In November 1890 Gatacre relinquished his substantive post at Headquarters, on his appointment as Adjutant-General to the Bombay Army, with the temporary and local rank of Brigadier-General.
CHAPTER VII
1890-1894
POONA
Brigadier-General Gatacre took over the duties of Adjutant-General to the Bombay Army on November 25, 1890, under Sir George Greaves as Commander-in-Chief.
His deputy in the office was surprised to find that Gatacre was not so regular in his attendance as might have been expected, and noticed other signs that suggested that he was unhappy and had something on his mind. His colleague was quite right. Gatacre was indeed passing through a severe and prolonged trial, one about which he could take no one into his confidence. To his highly strung nature, in which the loftiest integrity was allied to the tenderest human feelings, a blow such as had fallen upon him must have wrung every fibre, and there is no doubt that he writhed under it.
In adversity
It was about this time that the General was bitten in the hand by a jackal that was said to be mad. His nerves being already unduly strained, the poison (or the thought of it) got such a hold on him that the howling of the jackals kept him awake at night, and a terror even possessed him of their coming in through the open windows. So real was this obsession that he ordered iron railings to be fixed outside, and by thus convincing himself of the impossibility of such a thing, he gradually conquered the fantasies of his sick brain, triumphed over his sleeplessness, and reaped the benefit to his general health.