Part 3 of 3
3. Indian Interlude (1897-99)The deep competitiveness which had burned in Stephe since childhood would not be assuaged unless given greater satisfaction than the Brevet Colonelcy now conferred upon him. Since he was still only a major in his own regiment but senior in army rank to the commanding officer and the second-in-command, he would have to seek the colonelcy of another regiment. Then he could expect four years in command, and after that either half-pay or promotion. Thanks to his 'little wars' Baden-Powell, at 40, had become the youngest colonel in the British Army, but this still might not be enough to save him from being prematurely shelved.
Henrietta Grace had been ill and was convalescing in a country hotel when Stephe returned from Rhodesia in January 1897. He therefore took rooms at reduced terms in a hotel in suburban Richmond where, away from the distractions of life with Warington, Frank and Agnes at Hyde Park Corner, he hoped to convert his Matabele diary into a book. [1] Methuen had already offered 200 pounds, so it was a shock to him when General Sir Redvers Buller, the new Adjutant-General, refused to sanction publication on the grounds that Baden-Powell would be 'profiting at the Government's expense'. Stephe replied disingenuously that 'it had not struck him that he was likely to make any money'. All he had wanted was 'to give his experiences in ordinary language so they might be of use to young officers'. In the end Buller grudgingly withdrew his objections. [2] When George sent Lord Wolseley a copy of Stephe's Matabele Campaign, the Commander-in-Chief told him that his brother 'writes as well as he fights; indeed there are few in the army who are as good all round as he is.' [3]
Stephe lunched at George's house in Eaton Square the day after his return to England. He found Doctor Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian explorer, staying there. Nansen was the most sought-after man in London, having recently completed a daring walk on the Polar ice to the most northerly latitude ever reached. With an unerring nose for publicity, George had sailed into the Varangar Fjord in Norway and on managing to intercept the returning Nansen, had invited him to sail south from Vardo in his yacht. In London George gave a splendid dinner in the explorer's honour -- guests included Colonel R.S.S. Baden-Powell, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Leader of the House of Commons, the former Colonial Secretary and Sir Henry Morton Stanley, the world's most famous living explorer. [4]
When Nansen departed, Stephe spent a couple of nights with George, who explained that when the lease on 8 St George's Place came up for renewal in four years' time, the house would have to be abandoned. He was doing his best to persuade Henrietta Grace to find 'a haven of rest' in Bournemouth or Cowes. If that huge house were no longer draining away such a large proportion of the family's available cash, Warington and Frank would be able to live in a smaller shared house in London and thus keep most of their income. Stephe would also be spared having to pay much of his steadily improving salary into the family's exchequer. As Stephe well knew, only George had any chance of persuading their mother to leave the scene of her social triumphs. But George had recently been troubled by liver pains, which Stephe thought more alarming than his brother seemed prepared to admit. In other ways, too, George had at last suffered disappointments. He had twice failed to secure his election to the exclusive Royal Yacht Squadron, being blackballed at the second attempt by no fewer than 25 members. [5] Nor had Lord Salisbury offered him the long-awaited junior ministry.
At the end of February Stephe left his Richmond hotel, having completed his book, and rejoined the 13th Hussars in Dublin.
A week later the War Office ordered him to take command of the 5th Dragoon Guards, then stationed in India. Baden-Powell described leaving the regiment in which he had served for 21 years as 'one of the bitterest moments of my life'. [6] When he told his servant, Martin Dillon, that he was going, the man wept openly and penned a heartfelt note: 'I give you my word no matter how good my place is I will give it up and go to you as soon as ever you get back to England. I hope we will live together.' Dillon predicted that Stephe would receive 'a great welcome' from the regiment on his return from Rhodesia. 'Just like myself they are longing to see you.' [7] Stephe's first biographer talked to a group of sergeants in the 13th, asking whether the men 'liked' Stephe. 'There was a silence for a second or two, and at last one of the sergeants replied hesitatingly: "Well no, I shouldn't say they like him," and then in a burst -- "Why, they worship him!"' [8] Nothing illustrates his success as a regimental officer better than his relationship with Edward Sargeaunt, who had been his troop sergeant-major in India in the 1880s and afterwards in Colchester and Liverpool.
When Sargeaunt died in 1929, although his wife survived him he left all his regimental cups, presentation salvers and other mementoes to Stephe, who had been consistently kind to him after he retired and had been instrumental in getting him a cottage in Speldhurst where his Powell cousins were the largest local landowners. [9]On the day he left the 13th Hussars forever, Stephe planned to slip away unnoticed in the early morning before breakfast. He therefore asked Dillon to have a cab ready at the back of his quarters.
