1862-1880
TO INDIA AND BACK
[Sidenote: 1862]
The 77th Regiment was raised in 1787, and for twenty years served in
India, taking part in the fierce campaigns against Tippoo Sahib in
1790-91, in the storming of Seringapatam in 1799, and in many minor
operations. On their colours are also recorded the suggestive names,
Albuhera, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive,
Peninsula. In the Crimea they had charged at the Alma and at Inkerman;
they had shivered in the trenches before Sebastopol, and had taken part
in the final assault of the Redan. There were many officers and men
still with the colours in 1862 who had three clasps to their medals,
and also wore the French medal, and in the ranks there was an
exceptional number of Gallant Conduct medals.
Without doubt the fine record of the regiment and the fact that all the
senior officers had been proved in actual warfare, as their medals so
brilliantly testified, had a stimulating effect on the juniors.
{14}
Unfortunately the 77th sailed for Sydney, New South Wales, just before
the news of the Indian Mutiny reached England; and being detained
there, they did not reach India till June 1858, too late to take a
share in any but the minor operations incident to the disturbed state
of the country.
[Sidenote: As subaltern]
The regiment was at Hazaribagh, in Bengal, when Ensign William Gatacre
joined on June 5, 1862, but was shortly afterwards moved to Allahabad.
It was while Gatacre was doing duty with a detachment in the Fort that
Major Henry Kent (now Colonel-in-Chief of the Middlesex Regiment) first
saw the new subaltern; he describes him as good-looking, thin, smart,
and gentlemanly, adding that he took an immediate fancy to him.
It is to General Kent, who still speaks of Gatacre with great
affection, that I am indebted for the following story.
Sir Robert Napier, who at that time was Military Member of Council, was
passing through Allahabad on tour that winter, and took a walk round
the Fort one evening. Seeing a smart young officer with the famous
77th on his cap, he accosted him.
"Ah," he said, "I see you belong to the 77th, which Lord Gough
commanded at the battle of Barrosa."
"Yes, sir."
"And you captured a French Eagle there?"
"Yes, sir, we did."
"Well," said Napier, "what have you done {15} with the French Eagle?
Have you got it out here?"
"Not at present, sir," came the audacious reply: "we are putting up a
memorial in St. Paul's Cathedral to all our poor fellows who fell in
the Crimea, and we have sent the Eagle home to have a model taken of
it."
Now all this was an imaginary story invented to ease the situation, for
Napier was wrong in his facts. It was the 87th that Lord Gough had
commanded, and the 87th who had captured the French Standard; but
Gatacre's intuitive sense of discipline, even at nineteen, led him to
try any way of escape before putting his senior in the wrong.
Major-General Sir Harcourt Bengough, who was a few years senior to
Gatacre in the regiment, writes thus:
"The impression I retain of him as a young soldier is that of a strong
will and a quick determination to succeed, combined with a very kindly
disposition and a great charm of manner."
Another officer tells us that in the hottest weather Gatacre was always
cool, smiling, and good-tempered. He was noticeably abstemious and
frugal, and very careful of his appearance. At one time he used to
clean his own boots because he was too hard up to pay for this service.
When he related this in after-life he added, with the pride of
efficiency, "And they did shine!"
An officer's wife who knew Gatacre in these early days, and saw him at
intervals throughout {16} his career, tells us that there hung about
him when he first joined a certain countrified simplicity of mind and
manner, as opposed to the conventionality of a town-bred man. Though
he enjoyed society, social distractions got little hold on his
self-contained nature, and it was rarely that any of his friendships
developed into intimacy. He had, however, a ready sympathy, was easily
interested in whatever went on around him, and, being very unselfish,
was always prepared to do any one a service.
[Sidenote: 1865]
Young Gatacre's letters to his mother from Allahabad disclose a
reasoned industry inspired by ambition. The reiteration of the
recurring features of his life, cholera, rain, and work, is suggestive
of the monotony of existence in the summer months. But his experiences
and his surroundings differ in nothing from that of every other
subaltern in the Plains. That he worked with assiduity at acquiring
the language is shown by his having been placed first out of twenty-two
in the Higher Standard, after only two years' study. When the 77th
moved to Bareilly, Gatacre was made secretary to the Mutton and Poultry
Club, and kept a quailery, which was a venture of his own. The
following letter shows the real interest that he took in his charges:
_July_ 31, 1865.
