When Destiny Dictates

By Michael Daniell-Waugh

The author wanted to write up his father's memoirs, but these were too short for publication, so he added his own autobiography, and was surprised to find a number of strange occurrences and coincidences in their lives, which seemed to be the hand of Destiny. The book reviews these events, which took place over One Hundred Years of British History, covering the upheavals of two World Wars and the dissolution of Britain's Colonial Empire, culminating in the Rhodesian Rebellion, and what Rhodesia's Prime Minister, Ian Douglas Smith, described as Britain's "Great Betrayal."

The book moves from early Argentine days to the Somme, to India, to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, World War 2, Assam, Kuwait, and Northern and Southern Rhodesia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jul 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493141548

Michael Daniell-Waugh

The author was born in London, on the 21st January 1927. He lived 7 years in Sudan, survived 3 English Preparatory Schools, and went to Wellington College, Berkshire. He volunteered for active military service aged 16, and the Indian Army aged 17, serving in the Queen’s Royal Regiment, the Indian Military Academy, and the Assam Regiment. Postwar, he joined the Immigration Division of the Northern Rodesia Police, became Crown Land Officer in the Southern Rhodesian Government, and finally, Senior Trade Commissioner, sanctions-busting for Premier Ian Smith. He now lives in retirement with his wife Diana, in Natal South Africa.

Book preview

WHEN DESTINY

DICTATES

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MICHAEL DANIELL-WAUGH

Copyright © 2014 by Michael Daniell-Waugh.

Front cover Photograph taken by the author.

ISBN: Softcover     978-1-4931-4153-1

ISBN: Ebook          978-1-4931-4154-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. Date: 10/06/2014

Xlibris

0-800-056-3182

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

304375%20MICH%20MANUSCRIPT-2.tif

Major FA (John) Waugh, OBE, MC,

Order of the Nile 4TH CL. 1943.

WHEN DESTINY DICTATES

(OR, AS I SAW IT AND SEE IT)

BY

MICHAEL DANIELL-WAUGH

A PERSONAL INVESTIGATION INTO COINCIDENCES AND THE SUPERNATURAL

‘Tis all a Chequer-board of

Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves,

And mates and slays,

And one by one back in the

Closet lays.

(Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.)

THE DESTINY OF A FATHER AND SONS OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF BRITISH HISTORY.

Incorporating a special Annexure (No 2) of interest to students of the extended Waugh family, being the historical notes thereon of Major F A Waugh, OBE, MC, collected over many decades of his life.

CONTENTS

Dedication and Thanks

Special Thanks

Very Special Thanks

Preface

BOOK 1

THE BIG DRAGON BREATHES FORTH FIRE

When the big dragon breathes forth fire, the little dragon breathes forth smoke!

Chinese Proverb

THE TALE OF THE BIG DRAGON

(Being some Recollections of Major F A (John) Waugh, OBE, MC, Khedival Order of the Nile, 4th Class)

