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 {146} 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.
The inspection went off without memorable incident. The real interest
of the trip lay in the native races and the pig-sticking camp, which
the Rao Saheb had arranged to fill in the blank days while waiting for
the weekly mail-boat.
The Rao Saheb was a man of about thirty, who, together with his younger
brother, Karloba, had taken kindly to English ways; they played
lawn-tennis on even terms with the officers and their wives, and when
on horseback their costume was entirely English except for the
brilliant puggri. The camp and all its accessories were furnished by
the hospitality of the Rao Saheb; he was our companion throughout the
day, dinner alone excepted, and nothing was omitted for the comfort of
his guests.
[Sidenote: Pig-sticking]
We reached Wanoti Camp early in the {147} morning, and the seven men
who were carrying spears were soon on horseback. The country was flat
and sandy, and bare except where patches of low scrub provided
excellent cover. A few beaters were sent forward to drive out the
game, and before long you could see some very solid-looking bodies,
very low on the ground, moving amongst the bushes at a surprising pace:
these were a "sounder" of pigs. The Rao Saheb selected one, the
General another, and, being mounted on a capital white pony, I was
close at his heels. This boar, which was scored to the General's
spear, turned out to be the biggest of the seven which was the total
for the day. But he was no sooner dispatched than we were off after
another. Again the same spear was the first to touch him; then we lost
sight of him as he crashed through a thick hedge. When we emerged
through the nearest gap we found that the Resident had picked up his
line, but while taking a thrust at him the pig jinked and tripped up
the horse, so that both he and his rider rolled in the sand, while the
pig went off with the eight-foot spear stuck in his body like a pin in
a pin-cushion. If we had not been close at hand the savage creature
would have turned and rent the fallen man, who, though unhurt, would
have been defenceless.
In the afternoon the beaters started on the other side of the camp, and
a most thrilling incident occurred. After a chase of about two miles
our pig disappeared over the edge of a forty-foot precipice, which was
the cliff-like side of a dry nullah; we had to look for a chine, and
{148} after a scrambling descent found him again, rather winded, hiding
in a ditch about five feet deep and six to eight feet wide. The
General had broken his spear in a previous conflict, and was therefore
unarmed. There were two officers only with us, one of whom cried out,
"If you do not know how to tackle him yourself, give your spear to the
General, and let him try."
He took the proffered spear, and, handing over his pony, stepped down
into the nullah, just opposite the boar, and with the lance under his
elbow stood facing the fierce creature for some four or five minutes,
till the latter suddenly rose up and plunged forward; but the spear was
in readiness, the charge was stayed, and the animal fell back, run
right through the throat.
While at Bhuj the following telegram reached the General:
"From Military Secretary, Chief, Calcutta: Chief proposes to select you
to officiate in command Quetta District during absence of General
Galbraith proceeding on leave to England. Please wire if agreeable to
you."
It was followed two days later by another, from Sir Charles Nairne,
Commander-in-Chief Bombay Army:
"I congratulate you both on going to Quetta. You will have a wide
enough field there."
Throughout the month of March the General was kept busy with the
preparation and execution of some extensive manoeuvres which took place
on the hills near Khandalla. There was {149} also a Horse Show in
Bombay to attend to; this was on a bigger scale than had hitherto been
attempted. The General rode in several classes, and won the first
prize for Arab chargers, and also for the best turn-out in the driving
classes. The cheers that greeted him as he appeared in the
prize-winners' parade were significant of the public appreciation of
the energy that, as chairman of the committee, he had thrown into the
undertaking.
[Sidenote: Leaves Bombay]
On the evening of April 7, as the General Officer Commanding sailed in
the transport _Warren Hastings_ for Karachi, _en route_ for Quetta, the
nine-gun salute boomed out its farewell greeting in the summer night.
This First-class District, with its headquarters on the lofty plateau
known as Quetta, about 6,000 ft. high, was a command wholly congenial
to Gatacre's temperament. The office-work was very light; there was a
garrison of two battalions of British infantry, one regiment of Native
cavalry, and two of Native infantry, besides a complement of artillery,
equipped both with oxen and mules, a splendid transport train, and
other details. The outposts are on the actual frontier of the British
Empire; their very distance and inaccessibility exercised a great
attraction for him, so that the official visit to each station became a
picnic pleasure-party in a very literal sense. Nothing was wanting,
not even battle, murder, and sudden death, to create that sense of
danger and adventure that casts its fascinating shadow over this wild
frontier land.
