house saw the railway from Kingstown to Dublin, a distance of 6 miles with no less than 8 stations between the two termini. I knew every engine on this line and used to love to sit on the garden wall and see the trains go by; so close were they that one felt as if one could touch the carriages by just holding out one's hand. Some of the engines carried names - there was Titania, Tremendous, and a Kate Kearney and an Elfin - but most of them were merely numbered: but anyhow I knew them all and their drivers, to whom I used to wave.
We had not been long settled at Monkstown when an event occurred which made an immense stir in the political world. Those were the days of boycotting and moonlighting and cattle maiming when Parnell was head of the Irish Party in the House of Commons. (Parnell, by the way, was a near neighbour of some cousins of mine, the Tombes, who had a beautiful house in County Wicklow not far from Bray. They knew him well, and he often came over and played cricket with them, though in politics of course they were as wide apart as the North Pole is from the South.)
A new Lord Lieutenant arrived from England (Lord Spencer) and he had been met at Kingstown by a special train, the engine which was by ancient custom completely covered with flowers and draped in flags. I had sat long on our garden wall waiting for this special train to pass, and when at last it came into view with its engine bedecked with flowers I was consumed with excitement, and cheered with all my might as it puffed past our garden.
The next day was Sunday, and on coming out of church we were greeted with the news that the previous afternoon, the new Chief Secretary of Ireland Thomas Henry Burke and one of the Under Secretaries Lord Frederick Cavendish had been taking a stroll in Phoenix Park just outside the grounds of Vice-Regal Lodge when an Irish jaunty car drove up and four men jumped down and struck at Mr Burke with knives. Lord Frederick endeavoured frantically to defend his companion with his umbrella - the only thing he had in his hands - whereupon the assassins turned on him. Those men were murdered and left for dead on the footpath. The Ruffians then got up on to the jaunty car again and drove off. The whole episode had taken only 2 or 3 minutes, and it was broad daylight, but few people happened to be in that part of the park. It is said that the Lord Lieutenant witnessed the whole incident from the windows of the Vice-Regal Lodge but did not see who was involved and merely took it for a harmless scuffle between some men in the park. This atrocity is known to history as The Phoenix Park Murders, and was one of the most dastardly of all the outrages that took place during those troubled years of Ireland's history.
As a small boy it made of course a tremendous impression on me, especially when I was told shortly afterwards that one of the four murderers was a man who had been working a few days before the murder on a house that was being repaired on the other side of the railway from the terrace in which we lived. This may or may not have been true, but it certainly added to the excitement that I felt - for I fear that my boyish reaction to the news of the crime was excitement only, much as if it were a tale that I had read in a book.
We had been in Ireland four years and I was getting on for fifteen when my mother decided to send me to an English Public School to finish my schooling. Indeed I could no longer stay at Corrig School, for I had now reached the proud position of the Top of the School, and I had incidentally received as my prize a magnificent book on India, copiously illustrated, showing cities and temples and oriental buildings, and handsome men with great turbans, and elephants with howdahs on their backs, and a hundred more exciting things. I read the book all through, and there and then made up my mind that the moment I became a soldier I would get out to India by hook or by crook. Actually when i received my commission about three years later I applied for and was posted to India. It so achieved my ambition.
My mother hesitated whether to send me to Clifton College or back to Bath College. Choosing these schools because they were both close to South Stoke. For some reason it never occurred to her to make any thought to let me try for a scholarship at any school, though I can say without the slightest vanity that I could almost certainly have got one, as I had an attitude for passing examinations and had had an extraordinarily good general education at Corrig. Unfortunately, my mother in the end decided to send me to Bath, and not to Clifton College, hence I went in the autumn of 1885, being just 15.
The choice of Bath was, I have said, unfortunate, for it had no Army Class, and the Headmaster, the famous Mr T.W.Dunn had a passion for the Classics, and I was put on their Classical side and assigned to the IVth Form. Mr Dunn had been a master at Clifton College and left it in the seventies to found Bath College. The school had, I regret to say, a short career, for after passing through various vicissitudes it had to be abandoned about the year 1905 I think, for financial reasons (it had no endowment) and the old school buildings are now a hotel. But the career of the school, though brief, was, so long as "Tommy" Dunn lasted, glorious; for it gained at one time more classical scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge than any other Public School in England, and that although its numbers rarely exceeded 200 and I fancy was generally nearer 120.
As it turned out, I spent little more than a year at Bath College and cannot say that I enjoyed my time there, partly I think because my mind was always set on the Army and India and my old idols - Adventure and Romance - and I chafed at the restrictions and monotony of school life. I didn't work very hard, neither did I play games very hard. I should say that I devoted an average amount of energy to both. I got my remove from the IVth to the Lower Vth very early and at the end of the summer term of 1886 I came in for three prizes, for I came out top of my form, won a special prize for Greek and Latin Prose and verse, and a special prize given by a wealthy Bath resident of French extraction, Judy Cailland, for the highest marks scored for French in the Junior Cambridge exam. When I returned after the holidays I was summoned to the room of the Senior Classical Master and urged to work for an Oxford Scholarship. I replied that I could not do that, as I was going into the Army and meant to present myself for the next competitive examination for Woolwich which was to take place in December. Then, he said, if you are bent on going into the Army, you can still go up to the Varsity and then get into the Army as a University candidate. To which I replied stubbornly that I wanted to get into the Army at once, I had no wish to delay. He persisted in trying to persuade me, but though very shy and embarrassed I was adamant, and at last he saw it was no use, and with an adamant "Very well, have it your own way: but you will some day regret it" waved his hand and dismissed me. I was moved up of course to the Upper Vth and the only concession made in view of the examination I was to face in 3 months time was that I was given 2 or 3 extra hours a week at mathematics. The earliest age for sitting for the Woolwich exam was 16, and I was 16 in September. In December I went to London and worked my way through an examination lasting several days, but when the results came out I found I had failed "Algebra and Total Mathematics" though I had passed in everything else. To anyone who knew the facts, there could have been no other result. The subject "Higher Mathematics" is compulsory for Woolwich, and I loathed mathematics in every shape and form and had no aptitude for them. Had there been an Army Class at Bath, as there was at Clifton and I think practically every other Public School in England, I could however have been coached sufficiently in mathematics to pass any ordinary paper.
I recall one amusing incident during the course of this examination in London, over which I have had many a laugh since. Part of the examination in French was colloquial, although I knew every irregular verb in French and could translate a passage from French into English or English into French, I had never been taught to speak the language, nor had I had any practice in so doing. When therefore I found myself confronted by an elderly bearded little Frenchman and addressed in fluent French, I felt uncomfortably nervous and could only reply to his questions in the most halting, schoolboy fashion. When he came to ask me where my father was, and whether he was a soldier, I not unnaturally replied "Je n'ai pas un pere monsieur" Immediately the little man burst out laughing "ah, vous n'avez pas un Pere", he cried, looking with laughter, "vous en avez deux donc, ou trois peut-etre?" And so pleased was he with his very French little joke that he asked me no more questions, chalked up some quite high marks and dismissed me with a smile, with the result that I obtained something like 80% in all for French - a proportion wholly undeserved.
I confess I was disappointed with my failure to pass my exam, and rather ashamed of myself. My mother consulted grandfather and one of her brothers, and fortunately the latter suggested that I should be taken away from Bath College and sent to an Army crammer, and the former generously said he would pay the expenses, so at the end of the Xmas term I left Bath College for good, went back to my mother's house in Ireland, and started work with a famous crammer in Dublin, Mr Chetwode Chraistey. That year, 1887, my oldest sister married and went out to Australia, both my brothers had finished their time at Trinity College and qualified as doctors, so my mother gave up her house and decided to take my three sisters out to Germany for a spell. I joined them in Heidelberg for a few weeks, and was completely carried away by the beauty of the old Schloss and its surroundings, and enthralled by the excitement of travelling in a foreign country. And when in December I went u again for the Woolwich Exam, I passed, though I cannot say with any distinction, for I was I think 33rd out of a total of 120 successful candidates.
In March therefore I joined the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, familiarly known as "The Shop", as a "Gentleman Cadet", at the age of 17 and with immense enthusiasm began my training for the artillery.
This training was excellent in every way; physically, morally, professionally and scientifically. It was a two year course, divided into four terms; two a year. At the end of each term examinations were held to qualify for admission to the class above, and if a cadet failed he had to remain in the came class, or as we called it we "dropped" into the term below. If we failed twice, we had to leave "The Shop", so it may be imagined that no cadet with this penalty before him was likely to "slack" in his work.
During his first term the cadet was put into a room with either 2 or 3 others, the rooms being plainly furnished with an iron bed-stand and a wooden chair for each occupant, a fair sized wooden table, and wooden cupboards. Before every meal the cadets paraded in the three Divisions into which the whole Academy was divided. The roll was called, they were marched in to the large Hall where the meals were served. The parade took place on the broad grand parade ground in front of the building, and was conducted with some ceremony. At the lunch parade, a rigorous and searching inspection took place of each cadet as he stood in the ranks, the inspection being carried out by one of the cadets in the senior or highest class, who held the rank of "Corporal" which they received automatically on passing into that class. Out of the corporals three "Under Officers" were chose by the Commandant, one to each Division, and over them one "Senior Leader Officer", the latter being in charge of the parade. He it was who gave the command "March In" in stentorian tones when inspection was completed and he had received the report "All Correct" from the three leader officers.
The inspecting corporals passed slowly down the ranks, first front then behind, looking carefully at each cadet and his uniform, and if they observed the slightest spot of dirt or fluff they had the right and duty of imposing on the offender the penalty of an "extra drill", or what we called a "hoxter". Now our uniforms were made of dark blue broadcloth, and this is a material difficult to keep always clear of every speck of dust. For ten minutes before lunch parade the cadets could be seen on the steps of their respective "Houses" diligently brushing each other with large clothes brushes. We were not all of us however successful in turning out absolutely spotless and dustless for that ominous lunch parade every day, and I used to dread the step of the corporal as he passed slowly behind me, examining every tunic, for I knew well enough that if he spied a single spec on mine I should feel a tap on my back and the dreaded words, "Turn out for drill."
Now I have said that the "Shop" training was an excellent one, and one of its finest principles was that every thing was put on an "honour" basis by long tradition. The cadet, instead of being constantly watched, was placed on his honour do or refrain from doing certain things. Thus, when a cadet was ordered an "extra drill" by a corporal at the luncheon parade he was obliged after lunch to obtain and fill up a certain printed form which stated that "Gentleman cadet .... had been awarded ..... extra drill by Corporal ..... for ......" When he had filled this in with the date, he had to take it to the room of whoever happened to be "Orderly Corporal" the following day - which we had to find out - and post it in a box. Next morning we would have to turn up on the parade ground at 6:30 properly equipped with his carbine and belts and join the other "offenders." The Orderly Corporal called the roll from the list he had prepared from the papers in the box, and then for a solid three quarters of an hour the defaulting cadets were marched monotonously up and down the barrack square till at last the drill was over and they were dismissed to get ready for breakfast. Now in 7 cases out of 10 the Corporal who ordered the drill was quite unaware who was the cadet concerned, and in any event, he himself had no further interest in the matter. If, therefore, the cadet in question chose to ignore or "forget" the order and not go and obtain the printed form and post it in the box, no one would or could have been any the wiser. It was indeed often a great temptation to do so if the cadet suspected that the Corporal had acted without just cause or merely to show his authority. But it was a "Shop" tradition that a cadet must always give in his name when awarded a punishment, and that it would be culpably and disgracefully dishonest not to do so, and I doubt if the tradition was ever transgressed.
The same principle was observed in the case of the more severe penalty of "arrest" which could only be awarded by the Commandant or one of the three Commissioned Officers - RA Subalterns each in charge of a "Division". This penalty of "arrest" was reserved for offences of discipline and so on, and might be for 24 or 48 hours or more. While it continued a cadet was obliged to keep to his room and never leave it except for the usual parades, lectures or meals. Again, there was no one to see whether he kept to his room or not: probably no one except his immediate friends even knew that he was "under arrest". Yet it was a point of honour that he should obey the order to the letter, and I do not suppose the rule was ever broken. Such a thing "wasn't done". It is easy to imagine what an effect on their future conduct and behaviour such an admirable tradition had on cadets during their two years training.
The two years' course at Woolwich was reasonably spartan, but on the whole the cadets had a thoroughly good time of it. I for one enjoyed every day of it and almost every hour. For our first term (during which we were called colloquially "snookers" and had very much to keep in our place and behave with decent humility amongst the other cadets) we were as I have said put in rooms with either 2 or 3 other cadets of the same term. A few old soldier servants, about one to each House, made the beds, polished the boots and kept the rooms clean. Baths of the old fashioned shallow type were arranged in rows in an out-house at the back of each House, and every cadet had by long established custom, on jumping out of bed in the room, to strip to the buff, pick up his sponge, and run in his birthday suit down the bare stairs stand out by a draughty covered way to the out house, splash in the ice-cold water, then rush back to his room there to dry himself and dress for breakfast parade. It was alright in nice summer weather, but it was something of an orderal throughout the winter, but we got quite used to it and never minded and it certainly hardened us and kept us marvellously fit.
After his first term the cadet was promoted to a room to himself, whose rather scanty furniture he was allowed to supplement if he chose by carpet and cushions and armchairs, and pictures hung on the wall, and in this way we were able to make our rooms quite cosy and comfortable. Each team kept entirely to itself and one only knew the cadets in other teams by sight unless one happened to have a personal friend amongst them before joining.
The days were almost entirely given up to work, either in the classrooms or out of doors, of gun drill, derrick or bridge building, military surveying and so on, and plenty of fortification, tactics, military history, military law, gunnery, chemistry, etc were taught in the classrooms: also any foreign language one took up - I studied French and German. It goes without saying that no dead languages were taught, and I am ashamed to say that since the day I passed my exam for Woolwich, I never looked again at either Latin or Greek.
During my first term I shared a room with two other cadets, with one of whom I immediately struck up a close friendship. His name was Bignell, affectionately known as "hellie". He came direct from Cheltenham, where he had had an outstanding record for games: for besides playing cricket and football for the school he had represented it at racquets in the inter-school competition and won the Public Schools Shield for the College. Notwithstanding these successes however he remained completely unspoilt and without the slightest trait of conceit. Boys of course worship any one of their number who chances to be proficient at games, and the greater the proficiency the more the adoration, so to be in the Cricket XI or the Rugby XV at school means to be something of a hero, and spoils many a boy in consequence. 'Hellie' Bignell however had too nice a nature and was too naturally modest to be capable of being spoiled. He was always sunny and cheerful and keen, good at his work good and at anything he took up, popular with everybody, and with as clear a mind as anyone you have ever met. No wonder that I was attracted to him from the moment we first me in that bare barrack room at the Shop. And I could never understand what the charming, brilliant fellow could find in me to become the devoted friend that he proved. We were inseparable during our whole time at the Shop. He used to take me sometimes to spend a week and with his mother at their house, or she would come up to London and take us to a theatre. Until I was away from my puritanical upbringing - for my mother, like my father, thought dancing, the theatre, and playing cards all highly immoral - I had never been inside a theatre or seen a play. Never can I forget the tremendous thrill with which I witnessed my first play, Faust, magnificently staged by Irving, who played the part of Mephistopheles, with Ellen Terry as Marguerite. As I write I can see again the scene outside the Cathedral, with the bells ringing, the sound of the organ pealing inside, and the people entering reverently in the picturesque costumes of the Middle Ages and then Marguerite drawing water from the well outside, the butt of taunts by the other women. Suddenly the whole stage was enveloped in darkness, and I held my breath: a few minutes later and a dim light appeared. The scene had changed from the outside to the inside of the cathedral. Marguerite was kneeling before the altar, praying: the monks were chanting somewhere in the background and the notes of the organ could be heard softly. To me this was no theatrical drama that I was witnessing but the actual tragedy of a human soul in agony. And I felt as if I were sharing in her agony, and with her was drawing spiritual comfort from the dimness of that cathedral, the mystery of the altar, the charity of the monks, and the all-pervading feeling of the divine presence. My heart stood still when an evil form, clad from head to foot in scarlet, glided to the scene and lent over the kneeling form before the altar. Surely Mephistopheles was the greatest part that Irving ever played, and Faust the most magnificent play that he ever put on stage. To a romantic lad not yet 18 it made, not only an artistic appeal, but a moral and spiritual one as well. The tragedy of Faust and Marguerite was imprinted indelibly on my heart, mind and memory and I never forgot it. A somewhat similar, though lesser, impression was made on me by Pinero's well known play "The Profligate" in which I saw for the first time that charming actor, Forbes-Robertson, who later made such a success in that wonderful play by Jerome K. Jerome's The Lodger in the Passing of the Third Floor Back
At times Bignell and I used to go up from Woolwich for a Saturday matinee or evening performance, mostly of a lighter kind than those I have just mentioned. We saw "The Yeoman of the Guard" at one of its first performances, with George Grossmith as Jack Point. I have always regarded it as the best of all the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, the most tuneful, with a real story and genuine pathos. How well I remember the curtain going up for the first act to discover Jessica Bond alone on the stage, spinning in the courtyard of the picturesque Old Tower of London, and I can hear her now singing that exquisite song:
When maiden loves, she sits and sighs,
She wanders to and fro;
Unbidden tear-drops fill her eyes,
And to all questions she replies,
With a sad "Heigh-ho!"
and so on. Then there was that delightful and picturesque light opera "Dorothy" with the handsome Hayden Coffin in the becoming 18th Century costume singing "Queen of my Heart". I bought the music and I must have played it to myself hundreds of times, indeed I think I still have it somewhere. Paul Jones was another musical comedy that Bignell and I saw together, with the glorious Agnes Huntingdon in the title part. Although it is over 50 years since I saw the play I still recall the words and music of one of its duets between the old rascal Bouillabaisse and his young protege Petit Pierre:
Bouillabaisse: I'm Bouillabaisse
Petit Pierre: and I'm Petit Pierre
Bouillabaisse: An old Scapegrace
Petit Pierre: Suppose we say, a pair
Bouillabaisse: I ain't no good
Petit Pierre: Why, they're you're right old sieve
Both: It's understood we didn't ought to live!