"When the musketry instructor comes down from leave on September 30, I
shall try for fifteen days' leave. I cannot get more, as the {17}
course begins on October 15, with all its hard work. It is raining
very hard here, and I am sitting in the verandah watching all my ducks
and geese enjoying themselves. I have both my horses in the field
round the house: one of them has a peculiarly unpleasant temper with
strangers. The other day the doctor was breakfasting with us; when he
went away and had got a short distance, he saw this animal coming at
him open-mouthed, but he turned and ran for my room, and both the
doctor and horse came into the room together. He does not run at me,
as he knows me so well, but I never trust him much; they are very
uncertain in India."
[Sidenote: On leave]
In November 1866 the 77th was sent to Peshawur, and in the following
May young Gatacre took six months' leave to Kashmir. But he did not
confine himself to shooting in the Happy Valley; he was filled with an
adventurous curiosity to see the temples and wild scenery of the
mountains beyond. He felt that his pleasure in the trip would lie in
his freedom to go where he chose, and when he chose, and as fast as he
chose. He knew that his mobility would outstrip that of any companion,
and so decided to go alone. In this decision, in which we see the
first indication of originality, Gatacre showed a fearlessness, a
confidence in his own resources, and a willingness to sever
communications with all external support that are remarkable in a lad
of only twenty-three. These characteristics never faded; they may be
traced throughout the record of his life {18} whenever occasion arose
for his individuality to take action. What other man would have
attempted to explore the forests of Abyssinia unaccompanied at the age
of sixty-one! His fearlessness and his confidence were with him to the
end, and to the end he preserved a mobility that preferred to be
unhampered.
[Sidenote: 1867]
Young Gatacre's first objective was Leh. He left Srinagar on May 2,
and halting at Manasbal Lake one night, reached Kangan. Here he learnt
that the road over the Zoji-La between Sonamarg and Dras was still
blocked with snow, and so made up his mind to halt for a time. His
diary during this fortnight's halt shows that he was more interested in
what he saw than in what he shot. This is the feature of his trip; he
writes much more of the temples that he has sketched than of the game
that he has killed. One day when he had run across some friends he
writes: "Saw a gerau deer that Troop had killed; would like to get one
to make a sketch of." He subsequently collected many of his sketches
in a book; and these early water-colours are quite surprising in their
freshness and finish. They are not pictures, but most painstaking
studies of what he saw--picturesque men and women, animals, temples,
idols, and occasionally the detail of some designs from the temples.
He records with the greatest interest the flowers and birds that he
sees, and speaks of its physical features if the country he was passing
through was of special interest. It is clear that he had at some time
studied the elements of geology, {19} for he writes of the Zoji-La:
"Rocks very barren, and look very old--no sharp points."
[Sidenote: Goes after bear]
After ten days he moved one march up the road to Reval, and spent ten
days there shooting, whenever the rain and the snow allowed. On May 16
he writes:
"Fine morning at last; put everything in the sun to dry. Went out
shooting after breakfast, and had a good day; killed a black bear about
200 yards from camp. Had a shot at an ibex; saw nine, but did not hit
one. Slept under a tree for about an hour; on my way back killed a
brown bear with a beautiful silvery skin, and hit a barrasingh buck in
the chest; tracked him a long way, found some blood. Night was coming
on and it began to rain, so had to give up the search or should
probably have got him--a magnificent beast, horns about a foot high,
just beginning to grow. In jumping across the stream I fell in and got
wet through; water very strong, was carried down like an arrow; caught
hold of a stone and came ashore, took off my things and stood in the
sun to dry: sketch reserved."
There is a pleasant vein of boyish humour in some of the entries.
