General Gatacre Part 5

On his death, in September 1878, a terrible tragedy was enacted.

Mindon, being an Oriental, had many wives and many sons; these latter he had dispersed as rulers of provinces with very good effect. When the old king lay dying, one of his wives devised a scheme by which to secure the succession to Prince Theebaw, for the reason that he was her son-in-law by his marriage with Supya-lat, her daughter. With the most fiendish designs Theebaw and the queen, in the king's name, summoned all the princes to Mandalay. They arrived each with {45} his Oriental retinue of women of all ages. The royal ladies were lodged in the prison, which had been cleared for their reception; the princes were received into the palace. "Under instructions from the King," a ma.s.sacre was perpetrated on the nights of February 15, 16, and 17, 1879. The queens and princesses and even royal children were done to death by the "ruffians released for the purpose from the jail which was now the scene of their cruelties, and their bodies were flung into a hole already dug in the jail."[1] The princes were compelled to pa.s.s through a certain doorway in the palace, where each one was in turn cut down; it is even said that the queen-mother and Supya-lat with their own hands did the deed. "Eight cartloads of the bodies of the Princes of the Blood were conveyed out of the city by the western or 'Funeral Gate,' and thrown into the river according to custom."

[1] _Parliamentary Papers_ (Burma), 1886. Quotations from the _Mandalay Confidential Diary_, by Mr. R. B. Shaw, Resident, of February 19, 1879, and later dates.

It was calculated that some eighty souls thus perished. Even the people were horrified. Our Resident, Mr. Shaw, could do no more than express with vigour the light in which his Government would regard these atrocities; but King Theebaw was inaccessible to argument, and rea.s.serted his right to take "such measures to prevent disturbance as might be desirable," stating that such acts were in accordance with the custom of the State, and that he would {46} go his own way without regard to "censure or blame."[2]

[2] _Parliamentary Papers_ (Burma), 1886.

[Sidenote: 1883]

Owing to further gross outrages, the Resident was driven to fulfil his threat of breaking off friendly relations with such a ruler; the British flag was hauled down in August 1879, and the Residency evacuated.

There were now no governors to keep order in the provinces: dacoits sprang up, traders were robbed and killed, the people were oppressed, and the land neglected. English merchants, however, continued to carry on their business at their own risk; their boats plied up and down the broad stream, and it was in their hospitable company that Gatacre spent Christmas 1882 at Mandalay.

RANGOON, _January_ 11, 1883.

"MY DEAR FATHER,

"I send you a line to tell you my doings up-country at Christmas time.

I was sorry to leave Alice just then, but the opportunity of seeing Mandalay for nothing was a great temptation.

"We went, a party of six, including myself, most of them merchants. We had a steamer to ourselves, and the head of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, a Mr. Swan, who took us, did everything in first-rate style.

The River Irrawaddy is a very difficult one to navigate at this dry season of the year, owing to the constantly shifting sands. We did not get aground, luckily, but we pa.s.sed several steamers fast on the sands; they sometimes remain there six months till the river fills and floats them off. The steamers only drew 4 ft. 6 in. of water.

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"We took four and a half days altogether to go up to Mandalay, but I did not join them till the steamer reached Prome, so I had only three days on board going up. The country, as far as we could see from the banks, consists of large rich plains, covered with gra.s.s and scrub jungle; very little cultivation, owing to the poverty of the people, but if capital was forthcoming the soil would grow anything. Where the crops were sown the yield was very large. There are low ranges of hills on the right bank, and a highish range, called the Shan Mountains, on the left bank.

"We were told there was but little game inland; we saw plenty of wild-fowl, geese, etc. The poverty of the people is chiefly owing to the King having started lotteries, which bring him in 10,000 Rs., about 800, a day. The people have gone gambling mad, and barter everything they have for tickets--property, children, everything. The King ruins the country by his recklessness in squandering money; he presses the people to such an extent that an up-country Burman will hardly take the trouble to make money.

"Mandalay is nothing but a collection of mud huts and a few masonry buildings, laid out in a beautiful style, all the houses in rows, with large streets running between each at right angles. It was laid out by Italians. None of the roads are made, so the bullock-carts pa.s.sing along them in the rains have cut them up to a frightful extent; and in the rains they are impa.s.sable except quite at the edges, and then only to pedestrians. Mandalay was only built twenty-five years ago; formerly the capital was Ameerapoora, about six miles off, but was changed to Mandalay by order of the King. {48} Ameerapoora is a beautiful site--large trees, gra.s.s, and water everywhere. Some of the carved paG.o.das are very beautiful, but going very much to decay. The custom is, in Burma, that when a man builds a house or paG.o.da he only can repair it, or his relations; the consequence is that in course of time the building is forgotten and goes to pieces.

"We saw the war-boats on the river; they are long dug-out canoes, a beautiful shape somewhat like this,[3] generally with a figure-head of a peac.o.c.k (their sacred bird). The canoes are gilt all over, and manned with eighty to one hundred men; each has a short paddle, and is armed with a 'dah,' the Burmese knife, a 2 ft. 6 in. blade, with handle of 8 in. or 12 in. The canoes go like lightning, driven by the rowers, who shout all the time. The Burmese are great boatmen, and their races on the water are well worth seeing. They bet tremendously high on them.