When all was ready [he recalled] I sneaked out of the back door, there to find my cab, with the Regimental Sergeant-Major sitting on the box conducting the band, which was also in attendance, every man of my squadron harnessed in on long ropes, and the whole regiment there to see me out of the barrack gate. And off we went, the most choky experience I have ever had. My last glimpse of the barracks showed blankets being waved from every window, and all through the slums and streets of Dublin went this mad procession which finally landed me at the station with a farewell cheer. [10]
Before Baden-Powell's arrival in India, the 5th Dragoon Guards had been proficient at drill and smart on the parade ground. A slavish obedience to orders was still widely supposed to be the hallmark of a good cavalry officer. The senior officers had been horrified to learn that a young Brevet-Colonel with more experience of African campaigning than parade-ground ceremonial had been appointed to command them. Baden-Powell, however, was tactful but firm, and some of the older officers who could not accept this youthful new broom retired. [11] Baden-Powell disliked what he called 'kid-gloved high-collared officers', who were snobbish towards colonials and officers from less exclusive regiments. Nor was he keen on 'highly trained staff officers who were bound hard and fast by rules'. He preferred a man able 'to fall in with the ways of the country where he is, and ready to cast off the Red Books'. [12]
He at once reduced all drill and ceremonial, and discouraged formality. He was always approachable, and broke the old custom that a subaltern could never address anyone above the rank of the senior subaltern unless first spoken to. He took junior officers into his confidence and showed them his campaign mementoes. [13] But his private chats with the rank and file were considered even more eccentric.
To improve his men's health, Baden-Powell built a bakery, a dairy, a soda water factory, a temperance club and supper rooms where alcohol was served. He tried without success to persuade the men to forgo their visits to the 'rag', or brothel, in the bazaar, though the best he ever achieved was a semi-voluntary ban lasting a couple of weeks. He spoke to all ranks about the dangers of venereal disease and felt disgusted enough by its prevalence to order his Provost Sergeant to whip away prostitutes following the troops when the regiment was on the march. [14]Despite the long interval since Stephe had last been in Meerut, the place itself was utterly unchanged, although not one of the people he remembered was still there.
A dozen years earlier he had hero-worshipped Baker Russell with his manly bearing and chestful of medals. Now, as colonel of a regiment of his own, he wanted his young officers to look up to him. When a group of them asked him to come pigsticking, he knew he was being tested. 'It was an anxious moment. I wasn't sure whether my nerve had survived the years of abstinence from the sport.'
The pigs proved elusive that day and after several hours he dismounted to search a likely-looking thicket. Suddenly a huge boar hove into view and, before Stephe could reach his horse, charged him. 'I had just time to lower my spear as he rushed onto it and it went deep into his chest. But the shock of the impact threw me over on my back, and, while I held tight to the spear-shaft, he was there just over me, trying to reach me with his tusks but held off sufficiently by the spear.' When Baden-Powell's young companions found him in this position, they killed the pig and asked admiringly: '''Do you always go in on foot, sir?" "Of course,"' he replied. [15]Being Colonel brought home his age to him as never before. His mother was staying in Bournemouth where he jokingly promised to join her. 'Just the place for a decrepit old colonel from India to come and pick up his health.' [16]
Henrietta Grace, who since George's wedding had executed a complete volte face, kept pressing him about his plans for marriage. 'Yes,' he replied with slight exasperation, 'I shall be very pleased when I find myself married and settled, and in the meantime I am at least not wasting my time as I am now working up for a pension.' [17] Early in 1898 Henrietta Grace broke her leg while staying in Scotland. Just as he had pretended to have a wife in South Africa while he had been on Malta, he now decided to use his mother's accident to keep the more blatant husband-seekers at arm's length. He therefore sent a Scottish press report about 'Mrs Baden-Powell's accident' to the editor of Meerut's newspaper. The result was: 'Mrs Baden-Powell, wife of the popular Colonel of the 5th Dragoon Guards, who broke her leg while walking on the mountain above Inverary, has now completely recovered from her injuries. It is not, however, expected that she will come out to Meerut this year.' Although Stephe claimed to have had a lot of 'fun' over this incident, his mother was not amused. [18] He had seemed very depressed before sailing. Was there something on his mind? 'I thoroughly inquired into it,' he reassured her, 'and I can't find the slightest shadow of any kind of trouble, above the surface of money troubles . . . I am not in love (only wish I were!).' [19]
The problem identified by George was that the Baden-Powell family was at long last breaking up, and so each member owed it to himself or herself to develop an independent life.
And if, like Stephe, one did not feel attracted by the opposite sex and yet was being pressed to marry by the one person whose opinion mattered most to one, life became fraught. Suddenly Stephe found himself looking at married couples with a new eye. Major-General Edward Locke Elliot, the Inspector-General of Cavalry in India, was seven years older than he and had recently married a young and forceful wife. Baden-Powell stayed with him in Simla for a couple of days in June 1898, and 'enjoyed every minute of it'. He pronounced Elliot 'the only man I have ever felt that I wouldn't mind changing places with. Young, smart, keen soldier, good swordsman, first-rate race rider and across country, plays polo, pigsticks, plays the piano beautifully; charming wife plays the violin; jolly little daughter . . . Mrs Elliot won the jumping competition (open to men as well as ladies), and even the baby's pony took a prize ... Among many good books in the house I read one of Le Gallienne's ... ' [20] Elliot was plainly a man of intellectual discrimination. A mere two years after Oscar Wilde's downfall very few soldiers would have dreamed of buying anything by the decadent fin-de-siecle writer,
Richard Le Gallienne, who in deference to Wilde always affected velvet jackets and shoulder-length hair.