"Went after a huge black bear that we saw on the hill-side, but could
not find him. Climbed one of the stiffest and most slippery hills that
I ever was on after the aforesaid bear, and found his cave. Thought
him a fool for selecting such a spot; going up there once was bad
enough, but to have such an ascent to one's residence was absurd.
Found some one of the name of {20} Thorpe had arrived at the
camping-ground, asked him to dinner, but he refused as he was so tired;
could not understand his reason--the very one why I should have
accepted, as he could have gone to bed directly afterwards, my dinner
being ready and his not.
It was not till May 23 that he got really started, and even then the
road was still deep in snow, or the melting snow was flooding over the
road in many places. Under date May 25 we read:
"Passed some dead men in the pass; they were men going to Yarkand
(eight men and a woman) several days ago, when they were overtaken with
snow and smothered, all their bedding, clothes, etc., lying about."
Next day, writing from Dras, he notices the great change that has come
over the country; and here he spent three days, partly because his
servant had fever, and partly because he finds so much to sketch that
he cannot tear himself away. The same motive kept him at Lama Guru, of
which he gives an excellent description. He reached Leh on June 9,
having accomplished the 250 miles from Reval in seventeen days, or
deducting four halts, thirteen days; which works out at an average of
over nineteen miles every marching day.
[Sidenote: At Hemis]
The following day he started off for Hemis, where there was a great
gathering for the visit of the Burra Lama: this involved a stony and
arduous march of twenty-four miles, but he was {21} up early next
morning and was very much interested in what was going on.
_June_ 11, 1867.
"Went all over the Monastery and gained a little information--not much,
as the monks keep no records, only from year to year. The place is
about 1,300 years old, well built of stone with a whitening on it, on
the side of a rock. There are several halls of worship (Gompas) hung
round with splendid silk flags and banners, all Chinese silk. There
are a few idols, but very small ones, magnificently woven pictures of
gods on silk being the chief things. About 10 o'clock the tamasha
began, monks dressed in the most magnificent silk garments and quaint
tall hats and masks dancing; the costumes were varied about every
quarter of an hour and every one equally grand as the former. They
each held in their hands a drum like a warming-pan and either a bell or
a rattle. They danced a sort of war-dance in a circle, occasionally
singing and drumming. Under the verandah of the Quadrangle were seated
about thirty monks dressed in red and yellow silk gowns, with
fan-shaped hats on their heads; some with drums, some with cymbals, and
some with long trumpets, silver and copper, formed the band; they
played from music and it went very well with the wild dance. One dance
was performed with bears, another was supposed to be a wild man's
dance: about ten monks--dressed in hideous masks, yellow embroidered
silk jackets, on the shoulders of which tigers' heads were embroidered,
and round whose waists were strings of bells, from which were suspended
strips of tiger skins--danced in a circle, beating drums and ringing
bells. The figure of a man {22} bound hand and foot was placed in the
centre. After they had danced round the figure some time, one of them
cut off his head with a sword. One of the side walls of the
Quadrangle, about 30 ft. high and 12 ft. broad, was covered with a
single cloth or flag on which was most beautifully woven the figure of
one of their gods and other subjects--worth about 5,000 or 6,000
rupees. This was at first covered with long silk streamers, which were
removed; and when the large banner had been duly worshipped and
admired, it was rolled up and replaced by another equally splendid, but
not so large, by a third and by a fourth. Each dress could not have
cost less than £80 or £100--I never saw anything so magnificent; the
whole Quadrangle was hung round with silk streamers too. Round the
Quadrangle, the prayer-books--viz. rollers of wood with the prayers
written on them--are placed, one turn of which is equal to saying a
prayer. All the villagers have them at their doors; at one corner of
the Quadrangle there is a room in which there is a huge prayer roller.
They are called Marni-prayer."
