January 27, 1884.
"MY DEAR FATHER,
"I send you a short letter by this mail, but will write at length by next one, and tell you all about the manoeuvres. They are over now and have been most successful. I have enjoyed them thoroughly, though I have been most unfortunate. I told you one of my horses or charger ponies died of anthrax a few days before leaving Burma (I had just sold the brute for 600 rupees); and the other charger, which I had had for two years, and who was a first-rate animal, died of colic the day after I arrived here. Fortunately for me a friend of mine was kicked off his horse a few days after coming here, and hurt a good deal, so he asked me to ride him, which I have done all through the fortnight's work. Though a very fine horse, he, like many walers, was very nervous and shy, and the last day of the manoeuvring he got nervous in jumping a nullah, and instead of jumping it he jumped into it, and rolled over me, giving me a regular flattening out; he has damaged my ankle and both my knees slightly, and I think it will be at least a month before I can do anything at all, though I am perfectly well in every way. The doctor says that the small bones of the foot are crushed, but that in a month I shall be all right. It was very annoying, just at the finish, wasn't it? Sir Frederick Roberts came to see me, and said he was very sorry about it; so did General Hardinge, the C.-in-C. in Bombay; he came and had a long talk in my tent, and told me all about John and his regiment. He thinks a great deal of John, and says his regiment is one of his best. Your luminous match-box has furnished lights for all these big people; it is always on my table; I shall scratch their names on the back of it. I wanted to see Sir Frederick Roberts about the command of the regiment; so I asked to see him in the usual way, and he sent word to say he would be glad to see me; so I got a litter and went across. He was most kind, said he knew all about it, that he would give his support, and that I need have no doubts on the matter. He asked me if I would like a staff appointment; I said I would, but that I wanted to command the regiment.
"At present the camp has all broken up; my regiment goes to-morrow, and I go with it. I have not seen my own regiment since I came here scarcely; as they were in the 1st Division and I was A.Q.M.G. of the 2nd Division."
In command
On June 24, 1884, Gatacre realised his immediate desire, and succeeded to the command of the 2nd Battalion Middlesex Regiment, as the old 77th had been renamed.
Although nothing occurred during his period of command to distinguish him from many another equally efficient officer, still a recapitulation of the qualities which remain in the minds of those who served under him will give us some idea of what he then was. I am mainly indebted for the material for the following sketch of Gatacre as a Commanding Officer to the kindness of Colonel N. W. Barnardiston, M.V.O., who writes in July 1909:
"I was adjutant at the time, and never before or since have I served under a better or more efficient battalion commander, nor have I come across one during my experience on the staff."
Gatacre was forty years old when he succeeded Colonel Colquhoun; he had served very little with the regiment, but the time spent on the staff had added to his professional value. While his acute perceptions and easy receptiveness had ripened his judgment on many points, his simplicity of character and natural integrity remained unimpaired. He had downright notions about right and wrong, but was influenced more by the spirit than by the letter of the bond: he was very just, but never hard, always showing a lofty sympathy for those in trouble of any sort, and a tender consideration for their feelings. There was about him a curious balance of moral austerity and physical tenderheartedness; these apparently contradictory qualities both came into fuller play when in the field. He taught the regiment to work with the disinterested spirit that animated himself; to work for the work's sake: he insisted on every duty being done correctly and conscientiously and strictly according to regulations. He never shrank from the disagreeable duty of rebuke, where the interests of the service were at stake; but at the same time he never unduly worried his subordinates, or interfered with their province, and in no way passed the frontier of his own department. If he wanted more work, he looked beyond and not below his own sphere of influence.
Even at this time Gatacre's willingness to accept responsibility and to undertake troublesome and unexpected tasks was remarkable. Where some men might raise objections and fear obstructions when asked, or even ordered, to get something done that was new or out of the common, he would welcome the call on his resources, and do his utmost, by enlisting the goodwill and co-operation of those about him, to carry the business through. Later on, one of his colleagues in Poona looked upon his trick of saying, "No difficulty about that," as evidence of a very valuable quality; and in the Office in Bombay there was a joke that the word "impossible" was not allowed.