During his first summer back in India, Stephe accepted an invitation from the Simla Amateur Dramatic Club to play the part of Wun-Hi, the Chinese tea-house owner in The Geisha -- an operetta which was at the time still playing in London after a year's run. This brought him face to face with a number of single women of marriageable age, among whom was the actress playing the part of Molly Seamore, the English heroine of the piece. Molly, out of pure mischief, becomes a geisha at the tea house and is soon pursued by an unscrupulous Japanese nobleman. The operetta tells the story of her rescue from the consequences of her folly. 'Miss Turner,' wrote the Simla Times's reviewer on 1 September 1897, 'made Molly exactly what the author intended her to be,
a sprightly, thoughtless girl, full of fun and adventure without counting the cost either to herself or others. . . The character [of Molly] is worked out to perfection and with abundance of chic by Miss Turner.' [21]
Baden-Powell's job, as the pidgin-English-speaking tea house owner, was to provide the evening's humour. His grasping nature and inarticulate sobbing whenever misfortune befell him convulsed the audience. There were rumours in the Green Room that Colonel Baden-Powell was interested in Miss Turner. The two were seen riding outside Simla on Jakko Hill, which was a favourite spot for lovers and would-be betrotheds. [22]
It seems unlikely that Stephe fell in love with Ellen Turner; his letters to her are affectionate, but no more than were his earlier letters to child correspondents. He seems to have been fond of her much as he had been fond of Caroline Heap. [23] Nevertheless he admired Ellen's vivacity and, rare for him, took the trouble to write to her mother from time to time. He also made himself agreeable to her father, a colonel in the Royal Engineers who liked him enough to give him occasional presents such as a portable camping-chair. Stephe and Ellen went cycling together, and he used to amuse her by employing one of Meerut's professional letter-writers to send her nonsensical communications, as if from the firm of Wun-Hi & Co. 'Our representative will call on you at three o'clock, or soon after it if he is then sober, which, however, is unusual for him at that hour ... ' [24] Baden-Powell gave a dinner party for The Geisha's cast and organized a picnic for the cast, largely to please Ellen. [25]When six years later Ellen was engaged to be married to a rich young captain in the 18th Hussars, Stephe wrote her the thoroughly decent letter convention required. But a hint of pathos crept in with the humour: 'I do congratulate you. He is an excellent chap and you will have a very good time. So much so that you will go and forget your old friends ... Do you remember when you used to treat me like a dog! Well -- I've a good deal of the dog in me: he doesn't say much but he's all right! is poor old Wun-Hi.' [26] This was written on 6 September 1903, and at the very top just under the date, Baden Powell wrote: 'Tomorrow is an anniversary with me!' 7 September 1897 marked neither the opening of The Geisha nor the last night, but fell in the middle of its run. There is no mention in other surviving letters and diaries of any significant event occurring on 7 September in any of the years between 1897 and 1903. So it is hard to imagine what else the 'anniversary' could have been unless Stephe was referring to an unsuccessful proposal of marriage. He had then been under considerable pressure from George and his mother.
In his courtship Baden-Powell had often represented himself as a staid and rather avuncular figure, yet during these final years in India he could be as mischievous as ever he had been. Stephe's most celebrated hoax took place in October 1897. He and Captain Quentin Agnew, A.D.C. to the Commander-in-Chief, returned to Simla from Agnew's country retreat to find that a theatrical performance was going on that evening. They therefore took a box at the theatre for a party of friends and booked a table at the Club for later in the evening. While they were dressing, Agnew suggested that they disguise themselves to see if they could carry off the pretence of being a couple of newspaper correspondents -- one from Rome and the other from London, both sent to India to report on
the anticipated Afghan War. Agnew persuaded another A.D.C. to accompany them in their disguises to the theatre, to introduce them to their friends and to explain that Colonel Baden-Powell and Captain Agnew had been detained by the Commander-in-Chief. They had expected to be found out almost at once, but they were still being taken seriously as newspapermen at the end of the play. They therefore decided to go on to their own supper party as guests instead of hosts. 'Baden-Powell recalled what happened next:
I sent a hurried note to a young officer in my Regiment who was there on leave and asked him to go to the Club and act as host on my behalf and to receive our guests, as I had been detained ... In a P.S. I added that among the guests were two war correspondents who were strangers to the place and who were to receive special attention, one of them being an Italian count. When we arrived at the Club there was my faithful subaltern waiting to receive us but, when in default of any Italian he started to talk to me in most indifferent French, I nearly broke down with laughter. As it was, though I held my facial muscles under control, the tears welled out of my eyes, and he anxiously asked: 'Est-ce-que vous etes malade aux yeux?' to which I replied in broken accents: 'I am a leetle sick in ze eyes.' This phrase became a memorable one in Simla for months afterwards.