Gatacre was determined to make the most of his opportunities, and
insisted on seeing the Burra Lama, whom he thus describes:
"He is a short, stout, middle-aged man, clothed in fine scarlet cloth,
sitting on a throne on which incense was burning; he is never seen by
any one except on the occasion of the festival, when he comes and sits
on a platform in the Quadrangle for about half an hour. I could not
wait till evening to see him, so as a special favour was allowed to see
the mortal whom no vulgar European eye had seen before. He {23}
received me graciously, and asked me to be seated and how I was; asked
me if I had anything to give him. I had brought nothing from Ladak
with me, but had some matches with me, which I gave him. He comes from
Lhassa; it is three months' journey from here, and he comes once in
every five or six years. It was great luck my seeing this festival, as
occurring so early in the year it is seldom or never seen."
[Sidenote: The Salt Lakes]
On his return to Leh, Gatacre was horrified at getting letters telling
him to hurry back to Peshawur, as cholera had broken out. But he was
too cunning to take this very literally, and at once got his friend the
Wazeer to lend him ponies to ride to the Salt Lakes; he adds most
sapiently: "If I don't see them now, probably never shall."
It was, however, a very long way (ninety-eight miles) to the Salt Lakes
at Rupshu; he did this journey in two days, and on the second day
writes:
"The distance I came to-day was fifty-eight miles; I was nearly dead
with fever, and sun and cold, and walking, and riding in a wooden
saddle all day."
He spent one day in his tent with fever on the snow-covered plain, but
was better next morning and able to get about, and on the following day
he started on the return journey, which he accomplished in two marches
as before.
After four days spent at Leh with some friends who had turned up, he
marched back by the same {24} route, covering 265 miles from Leh to
Kangan in twelve days, one of which was a halt at Lama Yuru, where he
"slept nearly all day."
[Sidenote: Off again]
Writing from Baltal on July 1, he comments on the change that has taken
place in the Zoji-La in his absence:
"The Pir is a very different-looking place from what it was when I came
through it before. Then it was a wilderness of snow, ice, and rocks;
now it is the most beautiful pass, hills covered with grass and flowers
and shrubs and trees that were before buried in the snow. The snow
rivers are very full and furious; nearly lost a pony in one of them;
drove him through it and carried saddles, etc., over the snow some way
higher up; the pony was rolled over and over and with difficulty came
to land. Now that the snow has disappeared, one sees what a quantity
there must have been in the pass when I went through, at least 70 or 80
ft. in some places. The Pir is covered with sweet peas and flowers of
all colours and shapes, excessively pretty.
"The hills wear a quite different aspect to what they did when I came
up. The snow has melted except on a few of the highest peaks, and the
grass has grown, likewise the shrubs. The barley and all the corn is
in the ear; it was hardly sown when I came, just a month ago. There
are waterfalls from nearly every rock, which looks very pretty and the
water is such as 'only teetotallers desire or deserve.' The wild
roses, white, red, and yellow, are covered with blossoms, and their
smell is delicious."
But before he reached Srinagar the orders for his return were
cancelled, and we find him shooting in his old haunts round Kangan.
{25}
It is clear that he was enjoying himself thoroughly, that he felt no
impatience to return to civilisation, and that he considered his march
to Leh and back very much worth doing, for at the end of July he
started on another extended tour. It is about 120 miles from Kangan to
Skardo, about 200 thence to Leh, and about 250 from Leh to Srinagar, so
that he added another 570 miles to his score in the fifty days between
July 28 and September 15. Leaving the Sind River by the tributary
valley to the north called Wangat, he crossed into the valley of Tylel
by a little-known route "said to have been a track made by a gang of
horse dealers who came from Tylel into Kashmir years ago." There were
two very steep hills, of which the coolies only managed to accomplish
the first.
Turning north-east, he made his way across the plains of Deosai, but
there was a difficult pass to negotiate before he descended into the
valley of the Indus. On August 7 he writes:
"Got up early and started for Skardo. Got to the top of the ridge in
about an hour, all snow and ice, great trouble to get the ponies over
the glacier, as it was a nearly perpendicular sheet of ice--they slid
down most of the way. From the bottom of the glacier there is a
descent of about eight miles down the valley, which opens out into the
plain of Skardo. Skardo consists of a number of villages scattered
over a stony plain covered with apricot-trees which yield great
quantities of fruit. The plain is surrounded with high rocky hills, no
grass or trees on them. The Wazeer is an old man with long {26} grey
beard, uncle to the present Wazeer Labjar of Ladak, who was formerly
Wazeer here. His name is Myraram, he came to see me on my arrival,
bringing a large basket of apricots as a present."