Why do such trivial items stick in one's mind for half a century when tens of thousands of things or real importance and intent pass out of it altogether?
My friendship with Bignell had one consequence that was singularly lucky for me. It admitted me at once into a small circle of cadets of my term - about a dozen in all - who were united to one another by the bond of intimate friendship and comradeship. The leading spirt was a jolly Irishman with laughing eyes and always up to some darn devil mischief or other, named Webb Gillman, destined in later years to become a very distinguished General who would almost certainly have reached the highest rank had he not died when he was in his early sixties. He was the senior cadet of our term, having passed as top of the whole 120, and in the Shop sports carried off the Silver Bugle two years running as the winner of the largest number of events at the annual sports competition. In addition he was a very fine horseman, and had an eye like a hawk, so that besides his outstanding athletic record he was first class at any game. Next came Philip Maud, called "Maudie" by us, a great big stout hearted fellow who subsequently became an international Rugby footballer and captained the famous Blackheath XV. Then there was Oldham, nicknamed by us "Sloppy" because he had rather thick lips and the name was an abbreviation of "Umslopogaas", the Zulu Chief from Rider Haggard's books. Puxley was another, known to us as "Polygroove", because his initials were RBL which stood in those days for "Rifled Breach-Loading", the classification of a peculiar type of gun. Bignell was naturally a member of this select group, partly because of his extraordinary record at games and partly because of his own charm and personality, and it was just his friendship for me that brought me in as well, though I had no proficiency in games - or in anything else for that matter - to recommend me. There were half a dozen others who were, so to speak, of the group but not actually in it. The inner circle or core, as it were, consisted of the four I have mentioned, plus Bignell and myself. We six used to meet practically every day in one of other of our rooms, and either play cards or have a sing-song. I could play the piano after a fashion, and as none of the others could, the whole weight of accompanying the singers fell on me, and, I fear I discharged my duties very incompetently, but nobody bothered, and it was all great fun. Gillman - or "Gilly" as we called him - had, I remember, one great song in his repertoire, the chorus of which began:
"The Counsel winked at the jury, the jury winked at the judge..."How it went on I can't recall, but we all knew it by heart and joined in and shouted till we could be heard all over The Shop.
My own nickname I may here mention, given me originally I think by "Gilly" was "Hoary", and by this I was affectionately known by all our little clique throughout my whole time at the shop. It had no connection, I need hardly say, with my personal appearance, for I was fair-haired, fair-skinned and blue-eyed, and hardly looked my age of 17. It was merely a variation of my surname. Oddly enough I was given another variation of my name later on in India, when I was always called by my intimates "Ou-jee". Still later in life, when I was in Nigeria I was known by everyone as "Charles-Orr" as if it were a sort of double barrelled name. The fact is that the name Orr is so short and so abrupt a monosyllable that one's friends always like to take on something or vary it in some way, so I was never without a nickname all my life, and am still known as "Charles-Orr" especially by my old Nigerian friends.
At half-penny nap we use to gamble continually. Whenever we had a spare half-hour, and though not much harm could be done on such small stakes, sometimes one or two of us had a temporary financial crisis which seemed quite alarming at the time.
One Saturday morning I remember we were out of doors at Gun Drill when heavy rain came on, and in the end the Drill was abandoned, and we were ordered to go to our respective rooms and study our Gunnery textbook until the lunch hour. This was too good a chance to be lost, and 2 or 3 of us at once settled down in one of our rooms to play our favourite game. Half an hour passed, and we were absorbed in our game and the table was strewn with coppers and sixpences, when suddenly the door was flung open and in stentorian tones, the Orderly Sergeant shouted out "Tenshun! Orderly Officer", and there behind him we saw Liam Cooper-Kay in shell jacket and white cross belt, gazing at us with a slightly satanical smile on his face. "Very foolish of you gentlemen", he said, "When you knew it was my day for doing the rounds. You are all under arrest and will come up before the Commandant at the Orderly Room on Monday. Now pack up and go to your own rooms." And with these words he and the Sergeant went off to continue their inspection. Bignell and I, who were the chief delinquents, crept back shame-facedly to our room, and asked ourselves what our penalty was likely to be when we came up before the Commandant. Anxiously we consulted the Regulations for the Royal Military Academy, and found the usual punishments to be, as we knew, extra drills, and "Arrest" for a certain number of hours, not exceeding, I think, 72. "For more serious offences", it went on, "such as gambling, insubordination, drunkenness, etc... rustication may be imposed, entailing the loss of one term...." I looked at Bignell and saw my own anxiety reflected in his face. "Gambling"..."Rustication." All that Saturday afternoon and all the following day, Sunday, we had to keep to our room except for meals and church parade, and our spirits sank lower and lower. Should we write to our parents and break it to them that we should be returning home almost at once - in disgrace? We put that horrible thought aside. I fancy neither of us slept very well those two nights.
At 11am on Monday we paraded outside the Orderly Room, and in due course were, according to custom, deprived of our caps, marched in and found ourselves facing the Commandant, who was seated at his big Orderly Room table with the Orderly Officer standing by his side. Colonel Harness was a dapper little man with close-clipped white moustache and a pair of light blue eyes whom we all held in great respect and some affection. He had served with some distinction with a battery of Horse Artillery in the Zulu War and wore the medal. He surveyed us with what seemed to me a kindly air then looked at the paper in front of him. "You are brought up before me, Gentleman" he said, "on a charge of being found out of your rooms last Saturday playing cards when you should have been in your own rooms studying gunner. A highly irregular proceeding Gentlemen. Very wrong of you, very wrong". He paused a moment, and then discussed in rather a different voice, "Um, Lt Cooper King here" (glancing at the officer beside him) "tells me that there was money on the table, but I don't think this necessarily proves that you were gambling, so I shall treat the offence merely as playing cards out of your rooms when you should have been studying Gunnery in them, and sentence you all to 24 hours Arrest, and as you have abeen already under arrest for 48 hours, the sentence will take effect as from yesterday morning. March them out, Orderly Sergeant."
Bignell and I, when we had been marched out and dismissed, threw our caps up in the air, wild with relief and delight, and swore the Commandant was the finest sportsman that ever put on a uniform. The incident gives a further example of the extraordinary sound methods by which discipline was carried out at The Shop, and it was a splendid training for us when it come to our turn to enforce military discipline on our men. There was nothing of the jack-boot about it, nothing harsh and unbending, which so often leads to sullenness and discontent. Many years later when I had to bring a draft of about 170 men of the Horse Artillery from the Boxer War in China home to Woolwich by way of Japan and Canada - a most difficult job for a young officer (I was a junior Captain) single-handed, especially as the men were from half a dozen different batteries, and some were reservists, some regular "old soldiers" - I used the methods of discipline I had learned at The Shop - particularly the "on your honour" principle - with really amazing success, with the result that I had astonishingly little trouble, and the men made an excellent impression amongst the people of Japan and Canada, not only for their physique and bearing, but also for their excellent behaviour in the face of many temptations. True discipline is not obtained by uncompromising severity, shouting and bullying through superficial and misleading results sometimes from these methods, hiding a dangerous unrest and discontent which may at any time burst into flames. It grows from unrelaxing firmness, inflexible fairness, and a ready sympathy with and understanding of each individual concerned. The relationship between an officer and his men should be one of confidence and understanding and of real comradeship. Encouragement rather than constant fault-finding should be the aim of the officer, and a little timely praise is often more efficacious than blame, though praise should not be given too frequently, and never without justification, else it loses all its value.
My first term at the Shop ended in July, when the Adjutant General of the Army, Sir Garnet Wolseley (Later Lord Wolseley) came down from London and gave Commissions to the cadets of the Senior term with a great function held in the big Gymnasium. We broke up the next day, and I joined my mother and sisters in Switzerland for the few weeks of the vacation.
On rejoining for my second term I found to my joy that I had been allocated a room in the same House as Bignell, and not far from those of the rest of our "set". Now that we were no longer "Snookers" and had a room to ourselves we felt much more grand, and I enjoyed that term even more than the last, if that were possible. We continued our sing-songs and our seances at "nap", and Bignell and I did some more Saturday theatres together in London.
Towards the end of the term we were informed that ten Commissions would probably be given to cadets in our class in addition to those given in the ordinary course of events to all those in the class above us, who were now doing their last term at the shop and who passed their final exam. The normal period at Woolwich was, as I have remarked before, two years, divided into four terms. But when I passed in, there happened to be a great shortage of Artillery officers, and to meet the situation the War Office had decided as an emergency measure to give Commissions to both the senior terms instead of to one. i.e. to 120 cadets instead of 60. For this reason, when I went up for my entrance examination in December 1887, 120 vacancies were offered instead of the usual 60, and on these 120 successful candidates joining The Shop, the first sixty on the list were at once given the station of 3rd Class whilst the remaining constituted as usual the 4th Class. This meant that the former would, so to speak, skip a term and would only have to complete three instead of four terms before receiving their Commissions, while the remainder would have to complete the normal 4 terms. As I had passed in 33rd on the list, I was one of those who would have only 3 instead of 4 terms at The Shop, and of course all my friends were in the same position (for cadets in different classes kept entirely to themselves and did not mix at all). Hence at the end of our second term at Woolwich we looked forward to returning after the Winter vacation as Corporals, in the Senior Class, and to receiving our Commission (provided we passed our examinations satisfactorily) in the following July. The rumour that the Commissions might be given to our class as the end of the second term did not interest me at all, because those at the top of the class were all hoping to get into the Sappers, while those low down, like myself (ie in the thirties) regarded it as certain that the ten commissions would be snapped up by those above us long before it came to our turn. I must explain that all cadets at The Shop, whether they wanted to get into the Sappers or the Gunners, went through precisely the same training. In the final examination those who came out top were offered commissions in the Sappers (of which there were usually about 10 available) and the rest had perforce to become Gunners. Occasionally one of the senior on the list would elect to go into the Gunners rather than the Sappers, but as a rule those who qualified by their place at the head of the list went into the Sappers since service in them was better paid and in some ways offered better opportunities than the Gunners. Indeed even if the cadet himself would have preferred to be a Gunner rather than a Sapper, his parents would seldom give him choice in the matter.
When therefore at the end of my second term I joined my mother and sisters in Dublin, where they had taken rooms for the time being after spending a year and a half on the Continent, I expected to return to The Shop at the end of vacation for my third and final term. My surprise may well be imagined therefore when one telegram arrived from a well-known firm of Army tailors "Can make your uniform in time." What this somewhat cryptic message meant became clear next morning when an official letter came offering me an immediate commission in the Royal Artillery. Needless to say I replied by return of post accepting the offer, and in a day or two I heard my name would be included in the Army Gazette as having been Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery and that I was being posted to a battery stationed at Roorkee in Northern India. It was explained that I should not be sent out till next trooping season which would begin in October and that meanwhile I should have to go through a three months course in Gunnery at Shoeburyness on the Thames and after that I should be attached to a battery at Portsmouth till the trooping season arrived.
It is difficult to imagine my elation at this exciting news. Not only had I jumped at one bound from Gentleman cadet to a full-blown officer with Her Majesty's Commission, but my long treasured ambition to go to India was to be gratified at once. I fear most lads of 18 are selfish and self-centered, and I was most certainly no exception, for it never crossed my mind to think what effect on my mother this news might have. And she, with her utter selflessness and her life long habit of reticence and the rigid repression of any sign of emotion, was the last person to allow me a glimpse of her inner thoughts or emotions. On the contrary, she listened with ready sympathy to my expressions of delight, and made all sorts of useful suggestions about my uniform, outfit, etc....
In a week or two I found myself established in some comfortable officers' quarters at Shoeburyness together with some 30 other young newly commissioned officers, although these were all practical strangers to me since they had been in the term above me at Woolwich and I had only known them by sight. I missed very badly my Shop friends - Bignell, Gillman, Maud and the rest but it did not take me long to settle down with my new brother officers; and to this period I owe one at least life-long friendship, that of Freddie Poole, who proved a truly invaluable friend to me for many years after.
My first night at Shoeburyness was an unlucky one. My army tailor was to have sent down the tin case containing my newly made uniform to meet me on arrival, but for some reason it failed to appear, and I found myself an hour before the dinner hour with no uniform in which to appear. I was utterly distracted, but at the last moment someone told me that it was of no consequence and that all I need do was to dress in ordinary tailcoat, stiff shirt and white tie and explain if any remarks were made that my uniform had not arrived. I therefore dressed as advised, and walked across to the mess with some others who were looking very smart in their new mess dress - dark blue shell jacket with gold lace trimming and scarlet cuffs, scarlet waistcoat, dark blue trousers (or over-alls, as for some reason they were always called) with a broad scarlet stripe. We went a short cut which happened to lead through the big dining room to large folding doors opening on to the ante-room where everyone assembled before dinner was announced. As we passed through the dining room where dinner was laid for some 60 officers the Mess Sergeant was giving final instructions to the waiters, some of whom were in uniform and some in civilian costume - tail coat and stiff shirt.
When we reached and opened the folding doors leading into the ante room I was suddenly overcome by a fit of appalling shyness on seeing the room filled with a swaying mass of brilliant uniforms, and when my companion walked in I hung back, and the door shut in my face. Overwhelmed with bashfulness I was just bracing myself to reopen the doors cautiously and slip in trusting that I should be unobserved when I heard a harsh voice from behind me "Now then, you, what are you doing skulking there in idleness? Get on with laying them spoons and forks I've been telling you all abaht." I turned round and met the angry glance of the Mess Sergeant and realised that he had mistaken me, seeing only my back view and my "tails" for one of the newly recruited waiters. The moment I turned he saw his mistake, and with a most apologetic "I beg your pardon Sir" he flung both doors wide open, and there was nothing for me to do but walk in, blushing to the roots of my hair and join the brilliant throng of uniforms. I need not say, perhaps, that no one took the slightest notice of me, taking me no doubt for some civilian guest of one of their number; and dinner was shortly afterwards announced and I filed in with the rest and took my seat without anyone paying any attention either then or during the rest of the evening.
