'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' [‎33r] (65/118)

hotel there and this had an annex, quite separate from the main building,
which Jane shared with Margaret Greenway and her family. Harry Greenway
was an 8 th Gurkha, who had also been with the Nepalese Contingent, and we
got to know them in Nowshera and met them again in Quetta later on. Harry
had always wanted to be a parson and after the War he was ordained and
having held livings in East Anglia, he ended up as Rector of Itchen Abbas,
just outside Winchester, a very fitting place for an ex-rifleman. His
father-in-law was a clergyman who had a vast family. When someone once
asked him how many children he had, he replied ”1 really couldn’t say.
They never stand still long enough for me to count them”.
I had about two weeks leave in Dunga Gali with Jane and Christopher
and then had to set off on my own for Quetta. The Sukkur Barrage in Sind
had been breached and a large part of the surrounding country was under
water, so instead of going right through from Rawalpindi by rail to Quetta,
which even in normal times was a long and tedious journey, one had to detrain
where the floods began East of Sukkur and cross westwards by country boat,
horse drawn cart and lorry until one reached an improvised railhead on the
Baluchistan side of the water and there entrained for Quetta. The floods
stretched for thirty or forty miles even at the narrowest point and it was
a hot and hair raising journey, and at first there was a total ban on women
and children undertaking it. I reached Quetta myself on the 22nd August 19^2
and found we had been allotted a ’’temporary hut” built of unseasoned wood
in a gravel desert which some humorist had christened ”Sea View”, the nearest
sea being many hundreds of miles distant. The Mess and main Staff College
buildings were about a mile away from our quarter. Jane and Christopher
eventually arrived on the 7th September, after an adventurous four days
journey from Dunga Gali. None of our heavy baggage had yet come, so we had
to ”camp out” in the house and eat in the married Mess, which had been
established in the Staff College near to, but quite separate from the main
Mess.
On the 19th September Christopher celebrated his second birthday.
Three other small boys came to tea and all four stuffed themselves to the
brim and C. H. even put one of the candles in his mouth in his anxiety that
nothing should be wasted.
At the Staff College we were worked very hard, as they endeavoured
to cram what in peacetime would have been a two year course into less than
six months. Nevertheless we had some time for games, including cricket
and the Quetta Club, two miles down the Valley, provided a good deal of
entertainment, both by day and by night. It was fun to oe in a large
station again and to meet a number of old friends, some on the Course
itself and others in the local garrison and civil lines. I
I had hoped that I should be returning to 71 Brigade as Brigade Major
as Nathu Singh had passed on to higher things (later he became a Lieutenant
General in the Post Independence Indian Army) and I had heard that $his
successor was not proving an unqualified success. However, at the end