CHAPTER III
1880-1883
RANGOON
1880
At the expiration of his term of office at Aldershot, in May 1880, Captain Gatacre took short leave home, and then rejoined the 77th at Dover. The regiment had been already warned for India in the next trooping season, but the news of our misfortune at Maiwand hastened their departure, and in August 1880 they were hurriedly embarked at only a fortnight's notice. To Gatacre the hope of seeing active service must have more than compensated for a disappointment he had expressed at not getting another staff billet. This hope, however, vanished on their arrival at Bombay, where the regiment learnt that the defeat of Ayub Khan outside Khandahar on September 2 had brought the campaign to a conclusion. The battalion was landed at Bombay on September 10, and made its way by road to Madras.
On the staff
It is evident that Gatacre's reputation as a zealous and efficient officer had preceded him, for within one month of his arrival in India he was seconded for service on the staff of the Hyderabad Subsidiary Force, which had its headquarters at Secunderabad. All keen soldiers are pleased to be in India, for there is more chance of active service there than at home, and it was in the hope of getting this opportunity that Gatacre lived and worked. In the meantime his selection for staff work, although the post was only "temporary," was sufficiently complimentary to satisfy all his aspirations. His qualities and temperament had greater scope to expand in such a post than in the more rigid routine of a regiment; his previous experience of India added discernment to his enthusiasm in dealing with all the manifold interests with which he came in contact.
But there was a cloud on the horizon which rapidly grew until the whole sky was for the moment overcast. Early in the New Year his little son, born at Aldershot and aged only fifteen months, fell sick with cholera, and died on January 18. Both parents felt the blow terribly: the mother took fright for the elder boy, and decided to carry him off home. Several touching relics, in the way of a lock of hair, etc., that Gatacre, in spite of his many changes of residence, never afterwards cared to destroy, show how deeply he was moved by this loss. He had a spontaneous fondness for children that led him all his life to accost them; and his attentions to them invariably met with that quick response which is in itself a sign of grace in the recipient.
A manhood fused with female grace,
In such a sort, a child would twine
A trustful hand, unasked, in thine,
And find his comfort in thy face.
He looked forward with pleasure to getting a change when he should be relieved in June by the officer whose post he was holding, and soon had the satisfaction of accepting an offer from General the Honourable Arthur Hardinge, Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay Army, to take the place of his Military Secretary, who was for the moment employed elsewhere.
1881
This appointment was even more congenial than the last: for to be on the personal staff of the Commander-in-Chief of a province meant accompanying him on all his tours of inspection. Like the former, this appointment was an eight months' business, for staff officers in India get sixty days' short leave every year, and eight months' long leave occasionally; for the latter period it was usual to appoint some officer to carry on, and it was Gatacre's good fortune throughout his career to be constantly selected for such temporary tenure of office. In this way he gained an acquaintance with all the provinces of India, and with all arms, British and Native, such as rarely falls to the lot of one man. When he left India, seventeen years later, there was hardly a station in all the four provinces which he had not visited.
Military Secretary
In the course of the winter, 1881-2, General Hardinge paid an official visit to Sir Robert Phayre, at Mhow. One of his daughters well remembers Major Gatacre on this occasion. His handsome bronzed face, his slight athletic figure, and keen but kindly blue eyes arrested the attention; and then on further acquaintance, his indefinable charm of manner, his courtly way of devoting himself to his companion for the moment, his curious mixture of modesty and power left an impression which later years exaggerated as his name became identified with all the soldierly qualities and achievements which built up his fame.
Every moment of these inspection tours was full of interest for Gatacre; who, being a good son, writes fully and simply about everything to the Squire at home.
CAMP HAMURGHURI,
December 18, 1881.
