The serial: Largie Castle, A Rifled Nest Day 53

Angus was now tucked away from his colleagues in an administrative post, not in the field or on operations, but behind a desk

Possibly Angus participated in Stewart’s excursions up-country in areas where few British soldiers had been seen since the Mutiny. Although the companies took tents and dry rations, they were expected to shoot game and live off the country. For hot food they used a petrol stove and a nest of black cooking pots, so soldiers could cook for themselves.

These expeditions were a combination of public relations stunt, Boy Scout self-sufficiency and a late1930s equivalent of a Bear Grylls endurance test. Local police acted as guides and interpreters and, in return, the jocks repaired tracks, wells, houses, and the much-needed tanks that held the local water supply.

Commanded by captains or subalterns, these parties were an excellent way of getting to know Indian village life and a far cry from the Trimulgherry routine. Away from parades and military duties, the jocks learned how to live from the country, the officers and NCOs discovered how to take responsibility, and respect grew between soldiers and villagers, so that when officers visited later in the year to shoot, they were welcomed as old friends. Potent In the evenings, the jocks and villagers joined together with bagpipe and sithar for an impromptu concert and drank a potent toddy made from the coconut palm.

Stewart’s idea of a concert was different and dry, of course. With the aid of bandmaster and pipe major, NCOs entertained the battalion with Highland songs sung in English and Gaelic, which boosted morale and cemented camaraderie.

Coming from a family that owned land since the battle of Flodden in 1513, Ian Stewart had a keen sense of tradition which was demonstrated during the Malayan campaign when he commanded tunes from his bugler and piper that resonated with each of his officers’ and men’s hearts.

Early in 1938, each young officer began to specialise in some field, and for Angus it was in signals. “We are in the throes of specialist training,” came a report in the magazine.

“Signallers are learning the mysteries of dots and dashes with the lamp, flag and helio, not forgetting the super-charged buzzer.” On April 11 1938 he entered a three-month signals officer’s course in Poona. In pre-war days, the city was the spiritual home of the British Army in India, conjuring up diehard army colonels sitting on verandas drinking pink gins.

Angus travelled on a train, known as the “heatstroke express” and found the landscape dry, brown and dusty. Now that he was in British India, he noticed that not only was everyone connected in some way to the army but society was more class-ridden than in Hyderabad.

Three weeks after he qualified as regimental signals officer, Angus travelled farther north to Staff College, Quetta in British Baluchistan. Intended for senior command at which Wavell, Montgomery, Auchinleck, and Slim had at one time attended, Staff College was a prerequisite for all ambitious army officers.

After the stifling temperatures of Poona, the mountainous region was a relief. But all too soon, he returned to the furnace of the Deccan plains. Promotion Back at Trimulgherry, the 1938 September Munich crisis gave the battalion a chance to test its mettle under Stewart’s training programme. At short notice they performed their ‘war duties.’ Within 4½ hours of receiving the warning order and led by John Lindsay MacDougall, B Company took up guard at the Hyderabad residency 11 miles from the barracks, in a tribute to Stewart’s work on transforming the battalion. The men congratulated themselves.

The biggest shift in my uncle’s life came when he was appointed adjutant on April 1 1939. If nothing else, Angus now knew that he’d be staying with the 2nd Battalion. It was a considerable promotion. Angus had been a likely candidate although some officers, senior in rank, were passed over in favour of him.

He had a sharp intellect and being a good allrounder and mixer he allowed his individuality to be subsumed by duty to the battalion; he was a wise choice, replacing John Tweedie when he and his wife returned to the UK in May.

Angus was now tucked away from his colleagues in an administrative post, not in the field or on operations, but behind a desk. The adjutant (adjuvare in Latin means ‘to help’) assists his commanding officer, in Angus’s case, Hector Greenfield.

The role generally went to a captain who, in many cases, on taking up the position was regarded senior to other captains and ranked just behind a major. Yet, Angus was still a lieutenant and would not be appointed captain until September 3 1939. His new position put him in charge of personnel and in maintaining discipline among the subalterns, making sure they turned out smartly on parade.

He also saw to the administration of the battalion, that orders from the commanding officer were sent to the company commanders and distributed down the line to all ranks, including lance corporals. Until the 1970s, the adjutant also took charge of operational staff work, which meant he planned and carried out operations so that, while he controlled a battle, the commanding officer commanded it.

Indicative of his good manners and wish not to boast, Angus in one of his infrequent communications with Esther, only mentions his promotion (“I am now adjutant of this battalion”) in the penultimate paragraph of his 1939 Easter Day letter. Disadvantage He apologises for being a dilatory correspondent: it is “simply ages since I last wrote to you”. But it’s significant that after admitting he had “at least two letters of yours here in front of me, which I know are unanswered,” he grabs the opportunity to make contact only a week after his promotion.

Evidently, he wanted to spread the news, not only to his younger sister but, by asking Esther to remember him to their mother and aunts Violet and Gladys, he meant that they should all know. He’s at pains to explain what his new post requires. “I have a pretty full day’s work generally starting at about 7am and very often not finishing till about 5pm. A great deal of this time is spent in my office, I regret to say. If I can get out for an hour each morning, I am lucky.”

For a man who loved the outdoors, being stuck inside was a disadvantage, especially with such a long working day. Still, he was proud and felt that he could now square up to Jock, his older brother, the Oxford rowing blue and Largie laird. More tomorrow © 2017 Mary C Gladstone, all rights reserved, courtesy of the author and Firefallmedia; available in hardcover and paperback online and from all booksellers.