PART 1

SOUTH AMERICA

1. Cowboy And Pioneer in the Argentine

2. A Brush with Cattle Raiders

3. The Revolution of February 1905

4. Lawlessness and a Lawman

5. Pioneering in the Bagual Area of the Argentine

6. Revelry by Night

7. A Journey to the Green Hell

8. A Mysterious German, and Quechua Indians

9. Deep into Quechua Indian Territory

10. Insurgency and ‘Naval’ Warfare in Paraguay!

11. Prussian Honour, Intrigue, and World War 1

12. British and German Colleagues go to War

PART 2

THE GREAT WAR

13. Overture to the Battle of the Somme

14. Fricourt Wood

15. 1st and 2nd July 1916

16. Vimy Ridge

17. A Lousy Break from the Somme Battlefields

18. Grandcourt

19. Neuve Chapelle

20. Arras

21. Messines and Passchendaele Ridges (Also Known as the Third Battle of Ypres)

22. Goings-on at Mount Kemmel

23. All Quiet at Delville Wood

24. Bourlon Wood

25. Troubles in Ireland

26. India Unloved, and Never Discussed

PART 3

A PIONEER IN THE ANGLO-EGYPTIAN SUDAN

27. Marriage, and the Welsh Daniells, Look You!

28. Allah Made the Sudan and Allah Smiled (A Sudanese Arab saying.)

29. El Obeid: The Faraway

30. A Pioneer In Kordofan; And a Meeting With Howard Carter

31. Arrival of the Last Military Governor of Darfur

32. Bats and Babies

33. Trouble with Sandhills, Malaria and Ants

34. The Sultan’s Palace and the Pensione Girardet

35. Camel Travel and Some Leave

36. Darfur; And the Assassination of the Governor-General

37. The Egyptian Army Mutiny

38. Nathalie’s Raf Escort, and Her Bach Oratorio

39. A Near Death Affair, and Fighting at Simeja

40. Nathalie’s Forward Dressing Station

41. Edris Esaier, the Mahdi’s Chief Executioner

42. Success In Kordofan, but Severe Epidemics Kill Hundreds

43. Jesus the Third and the Nuba Mountains

44. Enter the Littlest Dragon; And a Massacre Site

45. Mad Dogs and Englishmen

46. An Unofficial (1929) Ethnography of the Nubas

47. The World Depression of 1929

48. A Visit to Fort Adre in French Equatorial Africa

49. An Unsportsmanlike Child, and Valuable Services Recognised

50. Douglas Newbold, Governor of Kordofan Province

51. A Greek Wedding, and his Excellency’s Jemimas

52. The Far Away Electrified

53. Troubles with the Administration

54. A Greatly Expanded Organisation, and Comments on the Hierarchy, and a Pharaoh

55. A Plague of Bees, and Spotting Leopards

56. A Pharaoh Arose who Knew not Joseph

57. A British Legacy in the Sudan; My Swan Song

PART 4

THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND AFTER

58. A Major Decision Is Made

59. How the Worthing Volunteers Were armed to Face Hitler

60. Goering’s Day of the Eagle

61. Luftwaffe Sorties Over Worthing. A Home Guard Killed

62. Fire Over England, Air and Naval Actions In September 1940

63. The Bombing of Manchester

64. Strange Effects of Some of the Bombing of Manchester

65. Peter

66. Secret Air Service: Supplying The French Maquis

67. Jockeys; Archaeology; Ghosts. The Great Air Armada

68. Headhunted for Nigeria

69. A Slight Case of Culture Shock

70. Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of El Alamein

BOOK 2

DESTINY OF THE LITTLE DRAGON

Two Kinds of People

(Being a selected autobiography, giving some idea of what, to quote in modern jargon, made me tick, and where I’m coming from.)