It was while I was at Shoeburyness that I went up to London for a Levee at St James' Palace at which I was duly presented to HRH The Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII, who was deputising, as he always did at such functions, for the old Queen. It was a lovely sunny day in early summer, and I was immensely proud of wearing for the first time my full-dress uniform - dark blue tunic with rich gold braid on collar and cuffs, the latter of scarlet: gold cross belt and gold embroidered pouch, gold waist-belt with sword attached to gold sling: dark blue trousers (overalls) with broad scarlet stripes: and blue helmet with round brass nob. It formed a considerable item in a subaltern's outfit, the whole of which amounted to a hundred pounds or thereabouts, and the number of times one wore it was negligible.
I was presented together with a number of other young officers, and in my agitation and nervousness I nearly tripped over my sword when turning to make my bow before the Prince of Wales, but was reassured by seeing a tiny twinkle in the Royal countenance, and I passed through the ordeal without further mishap. When I finally emerged into Pall Mall I was overcome with indescribable pride when a sentry of the Grenadier Guards in scarlet tunic and bearskin sprang smartly to attention and saluted me: it seemed almost too splendid to be true. I jumped into a hansom and drove to a Court photographer in Regent Street who had written offering to take my photograph, and then changed and made my way back to Shoeburyness, trying to recall every minute of what I thought one of the most glorious days of my life.
My friendship with Poole began in rather an odd way. A couple of nights after we joined, the weekly Guest Night took place in the mess, and in my self-conscious fear of not doing the right thing I took champagne at dinner when it was handed round, and a glass of port when the time came to drink the Queen's health. After dinner some of us retired to the billiard room, and during the course of the evening I was offered a whisky and soda, a drink I had never tasted before. Of course I accepted, pretending that it was my habit to take one every night, and when it was brought I did my best to disguise the shock I felt at what seemed to be its disgusting taste. But by the time the champagne and port and whiskey was beginning to have their effect on me and I was becoming conscious of a little thickening in my speech and unsteadiness in my legs. Suddenly Poole came across the room and said to me with a cheery smile, "I think it's about time you went to bed, my lad". I indignantly replied that I had no intention of going to bed, but he took me quite firmly by the arm, and before I knew what I was doing I found myself accompanying him quite docilely to our quarters. Arrived at my room he waited quietly, puffing at his pipe, till I had undressed, completed my toilet and put into bed, and then with a kindly "Good night, old chap" he left the room and I fell asleep. Next morning I woke feeling rather sheepish, and inclined to be indignant at the thought that I had been treated like a child: but gradually realised that Poole had done the right thing, and that it was I who had behaved like a child. When I met Poole at breakfast we neither of us made any reference to the previous nigh, but from that moment a deep friendship arose between us which lasted a life time. In some mysterious way this incident had I believe a definite effect on my character though I cannot say precisely what. Possibly it taught me sub-consciously that there are always occasions ready to hand when a firm but sympathetic attitude towards a brother officer may be of immense help to him at the outset of his career. I was at that time only just eighteen and very unsophisticated and young for my age. Poole , though only about a year older, was infinitely more experienced and worldly-wise. We were destined not many years later to serve together on several occasions and I have no doubt that his influence played a by no means inconsiderable part in the evolution of my character, and my intimate friendship with him is one of the pleasantest memories I possess. His cheeriness and good humour and love of a joke were never failing.
My three months at Shoeburyness passed rapidly and pleasantly, and in June I transferred myself and my belongings to Portsmouth, where I was to be attached to a battery until the trooping season began in October. Here I found my old school boy friend, Max Ward, who had been at Conig with me and had passed out of The Shop when I passed in. A day or two later he developed typhoid fever and was hurried off to a nursing home, and I did not see him again for over 40 years, when we met in Belfast. He had succeeded to the family title, as Viscount Bangor was Speaker (I think it is called) of the Upper House in the Mother Ireland Parliament. We fell on each others necks (metaphorically only, let me hasten to add) and introduced our respective daughters to one another, and he showed us all over the Houses of Parliament, but Letitia and I were only passing through Belfast, so we spent no more than an hour or two with the Wards.
The battery which I joined at Portsmouth was quartered in some dingy old barracks near the waterside, known as the Gunwharf Barracks. They dated back, I should say, to the time of the Napoleonic Wars and must have been old-fashioned when the Crimean War was fought, and they had been condemned for some 30 or 40 years, but the sleepy old War Office did nothing about it. When, however, Max Ward developed typhoid, his father began to make enquiries, and was naturally furious when he heard the facts. The first we knew about this was when an urgent order came to the effect that we were all to clean out of the barracks and go into other barracks just off the Main Street, and the move was to be completed in 24 hours. The infantry regiment which occupied the barracks into which we were to go was to move into one of the unoccupied forts on the hill overlooking Portsmouth. This lightning move was carried out, though with some scrambling and difficulty, and the day after a question was asked in the House of Commons as to whether it was not a fact that the Gunwharf Barracks in Portsmouth, occupied by 2 batteries of artillery, had not been condemned some years previously as insanitary. The Secretary of State for War replied that it was a fact that they had been condemned, but that they were empty and no troops were quartered three. It was a near thing for the War Office!
But what did I care for episodes like that? If I had been quartered in some city slum or in a prehistoric cave dwelling I should not have minded, so glorious did I find life as a gunner subaltern. Each morning I woke I sprang out of bed feeling the day would bring me a fresh adventure. We used generally to go out on an ancient steam tug to one of those forts which have been erected between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight - circular towers, painted chequers wise in black and white squares to camouflage the great guns sticking their muzzles out in every direction. In these forts we used to spend hours drilling with the guns, with dummy ammunition and dummy shells and mock targets. To me it was all thrilling and exciting, and I never knew a moment of boredom. Then, what fun it was to be Orderly Officer of the day and have to turn out the guards once a day and once a night and visit all the sentries and see that they were alert and knew their duties by heart. In my vanity I used to think it splendid to walk with the Sergeant of the Guard across Southsea Common, wearing my gold-laced shell jacket, white enamelled cross belt, round gold laced forage cap worn at an angle on the head with chin-strap to keep it in place, and clanking my sword as I walked. It all seemed like a wonderful dream, almost too good to be true. Off duty there was any amount to do sports teams, boating, parties, trips to the Isle of Wight, all sorts of amusements. Whenever I could afford it I used to take the tram with some other young officers to Corsham, where we used to hire a couple of cobs and ride out into the country. The charge was, if I remember rightly, only ten shillings for a couple of hours, and it was well worth it.
In August the battery was sent over to the Isle of Wight for gunnery practice, and this to me was a fresh thrill, for it meant camping out in tents on some open heath land overlooking the needles, far away from any house. Every morning we used to march down to some gun emplacements where great 12 inch guns were cleverly hidden from view. Overlooking the Channel far below us and the Hampshire coast just opposite. A tug would tow a rough wooden erection which served as a target. The noise in the battery when one of those big guns fired was terrific, but one soon got used to it, and the whole performance was to me of immense interest.
The Officer in command of the practice camp was a certain General MacGregor Stewart to whom we all looked up with awe and respect, the more so because we knew he had been with Roberts in his famous March from Kabul to Kandahar in 1878 during the Afghan War and he wore the ribbons of the medal he earned. One day he called me up to him and said he had known my father, and spoke to me about him. Once, towards the end of the month in camp when going round my battery he stopped and asked me "What I was going to do when I got out to India." I said, "Apply for transfer to a Field Battery sir." "Well", he replied, "I must write to my old friend General Nairne about you and see what we can do about it." And with a kindly smile he passed on before I could even thank him. General Nairne was at that time on the Headquarters Staff of the Army in India as Inspector General of Artillery. He was all powerful as regards artillery appointments. I may well say that General Stewart kept his word, for some 18 months later when I was in India, General Nairne came to inspect us at practice camp, and to my great embarrassment came over and spoke to me and said he had heard about me from General Stewart.
It was when I was in the Isle of Wight that I was taken over to Lymington one afternoon by a brother officer to play a small tennis tournament given by a very charming woman at her house some 2 or 3 miles out of Lymington. I found that my partner was a slim and very lovely girl, with whom I promptly fell head over heels in love. So far as I remember we were knocked out the first round, but I regarded this as a bit of luck because it enabled me to spend the rest of the afternoon walking round the garden with her and chatting to her. Of course, I sat next to her at the sumptuous supper which our kind hostess provided for her guests, and I returned to camp about 9 o'clock that night in an ecstasy of happiness. A lad's first romance is a very lovely thing though it is usually somewhat evanescent. I may as well finish the story of this romance now instead of leaving it to weave itself in and out of my memories. We saw each other as often as we could during those few weeks before I sailed for India, and I stayed occasionally at her mother's house in Lymington for a dance or for tennis, and when I sailed for India we considered ourselves engaged, though we allowed no-one into the secret. For nearly a year she wrote me every week. Then she wrote to say that her greatest friend had persuaded her that she was doing a foolish thing and also being unfair to me, since she was 6 years my senior and she would be a middle aged woman of 40 when I was till a young man of four and thirty, so she asked me to forget everything that had passed and consider our engagement cancelled.
At first of course I believed myself heart-broken, and wrote and said so, but it was not long before I brought myself to accept the inevitable and realised that she was right. When about a year later she wrote and told me that she was about to marry a Sapper Subaltern a good many years my senior whom I had known and liked in Portsmouth, I was able to write and wish her all happiness. The marriage was, I believe, a happy one, but she died alas of tuberculosis some ten years later when I in fact was on active service in South Africa.
To return to our camp in the Isle of Wight, we had just a month of glorious summer weather there, and then returned to Portsmouth. Some time in September I received orders to hold myself in readiness to embark on HMS Serapis at Portsmouth on October 2nd and sail to India to join my battery, and was informed that I might have a week's leave prior to embarkation. My mother naturally wished me to be near me before I sailed, and I - for obvious reasons of my own - suggested that Lymington would be a good place, saying that I could certainly get rooms there for her and my three sisters. She agreed, and I joined them there for my week's leave. Meanwhile, orders had come for me to go to Dover on September 30th, take over a draft there, and return with it to Portsmouth and see it on board HMS Serapis on the 1st October. My mother decided to say her farewell to me at Lymington before I left for Dover, and not go to Portsmouth and see me off. I was far too excited to give a thought to anything by my own affairs, and I don't think it ever crossed my mind that parting with her precious boy with the prospect of not seeing him again for years, if ever, meant a terrible and heart-rending ordeal for my mother. On the morning that I was to leave Lymington for Dover she said that while my sisters would go to the station and see me off, she would wait in the fields that bordered the railway and wave to me as the train passed. So just before I left the house my mother slipped out unnoticed. My sisters walked to the station with me and saw me off, and as the train gathered speed I looked out of the window, and there was the little figure, clad in her widow's black, waving farewell to me with a brave smile on her face. How little I realised what she was feeling! I leant as far out of the window as I could and waved till we passed out of sight, and then relapsed into my seat and gave my mind over once more to Dover and Portsmouth and the approaching voyage to India. Such is the selfishness an self-absorption of youth!
I duly took over my draft at Dover Castle and brought it to Portsmouth and slept that night in my old room in the barracks. I say "slept", but was at a dance at the Southsea Assembly Rooms till 2 or 3 am (needless to say someone else was there too) and I got up at 4:30 since I had all my packing to do and I was under orders to be on board HMS Serapis at 11 o'clock - we were to sail about 2pm. Somehow or other I got all my packing done before a late breakfast in the mess at 9:30, and I was at the docks with all my goods and chattels shortly before 11. My army chest, a heavy clumsy chest of drawers in two separate pieces each encased in a wooden box, could not - as I ought to have known but I was young and careless - be taken on board at that later hour, so I told my agents to take it to their store and keep it in store till sent them instructions. All the drawers were full of my possessions, but there was nothing that I urgently required, and in actual fact three years were to pass before I saw them again.
I had just got myself and my belongings on board when I saw on the wharf a tall old gentleman with a long white beard leaning on the arm of a handsome woman nearly as tall and I recognized them to my amazement as my old grandfather and my step-grandmother. I rushed down the gangway and greeted them, and my grandmother explained that they had come down the previous day "for a breath of sea air" and were staying for a couple of days, and though they would come to the ship and see me off to India. How like my family deliberately to give a false reason for an action due solely to affection, lest they might be suspected of emotion! My grandfather was nearer 90 than 80, but he had travelled all that way from South Stoke to see me off to India. "Look after yourself my boy" he said gruffly, "and never drink or smoke", and with these words he pressed a crisp ÂŁ5 note into my hand, and turned and went off, without giving me a chance even to thank him. Stern old puritan, a fighter all his life, possessed of an iron will, holding with unshakable tenacity to certain clear-cut beliefs and principles, a mixture of great generosity and the strictest parsimony, he was indeed a character. throughout the family he was known as "The Chief", and he looked the part. He accumulated a moderate fortune merely by living with the utmost simplicity and frugality well within his income, and investing year after year the balance of income over expenditure; so that when he died at the ripe old age of 96 he left almost ÂŁ180,000 to be divided equally amongst his sons and daughters, having previously given a sum of I think ÂŁ2000 to each of his eighteen grandchildren by way of avoiding death duties. We children who were brought up in his house after my father's death looked upon him with the utmost awe. Yet, stern and unbending as he was, he had, hidden away, a tender and affectionate side to his character, as well as a cheering touch of humour. As the youngest of the family I always sat at meals at his right hand, and when he was in a specially good humour he used to turn to me with a twinkle in his eye and say, "Well, when I was young I was taught that the less cannot contain the greater, but when I see you eat I feel that I must have been taught wrong." And the following story shows the Spartan side of his character and his contempt for self-indulgence and luxury. A friend of his once said, "I can't understand Acworth, why you travel so uncomfortably. Why do you always travel 3rd Class?". "Because there's no 4th" was the gruff reply. I have always felt glad that I was brought up in this atmosphere of simplicity and taught to avoid self-indulgence, display and luxury. The habits one forms in one's early childhood make such a vast difference to one's whole outlook later on, and bad habits are terribly hard to get rid of once formed.
I think it was 3pm on October 2nd 1889 when the tugs came alongside and dragged the old Serapis from her berth in Portsmouth Harbour, and an hour later we were steaming past The Needles outward bound for Bombay. I had celebrated my 19th birthday 12 days previously, and here was I, setting out on the Great Adventure of which I had dreamed since the earliest days of my childhood. At that time troop movements overseas were made in four old-fashioned "troopships" specially designed and built for the purpose and belonging to and officered by the Royal Navy. Of comforts there were few, and of luxuries none. Only the Officer commanding the troops on board had a cabin to himself and his wife. All other officers except those below the rank of Captain were accommodated in rooms containing 4 or 5 bunks, known irreverently as "horse boxes", on the lower deck. Officers' wives were herded together in one large sort of dormitory, generally called - for obvious reasons - "the Dovecote". Subalterns were relegated to a big space below the waterline, where they slept either in bunks or hammocks. Oil lamps were kept alight here all day and most of the night, since being below the water line it was quite dark. This portion of the ship was appropriately known as "Pandemonium" and then there was a glorious pillow fight most nights. So far as I can remember I throughly enjoyed my time in "Pandemonium" - but then I enjoyed everything.
We ran into a bit of a storm when we entered the Bay of Biscay about the second day out, and when the bugle sounded for Fire Drill I found my post was below deck just where the steam was coming up from the laundry, and I know far more disagreeable smells. Certainly the smell from the laundry, coupled with the having of the ship, made me feel terribly sick, but I forced myself to stick it out till the "Dismiss" sounded. When I rushed on deck and demonstrated to the Bay of Biscay what I thought of it. I am glad to say that I found my sea legs after this episode and had no further trouble.
Malta was our first port of call, and we stayed a couple of days there. I dined the first night at the Gunner's Mess and well remember tobogganing down the broad marble steps on a tea tray after dinner. I bought some of the famous Maltese lace next day and did a bit of sight-seeing, and am glad I did as I have never seen Malta since, though I must have passed through the Mediterranean more than a dozen times. The Bay of Biscay I have been through something like forty times, and though it has an evil reputation for stormy weather I think that, oddly enough, I have only known it really rough on three occasions.