Towards the end of supper ... out of the tail of my eye I saw one of the guests pass behind Agnew and, recognising his back view, go to speak to him. To her surprise she found herself confronted by a bearded man with a Cockney accent. She whispered her suspicions to a friend. Something desperate had to be done. Accordingly I showed signs of having had more wine than was good for me, which caused the ladies in my neighbourhood to feel that the time had come to withdraw; and as I got up insistent on following them I was promptly tripped up and thrown down by the nearest man. But I struggled on, following the hurrying ladies into the next room, till they appeared to be really alarmed, when I pulled off my wig and showed them that it was all right ... I was promptly pounced upon and rolled up in the carpet and sat upon. [28]
Colonel and Mrs Turner and Ellen were among those dinner guests entirely taken in by Baden-Powell and Agnew. A couple of weeks later Ellen told Stephe -- whom she knew to be inordinately proud of his regiment's dairy -- that a cousin of hers was arriving from England with her children. They would be passing through Meerut on a certain day, so could Stephe kindly go to the train and give her a few bottles of his regiment's wonderful milk? On the appointed day Baden-Powell had some of the best sterilized milk prepared and put in bottles which he attached to the handlebars of his bicycle, and then he rode off whistling merrily to meet the mail train. It was only then that he recollected that he only knew the lady's christian name: Rosie.
I met the train and walked all down it, looking at every likely looking woman, and finally, summoning all my courage, I went and asked each in turn if her name was Rosie. It was quite strange the different ways in which they received my question. The wont of it was that not one of them seemed pleased ... The consequence was that I came away without discovering Rosie and without delivering my milk, as, by the time I had done with them, they would not accept my milk as an apology. As I re-passed my friends' house they were all sitting on the wall waiting for me. They gave me three cheers and asked how Rosie was looking and then I knew that I had been had. But it is a silly game, that of practical jokes, and I never indulged in it myself -- except of course when necessary to payout other people. [29]
Neither in his Indian Memories, published in 1922, nor in his autobiography did Baden-Powell admit who had 'paid him out' by playing this joke. The identity of the joker is only to be found in Ellen Turner's unpublished reminiscences of her Indian days. [30] Stephe's claim never to have played practical jokes except to settle old scores is another example of his disconcerting ability to be ingeniously mischievous and primly censorious more or less at the same time.
Another of Baden-Powell's enduring contradictions was his passion for manly hardships and his simultaneous interest in homemaking skills. 'The place is gradually getting furnished,' he told his mother of his house in Meerut, 'and I have struck on such a lovely colour for covers and curtains viz salmon colour and dark pink.' Later he enthused about how 'pretty' the interior had become now that he had hung his carefully chosen curtains and his Indian embroideries. [31] Yet when war broke out on the North-West Frontier, Baden-Powell was desperate to get there, regardless of whether the Commander-in-Chief decided to send for the 5th Dragoon Guards.
After three months of constant trying, he finally succeeded in getting leave for long enough to travel to Malakand to 'see the ground over which so much of the fighting has taken place -- and possibly to see a skirmish'. [32]
His keenness to be directly involved in the fighting was shared by the majority of officers in India, but whether most of them would have been as eager to go simply as an observer seems doubtful. General Sir Bindon Blood, who had commanded the 8,000 men of the Malakand Field Force in a hard-fought campaign and was now mopping up, did not need additional regiments. He was, however, perfectly happy to satisfy Baden-Powell's longing to be fighting and sent him a telegram: 'We are having a pheasant shoot on the 7th [January). Hope you will join us.' [33]
In the course of this fighting Baden-Powell witnessed what he would always consider the bravest action he had ever seen. A solitary Afghan tribesman came charging down from a mountain ridge that was being shelled by the British and, on his own, attacked an entire battalion of infantry.He came on. . . with his blue clothes flying out behind him and a big glittering sword in his hand . . . One could see spits of dust jumping up around him, but they did not deter him, till suddenly he stumbled and fell ... he was evidently hit but was binding up a wound in his leg. Then he picked up his sword and shaking it at us came on again limping, but determined to get there. It was a grand and pathetic sight to see this one plucky chap advancing single-handed against the whole crowd. Our men in front ceased firing at him, whether out of admiration or under orders I don't know, but a minute or two later he suddenly tumbled forward and rolled over and lay in a huddled heap -- dead. As we went up the heights afterwards I passed him as he lay, and was glad to see that some of the Indian troops had, out of admiration for him, laid him straight and covered him over. [34]
As usual, everything about the seat of war pleased Baden-Powell. A harrowing night journey over a bumpy mountain pass, in a 'rotten cart with a half-dead pony. . . and a good chance of attack by Ghazis', was ideal. 'The sun set and the moon rose and we toilfully bumped along, but I liked it.