[Sidenote: A snow pass]
The last sentence is a sample of many entries, for wherever he went he
made friends with the headmen of the village, and he seems nowhere to
have been in difficulties about supplies. As it is unlikely that the
Hindustani of the plains of India would be understood in Thibet, he
must either have mastered working fragments of the dialect, or he must
have talked Persian with the more educated natives. Later on he says:
"Met some Tartars who had been to Simla, and had a long talk with
them." And in another place: "Had a long talk with a Sepoy who was in
one of the four regiments sent by the Maharajah to assist in the
capture of Delhi, and saw General Nicholson fall."
Three officers of the 11th Hussars came in to Skardo the day after
Gatacre's arrival, and fired him with the desire to see Shigar, a town
a few miles higher up the Indus, where they had seen the original game
of polo.
After five days' halt at Skardo, Gatacre started on his return journey,
via Leh. Both Skardo and Leh are on the Indus: he did not, however,
follow the course of this river, but chose to make his way up the
valley of the Shyok. This necessitated a passage over the Indus at the
junction of the two streams on the second day's march, which he thus
describes:
{27}
"Started at daybreak, and reached this at 6 o'clock. Crossed the river
at Kiris on twelve mussocks fastened together by eight bamboos or thin
sticks--the luggage in the centre, I on one side, Collassie on the
other, and two steerers at one end, who steered with long sticks. When
they got into the middle of the stream they began their tarnasha,
namely, turning the raft round and round like a top by digging their
sticks deeply into the water."
Two days later he crossed the Shyok in the same manner, and found the
stream "very fast and furious," although it was half a mile across. It
is difficult to picture these watercourses, which, with the manners and
appearance of mountain-torrents, have the volume and grandeur of mighty
rivers. After following the Shyok for about fifty miles, he left it at
Paxfain, and turned southwards along the side-stream which leads up to
the Chorbat-La, a pass 16,696 ft. above the sea. Writing that evening,
he says:
"Marched at break of day and walked on steadily till the sun went
down--a very long march; the first four or five hours were occupied in
getting to the top of the pass--a terrible climb--after that it is all
down-hill. The Pir was covered with snow, with an immense glacier
reaching right across it for about 200 yards."
The next day he struck into the valley of the Indus once more, and
reached Leh in six marches on August 26. On the way "a very civil {28}
Sepoy turned up," who was also on his way to Ladak. While in his
company Gatacre found that he met with unusual politeness and
attention, which was accounted for later when "the Sepoy turned out to
be the new Thanadar of these parts."
On September 1 he started back on the direct route to Srinagar, which
must have seemed quite familiar to him on this, his third journey. On
the Zoji-La he notes that "all the grass that was so beautifully green
is now withered up." At Sonamarg he found it "very cold," and writes
of his blankets being frozen hard in the morning, and quite white. On
September 15 he reached Srinagar, having marched the 285 miles from Leh
in sixteen days, making an average of eighteen miles a day. He seems
to have done most of his travelling on foot, though it is clear that he
sometimes had ponies for his baggage, and that he sometimes rode them.
When he was making long marches he had great sympathy for his beasts,
and often notices that the ponies were very tired. The rate at which
he travelled would, of course, be nothing exceptional on made roads,
but it must be remembered that in no case was there any road at all, as
we understand the word, and that he habitually moved by double marches.
He found several friends at Srinagar whom he had come across in his
travels, and enjoyed an easy fortnight with them there before rejoining
at Peshawur.
[Sidenote: On sick leave]
This season had proved itself a very trying {29} and unhealthy one for
the 77th; the regiment had been attacked with cholera and Peshawur
fever, and had lost five officers and forty-nine men. Colonel Kent
tells us that on his return Gatacre had a sharp attack of fever, and
that he and another subaltern had been so very ill when they were sent
off home that it was feared they would never again be able to serve in
India.
