In due course orders arrived for the withdrawal of the Relief Force. Early in September Gatacre conducted his Brigade over the frontier, and bade them farewell amidst the heartiest expressions of affection and goodwill on the part of all ranks, British and Native.
CHAPTER X
1896
QUETTA
On November 10, 1895, a few familiar words were read once more in a village church in Sussex, the old-world troth was given and plighted, and the face of the earth was changed thereby for the two persons most concerned.
The General had been unable to take more than ninety days' privilege leave, and therefore had to be back in Bombay early in January. The drill season was already far advanced, the programme for the inspection of the various regiments in the outlying stations included in the Bombay Command was already laid out, and trips to Baroda, Ahmedabad, Surat, and Cutch-Bhuj followed one another in close succession.
These trips, which made a welcome respite from the heavy office-work and town-life at Headquarters, sometimes included a day's sport and recreation.
On Friday, February 21, the General, his staff officer, and the writer disembarked from the S.S. Kola at Mandvi, in the Gulf of Cutch. This coast is so shallow that the steamers have to lie a long way out, and the process of disembarkation includes transfer from the mail-boat to a steam-launch, thence to a rowing-boat, which runs aground alongside some bullock-drawn waggons. Across the highest timbers of these carts nets are stretched, on which the passengers seat themselves, while the final stage is a chair borne by four natives who are waist-deep in water as they cross the pools in the interminable stretch of sea and sand. A forty-mile drive in a carriage provided by the Rao Saheb of Cutch brought us to the capital where the 17th Bombay Infantry were then quartered. The Resident, whose guests we were, the Commandant of the regiment, four other officers, the doctor, and four ladies made up the whole British contingent.