'A Grandfather's Tale: Memoirs being mainly concerned with service in the Indian Army and the Indian Political Service in India and the Persian Gulf from 1932-1947' [‎37v] (74/118)

to the meet, which saved me a long hack out and back, sometimes as much
as eight miles each way, and it was an especial relief to be spared the
tedious return journey after a full day in the field.
In February 19^ we had a weekend down at Sibi, staying with the
Hay family at the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. there. It is much lower than Quetta and we
enjoyed the warm sunny weather (and the trees and flowers in the garden)
after the extreme winter cold of Quetta. We played some tennis, and I had
some shooting, duck and partridge, and we rode, Jane for the first time
since we’d arrived in Baluchistan a year and a half before. Back in Quetta
we had rain and snow but by the end of March the weather improved vastly,
and we began to enjoy our garden again, although in one disastrous thunder
storm Christopher's rabbits were flooded out and drowned. However, they
were soon replaced and the new pair had a baby rabbit which C.H. insisted
upon carrying about with him wherever he went. Amazingly it survived.
In February-March 19^ there was one very grim fortnight. The
Rushton's young son of five died of polio after only being ill for 48 hours,
an army acquaintance died suddenly, and our friend Peter Knight caught
typhoid while out on tour and died in hospital of peritonitis. I had the
unhappy experience of helping to carry three coffins within the space of
two weeks, the last funeral, Peter Knight’s, being in the midst of a thunder
storm.
By May the cricket season had started again and I found that my finger,
damaged the previous year, though still slightly bent did not prevent my
keeping wicket reasonably well. We also had the odd game of polo but ponies
were scarce and it was not easy to raise enough ponies and riders to have
regular games, nor could one always spare the time. Jane continued her work
at the Quetta War Shop and at the Military Families Hospital. She was also,
for her sins, Secretary of the local Girl Guides Association, and this
involved numerous committee meetings which she loathed. She had worked
three mornings a week at the War Shop since our coming to the Staff College
in 1942, leaving Christopher at a nursery school, fetching and carrying him
by bicycle until we eventually acquired the donkey. She had started
voluntary nursing in the Military hospital in Nowshera in 1941, and then
went back to this in Quetta after Elizabeth was born. The War Shop, run
for the benefit of the War Fund, was in effect a permanent jumble sale. It
a real need, since women and children's clothes were in short
supply, and household effects too, as hardly anything was being imported. In
June 1944 there was a grand Fete to raise money for Prisoners of War. Jane’s
e orts in thio were most successful and for weeks afterwards people were
still wondering who the mysterious Persian fortune teller was.
In June 1944 I he a rd that I was to take over as First Assistant
Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. in MEKRAN on the 1st August. This was the job I had
originally been selected xor in January 1943 (see page^T? ) Colonel Hav
the A.G.G. asked me how I felt about going there and was, I think, rather
surprised that I did not object despite the increase in my "family commitments
since 19^3. I said I should be very happy to go, and would have Jane and