At last, close under the mountains we sighted the layer of smoke from our camp, and, at the same time, the bivouac fires of the enemy twinkling all along the heights, which gave me a throb of pleasure.' [35]
During the course of 1897, Baden-Powell took his interest in scouting and reconnaissance a significant step further. In the mid-1880s when he had lectured on these subjects, he had thought scouting an important military activity but had not considered training individual men as members of a special unit exclusively devoted to scouting duties. On 2 August he told his mother that he had recently had 'a lot of men specially trained as scouts'. [36] When thieves broke into the guardroom of an infantry regiment stationed in Meerut, the native police could make no headway at all. 'But when we heard of it later in the day,' recorded Stephe, 'I laid on some of my new scouts and we soon found some more foot tracks that had escaped notice.' [37] The three sets of footprints were followed over a wall, through a shrubbery and eventually to a main road, 'where a two-wheeled cart, with a single pony harnessed to it, had stood for some time (hoof marks and droppings) and then had driven off in a northerly direction'. The police in the next town were telegraphed and the thieves were subsequently arrested while still on their journey. [38]
When Baden-Powell wrote his Report on the Scouting System of the 5th Dragoon Guards [39], he mentioned that his scouts were trained to deduce information from tracks and that they were encouraged to study Sherlock Holmes. One of Baden-Powell's subalterns recalled that Stephe was an admirer of Conan Doyle. 'In my view,' he wrote, 'this started his great interest in deduction.' [40] In Scouting for Boys there would be half a dozen references to Sherlock Holmes and one to Dr Joseph Bell, the Edinburgh professor upon whom Conan Doyle had based his legendary detective. Scoutmasters would be invited to set up mystery crimes, either taken from one of Doyle's stories or of their own invention, and to ask their boys to study the clues and to solve the crime using their deductive powers. But even before Sherlock Holmes's appearance, Baden-Powell had written in Cavalry Instruction (1886) about the importance of studying every kind of evidence and then 'putting things together'.Other elements from the 5th Dragoon Guards' scouting system which would one day find their way into Scouting for Boys were map reading, recording details of a recently visited locality, finding the way using a compass, the stars and remembered landmarks; tracking, improving the quickness of eye and ear, estimating heights and distances, keeping fit, avoiding alcohol and remaining continent (i.e.
avoiding venereal disease -- Baden-Powell would later use this term to mean avoiding masturbation). Stephe would also list some of the scouting games played by his dragoons in Scouting for Boys. There is however no evidence that he had any idea of starting an organization for boys at this time in his life. H.G. Kennard, his adjutant in India, was convinced of this, as was Ellen Turner. [41]
Six men under an officer made up each scout training group, and 6-8 would one day be the number of boys in each Boy Scout patrol under their patrol leader. Ever since 1883 Baden-Powell had entertained a secret dream of one day founding a specialist body of hand-picked men. [42] In the following year he had told his mother he would 'happily spend 5 years' organizing a regiment of gentlemen rankers. Stephe had envisaged this regiment as becoming 'an intelligent body of scouts such as no other army could ever hope to possess'. [43] Until 1897-98, when he trained his regimental scouts in the 5th Dragoon Guards, he had been unable to organize anything resembling this ideal grouping.
From June 1898 Baden-Powell found himself an acting Major-General in the absence of his divisional general, Sir Bindon Blood. In April the following year, he thought that he was about to be promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General. Military Headquarters in Simla approved the appointment and asked for London's confirmation. Lord Wolseley, however, promptly refused the request. This was unlikely to have been because of Baden-Powell's comparative youth. During this very month (April 1899) Sir Alfred Milner, the High Commissioner at the Cape, began to send back to London a series of flamboyant and alarmist despatches, intended to jolt the Cabinet into threatening military intervention in South Africa. So Wolseley would already have formed an idea of the type of African employment he might soon wish to offer to Baden-Powell. A secret War Office memorandum shows that he had definitely made up his mind about this in early May, less than a month later. [44] The Commander-in-Chief would have known that if he authorized his protege's promotion to an Indian command, he would then be committed to employing him in any future South African war as commander of the Brigade he had been given in India, thus ruling out the far less conventional role Wolseley had in mind.
In spite of his many successes as colonel of his regiment and his popularity with the civil population of Meerut, there were times when the ease of his social conquests and the intensity of the demands upon him made Stephe long to escape his admirers and those aspects of his own personality which made him court them.
When he was staying at Mussoori, between Simla and Naini Tal, he found his fame as an entertainer had preceded him and that he was 'expected to attend a grand masonic banquet that night. . . and afterwards to be funny till 1 a.m.' Suddenly he had known that he had to get out of the place and so bolted during a storm with his Arab pony, his groom and four porters. [45]There are times in every man's life [he wrote] when his whole being cries out for a steady spell of doing nothing in particular . . . Nowhere is this more acutely felt than in India. A feeling of staleness comes over you, and instinctively you look around for an antidote. If the call of the wild then makes itself heard, the right thing is to yield to it. [46]
In the summer of 1898 Baden-Powell took a trip to Kashmir which convinced him that the outdoor life, enjoyed purely for its own sake without any military objective, was immensely valuable. Before setting out, he paid considerable attention to his equipment. 'Roughing it,' he insisted, 'does not exist for any but the ignorant. The experienced camper knows what to take and he also knows that the necessaries are sometimes luxuries.' Stephe's equipment included old kid gloves to protect his hands from mosquito bites, a Kodak camera, quinine, Bologna sausage, soup, dog biscuits, candles, whisky, waterproof sheets, lanterns, a tin-opener and a corkscrew. [47] On this trip he adopted clothes that he would occasionally claim as the inspiration for the Boy Scout uniform; these included the Stetson he had worn in Rhodesia and a flannel shirt, but not the famous shorts [see second photo section). Yet in spite of all the planning, Baden-Powell viewed camping and walking in wild places as an experience which transcended practical considerations.