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As the season in which marching could be accomplished in comfort was
already advanced, and the days were fast growing hot and long, it was
decided to start very soon after our arrival on a tour of inspection to
Fort Sandeman, Lorelai, and other outlying posts. Fort Sandeman lies
to the north-east of Quetta, and is in the Lower Zhob Valley; it is 180
miles from Khanai station on the Quetta Railway. A squadron of the 5th
Sind Horse, under Captain Sherard, furnished the escort. No supplies
could be reckoned on by the way, so that transport had to be drawn to
carry six weeks' food for five mounted officers, their servants and
horses, and also for the hundred Sowars and their horses, and for the
transport animals themselves. This made quite a long line of horses,
camels, and mules on the march, and one of the duties of our daily
routine was a walk down the transport lines at sunset.
There is not space here to do justice to this delightful ride. We
covered between six and seven hundred miles in the six weeks we were
out. The early starts while the moon shone brilliantly, the long
leisurely days in camp, the evening scramble over the nearest hills,
and the nights passed under the clear stars, with no sound but the
steady tramp of the sentries; the puzzling alternation of sandy desert
and rocky rift, dry nullahs and roaring torrents,--all make up memories
of strange and delightful doings never to be spoilt, even by the
counter recollections of sun and dust.
In the autumn of the same year Fort Sandeman {151} was the scene of a
shocking tragedy. A Sepoy of the 40th Pathans ran amok while on sentry
duty one evening outside the officers' mess. According to his
deposition later, he had been waiting to get all the five officers into
line as they wandered round the billiard-table, so that he might strike
them all with one bullet. But the finesse of his idea was defeated by
his own impatience; he fired his shot when only three men were covered.
Two young officers were so seriously wounded that they fell
immediately, and died a few hours later. With great presence of mind
and courage, and undismayed by a severe wound in the arm, Mr.
Maclachlan gave chase to the murderer, and by raising the alarm and
calling out the guard contributed to his capture, though unfortunately
this was not effected till the tehsildar and two native clerks had been
shot dead.
It was the custom to make the last afternoon of an inspection visit the
occasion for a social gathering; sports and trials of skill would be
arranged, the native regiments would perform feats of horsemanship, and
organize a display of national dancing and wrestling. One peculiarly
striking effect was worked out by an officer in the 15th Bengal Lancers
at Lorelai. Thirty-two Sowars in their white undress uniform, mounted
on white or grey horses, cantered past doing sword-practice, their
curved blades flashing in the sun; but the ghostly effect of these
white horsemen was enhanced when they were followed by another group
mounted entirely on chestnuts, doing {152} lance-practice, the red and
white pennons and scarlet cummerbunds adding to the colour scheme.
Lorelai also contributed its note of tragedy, for very shortly after
our departure from Beluchistan, Colonel Gaisford (soldier and civilian)
was treacherously assassinated in the very dak-bungalow in which we had
resided.
The object of a short tour planned for September was formally to take
over a strip of land known as the Toba Plateau, which had been recently
ceded to the Government of India under an arrangement effected by a
Frontier Delimitation Commission. As this was a desolate land with few
inhabitants, the General planned to combine this political object with
military training in the way of practice in field-firing. He arranged
that detachments of the 1st Bombay Grenadiers and of the 26th Beluchis
should take part in the manoeuvres, and that the 25th Bombay Rifles
should meet him at the camping-ground. It was the first time a white
man had been seen in the country. The march abounded with picturesque
and amusing incidents. For instance, there was the day when the camel
transport lost their way. Their pace being a little slower than that
of the mules, and the country that day with its low round sandhills
being peculiarly puzzling, they lost touch with the tail of the column.
A transport duffedar was sent back to look for the string of camels,
but came not again; a corporal was sent on a mule to look for the
duffedar, and he came not again. It was now getting late, and darkness
would soon fall, so the {153} General himself started on a pony to look
for the corporal. It was six o'clock before the camels, who were
carrying our tents, mess kit, and clothing, reached the camp, from a
point exactly opposite to the direction whence they were expected.
[Sidenote: Field-firing]
When the rendezvous on Toba Plateau was reached, after about three
days' march from Chaman, we settled down for a week, and field-firing
in the miniature valleys took place daily. The day before the proposed
attack newspapers are spread out with the help of stones in the
positions where tribesmen defending their homes would be likely to
erect sangars and make a stand. The attacking column, being supplied
with ball cartridges, shoot at these targets till they disappear, and
then advance till a bend of the valley discloses another imaginary
concentration of the enemy. This device presents a very realistic
counterfeit of hill warfare.