PART 1

TRANQUILITY—WAR AND PEACE—ADRIFT

71. My Introduction to the Sudan

72. Sunset Rituals Around the Mastaba

73. Introduction to Religion and Other Acculturation

74. Feral Cats and Spirits of the Dead

75. The Camel Corps; Bird-Eating Spiders; Deportation

76. Incarceration and Discipline

77. The Power of Prayer and of Demons

78. My Closest Friends Found Guilty and Expelled

79. Chosen to Live, and Chosen to Die, Horribly?

80. A Marmalade Jar Incident, and Family Diaspora Begins

81. How the War Began For Us

82. A German Invasion Becomes More Likely

83. Italy Joins the War. Germany Shows a Sinister Face

84. An Interrupted Breakfast

85. My School Evacuated, and a Pastoral Scene Bombed

86. Gilbert and Sullivan In More Ways than One!

87. A Hot Night in the old Town

88. More Scary than German Bombs

89. Bedbugs and Incendiary Bombs

90. Comparative Religion and a Rebel

91. The Bombing of Portsmouth and St Paul’s Cathedral

92. The Palace Hotel on Bayswater Road

93. A Boy Soldier, and Peter in Love

94. The First Canadian Tank Division

95. The Brigadier’s Kippers, and Another Billy Bunter

96. Aftermath of Disaster

97. Tut-Ankh-Amun, Aerial Invasion and War’s End In Europe

98. Doodlebugs and Weapons of Mass Destruction

99. Pink Knickers Maketh the Officer

100. Peace and What Emerged from Europe

101. First Impressions of India

102. N’pawt (Peter) Yaw, Jinghpaw, and Ngu Ho, Burman

103. Some Background About N’pawt (Peter) Yaw

104. Cherry: A Burmese Fantasy

105. Uncle Sam’s Temple, and a Himalayan Mountain

106. Blood Brothers

107. 21 Garriahati Road, Calcutta

108. The White Queen of the Nagas

109. Misdeeds of a Young Subaltern

110. A Kind of Learning Curve

111. The Coincidence of My Father’s Bearer

112. Evenings In Shillong and Calcutta

113. A Day In Calcutta

114. Ghurkha Wine and Naga Dancing

115. A Case of Footie-Footie

116. Sudden Demise of British India; And a Naga’s Faith

117. A Strange Experience With Sikh Fortunetellers

118. Two Extraordinary Coincidences

119. My Last Hours with the Assam Regiment

120. Homecoming

121. Adrift, and the Adventures of Dudley

PART 2

THE START OF A NEW LIFE

122. The Kuwait Oil Company

123. New Employees Arrive, and a Rest Break In Basrah

124. The Messenger of God. Strike Action

125. The Longshoreman; And Setting a Course for the Future

126. A Kind of Self-Flagellation

127. Some Genuine Police Work

128. The Clashing of Personalities

129. Various Kinds of Spirits

130. Love at First Sight

131. The Effects of Dagga, and the Saga of Jessie

132. On the Lighter Side

133. Rescuing Maidens in Distress

134. Death, Farewell, and the Harringworth Ghosts

135. Chaos as the Belgian Congo Gains Independence

136. More of the Revolting Katangese Gendarmerie

137. Through A Glass Darkly

PART 3

PARADISE REGAINED AND LOST AGAIN

138. Across the Zambezi River

139. Udi and Matters of Loyalty

140. From Crown Lands Officer to Espionage Suspect

141. Introduction To Barter Deals and Foreign Trade

142. The Arabian Gulf Caper

143. Beginning of the Iranian Saga

144. Mocambique Declares War on Rhodesia

145. Uncomfortable Airport and Hotel Arrivals

146. An Eerie Memory

147. Flying with Jack Malloch

148. Signs of Success In Iran

149. The Exciting European Interlude

150. To the Bitter End

BOOK 3

STRANGE EVENTS, ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS

151. Afterburn: Tying Up Some Loose Ends

152. Yet Another Beginning

153. Fear of God Is the Beginning of all Wisdom

154. My Brief, Intuitive Life of Jesus

155. The Strange Affair of John Arton-Powell

156. About My Mysterious Events Experiment

157. The Source of Solicited and Unsolicited Coincidences

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

ANNEXURE 1

Mysterious Events Annexure

The Experiment

Fate, Destiny, Inshallah! or, as God Wills

Dramatic/Traumatic Events Affecting My Outlook on Life

Coincidences or Experiences with a Possible Supernatural Connotation

Events Possibly Indicating an Actual Intervention By a Supernatural Agency

ANNEXURE 2

The Waugh Name and Family Origins

Lists of Research References Concerning the Waughs

LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS

Portrait Photographs

Major FA (John) Waugh, OBE, MC, Order of the Nile 4TH CL. 1943.

Dr Alfred Daniell in old age Circa 1945

Mr John Daniell of Kimberley and Rose Deep Mine, Johannesburg, in old age

Nathalie Daniell Sergeant Royal Flying Corps Circa 1917

Edris Essaier The Mahdi’s Chief Executioner. 1924

Nathalie Waugh VAD St Mary’s Hospital Paddington 1942

Sister Barbara Emerson with portrait painter, Anna Zinkeisan. 1942

The Fallen Idol. Captain J A Peter Waugh. The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment. KIA

Captain (1947) N’Pawt Yaw. 1st Kachin Rifles, Burma Army

Lt-Colonel Sidhiman Rai AVSM, MC. CO 3rd Assam Regiment and Commandant Assam Rifles. Long-time correspondent with the author.