After Malta, Port Said, where we coaled. This was my first sight of the East, and my excitement knew no bounds. The first morning ashore I went with some others to a gambling haunt and came back to lunch terribly proud of myself after winning three pounds. Like a young ass I went back in the afternoon and lost it all. Port Said itself of course is merely a coaling port and possesses no interest. Touts and pimps pester one all the time and gin shops and brothels abound. Luckily I was too young and innocent to know much about these things, and I was entirely absorbed in my deep interest in seeing black and brown people and all the quaint folk and things I saw in the streets.
Our journey down the Canal was so thrilling that I could hardly leave the deck even to have a meal. There was the desert on either side, and picturesque Bedouins leading camels which seemed so close that one could throw a biscuit to them. What a scornful, disdainful look the camels had as they padded along swinging their long necks; how fascinating were the Bedouin with their turbans and beards and long cotton robes, thick with desert sand.
At Suez we stayed a day, and a number of us landed and amused ourselves rushing round the town, pushing our noses in where we were not wanted, and in general making a great nuisance of ourselves. Then came the voyage down the Red Sea, and as we had a following wind it was pestilentially hot, and "Pandemonium" was a miniature hell when we went down to shave and wash after sleeping on deck. One night, I remember, I was Orderly Officer, and had to visit the sentries in various parts of the ship to see that all was in order and that there was no sign of fire. Passing through the Married Women's Quarters I felt extremely bashful when I noticed that many of the women had thrown off most of their coverings and were lying in the heat with very little to cover them. Blushing frantically I averted my eyes when one of the women as I passed threw off most of what she had on and exposed to my view a good deal more of herself than I had any right to see. A moment afterwards I heard a resounding smack, and turning round I saw the Sergeant of the Guard who was doing the rounds with me lifting his hand from the anatomy of the woman I had just passed, on whose naked flesh was a large red patch. The moment I turned the Sergeant pulled himself together, clicked his heels, saluted, and blurted out "Beg Pardon, Sir, my wife."
And so we made Aden, crossed the Indian Ocean and at last, on the 29th October arrived at Bombay after a voyage of exactly 27 days. We immediately started disembarking and getting all the heavy baggage out of the hold and on to the wharf, and in the evening the disembarkation was complete and we were marched to the Railway Station, where we entrained for Deolali, a station up in the hilly country where drafts from England were always sent on their arrival in India. I remember waking up in the night and shivering with cold and drawing a blanket round me and wondering at the contrast with the heat of Bombay, not realising that we had climbed up the Ghats and were some thousand feet above the sea level.
In the early morning we reached Deolali Camp, and when I stepped off the train and looked round I felt inclined to shout for joy. Here was I at long last in the country of my dreams, and how strange and beautiful it all looked. The morning air was fresh and invigorating, the sun had just risen in a sky of the clearest blue, there were palm trees all round and little thatched native huts, and brown people were fetching water from the wells and driving bullock carts to the market, and everything was strange and fresh and wonderful. I marched my men to their barracks and was then shown a neat little hut which I was told had been allotted to me, and I was invited over to the mess to have breakfast as soon as I had washed and changed.
Here then we remained for 2 or 3 days whilst arrangements were being made for the various drafts to go to their several stations. My orders were to take my draft to Agra and hand it over the battery there and then go on to my own battery which was stationed at a place called Roorkee, at the foot of the Himalayas and not very far from Meerut, a name well known to all students of military history, for it was there that the mutiny first broke out in 1857.
Such time as I could spare at Deolali from looking after my men I spent in wandering round the countryside, entranced with all I saw. The trees, the climate, the people, the animals, the vehicles, the flowers, the views, all were different from anything I had ever seen or experienced before, and I was overwhelmed with an all consuming interest in everything. The mess house shaded by great trees, had a broad verandah dotted with long wicker chairs in which we all sat after meals and chatted and smoked the Indian cigars which one could buy for about six shillings a hundred. In the corner of the compound was a deep well, and all day long a bullock with a bandage over his eyes paced round and round it, harnessed to a peculiar wooden contrivance by which an endless chain of buckets dipped down into the water and then as they came to the surface in succession scattered their contents into a trough from which the water was directed by narrow channels of earth all over the garden. The creaking of the wood and the sound of the water as it splashed into the trough I found both entrancing and soothing, especially during the heat of the day, when I lay in one of the wicker chairs, half asleep, wrapped in a great happiness and content.
In those days, in order to spare troops from the heat, troop trains travelled by night only, the men being accommodated during the day in Rest Camps erected for the purpose at various stopping stations. When I left Deolali with my draft therefore on our way to Agra we entrained in the evening and travelled all night. Needless to say at every station where we detrained and marched into the Rest Camp I rested not at all, but after a shave and cold splash I would sally out and see all that could be seen, for my curiosity and keenness were insatiable. One event only before we reached Agra is worth recording. We had arrived just after sunrise at a station where I knew two batteries were stationed - one a battery of Horse Artillery and the other which was in those days called a Heavy Battery, consisting of six very heavy guns drawn by elephants and oxen. On the march each gun was drawn by an elephant, the teams of oxen following in the rear: but when the guns were going into action the elephants were unharnessed and the oxen - eight to each gun - were implemented instead. Having disposed of my men in the Rest Camp and made my own toilet I sallied out in the fresh morning air to find my way to the artillery barracks and see what was going on. I soon reached the gates of the barracks, and peering what should I see but six elephants, each with a mahout sitting on its neck, passing up and down in line abreast. A subaltern in gunner uniform was standing beside a flagstaff, looking slightly bored and idly flicking his leg with a small cane, and each time the six elephants passed him, at a word from the mahouts, they raised their trunks in the air, dropping them at another word from the mahouts when they had covered a certain distance beyond the flagstaff. I wondered whether I had chanced on a menagerie, with performing animals: but if so what was the gunner subaltern doing in charge? I learnt subsequently that when these Heavy Batteries marched past at a ceremonial parade, dragging their guns behind them, the elephants were made to raise their trunks in the air in salute as they passed the inspecting officer, just as the officers of the battery lowered their swords in the customary salute.
In due course I arrived at Agra and handed over my draft, and was hospitably put up for a couple of nights by a subaltern who had been a cadet at the Shop with me. I managed to get time to drive out and see the famous and lovely Taj Mahal, but I am ashamed to say that my recollections of it are faint. I fancy the joy of being alive left no room for any deep appreciation of beauty; life to a boy of 19 seeing the East for the first time was too exciting to allow him to take in much of its artistic beauty.
I had now reached the last lap of my journey, and with the native "bearer" I had picked up in Deolali, I took the train from Agra to Roorkee, and the pair of us arrived at the railway station at the latter place about 10 o'clock the following night. It was obviously too late to report myself or even to go to the mess, so I packed all my belongings on to a 'ghani' and drove in the dark with my bearer to the "Dak Bungalow" or Government Resthouse, and bedded myself down for the night. Next morning I was up fairly early, and after pottering about for some time and getting out my newest uniform in which to report myself, I went into the bathroom where the water-carrier had just filled the capacious tin bath with icy cold water fresh from the well. After a glorious splash I jumped out and proceeded to rub myself down energetically with a somewhat undersized bath-towel, and was enjoying the tingling sensation engendered by the cold splash and the subsequent rub down, when something made me look up, and there standing at the open arch way between bedroom and bathroom were two officers in blue gunner uniform staring at me with a somewhat amused smile on their faces. Suffused with blushes from head to foot, and feeling hopelessly shy and embarrassed, unable even to reach for my clothes (for I had left them all in the bedroom and hadn't even a dressing gown with me) I could do nothing but just stand there naked, and get through the ordeal as best I could. "You are the new subaltern, I suppose?" said the younger of the two. "Can you play polo?" I stammered out that I was afraid I could not. "Are you any good at cricket?" asked the elder. I was obliged to confess that I was rather a mug at it. "That's a pity" was the reply "for we are all rather keen on it in the battery and have rather a good team. Well, never mind, get your clothes on and come over to the mess and have some breakfast." And with that they left me, and I felt overwhelmed with shame at the sorry first impression I must have made, and I wondered if I should ever get over it.
However, there was nothing for it but to get into my uniform and walk across to the Mess which I found was no distance away, and here I found the two waiting for me and we went into the breakfast room where there were about a dozen other officers, mostly subalterns, having their breakfast. I found that the two who had come over to the Dak bungalow were the Captain of my Battery John Wynne and the senior subaltern, Farrell - always known as "Baby" or "The Babe" from his youthful appearance. After breakfast the latter took me over to his bungalow which I was to share with him and another subaltern belonging to a different battery, and I may say at once that the three of us became firm friends and I don't think we ever had anything ever approaching a quarrel.
My belongings and my bearer were soon transferred from the Dak bungalow, and then Farrell asked me if I had brought out a saddle. I said, No, I hadn't, I didn't know it was necessary. "Of course it is" replied Farrell. "Why, the barracks are the best part of 2 miles from here, and you must have a pony to ride - you can't walk. As a matter of fact I've got an extra saddle, and I don't mind letting you have it for 30 rupees. Come into my room and look at it." "But I haven't got any money" I said. "I spent my last rupee on my Dak bungalow bill this morning and I shan't have any money til I get my pay at the end of the month." "Oh there, no trouble about that" said Farrell. "The Shroff (A native banker. In those days one was attached to each battery in India to keep the accounts. Needless to say, he was a moneylender as well) will let you have all you want, and I think I saw the old beggar in the compound just now." And with that he led the way to the verandah steps and then i saw a funny little wizened man with a white turban, who salaamed as we came out. he handed me a cheque book very crudely printed and bound in the bazaar and invited me to write a cheque for anything that I required, explaining that my pay was handed over to him every month and he kept all the battery accounts. He would keep my accounts he said, and if I was overdrawn at the end of the month he would just debit my account with a rupee for every hundred rupees I was overdrawn, and that would be all right. It seemed an admirable arrangement, and I promptly bought Farrell's saddle, and followed up this purchase by several others during the next few days. Farrell knew of a pony that would suit me - a dun coloured pony of about 14 hands known as "The White Knight" for his likeness to the white knight in chess - and I bought it for 150 rupees (about ÂŁ10). I bought an 80lb double-fly caravan tent, and camp equipment, for we were going out for a 4 weeks practice camp shortly: also a 12 bore gun. When the end of the month came the old Shroff duly brought me my accounts to see. I was credited with my month's pay - I think about 250 rupees (say ÂŁ17) - and debited with the cheques I had drawn, which amount to about 750 rupees, plus the interest on the 500 rupees overdrawn, viz five rupees, which seemed to me negligible. Indeed I still regard a percent on an entirely unsecured overdraft as extremely moderate though it really amounted to rather more as it was added each month to the total indebtedness, this constituting compound interest which mounted somewhat rapidly.
Practically the whole of my subaltern service, which I spent entirely in India except for those first six months in England, I was dogged by this phantom of finance. My mother with her usual, overflowing generosity allowed me from the moment I received my commission ÂŁ60 a year out of her tiny income, sending me a cheque for ÂŁ15 at the end of each quarter. At home my pay as a 2nd Lieutenant was 5s 7d a day, or almost exactly ÂŁ100 a year, say ÂŁ8 a month. My mess bill varied from ÂŁ8 to ÂŁ12 a month, thus leaving me anything between ÂŁ1 and ÂŁ5 a month for all my other expenses, including such unavoidable outgoings as the wages of my soldier servant. Excursions up to London for some function or for a theatre when I was at Shoeburyness cost quite a sum of money, but otherwise expenses during my 3 months there were moderate. When I went to Portsmouth however I found my expenses increasing by leaps and bounds. As I had jumped, as it were, from a school boy into a commissioned officer, I found my wardrobe utterly inadequate and I was obliged to invest in suits of clothes fit for wearing at parties, day or night, in proper tennis kit, and in new boots and shoes of all kinds. Besides this considerable outlay of capital there were the number of day to day expenses to be met - journeys over to the Isle of Wight in response to tennis invitations, boating or riding excursions, picnics and so on, with the result that my pay and allowance failed to cover my mess bill and other expenses, to say anything of tailors, haberdashers, shoemakers, and other bills, which perforce I just left unpaid. The climax was reached when I was in camp in the Isle of Wight at the beginning of September and I was presented with my mess bill in the Portsmouth mess for August, amounting to just over ÂŁ12, and I had a balance in the bank of a few shillings. What was I to do? A brother subaltern whom I consulted advised me to write to the bank and ask leave to overdraw my account by say ÂŁ15. They wouldn't refuse, he asserted, but it was essential that I should ask their permission before overdrawing. Another subaltern whom I consulted advised me on no account to ask permission as it might and probably would be refused, but to draw the cheque up and pay my bill. For the bank, he said, would never refuse payment, especially of a cheque paid to a mess. Like a young fool I compromised between these two contradictory pieces of advice, wrote my cheque and sent it to the mess President in Portsmouth and then wrote to the bank asking leave to overdraw.
Two mornings afterwards on coming down to breakfast I found a letter from the bank, acknowledging receipt of my request to overdraw ÂŁ15 and informing me that they would be prepared to grant my request on condition that I sent them a letter from my father stating that he would guarantee the repayment of the overdraft within six months. Here was a crushing blow indeed. I don't remember if it ever occurred to me to write to my mother and ask her to give such a guarantee; Certainly if it did, I thrust the thought aside immediately though I can't imagine why, unless it was a guilty conscience. I sat pondering what I could possibly do when I was aroused by a remark addressed to me by my Captain, a charming and kindly little man and incidentally a great amateur jockey. He was sitting opposite me just finishing his breakfast. "Hallo Young Fellow" he said, "You're looking pretty glum. What's up? Bad News?" For my answer I threw the letter across the table and started my breakfast. He read it through and then passed it back to me with a casual but sympathetic. "Oh, I see." I finished my breakfast and went into the ante-room, and was promptly summoned by the little Captain to the writing table where he was sitting. "Just fill in the amount and send that letter off", he said, and get up and left the room. To my amazement I found it was a letter to my bank requesting them to allow me to overdraw up to the amount of ....(blank).... pounds, for the repayment of which he hereby gave his guarantee. It is impossible for me to describe my feeling of relief and immense gratitude. The little act of generosity had been so modestly carried out that it taught me one more lesson which I never forgot, and his memory has always remained with me. Poor little chap, he met his death in the hunting field not long afterwards, but his influence goes on to posterity. A day or two afterwards the Mess President, a senior Captain, called me to his office and with a very serious face showed me my cheque, returned from the bank with a note that there was no balance to meet it. "I don't mean to take any official notice of this," he said "for it would be a very serious matter for you and might mean a court martial. That is why I sent for you privately to see if you can do anything about it and let me tear up the cheque." I thanked him profusely and explained as well as I could how it had occurred, and then handed a fresh cheque which I knew would be honoured. He smiled sympathetically and with a "Don't let it happen again" dismissed me. I had learnt one more lesson.
All this happened only 2 or 3 weeks before I was due to sail for India, and about a week before I sailed, my ever generous mother wrote saying that she knew I should find I had many expenses to meet when I arrived in India and settled down with my battery, so she enclosed a cheque for ÂŁ50. Wisely, I think, I devoted this to paying off all my debts in Portsmouth and elsewhere, including my bank overdraft, and in consequence left England without owing a penny. But my grandfather's five pound note which he gave me as I have already told on the day I sailed was all the money I had in the world when I left England, and it just paid my mess bill on the voyage out. Fate was wonderfully kind to me however, for the day I landed in Bombay I was handed five golden sovereigns in a rather dirty envelope which I had won as second prize in a Sweepstake on the Cesarewitch (horse race), and I was at the same time handed a cheque for ÂŁ11.4.0 (how odd that I should remember the exact figure after all these years) which I had been lucky enough to win at whist during the voyage. These two sums just paid all my expenses on the journey from Bombay to Roorkee. But I arrive at the latter, as I have said, with barely a rupee in my pocket, and not more than a shilling or two in my bank in London.