It seems to me now that all our time at Quetta was spent in such mimic
fighting. The wild and desolate country, in which the cantonments lay
like an oasis, lent itself admirably to military training; the
garrison, complete in all its units, provided the necessary troops of
all arms, so that a succession of field-officers were sent up for
tactical examination, the practical side of which meant a series of
field-days. The General's A.D.C., when called upon for reminiscences,
sends the following anecdote:
"His good temper and quiet way of rebuking people was, I have always
thought, remarkable. {154} I remember a field-day when an officer had
got a company in a very badly chosen spot. The General, in his usual
innocent sort of way, went up to him to gather, as it were,
information. He always did that: he looked as if he was dying to
learn, while really he was leading on the man to talk and show what he
knew, or else to convict him out of his own mouth. The Major had no
good reason for his dispositions, and when cornered began to quote the
drill-book. The General quietly said: 'It's not very good form to
throw the drill-book at your General.'"
On a similar occasion, at an outpost parade, the captain in charge of
the picquet was unaccountably nervous, and had great difficulty in
explaining the "idea." With two words the General put him out of his
pain and signalised his incompetence: "You're shot," he said. "Who is
next in command?"
On the Sind-Pishin Railway, as the branch line is called that runs from
Ruk Junction on the Indus through Quetta and on to Chaman, there is
only one train in each direction in the twenty-four hours. The
railroad runs for miles over the wildest and most desolate tracts. It
is 150 miles from Quetta to Sibi, and Sibi is 100 miles north of
Jacobabad. The roadside stations consist merely of a few planks as
platform, a hut for the station-master, who is commonly an Eurasian,
and a standpipe; sometimes there is a second hut, in which a bunnia
does business in food-stuffs and other simple trading.
[Sidenote: A massacre]
Sunari Station, lying about 100 miles east of Quetta, must have been a
place of slightly more {155} importance, for when the Marris fell upon
it they found fifteen persons to murder. Unfortunately for him, a
European youth, named Canning, a sub-inspector of the line, and son of
the station-master at Sibi, happened to be there that fatal morning.
As the daily train approached the station between 9 and 10 a.m., the
engine-driver was puzzled at not receiving the customary greeting on
the signals, but decided to crawl on carefully into the station. It
was only too clear that a wholesale slaughter with swords had been
perpetrated; the place was strewn with dead bodies, terribly slashed
about, and the bunnia's shop had been set on fire. The terrified
driver and guard found the station-master with his arm cut off, but
still breathing, and carefully laid him on the train, but even this
sole survivor of this unparalleled outrage died before the next station
was reached. In the meantime the pointsman had fled on foot to the
next station, and telegraphed the startling news from there to Quetta.
Very shortly after the arrival of the news the telegraph wires were
found to be cut; to imaginative minds a rising of the whole powerful
tribe of Marris was imminent. The railroad, which ran for miles
through the Marris' country, might be destroyed, the telegraph lines
were already severed, all communication with India would thus be cut
off, and Quetta isolated might have added another picturesque story to
the romantic series of frontier annals.
Very naturally a panic took place at the {156} adjoining
railway-stations, some of the station-masters actually constructing
amateur wire entanglements with the telegraph stores. A new staff was
established at Sunari with a strong guard, and detachments of the 25th
Bombay Rifles were posted all along the line. The Political Department
offered the very handsome reward of 2,500 rupees for the capture of the
three ringleaders, and Gatacre, who had been on short leave at Simla,
hurried back to take a hand in the search.
Early in the morning of October 23 the following letter was sent back
to Quetta:
"To-day I am going out with some of the Pathans to look over the ground
where we hear some of these men have been, possibly are now. I do not
think we shall get back to-night, as the ground is said to be very bad,
but we have taken our blankets and some food. I should much like to
catch these Ghazis; it would be highly satisfactory. The Marris
promise Gaisford much, but I think they are humbugging him."
The party left Dalujal Station at 5.30 a.m. The troops were drawn from
the 24th Beluchistan Regiment. At nightfall they bivouacked near Dirgi
Springs; and next morning, with a view to scouring the hills, the party
was divided into four groups. Besides the General there were two
British officers, two Native officers, and forty-four Pathans. One
British officer was allotted to each party, and a subadar took charge
of the fourth; the rendezvous was to be a well-marked peak in the range
in front of them. {157} The General, with five Sepoys and a Marri whom
he had impressed as guide, took a middle line and made straight for the
summit, instructing the other parties to take a wider sweep. He had
regarded this peak as a likely place, because he had heard that there
was a musjid or small shrine built there, to which the murderers might
have resorted for purification after contact with the Feringhi.