"We are having a very pleasant march from Nusserabad to Neemuch; good shooting all the way—duck, snipe, and deer; also some capital pig-sticking. The wild boars here are very difficult to get out of the jungle and grass, but when one does get them out across the open ground they run like greyhounds. I have two ponies a little under fourteen hands, both fast, and I have sometimes galloped a mile and a half before I could catch one; this was allowing him about a quarter of a mile start, otherwise if pressed they turn into the jungle. When you get up to them on the open ground, they turn round and run back a pace or two, and then come straight at you, rising on their hind legs to cut your horse if they get the chance, but this of course they can't do if you use your spear properly. I have got some capital tushes. The best run we have had as yet was at a place called Roopauli, two marches back; two boars broke covert together and went away over capital ground to another place two miles off. The Commander-in-Chief and I took one and had a capital run after him. I had the luck to get the first spear. I was pleased, because I was riding a horse of the Chief's that could never be got up to a pig before. To-morrow we are coming to a place celebrated for cheetul, a kind of spotted deer, antlers like a stag and skin like a fallow deer. I am in hopes of getting one or two. This is a beautiful country to march through, very long grass and jungle all round; nearly all the hills are of white marble; and spotted marbles of sorts, and an enormous number of old forts and temples beautifully ornamented with carvings in marble and stone. Some of them are extraordinarily beautiful in form and design of carving, far superior to anything we see now—and these are thousands, not hundreds, of years old."
1882
It is difficult to say when Gatacre "found" himself—to use an expression that Mr. Rudyard Kipling has for ever endowed with psychological meaning; but there can be no doubt that the shifting scenes in which he played his part from the time he landed in India, in August 1880, till he commanded his regiment in June 1884, must have widened his outlook on life, must have quickened his sense of the opportunities before him, and have enabled him to gauge his own powers. India encourages individuality to a very high degree; men live in small groups in stations that are hundreds of miles apart; in any one place there is (in a sense) only one man of any one grade, so that the labourers do not jostle one another, but each has enough elbow-room to play freely with his tools.
To Burma
At the conclusion of his time with General Hardinge in February 1882, Gatacre was sent to act as Assistant Quarter-Master-General to the Burmese Division, with headquarters at Rangoon, then under the command of General H. Prendergast. The British connection with this picturesque river-port dates from 1824, when Sir Archibald Campbell captured it after a feeble resistance. In the following year, owing to continued outrages on British subjects and the refusal of the King of Ava to enter into any treaty obligations with us, a British force advanced up the Irrawaddy to Prome, and stayed there throughout the rainy season. In October the Burmese Army made an organised attempt to recover the place; but the British forces repulsed the attack, and followed up the enemy to within four days' march of their capital at Ava. At this point the Burmese sued for peace: their apologies were accepted, and the country was evacuated, except for the sea-board provinces of Arakan and Tenasserim. The Province of Pegu was restored to the Burmese and remained in their hands till 1852, when fresh outrages and insolence on the part of another Burmese sovereign again gave rise to hostilities. At the conclusion of peace Pegu was formally annexed by Proclamation, while Lord Dalhousie was Viceroy, under the name of Lower Burma, and Rangoon was made the seat of government.
Upper Burma was at that time in a deplorable condition; the excesses of the ruler, who was called Pagan-min, are described as recalling the worst years of the later Roman Empire. With a change of dynasty in the person of Mindon-min, matters improved somewhat. The new ruler realised the value of European enterprise and capital; he allowed strangers of all nations to settle in the country, and protected travellers and explorers. A few years later a commercial treaty was negotiated with Great Britain, a Resident was received, and for his protection he was allowed a small guard and an armoured boat on the river. To commemorate his flourishing reign Mindon founded a new capital at Mandalay, and in 1874 had himself crowned there to fulfil a prophecy.
King Theebaw
On his death, in September 1878, a terrible tragedy was enacted. Mindon, being an Oriental, had many wives and many sons; these latter he had dispersed as rulers of provinces with very good effect. When the old king lay dying, one of his wives devised a scheme by which to secure the succession to Prince Theebaw, for the reason that he was her son-in-law by his marriage with Supya-lat, her daughter. With the most fiendish designs Theebaw and the queen, in the king's name, summoned all the princes to Mandalay. They arrived each with his Oriental retinue of women of all ages. The royal ladies were lodged in the prison, which had been cleared for their reception; the princes were received into the palace. "Under instructions from the King," a massacre was perpetrated on the nights of February 15, 16, and 17, 1879. The queens and princesses and even royal children were done to death by the "ruffians released for the purpose from the jail which was now the scene of their cruelties, and their bodies were flung into a hole already dug in the jail."[[1]] The princes were compelled to pass through a certain doorway in the palace, where each one was in turn cut down; it is even said that the queen-mother and Supya-lat with their own hands did the deed. "Eight cartloads of the bodies of the Princes of the Blood were conveyed out of the city by the western or 'Funeral Gate,' and thrown into the river according to custom."