[3] See drawing in letter. [Transcriber's note: this letter was missing from the source book.]

"The second largest bell in the world is at Mendoon, near Mandalay; this we went to see. It is 14 ft. high, and of a most enormous thickness--about 1 ft. 6 in. I should say. It was originally suspended on three enormous teak trees laid on masonry supports, but these have given way, and now it rests in the ground. There is also near the bell the commencement of a very large paG.o.da. Some one (I forget who) made up his mind to build the largest paG.o.da in the world, so started upon one. He got together an extraordinary amount of brick-work, but an earthquake unfortunately stopped the work by splitting it up in several places. It is about 100 yards square and high, so you can imagine the size of it. It is built with {49} large red bricks, 2 ft. long by 1 ft. wide by 4 in. thick.

"We stopped in Mandalay two and a half days. I rode about all over the place, and found the people very civil, though they are very suspicious of Englishmen.

"We came down in one and a half days to Prome, where I caught the night train down, as I had to be back on New Year's Day, my leave being up.

The trip was a most enjoyable one."

[Sidenote: Second-in-command]

The temporary staff billet having run out at the end of 1882, Gatacre went home on three months' leave early in the following year, and when he returned in May took up the post of second-in-command of his regiment, which in those days meant taking command of one wing of the battalion. This brought no change of residence, as the 77th were then quartered in Rangoon.

He joined heartily in everything that was going on, and had, moreover, interests of his own which lay beyond the field of duty. The spring and autumn race-meetings were a great event. Though he does not seem to have owned any racing ponies, he was always in request as a jockey.

Every morning he would hack down to the racecourse, and being a light weight was often asked to give a gallop to the ponies that were in training. In a letter of June 1883 he says: "I rode in five races, and won two, the hurdle race and an open race--the best race of the meeting--which pleased me."

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There was a steeplechase pony named Free Lance that he rode to victory many times. The owner of Free Lance appeared as Mr. Darwood, a gentleman of Rangoon, of mixed nationality; but I am inclined to think that Free Lance was in reality the property of King Theebaw, for the General told me that at one time he had half shares with King Theebaw in a racing pony, which he rode, and there is no other period to which this incident could be attached. I have now in my possession a gold scarf-pin that King Theebaw sent as a recognition of Gatacre's services in the matter of this pony. Although this secret was kept so close that none of the regimental officers got wind of it, it is not considered improbable.[4] It was well known that Gatacre had friends amongst the leading men of Rangoon, and it is entirely in accordance with his character that he should have been personally acquainted with his native neighbours. Indeed it is not altogether impossible that he was engaged in some sort of secret intelligence duties for Government, for he told me that at one time he used to disguise himself and go and talk in the Native Bazaar, and it is certain that he acquired the Burmese language, and could even write it to some extent.

[4] As King Theebaw was at that time an independent friendly sovereign, there is nothing contrary to any regulations in Gatacre's a.s.sociation with him in this matter.

[Sidenote: Iolanthe]

In the summer of 1882 the regimental officers and others in the station got up a performance of _Patience_, in which Gatacre {51} figured as one of the Dragoon Chorus. In the following year _Iolanthe_ was produced. Gatacre was anxious that the audience should include persons of all nationalities; and in order that those who could not understand the English words should have some key to the action, he made a precis of the play, and, having written it in Hindustani characters, had it lithographed, and distributed with the programmes. A copy of this curious doc.u.ment, which covers three sides of foolscap, and is signed in full, is still to be seen in the sc.r.a.p-book of the officer who joined the 77th Regiment for love of his tutor at Sandhurst.

At the end of September Gatacre heard of the birth of his third son, John Kirwan, now in the 11th Bengal Lancers.

In December 1883 the regiment left Rangoon for Secunderabad.

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CHAPTER IV

1884-1885

SECUNDERABAD

[Sidenote: 1884]

I have read in a recent biography of Alexander Hamilton that "the power of his intellect was hardly suspected under the ambush of his extraordinary charm."[1] This was equally true of Gatacre. Moreover, the high standard of his physical endowments was in itself a mask to his mental abilities; in reality, his physical force was but the evidence and the result of his intellectual energy.

[1] Alexander Hamilton, by F. S. Oliver, p. 149.

[Sidenote: Camp of exercise]

He turned the whole of his power on to the work in hand; even when partly disabled, he would not allow himself to be cheated of the pleasure and opportunity that his work afforded. Of course the opportunity that his soul yearned for was active service; he was daily discovering his own value, and longed to prove himself in the fierce furnace of war.

The year 1884 opened with the nearest approach to these conditions that can be contrived without an enemy. A camp of exercise on a very large scale was held near Bangalore, {53} at which 10,000 troops were a.s.sembled. Sir Charles Keyes commanded the First Division, in which the 77th were included, and General H. Prendergast had command of the Second Division, with Colonel W. F. Gatacre as a.s.sistant-Quarter-Master-General.