The system which in those days used to enable a young gunner subaltern, possibly still in his teens as I was, and possessing no worldly wisdom or experience, to borrow almost unlimited sums of money on arrival in India merely on note of hand and at a rate of interest which was comparatively small and was merely debited from his account, is a wrong and very dangerous one. The senior officers certainly ought to have kept a fatherly eye on their subalterns, and some no doubt did. The major of my battery however was one of the laziest and most self-absorbed men I have ever met, and took no interest in anything that I could ever discover. He was a bachelor, and lived in a bungalow by himself, played no games, neither rode nor shot, and had no apparent hobbies. He was, I believe, entirely amoral (a completely different thing of course from being immoral especially in the manner and common meaning of the word, though he have been that too so far as I know), and took so little interest in either his officers or men that he hardly ever spoke to them except on duty. He could not pronounce his 'R's, and this disability made him sound effeminate, which he probably was. One evening the thatched roof of one of our barrack rooms caught fire and we all galloped down and the whole battery turned out do do what was possible to save the contents, (amongst other things the building contained the battery office with all its records) and extinguish the fire or at least prevent it from spreading to the neighbouring buildings. Major Swinton rode leisurely down when the building had been some time alight and we were all working like a hive of ants, and taking up a position at a safe distance, sat on his horse with a quizzical expression on his face. After watching the proceedings for a while as if they could have no possible interest for him, he remarked, "How bwightly it burns": then, turning his horse he rode slowly back to his bungalow, content to wait till next morning to hear the result of the conflagration.
But to return to my finances. After one return from camp I sold the White Knight who was not a polo pony and invested in a couple of polo ponies and settled down in earnest to learn the game, at which "Baby" Farrell was an expert, being a first rate horseman and having an eye like a shark. I loved the game and played regularly the whole ten years I was in India, and subsequently in South Africa and Nigeria, but I had no eye for ball games and to be any real use at polo, a good eye is a necessity. I did not regard buying a couple of polo ponies as an extravagance, for everyone was expected to play polo and it never occurred to me that the upkeep of a couple of ponies was not as necessary an expenditure as one's mess bill. It was the latter that I tried with all my might to economise, going to the length of doing without my 6 o'clock cup of tea before going on parade, a real necessity when breakfast was not, in the hot weather, until about 11 o'clock after one had been working for some four hours. This wretched economy probably meant at most 2 or 3 rupees save a month out of a total mess bill of between 150 and 200 rupees.
Anyhow by the time I had been in India a couple of years I was in debt to the tune of over 2000 rupees. True, this only represents about ÂŁ150, but that seemed a colossal sum: and at that moment I needed more money as I had sold my ponies before going on leave to Kashmir. A life in India without a pony was to me unthinkable. To meet the situation a couple of subalterns in an infantry regiment quartered in the same station as I then was (Allahabad) and who were in as great financial straits as I was, joined with me to form a kind of syndicate. I will call them A and B. Now almost any Indian bank was prepared to lend money on a promissory note, provided this was 'backed' by two other persons. A therefore went to a Bank, and borrowed 1000 rupees, B and I 'backing his bill'. B went to a different bank and borrowed 1000 rupees, A and I do the same for him. I went to a third bank and borrowed a similar sum under a guarantee from A and B. And so all three of us found ourselves with a bank credit of 1000 rupees. By the terms of the bank loans we were obliged to pay off the 1000 rupees in four quarterly instalments of 250 each, the interest (at 10 per cent) being added to the final instalment. What I planned to do was to buy 3 ponies at an average of 250 rupees (about ÂŁ17) apiece, and a dog-cart costing, with harness, the same amount. When the first quarterly instalment was due I would sell a pony to pay the instalment off with the proceeds, and repeat the process at the end of the second quarter: at the end of the third I would dispose of the dog-cart, and when the final instalment became due I reckoned I would raise another 1000 rupee loan.
Fortunately or unfortunately, my plans went awry. For I had hardly obtained my loan when the Battery shroff defaulted and absconded with some of the Battery funds and I had somehow to pay up the 2000 odd rupees which I owed him to the Battery. I was really in a desperate plight, and at last I made up my mind to write to my mother who was then in Australia with my two younger sisters, staying with my married sister and her husband. In my letter I said I really had tried to keep my expenses down to my income, but I had failed and was in a mess. Could she manage to send me ÂŁ100 now and another ÂŁ100 two or three months later? If so, I could settle all my debts and would take no more allowance from her for at any rate three and a half years, and in that way pack back the ÂŁ200 which she would otherwise have paid out in the form of my allowance: I promised to do my very utmost never to get into debt again.
I knew I could get no answer for at least two months, and I spent an anxious time wondering what the answer would be. I felt sure that my mother would, however gently, reproach me that I had sisters dependent on her as well as my self: and I was harassed with doubts as to whether it was possible for her to let me have the money, even if she were willing to do so. At long last the answer came - just a simple little letter saying that when first my letter arrived she felt she must send me a cable at once to set my mind at rest: but on second thoughts she realised it was unnecessary, since I must know she would send what I asked for even if it meant selling the clothes off her back. She enclosed a cheque for ÂŁ100 and would send another as soon as she could manage to arrange matters with her bank, and she hoped her dear boy would have no more worries and she wouldn't dream of stopping his allowance.
Never can I forget my feelings on reading this letter. For the first time in my life I saw clearly what my mother really was and what her selfless love meant. So far from dreaming of reproaching me her instant through was how she could most speedily set my anxieties at rest: Nothing but my own misery or happiness had any place in her mind. The scales fell from my eyes, and after all those 22 years of childhood and manhood when I had been so blind to her love and had felt so comparatively indifferent to her I saw in a flash what she meant to me and what I owed to her. From that moment she held all my deepest love and affection, and for the rest of her life I tried to leave no stone unturned to let her see how fully I returned the love she had so unselfishly and undemonstratively lavished on me from the day I was born.
I did pay off my debts and I refused for the next three years to take any allowance, and for the rest of my time in India I managed by some means or another to steer clear of the money lender and yet indulged my love of adventure and romance. But I often look back on those miserable money problems which harassed me so much during my first three years of life in the army and wonder if but for them I should have ever known that deep bond of love that existed between my mother and myself until her death a dozen years later.
That first year in India was to me one long delight, a period of pure joy in living. Four batteries were stationed in Roorkee, which meant 4 Majors, 4 Captains and 12 Subalterns, as well as a Colonel and one adjutant, and as none of the subalterns and few of the senior officers were married we sat down down to dinner each night between a dozen and twenty. Roorkee was also the Headquarters of the Bengal Sappers and Miners, so there were a number of Engineer officers, and right good fellows they were. The country all round was full of game of all sorts, and the shooting was excellent: We had polo three times a week and pigsticking in the hot weather. The climate was, for India, quite exceptionally good since we were close to the foothills of the Himalayas and did not have to endure during the hot season (April to October) the intense heat prevalent in so much of the country. While the cold weather (November to April) was delicious, sharp and fresh, with really cold nights in December.
I went on three months leave to Kashmir in the middle of July and enjoyed every moment of it - the long sailing journey up to Rawalpindi, the 200 mile drive in mail 'tongas' from there to the vale of Kashmir through the beautiful Gorge of the Jhelum River, and then the peaceful tributary joining up to Srinagar by river, lounging in a rough but comfortable houseboat poled upstream by sturdy Kashmiris. And how lovely was Srinagar (pronounced Siri-nugger) with its lakes and hills and tree covered slopes, and the town itself built on either side of the river where one would do a shufty (look) by boat because the houses were all on the water's edge.
I joined forces with a young gunner like myself on leave in Kashmir and we camped by the side of the Dal Lake under the shade of some fine old Chenar trees. We made excursions to some of the lovely Kashmir valleys, following tracks which ran for miles up a bubbling stream, passing little valleys hidden by walnut trees, opening now and then into open glades carpeted with wild flowers of every colour. I know no spot in the world more beautiful than Kashmir, and in the summer the climate is perfect. Parts of Switzerland run it close for beauty but do not surpass it.
My 3 months leave ran its course all too quickly and I had a rush to get back to Roorkee by the end of it. In fact, my train reached Saharanpur, some 25 miles from Roorkee, late in the evening before my leave leave was up. I was due on parade next morning at 6:30 and I found to my consternation that there was no train on till the next morning at 8. Scared that I might get into serious trouble if I returned late from my leave I hired a ramshackle little 'ekka' - a diminutive, springless, two-wheeled little vehicle used by the natives. I piled all my bedding and kit into it, stowed myself on the top, and set off about 11 o'clock to drive the 25 miles to Roorkee by a wretched village track little more than a maze of ruts. The jolting and bumping made sleep utterly impossible and our pace was little more than 4 miles an hour but after a terrible night we reached Roorkee just as day was dawning, and I managed to scramble into my uniform and get on parade with hardly a minute to spare.
In November of that year the batteries all went out to the annual practice camp which was held on a bigger scale than usual, a couple of infantry regiments from Meerut attending it as well as a large contingent of the Sappers and Miners. What was our excitement on hearing that the Commander in Chief, Lord Roberts, known throughout India as 'Bobs" was to come and inspect the camp and stay one night. "Bobs" was the idol of every subaltern in India and merely to see him in the flesh was to us an event worth living for. We were all agog the day he arrived, and we gazed at that gallant little figure with immense interest as he rode around camp with his staff inspecting everything with those keen, piercing eyes. Great was our disappointment when we learned that we subalterns were not to dine that night in the big marquee which formed our mess tent, as we were told that there was no room for us owing to the presence of Bob and his staff and some other senior guests. After dinner however we were allowed to join the rest and each of did our best to edge our way in as near to 'Bobs' as possible. I had managed to get quite close to the Great Man when I noticed that he was preparing to leave: I also noticed that his ADC Furse, a Horse Gunner, whom I came to know well in later life, was engaged in conversation a little distance away. I therefore slipped in, picked up Bob's scarlet-lined great coat, and when he called to his ADC there was I just behind him holding it ready for him. And so I had the incomparable privilege and delight of helping him into his greatcoat and receiving from him a charming smile and a kindly 'Thank you , my boy'. I could hardly sleep that night for excitement.
My fifteen months in Roorkee were perhaps the most delightful of all the time - 10 years - I spent in India, and that is saying a very great deal. Memories of shooting expeditions, of games of stallion polo, of friends made, of pig sticking meets, of jolly guest nights jostle one another in my mind as I write. I consider it not only the best station in India, but the best of any when abroad to which a youngster could be sent, and I was extraordinarily lucky to be quartered there during the first year of my service in the East.
In January 1891 my battery was transferred to Allahabad and we took up our duties in the great fortress that lies on the banks of the River Ganges close to its junction with the River Jumna. Our mess room looked out on to the waters of the Ganges swirling past some 70 feet below and the windows opened on to a projecting iron balcony built out from the massive walls over the river itself. On the land side an immense moat ran round the fort, crossed at one point only by a drawbridge. Here was a great gateway and the main guard. At night, the huge gates were closed and barred, and a sentry was stationed to challenge anyone crossing the drawbridge and to demand the password. Incredible as it may sound, the password was published every day in Garrison Orders which was printed and distributed to all the troops in Allahabad, so what earthly purpose it served was always a mystery to me.
I cannot look back on my two years at Allahabad without an uneasy feeling that they were frittered away by me mainly in amusing myself and what I suppose I regarded as 'having a good time'. Those were easy days for the young officer in India. One enjoyed a three months holiday as a matter of course every year during the hot weather months - April to October - and then days of local leave could usually be obtained at any season of the year, which at the end of three years' service in India one could with luck get a year's leave to England, though in that case it was on the English and not the Indian rate of pay. Actually I had to wait till I had done more than six years continuous service before I was able to get leave home, and then it was my ninety days 'privilege' leave, counted from the day I left my station in India to the day I returned to it, which meant about 6 or 7 weeks actually in England. But I could practically always count on 3 months local leave every year if I wanted it.
As for my work, nothing on earth could have made it of any interest in that sleepy old fort at Allahabad where practically the cannon were old muzzle-loaders dating back to the Mutiny and the half sozen breech-loaders were almost as antiquated. My men, of course, were a constant interest to me and anything that concerned them as a whole, or any one of them individually, occupied all my thoughts and energies. But the work, and the half-hearted daily duel with the out of date guns and equipment, were deadly dull, and merely constituted a drudgery which had to be got through somehow. For the rest, polo, tennis, gymkhanas, shooting, parties, and a little pig-sticking in the hot weather made up our life.
Allahabad is one of the hottest stations in India, and the actual 'cold weather' only lasted 2 or 3 months, and by the end of March the heat had already become very trying. I spent my 3 months leave the first year in Naini Tal, a charming little hill station in the Himalayas some 7000 feet high clustering around a picturesque lake. The second year I intended to spend my leave shooting in Kashmir, and laid out a considerable sum of money on the purchase of a couple of quite good second-hand rifles for the purpose. But actually I never got further than the hill station at Murree as cholera broke out in Kashmir, and I made the excuse for stopping in that delightful little hill station for the whole of my three months, though my real reason, to be quite candid, was quite other. I was only 21, and foolishly susceptible to feminine charm. I returned to the sweltering heat of Allahabad in the middle of July, disturbed in mind, worn out in body, thoroughly dissatisfied with myself and with life in general, and harassed by the state of my finances, and altogether so disheartened and unhappy that I had serious thoughts of throwing my commission and somehow raising enough money to go out and join my mother and sisters in Australia and trying there to get some work - if necessary a manual labourer - which I could earn a wage just sufficient to keep me alive.
At the end of September I was galloping and racing round the track in Victoria Park when she put her foot in a hole made by the heavy rain but invisible to the eye, and we came down in the most tremendous puddle. I was temporarily knocked out but was picked up by some men who had witnessed the accident, and driven to the fort, where I soon gained consciousness. Fortunately no bones were broken and I was merely shaken, but it seemed the climax of all my troubles. Actually, as it turned out, it was the end of them. For a few days afterwards I received a letter from my old Shoeburyness friend, Freddie Poole, saying that he had come to India and joined a Mountain Battery at Jutogh a tiny station in the hills only 2 or 3 miles from Simla, the hot weather capital of India. Why, he asked, shouldn't I take 10 days leave and come up and stay with him? I accepted his invitation with alacrity, obtained the necessary leave, and in a few days time was being welcomed by Poole in the cool fresh air and marvellous beauty of a Himalayan station. Most of that first night we lay awake chatting and telling each other what we had been doing since we had parted more than three years before. Twenty four hours of his company and of the glorious mountain air restored my mental outlook and did me a world of good. By his advice I rode into Simla next day and wrote my name in the Viceroy's Commander-in-Chief's books, and left my cards at the house of the Inspector General and his wife, General and Mrs Lewes. A few nights later I was asked to dinner by the latter, a dinner which oddly enough had a peculiar influence on my subsequent career.
The ten days passed all too rapidly, and just before I was due to leave, the gunners at Jutogh gave a big Garden Party at which most of the big-wigs from Simla were present. I was surprised and pleased that General and Mrs Lewes recognised me on their arrival, for I had never imagined that they would remember one of the scores of young subalterns who were fortunate enough to have been invited to one of their almost nightly dinner parties. Mrs Lewes in fact called me over to her and chatted with me till someone came and swept her off to tea. Shortly afterwards I saw her speaking to the General's Brigade-Major and pointing in my direction. Presently the latter strolled over to me and asked me where my Battery was stationed and whether I had ever thought of applying for the Mountain Artillery. I explained that I was at the moment in the Garrison Battery at Allahabad but that I had long ago applied for transfer to a Field Battery and understood that I was likely to be attached to the Field Battery at present stationed at Allahabad with a view of being permanently posted to it when a vacancy, expected shortly, occurred. He suggested that the Mountain Artillery had many attractions over the Field Artillery, firstly because it was a "Corps d'elite", like the Horse Artillery, the officers being specially picked and appointed instead of merely "Posted"; and secondly because the only artillery which could be used on service on the Frontier were the mountain batteries, so that the chance of seeing actual active service was ten times as great in a Mountain Battery as in either the Field or Horse Artillery. "Anyhow", he concluded, "if you care to send in an application for appointment to the Mountain Artillery when you get back to your Battery, I'll see what can be done about it." When I reported this conversation to Poole that evening he said, "Do what he tells you, It's quite obvious that you have found favour in the eyes of the Inspector General and his wife. Anyhow, the Mountain Artillery is far and away the best branch of the Regiment."
I returned to Allahabad at the end of my ten days leave a different man and on my return to the old fort I found orders awaiting me to join the Field Battery quartered in cantonments the other side of the City some five miles distant. Before doing so, however, I sent in an application for appointment to the Mountain Artillery.
