General Gatacre Part 3

"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 quant.i.ties of fruit. The plain is surrounded with high rocky hills, no gra.s.s 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 pa.s.s]

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 a.s.sist 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 pa.s.sage over the Indus at the junction of the two streams on the second day's march, which he thus describes:

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"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, Colla.s.sie 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s--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 gra.s.s 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.

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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 antic.i.p.ated 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 pa.s.sing. 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."

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[Sidenote: 1871-3]

Writing on the day following his return, his sister gives Stephen a rchauffe 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 pa.s.sed 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 compet.i.tion, 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, rea.s.sured them, saying:

"Never mind, I have another quite as good to send in his place. I am sending Bengough next term."