Superintendent Brian Coase QPM, NR Police, Chief Prosecuting Solicitor for Thames Valley Police, UK

Mr Gus Gosta Jan Kingma. Under Secretary, Ministry of Law. Rhodesian Government. Circa 1980

Other Photographs

The vaqueiro Don Frederico Waugh Circa 1905

On the Somme Battlefront—1916 Major Waugh 2nd from right

Major Waugh, tallest in top group, during truce to bury the dead. Beaucourt-Sur-Ancre 1916

Nathalie Daniell, aged 16. First Violin, 1911.

A camel train assembling near El Obeid. Circa 1923

Peter Waugh (alias Luigi) in Rome. 1924

Field Marshal Montgomery with Majorand Mrs Waugh. Kaduna, Nigeria 1947

The Mastaba. El Obeid

The Camel Corps ready to march past. El Obeid. 1933

Diana. 1955

Last tea party in Worthing. August 1939 Author, Nathalie Waugh, Miss Leslie Gaylord of Decatur, Georgia, USA and Mr John Daniell

A Havildar of the 3rd Assam Regiment in Sema Naga attire. 1947

Colour Party, Assam Regiment, on parade celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of the raising of the Regiment , 1941 - 2001

Note conical hat common to Karens and some Dayaks

Angami Naga Dance Team 3rd Assam Regiment

The sudden materialisation of Barbara Waugh on top of a box of magazines in India

Assam Regiment contingent on Indian Republic Day March Past. New Delhi 1996

Holy Matrimony and Holey Shoes. The author and new bride, Diana. 1952

Diana with Jessie

DEDICATION AND THANKS

This book is dedicated with profound thanks to all those people who have given me their genuine friendship and help and support in difficult times, and in particular to:

M ajor F A (John) Waugh, OBE, MC, Order of the Nile, 4 th Class, formerly of the Lincolnshire Regiment, and Sudan Government Service.

Captain John Arthur Peter Waugh, the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment, killed in action in North Africa in March 1942.

Zara Nathalie Waugh nee Daniell, who served as a Sergeant in the Women’s Royal Flying Corps and RAF in the First World War and as a volunteer nurse in the Casualty Department of St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, throughout the German Blitz on London, in the Second World War.

Barbara Waugh nee Emerson SRN (later Mrs Jack Stansfield) who was Sister-in-Charge of Casualty at St Mary’s Hospital throughout the German Blitz on London.

Diana Winifred Waugh, nee Tomlinson, SRN. Sister at Government Hospital, Livingstone, and Roan Antelope Mine Hospital, Luanshya, Northern Rhodesia. My dearest wife.

Mr. Dokri Mohammed, formerly Omda of Saarta, Kordofan, Sudan.

Captain N’Pawt (Peter) Yaw in 1947, Burma Rifles, United States 101 Secret Service, 1st Battalion The Kachin Rifles. Operated behind Japanese Lines. Final rank and whereabouts unknown.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sidhiman Rai, AVSM., MC 1st 10th Ghurkha Rifles, 3rd Battalion The Assam Regiment, and Commandant of the Assam Rifles. Fought at the Battle of Imphal and elsewhere.

Superintendent Brian Gregory Coase, QPM, Palestine and Northern Rhodesia Police.

Mr Reginald Spitteler (OW) Director of Lands, (Southern) Rhodesia Government Service.

Gosta Jan Kingma. Under-Secretary, Ministry of Law, (Southern) Rhodesia Government.

SPECIAL THANKS

M any thanks to Greg Beyrooti, Anthony Lidgett and Pauline Slowe for their great assistance in solving endless computer mysteries for me.

I am also most grateful to Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Khongmen for seeking approval for including the photograph of the Angami Naga dancers in this book, and to the Commandant of the Assam Regimental Centre, Shillong, for granting that permission.

VERY SPECIAL THANKS

S pecial thanks are long overdue to my dearest Diana who has stood by me over 60 years, and who has suffered from my long philosophical silences and irritableness as I wrote this book. The poem by Thomas Ford, quoted herein, applies to her as strongly today as it did in 1952, when I first saw her.

