At 6 a.m. the next morning Gatacre started to walk the line by the aid of a map, drove back, did his morning's work on the heath with his class, and ran the line again in the afternoon. The runs varied from four to six miles, according to the season and the condition of hounds and horses, with a ten minutes' check in the middle. The fox on this occasion, however, was a long-winded one; he ran a bit farther than his instructions warranted, in order to enjoy the sight of half the field struggling on the banks of a big brook.
At the final examination in December 1874 Gatacre passed out of the Staff College with special honours in military drawing and surveying, and was at once offered the post of Professor in these subjects at the Royal Military College; he took up this appointment early in 1875.
In the following year, being then thirty-two, he was married to a charming and beautiful girl of Irish descent. Early in the year 1878 their eldest son, William Edward, who is now a Captain in the Yorkshire Light Infantry, was born at Yorktown.
1875-9
A few months later Gatacre was to know the first great grief of his life in the loss of his mother. Willie had always proved intensely lovable, and had also his own graceful and attentive ways of returning the love which he received from his parents. There was, moreover, a strong vein of sentiment in him which led him throughout his life to cling to souvenirs and relics of the past.
As professor
It is evidence of the strength and the simplicity of Gatacre's character that his charm of manner was felt equally by men older and younger than himself. "Manners impress as they indicate real power. And you cannot rightly train one to an air and manner except by making him the kind of man of whom that manner is the natural expression. Nature ever puts a premium on reality."
The cadets in his class were fascinated by this singular and brilliant personality, and loved him with a "schoolboy heat." One of them tells how he seemed more one of themselves than the other professors; another remembers how he treated them as gentlemen, instead of regarding them as schoolboys; another that he was full of sympathy when anything needed explanation; another that if he found out and fell upon some little meanness with the weight of his own uprightness, he would gave the culprit from official correction thus win him as a disciple; another, writing at the time of his death, speaks of Gatacre's influence for good throughout his career. Another, who has afforded me very real assistance in this narrative, tells us that he felt such a genuine hero-worship for Captain Gatacre that he applied for the 77th Regiment in order to serve under him. This cadet not only passed well, but, being a protégé of General William Napier, who was then Governor of the College, might have got himself gazetted into any regiment that he liked to name.
After serving four years as a military instructor, Gatacre was appointed temporarily to the post of Deputy Assistant Quarter-Master-General on the Headquarters Staff at Aldershot. This was his first experience of staff work. The following winter a new field-service equipment was engaging much attention; this was, of course, worked out in the office in which Gatacre was employed. He writes with some satisfaction of the "mess-tin invented by me" being approved and adopted.