Work with a Field Battery was a real joy compared to the insufferably dull routine of a Garrison Battery in an age old fortress. But I had not been with the battery more than a month when orders came from Headquarters that I was appointed to the Mountain Artillery and was to join immediately a Battery at Umballa to which I was to be attached pending the occurrence of a vacancy. Here was a surprise indeed. Headquarters had not even waited for a vacancy. How joyfully I collected all my possessions and took the train to Umballa, taking with me a handsome Arab polo pony which I had bought in Murree and which would make a fine first rate Mountain Battery charger.
I found my Battery in camp with Poole's Battery, both having come down from Jutogh a week or two previously, and with the utmost enthusiasm I settled down to learn my new work. The Captain of this new Battery - a real good sort - was an Irishman called Fogerty Fegen. Captain Edward Fogerty Fegen RN who won a posthumous VC for his almost incredibly gallant and self-sacrificing action on Convoy duty during WW2 when in command of the Jervis Bay must, I feel sure, have been his nephew as he had no children himself. We spent a few weeks in practice camp in a wild bit of country in the foothills of the Himalayas some six marches from Umballa, and made some uncommonly good practice with our little seven pounder guns which were carried on the backs of mules. Each gun was made in two parts - breech and muzzle - so that it could be carried on two mules. On coming into action the two parts were lifted down and screwed together, the guns in consequence being known as the "Screw Guns", about which Rudyard Kipling wrote in a famous poem called Screw Gun. Every load in the Battery was carried on a pack mule, and each Battery was always fully mobilised, with its own transport, so that it could go off on active service at literally 24 hours' notice. We were therefore keyed up throughout the year, ready for instant action. With us there was no "hot weather" lull in training, for we went up to the hills for the hot weather, were in the mountain air we were perpetually marching and drilling and climbing, and came down to the plains for the winter, the drill season for the rest of the army, and were almost incessantly at manoeuvers or in practice camp or marching and drilling.
Kipling was very accurate when he wrote in Screw Gun:
They sends us along where the roads are, but mostly we goes where they ain't:
We'd climb up the side of a sign-board an' trust to the stick o' the paint:
In March 1893 I suddenly received orders to proceed immediately to Rawalpindi and join No. 3 Mountain Battery, to a vacancy which I had been appointed, and though I left my old friend Poole and the other officers with great regret I was delighted to feel that I had now a permanent appointment instead of being merely "attached" to a Battery.
Arrived at Rawalpindi I found that my Battery was one of three which were quartered in huts about 2 miles out of the cantonment, and I was glad to be back again in a big mess like the one at Roorkee, with a number of subalterns and a sprinkling of captains and majors. I very soon settled down in my new surroundings, and I found my brother officers both in my own Battery and the others a first rate lot, keen and competent.
I had hardly settled down when the hot weather was on us, and we started off on our march up to the hills. Each Battery had a separate station, consisting of wooden huts for the officers and men, canteen, mess, etc..., the mules being picked out in the open, in lines terraced from the hillside. These stations were about 8000 feet above the sea, and the air was gloriously fresh and bracing. All around were steep hills and valleys, all tree-covered, with views of the everlasting Himalayan snows to the North, and of the far stretching plains, shimmering in the heat, to the South. Our own station, Bara Gali (pronounced Baragully) was at the extreme end of the chain of stations, and about 4 miles from the next, Kalabagh. Then came a few scattered bungalows owned or rented by officers of the Indian Army or civilian officials where their wives and children could escape from the heat of the plains. Another 15 miles on was the third Battery station, ten miles further was Murree, the hill station where I had spent 3 months of the previous summer.
What a contrast was that summer of 1893. The peace and beauty of that lonely little station was exactly what I needed, coupled as it was with out of doors work which took up practically the whole day and every phase of which I loved. The senior subaltern went on a year's leave to England, and as the Major was married, we only had, besides myself, the Captain, the other subaltern and the young doctor in the mess. But we all got on famously together, and we played tennis, or took out our guns to try for a hill partridge, or walked or rode over to Kalabagh, during our somewhat scanty leisure hours. Each officer had a hut to himself, with two rooms and a bathroom, and I in mine felt as happy as a king. Every day we breakfasted about 8 and were on parade before a quarter to nine, and were at work till one o'clock. In the afternoon there was generally a further parade, and then evening stables: and finally the subaltern on duty would have to turn out the guard about eleven pm or later, visiting the sentries and going round all the mule lines. I revelled in it all, and felt I had never been so happy in my life. A few months before I had received the letter from my mother to which I have already referenced, and the hideous spectre of debt no longer hung over me. And in that quiet little spot it was not only easy to practice the most spartan economy, but it was actually impossible to spend money even if one wished. I found that even with the constant work which took up each day the hours were not long enough, and I hated to lie in bed after daylight appeared, so I decided to get up every morning at 6:30 and work for an hour for my promotion exam. (and with the idea ofa the Staff College dimly in my mind in the far future when I should be old enough to go up for the competitive examination). I thoroughly enjoyed this quiet hour, reading up my Tactics and Military Law and Fortifications and all the other subjects in which I should be obliged to qualify before I could get my promotion to Captain. It didn't trouble me that I had only four years' service and that as promotion then went it was unlikely that ny gunner subaltern would be promoted Captain until had between 10 and 11 years' service.
All too soon the hot weather ended, and we returned to Rawalpindi for the winter. Here again we were kept hard at work, and enjoyed it: and next Summer we marched up to the hills as usual, this time being stationed at Kalabagh. The second subaltern took his year's leave that summer, but I was far too happy in my work and the lovely surroundings to want any leave at all. I did no army reading that summer, but I read quite a number of serious books which I found of great interest, the one I remember best being Henry George's famous Progress and Poverty which set me thinking on problems which do not generally bother the heads of young subalterns, and wich only the accident of running across these particular books caused me to encounter and ponder.
The end of October found us back in Rawalpindi, and I looked forward to the return of the second subaltern from leave enabling me to go home in the Spring. But something much more exciting happened. For early in 1895 trouble arose on the Indian Frontier. A local chieftain, Umra Khan, broke into insurrection and was joined by several of the fanatical tribes which inhabit that sort of no man's land which lies between India and Afghanistan, a wild mountainous country, roadless and difficult of access where nothing but pack transport can be used. A small force consisting of a handful of British officers and a few hundred native troops were shut up and besieged in a natural built fort at Chitral, and Umra Khan by an act of treachery seized two British officers - Lieutenant Fowler of the Sappers and Lieutenant Edwardes of the Bombay Grenadiers - and took them as prisoners to his own stronghold.
The only troops anywhere near the scene of disturbance were a couple of battalions of native infantry and two guns of native mountain artillery which were guarding some road-building operations in the neighbourhood of Kashmir more than a hundred miles away. This small force was however separate from the Chitral area by some high and difficult mountain passes and at that season of the year (March) deep in snow and impassable. There was no alternative therefore before the government of India but to organise a large force in India to fight its way through the hostile country which lay between the frontier and the beleaguered garrison of Chitral fort. Three infantry brigades were accordingly mobilised, with a fourth as reserve, and my battery was to be attached to the 1st Brigade. An infantry brigade in India in those days consisted of four battalions, two British and two native, with a sprinkling of artillery and corps troops attached: for an expedition to the frontier all transport had to be by pack mule, pony or donkey, since the mountainous nature of the country and complete absence of roads made wheeled transport impossible.
My battery left Rawalpindi towards the end of March 1895, fully equipped with mule transport. Each officer was allowed to take with him his 80lb tent and a roll of bedding - roughly a load for one mule. As soon as the scene of operations was reached, the tent would be left behind at some base, and the officer would continue with his roll of bedding, or possibly only a blanket and waterproof sheet, or he might have room also to carry what was known as a "tent d'abri" - a tiny miniature tent of very light canvas just large enough for a man to lie in, and weighing only a few pounds. There was of course no room for anything except essentials, but I felt that I must at all costs have one, if not two books with me to read, and I remember that I ended up taking Locke On Humane Understanding and Cervantes' Don Quixote. How I came to decide on these two I can't recall, but I had of course to choose something fairly stodgy that would last a long time, and those two books certainly fitted the bill. By a piece of luck I acquired a third book when the mail overtook us on the march a few days after leaving Rawalpindi, posted to me by my sister in Australia. It was called Human Origins by S. Laing, and gave a most interesting account of primitive men and was a very welcome addition to my scanty library.
We started our march up the high road towards Peshawar in tremendous spirits. The hot weather was approaching, and the countryside was dry and the road very dusty, and the sun burnt us brown. On arrival at Nowshera we turned off the main road and made for the last station before reaching the frontier, and here we left our tents, and the next morning crossed the frontier. The enemy, we learned, were holding the pass of Malakand which lay just ahead of us, and which indeed we could see clearly not many miles off. The 1st Brigade, supported by the 2nd, was to storm it next day, and then descend into the valley of the Swat River, that being our next obstacle. We bivouacked that night in some open ground, and after a sort of picnic dinner I crawled into my little "Tent d'abri", of which I was quite glad as a sharp shower of rain came on and without it I should have been drenched. The men were protected by their waterproof sheets. I woke next morning before daylight in a high state of excitement and crawled out of my little tent. A faint light showed in the East and there was almost a stir beginning in the camp. I stood up and looked round, and suddenly there emerged from the shelter of a waterproof sheet close by a figure clothed in a queer uniform at whom I stared with some amazement. For instead of the khaki tunic and breeches, and khaki puttees which we all wore he was wearing a dark blue jacket, with cord, riding breeches and a pair of brown riding boots, and on his jacket were two or three gaudy coloured medal ribbons which I didn't recognise at all. While I was wondering who on earth this odd apparition could be, he stretched himself, and then, seeing me, looked at me for a moment and said "By God, you are looking fit!" I explained that as I had been in the march for 10 days in a hot sun I supposed I did look pretty fit and certainly felt it, wondering how he knew me, as from his remark he apparently did, and then all of a sudden the sound of reveille broke on the air, blown by the Battery trumpeter, and I forgot all about my queer friend, for the whole sleepy battery rose from the ground and my day's exciting work had begun. That early morning trumpet call had always a peculiar fascination for me, as had the one that was sounded last thing at night, "Last Post". Thomas Atkins had put words to these trumpet calls from the days of the Peninsular War and probably much earlier, and those for the Cavalry and Artillery Reveille, sounded on the trumpet as opposed to the infantry bugle, began: "Rise, soldier, rise, and put your jacket on..." I forget how they continued, for it was a very long run out call, but I can hear it now as I write, summoning one from sleep and starting in the early light of dawn and a new day.
I subsequently discovered that the odd figure who had risen alongside me and addressed me so apparently familiarly was the celebrated Major "Roddy" Owen of the Lancashire Fusiliers, a gentleman of tremendous repute who had ridden often at racecourses for the Prince of Wales, and a character about whom stories had been rife for years. After some escapade at Aldershot more than unusually wild he went out to Zanzibar in some military or filibustering capacity - I forget what - and had conferred on him by the Sultan of Zanzibar 2 or 3 medals or orders, which accounted for the gaudy ribbons I had seen on his jacket. He had recently come out to join his battalion in India, and finally in all his attempts to join the Chitral Expeditionary Force he had ultimately obtained the leading Indian daily paper "The Pioneer" the post of Chief Military Correspondent, after getting permission from military headquarters to join the Force in that capacity. Hence his presence, as a sort of free lance in our camp that morning, and his queer kit, half military and half civilian - he wore no badge of rank. I need hardly say that he had not the slightest idea who I was, and didn't care, but when he addressed me was merely giving outward expression to the thought that crossed his mind, mainly that I looked uncommonly fit - which no doubt I did.
After eating in the early morning light an excellent breakfast which our competent native mess cook had somehow managed to get ready for us, we stuffed some food into our haversacks, had our water bottles filled, and were soon on our way with the rest of the Brigade towards the Pass which we could see in the mountain range ahead of us. The leading battalion advanced in skirmishing order, the other battalions and our Battery following, and the baggage mules with a small escort in the rear. We had not gone many miles and were approaching the foot of the pass when some rifle shots rang out and we saw little puffs of smoke dotted about the steeply rising round in front: the battle had begun. Three battalions deployed and began to climb amongst the rocks and scrub, while the fourth remained in reserve to guard the baggage. Our Major cantered on and found a small ridge of high ground facing the Pass, then signalled the Captain, who brought the Battery along, and we "Unlimbered" and brought the guns into action. We could see through our lenses, and indeed almost with our naked eyes, that the whole hillside opposite was pitted with "Sangars" (Pronounced Sung-gers) a kind of rough stone shelter or semi-circular wall in common use on the frontier and which any frontier tribe could build in large numbers in half and hour. Behind its protection they would crouch and fire their rifles or their native "jezails" with deadly accuracy at the advancing foe. All the tribes in that lawless bit of mountainous no man's land that lies between India and Afghanistan are skilled fighters and deadly shots, and they had amongst them a large number of modern rifles which they had from time to time stolen, bought or otherwise acquired in India.
After one or two ranging shots my Battery proceeded to drop shrapnel over such sangars as we could see, thus giving support to our infantry who were beginning to swarm up the steep slope in the face of continued fire from the tribesmen sheltering behind their sangars. It was exciting to watch the battle from our ridge. The tribesmen, expert fighters, kept themselves for the most part cleverly hidden from view, using the rock and the scrub as cover, but now and then we could see them running from one sangar to another in their efforts to stem the advance of our infantry. The latter had spread out widely so as to try and outflank the main position, and although they made use of the cover they could find, and their khaki uniforms toned in well with the dry scrub and the rocks, their number alone made them visible enough to us, and the whole hillside on a broad front of something like two miles seemed covered with them.
I was standing between my two guns watching the scene with the natural excitement of a young man going through his first experience of active service. It never occurred to me that the scales were weighted so heavily on our side that it was like a fight between a mouse and a powerful dog. The tribesmen were heavily outnumbered and pitifully under-armed, while they had of course no artillery at all, so that we could fire our guns and watch our shrapnel burst over their sangars without any danger of being shot at in return. We might in fact have been taking part in one of the hundreds of drill parades to which I had become so accustomed doing these past two years.
We had been firing in a desultory way for a long time, directing a shell every now and then at any target that presented itself, and I was absorbed in watching our men as they clambered up the steep hillside, stopping from time to time to get their breath or fire their rifles at some elusive tribesman, when suddenly something whizzed past my ear and I heard a thud and then a groan, just behind me, and turning round I saw one of our native mule drivers (All our drivers were Indians, though the gunners were all British) lying on the ground clutching at his left arm from which blood was beginning to flow. I may as well admit at once that I was thoroughly scared and I felt my heart beating furiously. It didn't take a fraction of a second to realise that a bullet had missed me by probably less than an inch, and found its billet in the unfortunate fellow behind me, who was now being attended to by the little doctor - the horrid smell of anaesthetics assailed my nostrils, and I could hear the doctor giving rapid orders to his ambulance squad, and an occasional groan from the wounded man. I realised that I was standing on the edge of the ridge, a perfect target for any of the tribesmen opposite, and there was little doubt that one of them had aimed deliberately at me, and had been unlucky to miss his target by such a narrow margin. Instinctively I shifted my position so as to be less conspicuous, but for several minutes afterwards, my heart went on beating wildly while I cursed myself for a coward and a poltroon. Oddly enough however, not another bullet came our way, and we continued our leisurely shelling without interruption.
As the day wore on I could see our men, amid the din and crackle of rifles and rattle of machine guns, getting nearer and nearer the summit of the pass, and at last a burst of cheering broke out, and I could see men waving their helmets, and the firing ceased except for a few occasional shots. It was clear that the pass had been successfully captured, and shortly afterwards a message came from the Brigadier ordering us to advance. Our guns were therefore taken to pieces and loaded on to the mules with the almost uncanny rapidity which years of practice had taught us, and we made our way down the ridge and on to the flat ground below, and soon reached the foot of the pass. Now there was only one track leading up the pass, and that was narrow, rough, strong and precipitous, and already it was blocked with men and mules struggling to get up it, carrying reserve ammunition and supplies for the three battalions of infantry which had gained the top, ambulances, supplies, water, and baggage of all sorts. In addition, there were men and mules coming down as well, having already discharged their loads, and also stretcher parties bringing down wounded officers and men to the medical post established further back. Into this struggling mass we took our place, as one take's one's place in a slowly moving queue, and began the steep ascent. It must have been at least two, possibly three hours before we reached the top, halting, then moving on a yard or two, halting again for several minutes, then moving forward another couple of yards, and so on interminably. We had all dismounted of course and were making our way on foot, leading our pony chargers, but the poor mules with the heaving guns perched on their backs had a bad time, and I blessed their swift-footedness which kept them from stumbling over the many rocks and boulders that bestrewed the rough path. I much admired them for their patience and courage. Half way up we met some stretchers coming down and did our best to leave a passage for them by pushing our mules into the scrub at the side of the track. On the first stretcher was an officer of the Scottish Borderers, his right arm covered with bandages and his face white and drawn with pain, his eyes closed, and I recognised him as 'M' the Adjutant, a great friend of mine. Poor fellow, he had been badly hit in the arm, and the jolting of the stretcher down that rough and precipitous path must have caused him agony.