As the handful of men crept up the rocky slope a sangar came into view,
which was suggestive. The leading Pathan signalled with his hand that
all should go silently, and crouch; a few more yards were covered in
this way, and then the sangar was rushed. The Sepoys flung themselves
upon the two men who were found sleeping behind the rocks with such
splendid dash that they all rolled together as the enemy made frantic
efforts to get at their knives. But no one was hurt, and in an instant
the prisoners were securely bound with the puggris of their captors.
The other search-parties now appeared on the scene, and very soon
discovered the third Ghazi, who, being also asleep in fancied security,
had no chance to get away. Three others, who had been sent away to
draw water, were now seen approaching, but they turned and fled. The
nature of the ground made it impossible to follow them on their own
mountains with any chance of success.
At noon the little force started back. On this return journey the
General shifted his position from leading to bringing up the rear;
{158} for he anticipated that a stampede might be made on the part of
the prisoners with the intention of knocking him down the khud, while
in the scuffle and panic they would hope to effect their escape. This
reasoned caution in protecting his life against obvious and purposeless
dangers was as habitual and spontaneous with the General as was his
forwardness in disregarding the risks when occasion demanded. He was
punctilious in protecting himself against sunstroke, and wore a pad
down his spine as well as the universal topee, and by such personal
heedfulness safeguarded his life and general health.
However, on this particular occasion his precaution nearly proved
disastrous. As the string of men crept down the mountain-side a
jemadar noticed that one of the Sepoys had failed to uncock his rifle,
and gave the necessary order. A shot rang out. The General's helmet
was blown off his head, and was picked up blackened with the smoke of
the charge. He is said to have smiled, as he rescued the Sepoy from
the jemadar's wrath and secured the empty cartridge as a memento.
[Illustration: Beluchi murderers.]
When the party reached Sunari Station, after a march of seventeen
miles, the General discovered that there was no political officer there
to whom he could hand over the prisoners, so that there was no choice
but to march another six miles to Dalujal. Here the murderers were
taken over by the Civil Department. The irons with which they were
immediately loaded seemed fantastically medieval in their weight {159}
and simplicity. But on the other hand, nothing could have been more
fantastic than the proceedings of the Englishman who had effected their
capture. This was the view taken by Sir George White, the
Commander-in-Chief, though he little guessed when he wrote how very
nearly his words had come true.
"I congratulate you on the way in which you managed and executed the
capture. I am also very glad to know we have General Officers
commanding first-class districts who take to the hills for amusement,
but I must also say that I don't think the job was quite one for the
G.O.C. to conduct personally. If they had managed to get a bullet into
you it would have made the affair one of very sinister importance.
However, from that point of view, 'all is well that ends well.'"
[Sidenote: A death sentence]
A few days later the headmen of the Marri tribe handed over the other
three men implicated, and at Sibi, on November 2, the three Ghazis,
Fakir Kala Khan, Jalamb, and Rahim Ali, atoned for their misdeeds. The
sentence was death by hanging followed by public cremation.[1]
[1] Compare _Beluchistan Gazette_, October 29, November 5, 1896, and
_Civil and Military Gazette_, November 12, 1896.
On the return of the troops to Quetta great excitement prevailed when,
through the presence of a strong guard at the station, it became known
that the promised treasure was on the same train. Of course this was
divided amongst the Sepoys only; all those who went to the mountain had
a share, with extra money to those {160} who actually took a hand in
the fray. It was evening when the train came in, so that it was not
till we reached the house that I noticed the blackened helmet, and saw
the rent cut by the bullet. When called upon for an explanation, the
emotion of that moment took possession of him again: it was the only
time that I heard his voice break.
Throughout that summer Mr. Curry and the railway engineers had been
busy over the new railroad that was to connect Sibi and Quetta via the
Bolan Pass. This line is shorter than the Hurnai route by fifty miles,
but it had hitherto presented insuperable difficulties to the engineer.
Two previous attempts had been made; but the floods rise so high in the
gorges and had twice so completely wrecked the permanent way, that this
route had been discarded by Sir James Browne, who preferred to tackle
the Chupper Rift with his magnificent suspension bridge. But owing to
the unreliability of the shifting sands at Mud Gorge it was imperative
for military purposes to have an alternative line. The new
Bolan-Mushkaf railroad was completed in November 1896. To give the
General an opportunity of seeing this triumph of construction, Mr.
Curry decided to initiate the new service on the day of our departure
from Quetta. The eight months' acting appointment reached its
conclusion on November 30, 1896, and the first mail train left Quetta
for Sibi on that day at 10 a.m., carrying Gatacre back to resume his
substantive appointment at Bombay.
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