Actually Keyes will show him a copy; we will wait one hour before sending it off and, if we don't hear then, we may take it de Robeck will have endorsed the purport. Of course, if he does not agree the last sentence must come out, and he will have to put his own points to the Admiralty.
Later.—Have sent Doughty Wylie to Athens to do "Intelligence": the cable was approved by Navy; duly despatched; and now—up anchor!
CHAPTER III
EGYPT
25th March, 1915. H.M.S. "Franconia." At Sea. A fine smooth sea and a flowing tide. Have written to K. and Mr. Asquith. Number two has caused me fikr.[8] The P.M. lives in another plane from us soldiers. So it came quite easily to his lips to ask me to write to him,—a high honour, likewise an order. But K. is my soldier chief. As C.-in-C. in India he refused point blank to write letters to autocratic John Morley behind the back of the Viceroy, and Morley never forgave him. K. told me this himself and he told me also that he resented the correspondence which was, he knew, being carried on, behind his (K.'s) back, between the army in France and his (K.'s) own political Boss: that sort of action was, he considered, calculated to undermine authority.
I have had a long talk with Braithwaite re this quandary. He strongly holds that my first duty is to K. and that it is for us a question of K. and no one but K. Were the S. of S. only a civilian (instead of being a Field Marshal) the case might admit of argument; as things are, it does not. So have written the P.M. on these lines and shall send K. the carbons of all my letters to him. To K. himself I have written backing up my cable and begging for a Brigade of Gurkhas. Really, it is like going up to a tiger and asking for a small slice of venison: I remember only too well his warning not to make his position impossible by pressing for troops, etc., but Egypt is not England; the Westerners don't want the Gurkhas who are too short to fit into their trenches and, last but not least, our landing is not going to be the simple, row-as-you-please he once pictured. The situation in fact, is not in the least what he supposed it to be when I started; therefore, I am justified, I think, in making this appeal:—"I am very anxious, if possible, to get a Brigade of Gurkhas, so as to complete the New Zealand Divisional organisation with a type of man who will, I am certain, be most valuable on the Gallipoli Peninsula. The scrubby hillsides on the South-west face of the plateau are just the sort of terrain where those little fellows are at their brilliant best. There is already a small Indian commissariat attached to the Mountain Batteries, so there would be no trouble on the score of supply."
"As you may imagine, I have no wish to ask for anything the giving of which would seriously weaken our hold on Egypt, but you will remember that four Mounted Brigades belonging to Birdwood's force are being left behind to look after the land of the Pharaohs, and a Mounted Brigade for a battalion seems a fair exchange. Egypt, in fact, so far as I can make out, seems stiff with troops, and each little Gurkha might be worth his full weight in gold at Gallipoli."
Wrote Fitz in much the same sense:—"We are desperately keen to extract a Gurkha Brigade out of Egypt and you might lend a hand, not only to us, but to all your own Sikh and Dogra Regiments, by making K. see that the Indian Army was never given a dog's chance in the mudholes. They were benumbed: it was not their show. Here, in the warm sun; pitted against the hereditary dushman[9] who comes on shouting 'Allah!' they would gain much izzat.[10] Now mind, if you see any chance of an Indian contingent for Constantinople, do everyone a good turn by rubbing these ideas into K."
Braithwaite has already picked up a number of useful hints from Roger Keyes. His old friendship with the Commodore should be a help. Keyes is a fine fellow; radiating resolve to do and vigour to carry through—hereditary qualities. His Mother, of whom he is an ugly likeness, was as high-spirited, fascinating, clever a creature as ever I saw. Camel riding, hawking, dancing, making good band-o-bast for a picnic, she was always at the top of the hunt; the idol of the Punjab Frontier Force. His Father, Sir Charles, grim old Paladin of the Marshes, whose loss of several fingers from a sword cut earned him my special boyish veneration, was really the devil of a fellow. My first flutter out of the sheltered nest of safe England into the outer sphere of battle, murder and sudden death, took place under the auspices of that warrior so famouséd in fight when I was aged twenty. Riding together in the early morning from the mud fort of Dera Ismail Khan towards the Mountain of Sheikh Budin, we suddenly barged into a mob of wild Waziri tribesmen who jumped out of the ditch and held us up—hand on bridle. The old General spoke Pushtu fluently, and there was a parley, begun by him, ordinarily the most silent of mankind. Where were they going to? To buy camels at Dera Ghazi Khan. How far had they come? Three days' march; but they had no money. The General simulated amazement—"You have come all that distance to buy camels without money? Those are strange tales you tell me. I fear when you pass through Dera Ismail you will have to raise the wind by selling your nice pistols and knives: oh yes, I see them quite well; they are peeping at me from under your poshteens." The Waziris laughed and took their hands off our reins. Instantly, the General shouted to me, "Come on—gallop!" And in less than no time we were going hell for leather along the lonely frontier road towards our next relay of horses. "That was a narrow squeak," said the General, "but you may take liberties with a Waziri if only you can make him laugh."