Even after his arrival in England Gatacre had severe recurrences of
fever, but home nursing triumphed; and before long he was posted to a
depot battalion then commanded by Colonel Browne of the 77th, and
stationed at Pembroke Dock. Writing on August 13, 1909, Colonel Browne
says:
"Gatacre's relations with his brother officers were always very smooth,
and I cannot recall to mind his ever exchanging an angry word with any
one of them, but as a rule he did not encourage intimacy.
"Whatever Gatacre was asked or had to do he did well and thoroughly.
Whilst he joined heartily in whatever socially was going on, he never
in the days I speak of put himself prominently forward; but there was
something about him which I at least recognised as showing a dormant
power which only awaited opportunity to exert itself, and this view of
him has been fully borne out by his later career."
When Colonel Kent brought the battalion home in March 1870, Lieutenant
Gatacre was on the quay to greet his regiment on its arrival at
Portsmouth.
{30}
The Clarence Barracks in which the regiment was first quartered were at
that time old and dilapidated, and have since vanished. In those days
every officer who took part in a route-march had to send in a report to
the General Officer Commanding. The opening sentence of one of
Gatacre's reports amused his wing-commander so much that it survives:
"Starting from the Clarence Barracks, long since condemned as unfit for
habitation by the Royal Marines, etc."
[Sidenote: 1870]
The events of 1870 on the continent were of course followed with
breathless interest by all intelligent Englishmen, and many soldiers
must have longed to go and see the ground on which these sanguinary
contests had been fought out. This desire was anticipated by the War
Office, and special regulations were issued forbidding such an attempt.
But to Gatacre the call was irresistible. Having taken first leave
that autumn in order to see something of his brother John before his
return to India, he slipped away via Harwich and Antwerp to Brussels,
which he reached on November 6. He seems afterwards to have followed
the route taken by the First German Army under Steinmetz in early
August--in fact, Saarbrucken was the scene of the first encounter.
Gravelotte had been fought on August 18, but doubtless to a soldier's
eye the ground occupied by the combatants could still be identified.
Metz had capitulated on October 27, so that the state of a city in
which 150,000 men had been blockaded {31} for three months was
exhibited in all its horrors.
[Sidenote: Continental battlefields]
Writing from Luxembourg on Sunday, November 6, 1870, he says:
"I started again at 6.30 this morning, and got here, without stopping,
at 1 o'clock; nothing but soldiers, horses, and baggage, besides sick
men by the hundreds, hospitals filled. I never saw such a sight.
To-night I am going to Treves, and then on to Metz, via Saarlouis and
Saarbruck, as the road via Vionville is not open on account of the
French holding it. I will write from Metz and let you know my
movements. I mean to attach myself to the English Ambulance, if
possible, for a while, if I can see anything more by doing so."
And again on November 13, from Brussels:
"From Luxembourg I went on to Treves, Saarbruck, Metz, and then round
by Ottange, through Belgium to Brussels again. I went to Gravelotte
and several battlefields, and picked up heaps of things, most of which
I have got with me; but as nothing is allowed to go over the French
frontier, there was a difficulty about passing. I met a man named
Caldecott in the service, and he and I travelled together all the way;
we drove across the frontier with our things, and so got them through.
Metz is in a terrible state; nothing to eat or drink, or place to
sleep. I could not write, as all postal communication is stopped, and
most of the country round Metz a desert.
"I shall come by the coach Thursday night, so if you could send the
cart to Shipley to fetch my things, I will just walk over."
{32}
[Sidenote: 1871-3]
Writing on the day following his return, his sister gives Stephen a
rchauffé of the traveller's tales:
"Metz is not injured in the least, but is full of soldiers, and that is
why there was no place to sleep in there. When Willie left, the shops
were open and provisions coming in. Willie travelled with another
Englishman in a waggon with a poor starved horse, and was going about
in this way for four or five days. The cold intense; deep snow. He
saw 25,000 prisoners going into Germany, packed in trucks, forty
officers and men in a truck like cattle, and snow among them. He slept
in a hospital three nights, 1,700 men in it.
