At Simla

In a letter to his father from Simla of September 1887 Gatacre relates the following story:

"Did I tell you I was nearly polished off by a madman with a revolver? He shot two men he came across, then got on to a rock and defied the crowd, but I got a stick and went for him, to prevent his doing more mischief. He warned me not to come near him, but I spoke to him in his own language, and never took my eyes off him, and when he was going to have a shot at me he suddenly changed his mind and blew a hole in his breast about three or four inches in diameter. The fact was he was not quite sure whether he had a spare round for himself, and these fanatical fellows always destroy themselves after doing as much mischief as they are able; when he shot himself I was just within reach of him, but too late to knock the pistol out of his hands."

This incident attracted a good deal of attention at the time, as the murderer was the personal servant of a resident member of the United Service Club. He had begun by shooting at another servant, and inflicted a mortal wound; the next shot struck the chowkidar, or caretaker, in the arm. Gatacre then appeared on the scene and played the part he describes.

There is another story told of him that belongs to this same year.

On September 27 Lady Dufferin gave a ball at Government House; all the world was there and Gatacre among them. As was his invariable habit, he stayed to the end, and early in the morning told a friend that he was just starting for a ride to Umballa, but would be back in office the next day. To accomplish this design he had arranged for ponies to be in readiness at the various stages along the Old Road from Simla to Umballa, which is a distance of ninety-seven miles, descending about 6,000 ft. from the mountains to the plains. As far as Kalka they were hired ponies, from there to Umballa he had borrowed mounts from a friend, using nine ponies each way. Leaving Simla at 5.15 a.m., he reached Umballa at 2.30 that afternoon. At 4 o'clock he started back and dismounted at Simla again at 3.5 a.m. That is to say, after dancing till daybreak, he covered little short of two hundred miles in twenty-two hours, and turned up again at 10 o'clock ready and fit for his office work as usual.

It is unnecessary to seek for any pretext for such exertion; the fun of the rapid ride, the desire to excel, were quite sufficient stimulus for him. He told the newspapers at the time that he wanted to show what office men could do.

But before very long he was to have an opportunity of putting these powers to more practical uses. In September 1888 Gatacre and two of his colleagues on the Headquarter Staff were given posts on the Hazara Field Force, then concentrating near Abbottabad.

Hazara border

After the Mutiny the Hazara and Peshawur borders became "a rallying-point for mutinous Sepoys and traitors in arms who had to flee from British justice." There was in particular a sect known as the Sittana Fanatics, who continued to stir up coalitions against our power, as they had previously done against our Sikh predecessors in the Punjab. An expedition under Sir Sydney Cotton in 1858 advanced into the mountains, drove the Hindustani fanatics from Sittana, destroyed their forts, razed their dwellings to the ground, and extorted an undertaking from the neighbouring tribes that the rebels should not be allowed a passage through their territory.