[[1]] Parliamentary Papers (Burma), 1886. Quotations from the Mandalay Confidential Diary, by Mr. R. B. Shaw, Resident, of February 19, 1879, and later dates.
It was calculated that some eighty souls thus perished. Even the people were horrified. Our Resident, Mr. Shaw, could do no more than express with vigour the light in which his Government would regard these atrocities; but King Theebaw was inaccessible to argument, and reasserted his right to take "such measures to prevent disturbance as might be desirable," stating that such acts were in accordance with the custom of the State, and that he would go his own way without regard to "censure or blame."[[2]]
[[2]] Parliamentary Papers (Burma), 1886.
1883
Owing to further gross outrages, the Resident was driven to fulfil his threat of breaking off friendly relations with such a ruler; the British flag was hauled down in August 1879, and the Residency evacuated.
There were now no governors to keep order in the provinces: dacoits sprang up, traders were robbed and killed, the people were oppressed, and the land neglected. English merchants, however, continued to carry on their business at their own risk; their boats plied up and down the broad stream, and it was in their hospitable company that Gatacre spent Christmas 1882 at Mandalay.
RANGOON, January 11, 1883.
"MY DEAR FATHER,
"I send you a line to tell you my doings up-country at Christmas time. I was sorry to leave Alice just then, but the opportunity of seeing Mandalay for nothing was a great temptation.
"We went, a party of six, including myself, most of them merchants. We had a steamer to ourselves, and the head of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, a Mr. Swan, who took us, did everything in first-rate style. The River Irrawaddy is a very difficult one to navigate at this dry season of the year, owing to the constantly shifting sands. We did not get aground, luckily, but we passed several steamers fast on the sands; they sometimes remain there six months till the river fills and floats them off. The steamers only drew 4 ft. 6 in. of water.
"We took four and a half days altogether to go up to Mandalay, but I did not join them till the steamer reached Prome, so I had only three days on board going up. The country, as far as we could see from the banks, consists of large rich plains, covered with grass and scrub jungle; very little cultivation, owing to the poverty of the people, but if capital was forthcoming the soil would grow anything. Where the crops were sown the yield was very large. There are low ranges of hills on the right bank, and a highish range, called the Shan Mountains, on the left bank.
"We were told there was but little game inland; we saw plenty of wild-fowl, geese, etc. The poverty of the people is chiefly owing to the King having started lotteries, which bring him in 10,000 Rs., about £800, a day. The people have gone gambling mad, and barter everything they have for tickets—property, children, everything. The King ruins the country by his recklessness in squandering money; he presses the people to such an extent that an up-country Burman will hardly take the trouble to make money.
"Mandalay is nothing but a collection of mud huts and a few masonry buildings, laid out in a beautiful style, all the houses in rows, with large streets running between each at right angles. It was laid out by Italians. None of the roads are made, so the bullock-carts passing along them in the rains have cut them up to a frightful extent; and in the rains they are impassable except quite at the edges, and then only to pedestrians. Mandalay was only built twenty-five years ago; formerly the capital was Ameerapoora, about six miles off, but was changed to Mandalay by order of the King. Ameerapoora is a beautiful site—large trees, grass, and water everywhere. Some of the carved pagodas are very beautiful, but going very much to decay. The custom is, in Burma, that when a man builds a house or pagoda he only can repair it, or his relations; the consequence is that in course of time the building is forgotten and goes to pieces.