Going over these immense hills -- especially when alone -- and looking almost sheer down into the deep valleys between -- one feels like a parasite on the shoulders of the world. There is such a bigness about it all, that opens and freshens up the mind. It's as good as a cold tub for the soul. [48]
With a collapsible bath in his luggage, Stephe was equipped to cleanse his body as well as his soul. His father's pantheistic book, The Order of Nature, was a significant influence upon him, as a sub-heading in Rovering to Success makes plain: 'Nature Knowledge as a Step Towards Realising God'. Baden-Powell also used to quote Bacon's aphorism: 'The study of the Book of Nature is the true key to that of Revelation. [49] In a bizarre way he managed to combine camping equipment, adventure and religious sensations in a remarkable synthesis. In his published Matabele Campaign he described his camping impedimenta as his 'toys' and then went on: 'May it not be that our toys are the various media adapted to individual tastes through which men may know their God?' [50]' Quite literally Stephe worshipped what he called the 'flannel shirt life' and everything that went with it. 'Not being able to go to my usual church (the jungle) on Sunday, I went to the garrison church instead,' he wrote to Ellen Turner, more in earnest than tongue in cheek. [51]
In Kashmir Baden-Powell's attitude towards wild life betrayed no signs of softening.
Bears were particular objects of his blood-lust. 'I could see his head and shoulders above the bank -- and I plugged him with a nice steady shot which sent him back with a yowl head-over-heels backwards ... ' Later Baden-Powell gazed down at the dead bear, which he thought 'looked like a respectable old gentleman who had once imbibed too freely -- and was lying in the gutter in his glossy black clothes . . .' [52] Stephe was still a long way from adopting the advice which he would one day give to Boy Scouts: to stalk wild animals with a camera, rather than a gun. Strangely his bear hunts have a unique place in the history of Scouting. While waiting for his
beaters to drive bears in his direction, he had time to begin writing 'a book about scouting' and to 'jot down . . . first heads for chapters, and finally subjects of paragraphs'. By early September 1898, the scouting book had progressed sufficiently for him to dictate it to the regimental shorthand clerk on his return to Meerut. [53] He tentatively entitled this new work Cavalry Aids to Scouting. Incorporated within the text were most of the lectures he had given to his regimental scouts and a lot of suggestions for practical work, as well as numerous personal anecdotes and adventures. The basic assumption underlying the whole book was the author's conviction that scouting bred self-reliance by making men use their intelligence and act upon their own judgements without needing to wait for advice from an officer or an N.C.O. [54]
Shortly after returning to Meerut, Baden-Powell was shocked to hear that George had died.* 'Poor George,' Stephe commiserated with his mother, 'he always took me under his wing and I cannot yet realize that he is gone.' He consoled himself with the thought that his brother had 'tasted of the best of this world'. [55] From a purely practical and material point of view, the loss of George was not the disaster it would have been for Stephe four or five years earlier. His position with Wolseley was now established and intervention from George would not be needed again. He acknowledged that it was 'an awful blow' to his mother -- as indeed it was, not only in personal but in financial terms, since Frances would not prove as responsive as her late husband to Henrietta Grace's unashamed requests for cash. On 30 October, three weeks before George's death, he had agreed to leave his mother £10,000. It therefore came as a devastating blow to learn that although George had signed a will benefiting her as promised, it would have no legal effect. He had understood that £10,000 had been gifted to him absolutely as part of his wife's marriage settlement, whereas in fact he had only been granted the income from that sum for his lifetime. George's estate barely provided token legacies for his brothers and £500 each for Henrietta Grace and Agnes.
From Stephe's point of view the least desirable consequence of George's death -- his personal loss apart -- was the fact that from now on he would be expected to provide a much higher level of financial help for his mother. [57] This would make Henrietta Grace keener than ever to see him profitably married.
In the first week of May 1899, Baden-Powell left India for what he believed would be four months' leave. 'I am sitting in front of my tent taking tea,' he wrote shortly before embarking, 'a rich glowing sunset lighting up the horses being groomed at evening stables, while the band is playing a lively selection to the camp. ' [58] He would undoubtedly have written a lengthier valediction if he had known that he was bidding farewell not only to India but to his life as a regimental officer.
_______________
Notes:* He had been suffering from cancer of the liver since the late summer.
1. 'A Grand Thing for Me': The Ashanti Campaign (1895-96)
1. Britain and Ashanti 1874-1896, W.E.F. Ward, in Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, vol. xv (ii), 133.
2. Ibid, 135.
3. Ibid, 135.
4. Ashanti under the Prempehs, W. Tordoff (London 1965), 59-60
5. Ward, 157.
6. Downfall of Prempeh, 18.
7. Farwell. 116.
8. Ibid, 117.
9. Ashanti Diary/Scrapbook 22 Nov. 1895, facsimile in NAM.
10. V of L t/s, 514, R8 BSA.
11. Piper. 94.
12. V of L 162.
13. V of L t/s, 517, R8 BSA.
14. Downfall of Prempeh, 56-57.
15. Livingstone, Tim Jeal (London 1973). 123, 149 etc.
16. Farwell, 109.
17. BP to Lord Wolseley 18 Jan. 1896, Wolseley Papers, Central Library, Hove.
18. 'High Strategy: A Moral of the West Coast', t/s. R7 BSA.