At last, late in the evening we reached the summit of the pass, and were given orders to prepare a bivouac for the night, a staff officer pointing to a bit of more or less level ground some way down the other side where some young corn was growing. We had eaten what food we had in our haversacks as we climbed the pass, having of course not had a bite since breakfast in the early dawn, and we realised that it would be a long time before our baggage mules could get up. However, our immediate task was to make our way to the spot indicated, unload the guns and ammunition for the tired mules, find some water and fodder for them, and pitch ourselves down in bivouac. We cut the young corn at once, and after watering the mules at a small stream handily, fed the corn stalks to them which was a luxurious feed and which they thoroughly enjoyed. Then followed an hour's good grooming and rubbing down. The harnesses were cleaned and piled in heaps behind each gun, the guns were overhauled and cleaned, and by the time all this was over, darkness had fallen and there was no sign whatever of the baggage. Our Captain was sent up to the top of the pass to make enquiries and came back with a report that their was no probability of its being up before next morning. Brigade Headquarters had established itself at the head of the pass, the three battalions had been billeted in their bivouacs along the hillside, and guards and sentries had been posted all round the camp. Nothing therefore remained for us to do but to post the usual sentries on the guns and mule lines, wrap ourselves up in our cloaks which we always carried, rolled on our saddles, and go to sleep, ready to turn out and man the guns at an instant's notice.
I lay down between my two guns with the detachments all round me, and making a rough pillow of my saddle, was soon fast asleep, tired out by the exertions and excitement of the long day and of my first experience of actual fighting. I woke up at intervals during the night, shivering with the cold, drew my cloak closer round me, listened for a while to the heavy breathing of the men round me and to the champing and stamping of the mules not far off, and then fell asleep again. At last I awoke to find the dawn approaching, and though it was still pretty dark there was a gradual lightning of the sky in the East. I rose quietly and shook myself, glanced at the sentry standing motionless but alert at the end of his beat, and made my way round to the stream in whose icy cold water I washed my face and hands and rinsed my mouth. When I got back, the whole battery was awake, and daylight was spreading over the mountainside. In due course the mules were taken to water and then groomed and cleaned and given the last of the corn. The Major meanwhile went off to the HQ bivouac to enquire further news there was of our baggage mules, and if there were any orders yet for us. On his return he told us that the baggage was expected in a couple of hours, and that when the men had had their breakfast and their rations had been distributed, the Brigade would move down the valley to the river below, continuing its march into the enemy territory. The tribesmen had evacuated the pass, but our intelligence reported that they were massing further on to dispute our advance.
It was not till close on 10 o'clock that our baggage mules at last arrived, having spent the night at the foot of the pass. The men made short work of unloading them, and we soon had the rations distributed and the mess cooks at work, and then we officers fastened ravenously on our own breakfast, the five of us sitting on the ground round a flat rock which served as a table. But it was nearly 2 o'clock before the Brigade moved off, a strong advance guard leading, a new Battery following in close support, then the rest of the Brigade, with the baggage in the rear protected by a powerful rear guard. Our route lay down a valley which gradually opened out as we descended, finally detouring into an open space through which ran a rive of considerable size, the River Swat.
Soon after we began the descent we heard the crack of rifles and realised that the advance guard had already made contact with the tribesmen, but the valley was still too narrow to make out what was happening. We kept halting, and then moving on again and halting again, while the rifle fire became louder and more frequent. Finally as we turned a slight bend in the valley we saw a high range of hills on our right flank, the top of which was covered with tribesmen. The advance guard had deployed to the right to face this threat, and we saw ahead of us, how that valley had opened out, the level ground and the river sparkling in the afternoon sun. The advance guard was now reinforced by a whole battalion from the main body, and after my battery had advanced some distance further we received orders to deploy to the right and shell the heights on which the tribesmen were evidently massed in considerable numbers. This we did, and came into action on a more or less level piece of ground not more than 500 yards from the foot of the ridge on which the enemy were positioned, and we began shelling the heights. The situation however was not altogether pleasant, for here was a large enemy force evidently well armed with rifles occupying a position immediately overlooking on the flank of our force with the immense line of troops and baggage animals. The Brigadier decided to hold off the enemy with a strong flank guard and let the Brigade pass behind the latter and form camp for the night on reaching the level near the river.
The tribesmen however, so far from being intimidated by our shells or the infantry with machine gun fire, were becoming bolder and were actually making their way down the side of the ridge to the place at the foot where the battery was in action with the infantry spread out on either side of it protecting the long line of baggage animals passing behind.
We now had difficulty in finding any target at which to aim, for the tribesmen seemed to swarm over the entire hillside, and although they were getting nearer and nearer as they made their way skilfully down, they never bunched together or formed clusters or groups which would have found targets for our guns. Presently the major gave the order that 2 or 3 case shot should be brought up to each gun and placed in readiness behind it. Now "Case Shot" are merely their iron containers with bullets inside: When guns loaded with them are fired, the shock of explosion bursts the container at the muzzle, releasing the bullets which immediately spread in all directions. Case shot are therefore a rough and ready type of ammunition wherewith to meet a charging mob, but they only carry two or three hundred yards and are therefore useless for a target at any greater distance. They have long been abolished and I should imagine have never been used since the Nineteenth Century. The order to bring them up and stack them round the guns showed me plainly enough that the major imagined that the tribesmen's intention was to come down in their masses and charge the guns, and a rather gruesome picture flashed into my mind of yelling tribesmen rushing on us yelling and hacking at us with their deadly knives and cutlasses, while our men had nothing with which to defend themselves except the clumsy swords which they carried and had no practice in using.
Once more, as on the previous day when the bullet whizzed past me and seriously wounded the man behind. I found my heart beating wildly as I stood there between my guns, watching the swarming tribesmen on the hill facing us. If only, I though, someone would send one off on a message somewhere! And then the thought flashed through me, supposing the Battery knew what was passing through my mind, what a despicable young coward they would all think me. I pretended to be completely calm and unmoved, and gazed at the enemy through my glasses trying to make myself appear to my men as cool as if I were on parade, whilst all the while I was cursing myself once more, as on the previous day, for a coward and poltroon.
Looking back now, as if from a great distance and from a detached point of view, I realise that few young men could ever have been more scared than I was whenever I found myself in a position of danger or when bullets were flying round - fortunately I have never in my life had to face shell or machine gun fire or hand grenades or any of the hideous modern weapons of war, and not very often even bullets or poisoned arrows. For by a curious sort of fate I always seem to have been kept out of the danger zone not, God knows, not by my own doing, for I moved heaven and earth during the 15 years that I was a soldier to get on any "show that was going", as the phrase went: and after I had retired, the same. And this was in no way due to bravado. It was due to my life-long urge for adventure, and to the strong feeling that a soldier in peacetime was merely preparing himself for his real task in life - fighting his country's battles. Hence, if there was any fighting to be done I wanted to be in it. I do not mean by this to imply that I liked fighting for its own sake: The very contrary was the case, and I should never have made a mercenary soldier or a filibuster. But the profession I had adopted was that of a soldier, trained to defend his country in peace and war and to fight for her whenever and wherever needed, and peace-time soldiering - just training oneself over and over again for the real thing - irked me. But I did not know all this at the time of which I am writing, when I was only 24 and on my first "Campaign". I was bitterly ashamed of finding myself a coward when danger threatened, and terribly afraid lest some of my brother officers of the men should find it out too. Fortunately, I am fairly certain that they never did.
To return from this digression to the scene of action. The situation began to look very ugly. Evening was approaching; the endless line of baggage mules was making its way down the valley, heavily guarded by the infantry and a troop of Bengal Lancers attached to the Brigade for escort and orderly duties; the hordes of tribesmen were threatening the whole line of advance from the right flank and was getting nearer and nearer to the battery and the long line of infantry deployed on either side of it, and were becoming bolder as the sun dropped in the West. Right away to our left, that is to say in the direction of the open through broken ground near the river for which the Brigade was making, the tribesmen had even reached the low foothills, and the noise of rifle firing, punctuated at intervals by the rat-tat-tat of a machine gun, was incessant. Presently the Brigadier and his staff rode by, and stopped to discuss the situation with our Major, and the few words I overheard were not encouraging. Once more I found myself longing for something to happen that would get me out of this. Standing between my two guns round which the gunners knelt silently waiting for what seemed hours, wondering what was coming next, waiting, waiting, it was very trying.
And then suddenly, something seemed to be happening away on our left flank, for I could hear very faintly the sound of distant shouting; and presently the tribesmen on the hillside in front of us seemed no longer to be advancing but to be scrambling back up the hill.
What had actually happened was this, as I learnt afterwards. The redoubtable "Roddy" Owen in his zeal for his newspaper and in accordance with his own daring character and love for living as dangerously as he could, had accompanied the advance guard, riding a hardy little grey pony and leading another. He was in fact in front of the whole brigade, and when he saw the tribesmen boldly coming down from the hills and looking as if they were going to attack the very head of our column as it emerged from the valley, he galloped back at full speed to the Headquarters' staff and, tackling the senior staff officer implored him permission to collect the handful of Indian Lancers spread along the baggage line and charge the tribesmen as they came down from the hills on to the more open ground below. Obviously no mere newspaper correspondent, even if he chanced to be normally an army officer, could be entrusted with such a task, but the Brigadier who was greatly disturbed by the situation, thought the idea good when it was referred to him. He therefore gave orders that the subaltern in command of the troop of cavalry should collect such of his men as he could immediately get hold of, and ride rapidly forward, and if he saw a chance of charging the enemy, should do so. Now the tribesmen of the Indian Frontier are magnificent fighters amongst their own hills, and marvellous sharp shooters. But when faced on level ground with a man on a horse with a sword, or still worse a lance in his hand, will instantly panic, and make off to his hills in terror. By the time the subaltern had reached the low foothills with his twenty odd lancers the tribesmen had reached some ground where a charge was perfectly feasible, and without a moment's hesitation he gave the order to charge. Directly the enemy saw the bearded, turbaned horsemen riding at them with their lance at the ready and heard the thunder of the horses' hooves, they turned and fled in a panic. The panic spread to the rest of the tribesmen, and before the lancers had reached the hilly ground, the whole of the enemy were scrambling back up the hills as fast as their legs could carry them.
Presently my Battery received orders to "limber up" (i.e. take the guns to pieces and lift them on to the mules backs) and follow the road down the valley to the place which had been selected for the night's bivouac.
The sun was setting when we arrived at the spot indicated, a stretch of rough but fairly level ground in the broad valley through which flowed the Swat River. The infantry were already dispersed round the perimeter, forming a large square or rather rectangle, and all the baggage animals were assembled in the centre. A staff officer pointed to a space beside the transport animals and informed our Major that he was to bivouac the battery there. Our Major was however a fiery little fighter, and the idea of his precious guns being relegated to a position inside the square and alongside the baggage animals was too much for him. He insisted that his guns must be given a position in which they could be used in case of attack, after some rather heated discussion it was arranged that the battery should form one of the shorter sides of the rectangle, two guns pointing outwards, and infantry interspersed between them so as to form a solid line of fire, both artillery and rife, in case of an attack from that quarter.
It was dark before we had watered and fed and picketed the mules, and given the men their rations and had some food ourselves. The Major decided, wisely I think, that in addition to a double sentry on the guns, a subaltern should be posted to keep watch, each for four hours at a time. I was to come on duty at 2am, so when all my duties had been completed, I wrapped myself up in my cloak, lay down behind my two guns, and was soon asleep. I seemed to have been sleeping for no time at all when I felt myself being shaken, and found it was just on 2am and the senior subaltern had finished his 4 hours on watch and I was due to relieve him. I got up and made my way quickly through the sleeping forms of my men to the open space in front of the guns, and peered into the darkness. I could see the burly figures of the two gunners on sentry and I went up to them and asked them if they had seen or heard anything. No, they had not. For a time I walked up and down, partly to get some warmth into my body, for the night air struck a chill after the heat of the day. Then I stopped and once more tried to pierce the darkness in front of me, and strained my ears to hear any sound. Behind me the camp was in complete darkness, not a light to be seen anywhere. I could hear the occasional cough of a sentry or his muffled challenges as the officer went on his rounds, and I knew that the guards and sentries were on the alert and guessed that the men were all sleeping with their rifles by their sides, ready to turn out at a moment's notice. I found my thoughts going over the exciting events of the last two days, and I wondered whether we should have to fight our way the whole 200 miles to Chitral Fort, and whether we should be in time to relieve the beleaguered garrison. Suddenly I realized that our battery was occupying the side of the bivouac which lay directly opposite the hills from which the enemy had so vigorously attacked us a few hours before. If they made up their minds to carry out a night attack on our camp - and a night attack is a favourite manoeuvre by tribesmen on the Indian Frontier - it was absolutely certain that they would attack this flank, for it was on the direct line of approach, and they could easily swarm down the ravines of the foothills without the possibility of being observed. Before darkness had come on the previous evening I had noticed that the ground in front of our guns and only about 100 yards away was broken up with deep ravines and fissures - it was not far from here that the lancers had made their charge and had been stopped by the ravines. The enemy might collect by their thousands in this broken ground, completely hidden from the camp, and only a hundred yards would separate them from the guns. What could be easier there to rush across this narrow space and be with with their knives and swords before we had the slightest warning even of their presence. I reflected further that such a night attack was invariably carried out just before dawn, and here was I, on guard at the very spot and at the very hour where such a rush would be made. The safety of the whole brigade seemed to me that hour to be in my keeping. For companionship I went up to one of the sentries and chatted to him in a low tone, my eyes fixed all the time on the ground ahead of me, and my ears strained to hear any sound. I told him my idea about the possibility of the enemy massing in the ravines and trying to rush the guns and he replied that some of the men had been discussing the same thing before he came on guard. We both strained our eyes, and listened intently, but could neither hear nor see anything.
So the early hour wore on, until at long last, to my inexpressible relief the darkness began to grow less intense. I could see some rocks which I had not seen before. yes, it was undoubtedly growing lighter. A faint brightness was visible in the east. Dawn was coming and my long vigil was nearly over. Then the camp began to stir. Fires began to be lit here and there and suddenly reveille was sounded by a bugler at the far end of the camp. The long night had passed and a new day was beginning.
That morning we received a bad piece of news. It had been understood that we, the 1st Brigade, was to lead the advance all the way to Chitral, being supported by the 2nd and 3rd Brigades which were to follow in support. We now heard that we were to remain where we were, while the 2nd and 3rd Brigades were to come up from the rear and continue the advance. In fact, about mid-day we had the chagrin of seeing the 2nd Brigade, which had spent the night on the other side of the Malakand Pass, march by our camp and disappear in the the direction that we had been expecting till that moment to take ourselves. They were followed the next day by the 3rd Brigade and at the same time we heard that the 2nd Brigade had been engaged in some stiff fighting at a crossing of the Swat River guarded by a quite formidable mud fort. Rumour had it that after our fight the Brigadier had sent a report to the Officer Commanding the Expedition to the effect that he required considerable reinforcements before he could advance with any safety; whereupon the General had said "Very well, he can stay where he is and guard the lines of communication. The 2nd Brigade shall take his place". Needless to say the 2nd Brigade was delighted to do so. Our feelings may well be imagined and our fiery little Major was livid with anger.