"We saw the war-boats on the river; they are long dug-out canoes, a beautiful shape somewhat like this,[[3]] generally with a figure-head of a peacock (their sacred bird). The canoes are gilt all over, and manned with eighty to one hundred men; each has a short paddle, and is armed with a 'dah,' the Burmese knife, a 2 ft. 6 in. blade, with handle of 8 in. or 12 in. The canoes go like lightning, driven by the rowers, who shout all the time. The Burmese are great boatmen, and their races on the water are well worth seeing. They bet tremendously high on them.
[[3]] See drawing in letter. [Transcriber's note: this letter was missing from the source book.]
"The second largest bell in the world is at Mendoon, near Mandalay; this we went to see. It is 14 ft. high, and of a most enormous thickness—about 1 ft. 6 in. I should say. It was originally suspended on three enormous teak trees laid on masonry supports, but these have given way, and now it rests in the ground. There is also near the bell the commencement of a very large pagoda. Some one (I forget who) made up his mind to build the largest pagoda in the world, so started upon one. He got together an extraordinary amount of brick-work, but an earthquake unfortunately stopped the work by splitting it up in several places. It is about 100 yards square and high, so you can imagine the size of it. It is built with large red bricks, 2 ft. long by 1 ft. wide by 4 in. thick.
"We stopped in Mandalay two and a half days. I rode about all over the place, and found the people very civil, though they are very suspicious of Englishmen.
"We came down in one and a half days to Prome, where I caught the night train down, as I had to be back on New Year's Day, my leave being up. The trip was a most enjoyable one."
Second-in-command
The temporary staff billet having run out at the end of 1882, Gatacre went home on three months' leave early in the following year, and when he returned in May took up the post of second-in-command of his regiment, which in those days meant taking command of one wing of the battalion. This brought no change of residence, as the 77th were then quartered in Rangoon.
He joined heartily in everything that was going on, and had, moreover, interests of his own which lay beyond the field of duty. The spring and autumn race-meetings were a great event. Though he does not seem to have owned any racing ponies, he was always in request as a jockey. Every morning he would hack down to the racecourse, and being a light weight was often asked to give a gallop to the ponies that were in training. In a letter of June 1883 he says: "I rode in five races, and won two, the hurdle race and an open race—the best race of the meeting—which pleased me."
There was a steeplechase pony named Free Lance that he rode to victory many times. The owner of Free Lance appeared as Mr. Darwood, a gentleman of Rangoon, of mixed nationality; but I am inclined to think that Free Lance was in reality the property of King Theebaw, for the General told me that at one time he had half shares with King Theebaw in a racing pony, which he rode, and there is no other period to which this incident could be attached. I have now in my possession a gold scarf-pin that King Theebaw sent as a recognition of Gatacre's services in the matter of this pony. Although this secret was kept so close that none of the regimental officers got wind of it, it is not considered improbable.[[4]] It was well known that Gatacre had friends amongst the leading men of Rangoon, and it is entirely in accordance with his character that he should have been personally acquainted with his native neighbours. Indeed it is not altogether impossible that he was engaged in some sort of secret intelligence duties for Government, for he told me that at one time he used to disguise himself and go and talk in the Native Bazaar, and it is certain that he acquired the Burmese language, and could even write it to some extent.
[[4]] As King Theebaw was at that time an independent friendly sovereign, there is nothing contrary to any regulations in Gatacre's association with him in this matter.
Iolanthe
In the summer of 1882 the regimental officers and others in the station got up a performance of Patience, in which Gatacre figured as one of the Dragoon Chorus. In the following year Iolanthe was produced. Gatacre was anxious that the audience should include persons of all nationalities; and in order that those who could not understand the English words should have some key to the action, he made a précis of the play, and, having written it in Hindustani characters, had it lithographed, and distributed with the programmes. A copy of this curious document, which covers three sides of foolscap, and is signed in full, is still to be seen in the scrap-book of the officer who joined the 77th Regiment for love of his tutor at Sandhurst.
At the end of September Gatacre heard of the birth of his third son, John Kirwan, now in the 11th Bengal Lancers.
In December 1883 the regiment left Rangoon for Secunderabad.