19. Downfall of Prempeh, 78.
20. General Orders in Ashanti Diary/ Scrapbook, NAM.
21. Ashanti Scrapbook (drawings and press cuttings). 6501-18-2 NAM.
22. Viz Stanley on the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition.
23. As n. 18.
24. Ibid.
25. V of L, 163.
26. On the South African Frontier, W.H. Brown (London 1899); The Flame Trees of Thika, Elspeth Huxley (London 1959).
27. Downfall of Prempeh, 71.
28 Ibid. 13.
29. Hillcourt, 110.
30. BP to Wolseley 18 Jan. 1896. Hove.
31. Downfall of Prempeh, 94-6.
32. Edwardian Portraits, W.S. Adams (London 1957). 111.
33. J.P.R. Gordon to BP 11 Jan. 1896. Ashanti Diary/Scrapbook. NAM facsimile.
34. Downfall of Prempeh, 108.
35. Ibid., illustration, based on an original by BP, facing p. 120.
36. Tordoff. 69.
37. Ibid. 70.
38. Asante in the Nineteenth Century, I. Wilks (London 1975). 661.
39. Downfall of Prempeh, 25-28; I. Wilks 592-8.
40. BP to F 18 Jan. 1896. BSA.
41. Ibid.
42. R.S. Curtis Album, and original drawing by BP. W. Beckwith Coll.
43. BP to Wolseley 18 Jan. 1896. Hove.
44. BP to HG 21 Dec. 1895. BSA.
45. BP to Constance Smyth 3 Apr. 1896. BSA.
46. Social Scrapbook, guest list, FBPA.
47. V of L. 166.
2. Mistake in Matabeleland (1896-97)
1. G to HG 16 Nov. 1895, FBPA.
2. V of L t/s. 548-9. R8 BSA; Piper. 96.
3. Revolt in Southern Rhodesia 1896-7. T. Ranger (London 1967), 171; Sec. of British South Africa Co. to Chamberlain 20 Apr. 1896. CO 417/197.
4. Ibid. CO 417/197.
5. Sir George Baden-Powell's 'Hall Book': Lord Wolseley's name appears on 14 Apr. 1896.
6. Downfall of Prempeh, 190 (G's afterword 'Policy and Wealth in Ashanti' 181-99).
7. How We Won Rhodesia, A.G. Leonard (London 1896).
8. Ranger. 103.
9. The Matabele Campaign. BP (London 1897), 15.
10. With Plumer in Matabeland, F.W. Sykes (London 1897). 42f.
11. Ranger. 129.
12. Sykes. 27-8.
13. Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, O. Schreiner (London 1897). 77.
14. BP Matabele Album, National Archives of Zimbabwe [NAZ].
15. Matabele Campaign, 8.
16. BP Report to Sir Frederick Carrington. NAZ.
17. The Campaign in Rhodesia, BP (Dublin 1897), 8-9.
18. BP Diary 27 May and 3 June 1896. R4 BSA.
19. Matabele Campaign. 22-3.
20. BP Report to Carrington. NAZ.
21. Matabele Campaign. 23.
22. Ibid. 24.
23. A.W. Jarvis to his sister 12 July 1896. Durham University.
24. Matabele Campaign. 69; Sykes. 268.
25. Ranger. 237.
26. Matabele Campaign. 67.
27. BP Diary 5 Aug. 1896. R4 BSA.
28. Ranger. 239.
29. BP to HG 23 Aug. 1896. BSA; Matabele Campaign. 73; The White Whirlwind. T. V. Bulpin (London 1961). 323f.
30. BP to HG 23 Aug. 1896. BSA.
31. BP Diary 22 Aug. 1896. R4 BSA.
32. Cecil Rhodes, J.E. Flint (London 1976). 206.
33. Dreams of Adventure, Deeds of Empire. Martin Green (London 1980). 389.
34. BP Diary 5 Jan. 1897. R4 BSA.
35. Ranger. 260-1.
36. The Campaign in Rhodesia, 10; Matabele Campaign. 15; Ranger 260.
37. Matabele Campaign. 30.
38. Ibid. 84.
39. Ibid. 85.
40. Evidence to Court of Inquiry: affidavit sworn by Major H.M. Ridley. NAZ.
41. BP to Carrington 13 Sept. 1896. NAZ.
42. BP Mataabele Album. 87. NAZ.
43. BP Diary 12 Sept. 1896. R4 BSA.
44. Ibid 13 Sept.
45. V of L t/s, 58 R8 BSA.
46. Rosmead to Carrington 19 Sept. 1896, teleg. 871, BP Matabele Album, NAZ.
47. Rosmead to Chamberlain 19 Sept. 1896, PRO CO 879/47. BP's evidence to Gwelo Inquiry, NAZ.
48. Rosmead to Chamberlain 22 Dec. 1896, PRO CO 879/47.
49. 7th Hussars Regimental History, 134-5.