For ten days we remained in that wretched camp in the Swat River Valley, eating our hearts out, but on the morning of the eleventh day the battery received orders to proceed at once to join the 2nd Brigade which was meeting with some stiff opposition in the crossing of the Panikora River some 2 or 3 miles further on and required more artillery. Very joyfully we started off forthwith and marching rapidly joined the 2nd Brigade the next day. It was camped by the side of the Panikora River, a swiftly running stream across which lay the territory of the rebellious Chief, Umra Khan. A few days before, Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Drummond Battye of the Guides had been killed at the head of his regiment, the famous Guides, when making a reconnaissance on the far side of the river. He was the youngest of 3 brothers, the first of whom had been killed before Delhi during the Mutiny in 1857, the second had suffered a similar fate in an expedition on the frontier in 1888 and now the third had lost his life in the service of his country.
Now that the avenging power had arrived at his very door Umra Khan was beginning to be somewhat disturbed. Even before the battle of the Malakand Pass he had released Edwardes, one of the officers he had captured, and sent him in to our lines. And on our arrival at the Panikora River we learnt that the other officer, Fowler of the Sappers had arrived in camp the night before, dressed in native clothes, having also been released by his captors. "Roddy" Owen had rushed down to the waterside the moment he heard the news, hoping to get a great scoop for his paper by obtaining from Fowler's own mouth an account of his experience. "You must want a watch" he said to Fowler "Please accept this wrist watch of mine. I have another so don't want it". And with that he handed him a gold wrist watch. "Thanks very much" replied Fowler. "It is very kind of you", and with that he walked off to report to the Brigade Intelligence Officer. It was probably the only occasion on wich anyone ever got the better of the astute "Roddy".
Next morning we crossed the river with the 3rd Brigade and resumed the advance towards Chitral. Our route lay over a wide open plain, but ahead of us the mountain rose steeply and we knew that we should have to negotiate a difficult pass, the Jambatai Pass, and even then should be hardly more than half way to Chitral. Except for some sniping we met with little opposition and camped that night alongside a small native village. Fowler was accompanying the Brigade as assistant Intelligence Officer - he had asked to do so instead of returning to India after his long and terrible experiences as a prisoner, and his knowledge of the country and people was of course invaluable. He had joined our battery mess. I had known him before in Murree and good company he was, full of fun and always on for a lark. Someone had fitted him out with khaki uniform, bedding, razor, hairbrush and a few other necessities, though his 2 or 3 months in Umra Khan's clutches had reduced his great long lanky figure until he looked as thin as a rake he was in good physical condition and was already beginning to show the result of decent feeding and a normal life once more. After I had finished evening stables that day he called to me and said he had slept in the village for a couple of nights under guard before Umra Khan had given orders for his release and he wanted to look at the hut where he had been confined. The village was merely a collection of mud and grass houses and presently Fowler stopped before one of them. Putting his fingers in the thatch by the side of the door he drew out after some fumbling a couple of martini cartridges, "I wasn't at all sure" he said "during the last few days of my captivity that Umra Khan wasn't trying to have me shot as soon as our forces crossed the river. In fact I know that at one time he intended to. So I managed to extract these two cartridges from the pouch of one of the ruffians on guard one night when he was half asleep, and I hid them in the thatch here. I thought if they came for me I should be able to seize one of their rifles and do at least one of them in, Keeping the other for myself". This episode brought home very vividly what it must have meant to be a prisoner in the hands of one of these cruel ruthless hill chieftains. I heard quite a lot of Fowler's experiences from him afterwards, and later he took me to see Umra Khan's fort where he and Edwardes had spent many weeks in captivity. The marvel was that Fowler had been so little affected by it either physically or mentally. With Edwards it was I believe very different and it was a long time before he recovered completely.
Continuing our advance next day we reached at last the foot of the pass, and here we learnt that the Battery was to remain here with half a battalion of a native regiment of the 2nd Brigade, whilst the 3rd Brigade was to push on as rapidly as possibly to Chitral. Our disappointment was great, but it was shared by most of the 1st and 2nd Brigade, both of whom were gradually being spread along the route from the Indian frontier onwards, as line of communication troops, occupying little fortified posts, spaced at distances of 10 to 15 miles. The whole of the country from the frontier to Chitral being occupied by hostile tribes it was necessary to keep the route guarded along its entire length in order that supplies could be brought up in safety and convoys be protected. At Kanbat, therefore (the name of the pass we were to occupy) we made our camp, building round it a small wall for protection against any possible attempt of the tribesmen to interfere with us. Hardly had we settled ourselves in however when startling news reached us from the front. While our Relief Expedition was still fighting its way up to Chitral, the hard pressed garrison had been successfully relieved from the North by a small force which I have already described as guarding some road building operation in the neighbourhood of Kashmir. This was of course before the discovery or use of wireless telegraphy, and what telegraph lines existed in those parts had been cut, so there were no means of communication. We now learnt that this small force, on learning through native sources of the treachery of Umra Khan, the uprising of the tribes, and the Political Officer and his escort being shut up and closely besieged in the Fort at Chitral, had determined to make the attempt to cross the snow bound mountains that intervened, and fight its way through and relieve the garrison. And under command of Colonel Kelly commanding the 32nd Pioneers one of the regiments concerned, this small force actually accomplished this seemingly impossible task. By sheer determination they managed to make their way over two passes which at that early season were deep in snow, and even to carry their two mountain guns with them. They were met by determined opposition at a narrow defile the tribesmen held strongly an almost impregnable position barring their way, but after an all day battle the little force succeeded in out flanking and then routing the enemy. On nearing the fort the besieging tribesmen broke up the siege and fled, and the next morning the hard pressed garrison opened the gates to welcome the gallant little force that had come to its rescue and in all probability saved it from destruction. For it was not till several days afterwards that the advance guard of our expeditionary force, pressing forward at all the speed it could manage, arrived to find the garrison already saved.
It was while we were in camp at Kanbat that the political officer, Dr Robertson, and the troops which had found his escort and been shut up in the fort with him passed through on their way back to India. Dr Robertson wore his arm in a sling as he had been wounded a few days before the fort was relieved. With them came Harley, a quiet-hearted Irishman who had been at Corig School with me some ten years earlier, and was now a subaltern in that fine regiment the 14th Sikhs. I managed, with some difficulty, to get from him an account of a sortie he had made from the fort with some 30 of his men to blow up the mines being laid by the enemy, a daring exploit which he accomplished successfully. For this gallant action he was subsequently awarded the D.S.O.. He also gave me an account of their ultimate relief which shows in dramatic form the loyalty which the Indian solider feels towards the British Raj ("Government" is the best translation one can give of this untranslatable word which means so much in India).
When the siege began the Senior Military Officer was Captain Townshend of the Central India Horse (the same Townshend who 20 years later was besieged in Kut by the Turks), who had taken command of the troops when their Commander was severely wounded in the fighting before they were driving back into the fort. He at once ordered careful stock to be taken of all the food and stores in the fort. Then, in collaboration with the Political Officer, Dr Robertson, he put into force a rigid system of rationing, knowing that many weeks must pass before they could possibly be relieved. During the early days of the siege many attempts were made by the enemy both day and night to rush the garrison, and the fighting was continuous. Then, finding it impossible to take the Fort by storm, they tried to sap trenches up to the walls with the object of blowing a breach in the latter by means of gunpowder, of which they had plenty. To meet this danger the garrison was obliged to dig counter trenches, and ultimately Harley was sent out as already related to blow up one of the enemy's trenches which was getting dangerously near the walls of the Fort.
At last came a day when the garrison found itself with its food almost exhausted and no sign of relief from any quarter. They had of course no communication with the outside world, though they were aware that news of their plight had reached India; but they realise that to organise an expedition to fight its way through two hundred miles of hostile country would take a considerable time, and as the days went by it seemed increasing improbable help could reach them before their food was exhausted - even then ponies had been slaughtered and put with the common stock. Their situation looked well-nigh desperate.
Such was the situation when one night, about midnight, there came a hammering on the gate, and to the sentry's prompt challenge came the reply "Open, I am a friend. I have come to tell you that the relieving force is 24 hours away and the enemy have all fled." The sentry immediately summoned the Sergeant of the Guard, fearing treachery, and between them they unlocked the gate and opened it very cautiously. A friendly native stood outside, and there was no vestige of a single one of the many tribes that had been busy for so many of the weeks round the seemingly doomed fort. The Sergeant rushed up to Captain Townshend to give him the news, and the latter, hastily collecting a few men, sallied out to find out whether it was indeed true. There was indeed no trace of the enemy, and the native, who brought the news had come from a distant village where he said was a small force which had fought its way to their assistance from the North and would be with them in less than 24 hours.
Captain Townshend's first impulse after waking the rest of the garrison and telling them the good news was to hurry to the hospital which had been improvised in a more or less safe part of the fort, so that he might give the news to the Senior Native Officer of the garrison, an old grey-bearded Sikh who had fought in the Mutiny and other wars during a service of over 40 years and who had been wounded a few days previously. He found the old man sleeping peacefully, so he shook him gently by the shoulder and said "Wake up, Subadar-Major, I have good news for you. The enemy have all fled, and the relieving force will be here in 24 hours." The old man rubbed his eyes, pulled himself up into a sitting position, pondered a moment, and then replied, "It is well. The arm of the Sirkar moves slowly, but it is very long. " Never for a moment had the old man lost his faith in the "Sirkar" - the Government of his country - or wavered in his belief that it would send them help in their distress before it was too late. Such is the spirit that pervades the whole Indian Army.
Perhaps it is worth while digressing to tell how this story was told a few months later to an English audience. When the campaign ended about October of that year (1895) I managed to get a few weeks leave home and joined my mother living in a charming little house close to Kent which they had taken for a few months. Shortly after my arrival I met a neighbour who was Captain of the local company of the Royal West Kent Volunteers. He told me that his Company was having its annual dinner in the village inn a few nights later, and invited me to come to it as his guest. I accepted readily, and on the appointed evening he called for me and took me to the inn, where I found some 70 or 80 men seated at two long tables in the big dining room, with a cross table at one end laid for about 7 or 8 people. My host introduced me to the Adjutant of the Regiment (A Regular Officer of course), and shortly afterwards the other guests arrived. Mr X, the member of Parliament for the constituency, the Squire, and one or two other local bigwigs, and we sat down to dinner. I found myself between the Squire and the Adjutant and was soon chatting gaily to the latter, talking army "shop". Suddenly my host, who was in the centre of the table, learned forward and said to me. "When we have finished dinner and drunk the Queen's health, I am going to ask Mr X (the MP) to propose the health of the Navy, the Army and the Auxiliary Forces and shall be glad if you will reply." I was dumbfounded. I had never attempted to make a speech in my life, and felt myself hopelessly unable to do so, especially with such scant notice and before such an audience. Seeing my distress the Adjutant said, "There is nothing to worry about. You needn't make a speech. Tell them something about the Chitral show, the men all know you have just come back from it, and that's all they want." I saw that there was no way out of it, but I could hardly eat another bite of food, so perturbed was I, and I racked my brains for what I could say. Suddenly, Harley's story of the night the garrison learnt of their relief flashed into my mind. Perhaps that would do. It was itself so dramatic and thrilling that the story told itself and needed no art of eloquence from me. Yes, I must say a few words in reply to the toast, and then dash into the story and hop I shouldn't bore my audience or make and insufferable ass of myself.
All too soon came the end of the dinner and the Queen's health. The chairman then asked Mr X to propose the Service's toast. This Mr X did in a polished speech in the best House of Commons manner, with all the ease and fluency which long practice had made so easy. My time had come. Literally trembling with agitation I rose and stammered out a thanks on behalf of the Services, a few words of thanks for his kind words. "I'm afraid," I went on "that I cannot make a speech - in fact the longest speech I have ever made in my life is probably 'Four Fours, Right'. I am afraid too that I know very little about the Navy and even less about the Auxiliary Forces. But there is one branch of the Army about which I feel that too little is known in this country, and that is, the Indian Army. To show you the kind of spirit that inspires the Indian Army I should like, if you will let me tell you a story about what happened in the recent campaign on the Indian Frontier from which I have just come back." I was now fairly launched, and I told them all about the small force which had been surprised by great numbers of well armed tribesmen and finally drive to take refuge and be besieged in the fort of Chitral. I explained how their relief required the despatch of a large force in India to fight its way through some 200 miles of hostile territory. I described various incidents in the siege, and how the garrison had slaughtered the officers' ponies to eke out the food; how they had practically come to the end of their food and could get no news of the approach of any relieving troops and were contemplating the prospect of sallying out and selling their lives as dearly as possible when the guard was aroused at midnight and the knocking on the gates and the cry "Open. I am a friend and I have come to tell you that the enemy have all fled and a relief column is only 24 hours away." I went on to describe how Captain Townshend came down and finally how he went up to the hospital to tell the old Sikh havildar officer the wonderful news and found him asleep. I must have been speaking for 20 minutes or more and had entirely forgotten my audience. I was back in camp in Kanbat sitting with Harley, and I was wholly absorbed in recalling the tale as he had told it to me. I reached the dramatic incident to which the story had been leading when Townshend shook the old grey bearded Sikh to wake him, and told him the news, and I had come to the moment when the gallant and loyal old soldier gave his reply - and suddenly I was aware of some eighty pairs of eyes fixed on me. No one in the room stirred, all intent on the narrative, waiting for the climax. I glanced in the direction of my bold and fellow guests, and their eyes too were fixed on me. Mr X himself had let his cigar go out, and was leaning with his elbow on the table turned towards me, listening, absorbed in the narrative. I realised to my horror that I was making a speech, and that the attention of every person in the room was riveted on what I was saying. Stage fright overwhelmed me, and for a moment I paused. What was the reply that the old Sikh had made to Captain Townshend? "The arm of the Sirkar was long... the arm of the Sirkar was long... was long, but it was very short - no that was nonsense. What did he say? I had completely forgotten and nothing would come into my mind but these idiotic words. Drops of perspiration formed on my forehead and began to trickle slowly down, something was hammering in my forehead. All eyes were fixed on me and I stood there repeating it seemed again and again. "And the old man rubbed his eyes and looked up.... rubbed his eyes and looked up.." what should I do? Pretend to faint?" I couldn't do that. Tell them that I was sorry but I had forgotten what the old man did say, and then sit down? I couldn't do that. If only the floor would give way beneath me! Something must be done. Once more I repeated "the old man rubbed his eyes..." and then, driven to desperation I continued... and looked up and said "Ah Sahib, the arm of the Sirkar is very long". These words I said slowly and deliberately, and then I continued much more rapidly, "but is is very short" and with that I banged my fist on the table so that the glasses rattled and went on "There, gentlemen, that shows you the spirit of the Indian Army! Not for one moment had the old Sikh native officer lost his faith in the Raj. Not for one moment had he doubted that the Raj would stretch out its long arm and come to their rescue. And that, gentleman, is the spirit that inspires the entire Indian Army." And with that I collapsed into my seat waiting for the shouts of laughter or roars of disgust that would I imagined great this idiotic finale to a long and boring story. To my amazement I was greeted instead with loud and prolonged cheering, and I found myself being thumped on the back by the adjutant. "Bravo" he cried, "Said you couldn't speak! Why, I've never heard anything so thrilling and look at the men - you stirred them all right." "Shut up, you 'something' fool" I retorted "I have just made a 'blank' fool of myself. Didn't you hear what I said?" "Every word my dear fellow." And marvellous to rate, not a single man in the room had realized that anything was wrong. My long pause and the repetition of the sentence about the old man rubbing his eyes was, they thought, an artifice to make the whole scene more dramatic. Then when the reply came "Ah, sahib the arm of the Sirkar is long..." there was no more, they thought to listen to, and the banging of my fist on the table and my tribute to the spirit of the Indian Army combined to blot out the idiotic futility of the five hurriedly uttered words that followed, and they failed to register in anyone's mind - thank Goodness. "I'll never make a speech again as long as I live." I said fervently to the Adjutant. And I kept my word for something like 20 years, when unfortunately the making of speeches became perforce one of my normal duties. But I have never forgotten and never should forget those few awful moments, and even now I can hardly recall them without a shudder. It will be remembered that the correct words were "The arm of the Sirkar moves slowly, but it is very long."
Continued in Volume 2
|
