The serial: Largie Castle, A Rifled Nest Day 45

I like to believe that Angus returned to Largie for his last Christmas with the family and, amongst other gifts, presented Esther with hers By Mary Gladstone

The Maltese Cat, subtitled a polo game of the Nineties, describes the slick conformity of careless, young army officers at play at the turn of the century. While Kipling coveted acceptance by such circles, he was unable to ignore those who existed alongside this coterie. In The Maltese Cat he brings humour and charm to the polo ponies, allowing the story to unfold from their viewpoint, just as he did with Baloo, Shere Khan, and other beasts in The Jungle Book.

What better gift (for the giver) than a tale about polo playing in India, since the donor might soon find himself in that country indulging in such an activity?

Although we know that Christmas 1936 was Angus’s last in Britain, we are ignorant as to whether he was aware he’d be going overseas. Friends, Angus Rose and David Wilson, were already preparing for their transference to 2nd Battalion; they left in March 1937.

The other unknown is whether my mother’s brother presented his gift in person or if he sent it by post? He may have remained at Tidworth, sharing the view of a contributor to the regimental magazine, who claimed that when stationed in England, you profited from two end-of-the-year celebrations: Christmas and Hogmanay (in Scotland the battalion only celebrated the latter).

I like to believe that Angus returned to Largie for his last Christmas with the family and, among other gifts, presented Esther with hers.

Firm friend

Angus suspected he would be posted overseas; in the early part of 1937, some close friends transferred to 2nd Battalion garrisoned at Secunderabad in south India.

First was David Wilson who sailed on His Majesty’s Troopship (HMT) Dorsetshire accompanied by two other officers from the battalion, Ian Stonor and Gordon Campbell Colquhoun. Angus Rose followed in the spring. Voyaging on HMT Neuralia, he arrived at Bombay in early April. Rose, one of four siblings all commissioned into the army, was to become, if he wasn’t already, a firm friend.

My uncle may well have wondered when his turn would come. He did not have long to wait, as on June 29 the London Gazette announced that he and two other officers were to be posted to 2nd Battalion during the first half of the 1937/38 trooping season for India, which began in September and finished in March.

The reason was that servicemen took the threeweek sea voyage at the beginning of the cool season, so they had time to acclimatise before the Indian plains became a furnace the following April.

Today, when a soldier’s home may be reached from any point of the globe in a matter of hours, it’s hard to imagine how young men felt then as they prepared for service overseas.

During the 1930s, it was usual for troops to spend at least five or six years abroad without any prospect of returning to the United Kingdom.

That September, a host of troopships departed Southampton for the east, the most celebrated being the recently-built 1,000 ton HMT Dunera, which on September 9, began her maiden voyage to China.

To see her off, War Minister Mr Hore-Belisha did the honours. HMT Somersetshire followed on September 11 with a draft heading for Egypt.

Three days later, the 9,543-ton HMT Lancashire left Southampton ‘with military drafts for India’. This was Angus’s ship.

Rites of passage

Somewhat apt for the modest young man, the Lancashire was serviceable, unspectacular, and no government minister waved her off.

I imagine that some of the family came to Southampton quay for Angus. Daisy saw to it that her children’s rites of passage were observed.

They watched Jock row for Oxford, were present at Douna’s wedding at Largie, and attended the marriage of Jock to Anne Stirling Maxwell, when Angus was best man and Esther a bridesmaid.

Daisy made the long journey from Argyll. Whether Douna was able to travel from Gordonstoun in Morayshire is unknown. Both Simon, still at Magdalen College, and Esther, at Downe House in Berkshire, were not so far away.

One or two friends, people connected with Daisy’s youth, may have swelled the family ranks, or possibly an aunt. Violet, Daisy’s twin sister, lived in the south.

The voyage to India was Angus’s first big adventure, possibly his first trip abroad. While he was growing up, the family could not afford to take holidays overseas.

It was certainly the young man’s first journey away from Europe and, as the band played Auld Lang Syne and a posse of photographers lined up their subjects, he must have felt a mixture of emotions.

There was the thrill of the new, the foreign, and the East. Fed on Rudyard Kipling, Angus was curious to head to India into the sunset of the British Raj, with its civil unrest and disaffection. He was optimistic.

However, if he was happy, was everyone else pleased? He had a terrier (this is how the family story went) that refused to eat, and after he departed it pined and died.

Added to this tale, apocryphal though it might be, sister Douna allegedly reported years later that Angus knew he would never return.

From the time he was nine years of age, when he set off for his first term at West Downs, Angus associated the month of September with departure.

However, the young army officer had to go back four generations to Joseph Crabb, his great, greatgrandfather, before he could find a forebear who had served in the east.

Inspection

The ship departed at 3pm, after the final inspection, which ascertained passengers’ berths and the stowing of baggage.

With the strains of the national anthem ringing in their ears, passengers watched from the deck as relatives and friends on the quay receded into the distance.

As an officer, Angus had a roomy cabin, shared with three others.

They slept on bunks, had a basin, cupboard space and each a chest-of-drawers. They needed plenty storage space, as they wore uniform and mess kit for dinner.

Each cabin had a steward. The other ranks received no such comforts: warrant officers, sergeants, and married people occupied a third of the ship, while the troops were squashed together like sardines sleeping in cargo space on hammocks.

The ship slid past Netley Hospital and its abbey before navigating west through the Solent, separating the wooded Hampshire mainland from the northern shores of the Isle of Wight.

More tomorrow