50. Carrington to BP 28 Sept. 1896; NAZ.
51. BP to HG 1 Nov. 1896. FBPA.
52. BP to G. 14 June 1896; BP to C.B. Vyvyan 29 June 1896; BP Matabele Album, NAZ.
53. BP Diary 13 Nov. 1896, R4 BSA.
54. Truth. 22 Oct. 1896.
55. BP Diary: Tunisia and Algeria 7 Apr. 1891, vol. i, R4 BSA.
56. Ibid, vol. iii. 17-19 May 1893.
57. Greyfriar, no. vii, 'My Hats Series: The Algerian Hat', written 1893. 152-3.
58. See PRO CO 879/47 and CO 417/ 172.
59. BP Diary 24 July 1896. R4 BSA.
60. Matabele Campaign, 32. 102, 107.
61. The Campaign in Rhodesia, 18.
62. Ibid, 19.
63. BP to HG n.d., but after 14 June 1896, BSA.
64. G. Noble t/s. final unpaginated section.
65. Matabele Campaign, 79.
66. BP Diary 11 Sept. 1896, R4 BSA.
67. Matabele Campaign, 83.
68. Green, 254.
69. V of L, t/s. 30, R9 BSA.
70. Matabele Campaign, 41.
71. Ibid, 26.
72. Matabele Campaign, 83.
73. Ibid, 55-6.
74. V of L t/s, Travel Section, unpaginated, R9 BSA.
75. Aids to Scouting for N.C.O.s and Men, BP (London 1899), 124.
76. Matabele Campaign, 133-5.
77. With Mounted Infantry and the Mashonaland Field Force, E.A.H. Alderson (London 1898).
78. Interview in M.A.P. (Mainly about People), 13 Jan. 1900.
79. Ibid.
80. Reynolds, 62.
81. Aitken, 75.
3. Indian Interlude (1897-99)1. BP to HG 7 Feb. 1897, BSA.
2. V of L t/s. unpaginated, R7 BSA.
3. Wolseley to G n.d. except Sat, but mid-1897, BP Matabele Album. 116, NAZ.
4. Album: Observations in Novaya Zemlya; Social Album. FBPA.
5. Lord Montagu to G 9 May 1897, FBPA.
6. V of L. 182.
7. BP to HG 7 Mar. 1897. BSA; M. Dillon to BP 16 Dec. 1896 and 24 Mar. 1897. Matabele Album. NAZ.
8. Begbie. 173.
9. Will of Edward Sargeaunt. 1929, Somerset House; draft for obit. of Sargeaunt by BP, BSA.
10. V of L, t/s, 593. R8 BSA.
11. The Scouter, Dec. 1951, Lt-Col. G.A. Swinton-Home.
12. BP Diary 9 Nov. 1896, R4 BSA.
13. Reynolds. 72.
14. V of L t/s, 599, R8 BSA.
15. V of L, 82.
16. BP to HG 4 Apr. 1899, BSA.
17. BP to HG 28 Feb. 1897. BSA.
18. BP to HG 5 Apr. 1898, BSA.
19. BP to HG 8 Apr. 1897. BSA.
20. BP Kashmir Diary, vol. iii, 16 June 1898, R5 BSA.
21. Simla Times, 1 Sept. 1897.
22. Hillcourt, 151.
23. BP's letters to Ellen Turner are owned by her daughter Miss Pamela Dugdale.
24. Wun Hi & Co. to Ellen Turner 15 Dec. 1897, Dugdale Coll.
25. BP to HG 7 Sept. 1897, photograph in Dugdale Coll: Geisha Picnic at Bendochy, Masbobra, 11 Sept. 1897.
26. BP to Ellen Turner, 6 Sept. 1903, Dugdale Coll.
27. HG to BP 28 Dec. 1897, BSA; G to HG 16 Nov. 1895, FBPA.
28. V of L, 41-2.
29. I.M., 75.
30. Reminiscences, Dugdale Coll.
31. BP to HG 27 Nov. 1897, BSA.
32. BP to HG 11 Dec. 1897. BSA.
33. Hillcourt, 147.
34. V of L, 194-5.
35. I.M., 211.
36. BP to HG 2 Aug. 1897, BSA.
37. Ibid.
38. V of L t/s. 259-60. R8 BSA.
39. Undated R8 BSA; Hillcourt dates it 16 Jan. 1899.
40. As n. 11 above.
41. Christian Science Monitor, 3 May 1941, 'B-P as I Knew Him' by H.G. Kennard; Ellen Turner's reminiscences, Dugdale Coll.
42. BP to G 8 Mar. 1885. BSA.
43. BP to HG 19 Sept. 1884; BP to G 6 Jan. 1885. BSA.
44. Secret Memo from Col. W. Everett AAG prepared for DMI and Lord Lansdowne, 1 July 1899, PRO WO 32/7852.
45. BP Kashmir Diary: A Short Run in the Himalayan Hills. 19 to 21 June 1898. R5 BSA.
46. I.M., 288.
47. Ibid. 289.
48. As n. 45, 21 June 1898; I.M., 175.
49. Rovering to Success, 177-8.
50. Matabele Campaign, 84.
51. BP to Ellen Turner 30 May 1897. Dugdale Coll.
52. BP Kashmir Diary, vol. iii, 25 Aug. to 6 Sept. 1897, R5 BSA.
53. Hillcourt. 153.
54. Published as Aids to Scouting for N.C.O.s and Men (London 1899).
55. BP to HG 23 Nov. 1898, BSA.
56. HG to BP 25 Nov. 1898; Frances to HG 7 May 1904; H. Wilson to Frances 9 May and 21 July 1904. FBPA.
57. BP to HG 20 Apr. 1899, BSA.
58. BP to A 22 Jan. 1899, BSA.