In many respects the two Angus’s are flip sides of the same coin, one light-hearted and extrovert, the other careful and guarded

The usual procedure for their shooting expedition was to set off at 3am by car in groups of four to six with servants, bedding rolls, and shot guns, so they could take up their positions by the jheels. There they moved their cars towards the water’s edge and waded into the shallow water at the perimeter and waited until dawn. As light appeared, the wildfowlers saw the birds silhouetted and heard their murmuring.

The leading gun let off the first shot, whereupon a rush of duck and teal flew into the sky. As the sun rose, the birds disappeared, signifying the point at which the shooters counted their spoils and had breakfast. The best shooting was at dusk, and to take full advantage of it, the officers waited in concealed niches until the moment when the birds returned, and each man was rewarded for his patience and skill.

The officers returned to their cars, ate supper served by a camp fire, after which they slept under the stars in their bed-rolls. It was cold at night but the low temperatures warded off pests and mosquitoes. A typical quota during such a sporting spree was 250 birds, which were brought back to Trimulgherry and kept in cold storage.

Fitness routine

From photographs, it’s clear that Angus’s early months in India were happy. Gone are any traces of the overgrown schoolboy or the self-conscious Oxford undergraduate. India held an atmosphere of mystery and excitement, but was unable to offer him his usual sporting opportunities; instead, he went shooting.

For an officer of slender means, as a young lieutenant’s salary was very small, this sport not only offered Angus the thrill of the outdoors but helped prevent him from over-spending in the officers’ mess. Although he played polo (his 1939 Easter Day letter to Esther reveals he owned a pony for this purpose), the cost was minimal.

Sport was part of the Argylls’ fitness routine, and their team played hockey against the 5/2 Punjabs and the West Yorkshires. The Argylls’ excellent football team won the 1938 tournament. Boxing was a favourite for many but not with Angus, as he was to profess to his mother in a letter from Singapore. To a point, he enjoyed team games but my uncle preferred solitary pursuits like sailing, shooting and flying.

While his friend, Angus Rose, was captain, Angus was track judge rather than a competitor in the Trimulgherry athletics tournament that summer when they staged contests in running, the long and high jump, pole vaulting, throwing the hammer, javelin, and tug-of-war.

Besides sport, Angus helped edit The Thin Red Line. The editorial team rotated every three months to bring out the periodical four times a year. With Angus Rose and Lance Sergeant Andrews, Angus edited the February 1938 magazine.

Browsing through back numbers, I’m impressed by the quality of the diary of events, notes on the sergeants’ mess, the pipes, drums and military band, not forgetting the ‘What the Parrot is Saying!’ column. In summer 1939, the parrot asks the identity of ‘the sergeant that won the beauty competition and is he really a good looker?’ With few bylines, it is impossible to distinguish who wrote what.

Occasion

I suspect that one entry styled in a jocular vein comes from the pen of Angus Rose (in many respects the two Angus’s are flip sides of the same coin, one lighthearted and extrovert, the other careful and guarded) who describes an occasion when Professor Gupta, an ‘eminent’ entertainer, displayed his conjuring feats and snake-swallowing. ‘Bigger and better snakes were swallowed this time, but the editor’s stomach was not strong enough to watch.’

When Rose’s cousin arrived from the UK at Trimulgherry, he received a welcome with a potted biography. While Jack Hyslop earned a mention, as did E. N. Campbell Baldwin, Peter Farquhar and Bobby Rumsey, Angus had none. Perhaps his arrival was too late to be announced in the November issue, and by the time the following number was published, Angus needed no introduction.

A more plausible reason was Lieutenant Macdonald’s modesty: as co-editor, he was reluctant to indulge in self-publicity.

My uncle missed his home and family, but he had friends, both old and new; of the latter, Peter Farquhar, five years his junior, is photographed with Angus standing beside an army lorry at Meadows Barracks. In the background, framed in an archway, are two Indian women in long tunics and trousers while the soldiers, holding batons, are clothed in shorts, shirts, Sam Browne belt, and topi.

The men are a world apart from the two young, brown-skinned women. Each pair is hermetically sealed within its socio-racial group, one policing the homeland of the other. When the photograph was developed, did he notice the two young Indian women in the background? Did he wonder at the unfairness?

Perhaps he saw it like his friend, David Wilson, who, years later, explained that he was young and just got on with the job and in doing so enjoyed himself, made many friends, and saw places that today’s tourist is forbidden to visit.

At Hogmanay they celebrated. The officers brought out their silver and in a large punch bowl, prepared a potent concoction of Atholl Brose for the sergeants. Shortly before midnight, the NCOs were piped into the officers’ mess where the acting commanding officer, Jim Cunningham, rose to propose their health. Together they toasted, sang, and danced into the small hours.

Ceremonies

If they had been stationed in Scotland, all would have been well, and they would have been permitted to sleep until well past noon. But this was India. At 6am, Angus rose and dressed in his finery for his first Proclamation Parade at the Maidan, an open exercise area used for polo-playing and ceremonies.

Established during Queen Victoria’s reign, the parade held on January 1 demonstrated the armed forces’ loyalty to the reigning British monarch, the King Emperor. All notables turned up: the Nizam and the British Resident, who kept tabs on the Nizam and his government.

The three-mile march in the fresh air from Trimulgherry to the parade ground helped many sober up. By the time the 93rd found their positions, they were in the company of ‘5 cavalry regiments’: the Royal Horse Artillery, a British Indian cavalry regiment, an Indian cavalry regiment and two regiments of the Nizam’s state cavalry.

Spectators thrilled to the gleam of the horses’ flanks, the jingle of the bits, the smell of the turf and the colours of the soldiers’ ceremonial uniform. More tomorrow