"I do not think, from what he says, that travelling is over safe--that
is, on the French side. The sentries are very sharp; an Englishman who
was foolishly travelling by himself, and at night, and could speak no
language well, was shot a month ago.
"Willie is glad he went; he met an old gentleman who knew grandpapa at
Saarbruck."
It is much to be regretted that the daily impressions of this tour were
not recorded with the accuracy of the Kashmir trip, but 1867 seems to
have been the only year in which he kept a journal. We hear nothing of
how he contrived to get anything to eat, or to get about at all, in a
region stripped of supplies by the armies that had passed through; but
the interesting fact remains that he did visit this ground, and
reappeared at home on Thursday, November 17.
Colonel Henry Kent was very popular in the 77th regiment, which he had
first joined in 1845. He held the command for twelve years, and {33}
had brought the battalion into a very high state of efficiency when he
resigned in 1880. It is notified in General Orders of that year that
for the third time in succession the 77th was the best shooting
regiment, and that Private H. Morgan, of this corps, was the best shot
in the army.
[Sidenote: Staff College]
In February 1873 Captain Gatacre was admitted to the Staff College. He
had worked hard to prepare himself for the entrance examination, had
taken private lessons to rub up his mathematics, and had been abroad to
polish his French; for not only had he to secure a vacancy in open
competition, but he had to dispute the place with another officer in
the same corps.
It is clear that even in these early days Gatacre had acquired the art
of making himself valued among his fellows. Colonel Kent was dining
with the Rifle Brigade at Aldershot one evening when he had the
gratification of hearing the laments of some of his contemporaries at
the Staff College at the prospect of losing Gatacre. But the Colonel,
highly delighted at the success and popularity of his young friend,
reassured them, saying:
"Never mind, I have another quite as good to send in his place. I am
sending Bengough next term."
"Ah, yes," they said, "but we shall never have another like Gatacre; we
shall miss him dreadfully. Why, what can the 77th be made of!"
"Gatacres and Bengoughs," was the proud reply. General Kent affirms,
moreover, that {34} His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught was
present on this occasion.
[Sidenote: 1873-4]
During these two years Captain Leir[1] was Master of the Staff College
Drag-hounds. He speaks of Gatacre, who acted as his Whip, as "the best
who ever turned them for me"; and tells us that he was quite the most
accomplished horseman of his day--that he used to ride all sorts of
horses, made and unmade, that he had wonderful patience and nerve, and
was always in the front.
[1] Now Major-General Leir-Carleton.
Captain Leir writes that the only fuss he ever had with his colleague
was over a hound, called Bellman, who had been given to him by the late
Lord Cork when master of the Queen's Buckhounds. Bellman was a great
favourite, being very companionable, which is unusual with fox-hounds.
Gatacre begged leave to take him home and summer him in Shropshire, but
having got him there the Squire took such a fancy to Bellman that his
return was delayed till the following January. On another occasion,
however, the Master had every reason to be grateful to his friend, as
he tells us in the following story.
[Sidenote: Indefatigable]
For drag-hounds the scent is laid by a man who runs with aniseed half
an hour before the hounds start; but as it is imperative that he should
thoroughly know his line, he must walk it first, carefully selecting a
track which avoids risk of damage to growing crops and affords suitable
fences for the field. On one occasion when {35} Captain Leir's runner
(or fox as he was familiarly termed) was _hors de combat_ from a fall,
he sent for a noted runner from Reading to take his place. But when
the Master had shown this man half the course, he suddenly threw up the
job, and after that no bribe would induce him to go a yard farther.
The meet was advertised for the following day, but there was no fox,
and Leir, vexed and despairing, now turned to his Whip, who was noted
for his resource in all difficulties.
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 {36} eldest son, William Edward, who is now a Captain in the
Yorkshire Light Infantry, was born at Yorktown.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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 {37} 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.
{38}