PREFACE

A lthough my book is basically a combined biography and autobiography concerning a family over one hundred years of British History, from Imperialism, through Colonialism to the present day, I must admit to having an ulterior motive for writing it, in that it was also my intention to conduct a personal investigation into episodes in my own life to try and establish whether or not there was any pattern or significance in the number of apparently inexplicable coincidences or events which have occurred. One or two of these coincidences have been very strange indeed, and could well be of a supernatural origin. By the end of my voyage of discovery I also hoped to convince myself one way or another whether I had ever experienced a direct link with the next world!

Over the past century, my father and I have witnessed numerous changes in social attitudes and culture clashes, not to mention warfare, and relationships between father and son have also been placed under great strain at times. This book is by way of being a posthumous apology for treating him and my mother so badly.

My father’s recollections were written in his own hand when he was in his eighties, and were necessarily episodic, and I regret their brevity. However it seems to be a new way of writing, the short chapters allowing the reader to put the book aside without having to stay awake half the night to finish it!

It has been essential to cover certain overlapping periods of our lives twice, but firstly as seen by the experienced adult and stern father, and then as seen by the immature youngster.

I have lived my life and made my choices of paths to follow, not always very cleverly, and not always of my own volition, and now, having finished writing the book, I find from the evidence that I really do have good reason to believe that some sort of supernatural intervention has affected my life directly. Each individual person reading about my experiences vis-à-vis the strange coincidences in my life, will have his/her own opinion about the source of these happenings derived from his or her own beliefs and background.

I have used the place names that existed when I visited them many years ago, for my own ease of reference. I hope that my old Indian friends will understand and excuse my eccentricities.

BOOK 1

THE BIG DRAGON BREATHES FORTH FIRE

PART 1

South America

COWBOY AND PIONEER IN THE ARGENTINE

(From my father’s written recollections, and stories related to me by him.)

M y Father was born on American Independence Day, the 4 th July 1885, in Uppingham in the County of Rutland. His Great Grandfather, so he told me, had driven a flock of sheep down from his home in East Lothian, and had settled in Uppingham as a gentleman farmer. Either he or my Grandfather had bought a Regency House in the grounds of Uppingham School, much to the annoyance of the school authorities who continually made overtures to buy it back.

There were three Great Aunts, one of whom, Sadie, who died in her late 90s, had been engaged, at the age of sixteen, to a young soldier in the 51st Highlanders, who had been killed at the Battle of Waterloo. She had been able to tell my father stories of the Reign of Terror in France, and the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte.

My father was being brought up to become a farmer, a prospect for which he had little liking. He was a very wild youth and when not at Uppingham School, spent his days riding and shooting. He could ride anything, and did not require a saddle. He even rode young bullocks bareback. In later years he was not very proud of his most infamous prank, which, in the company of likeminded teenagers, was to hoist a donkey, on ropes and pulleys, to the top of the Uppingham church tower!

In 1900, at the age of 15, he made his first bid for freedom, when he volunteered for active military service in the Boer War. He was tall for his age, and could pass for eighteen. However, when he went to Stamford in Lincolnshire, to enlist in the Lincolnshire Regiment, he was unlucky enough to be recognized by an officer who was a friend of his father’s, and he was duly turned down.

During the next few years, he spent a lot of his spare time, working on the horses in a local circus, and when the circus was offered a contract in the Argentine, in 1904, he went with them without his parents’ knowledge. He bought a steerage passage on the Royal Mail Steam Packet, Thames. The ship called at Bilbao in Spain, where the circus disembarked, having been offered a better contract, and, they were replaced by 600 Spanish emigrants, all bound for the Argentine. As he had already made up his mind to go to the Argentine, he bade farewell to the circus and continued en route for Buenos Aires.

Because he was English, he was given a berth in a six-berth cabin without any bedding, but the food was dreadful and the stench from the hold was appalling. What it must have been like travelling in the hold was beyond imagination. He had saved Fifty Pounds from pocket money and payments for odd jobs with the circus, and was able to bribe a steward with Five Pounds to move him into Second Class, where he met a lot of variety artists also headed for Buenos Aires. He made particular friends of a troop of acrobats and took part in their exercises to keep fit during the voyage. He was principally required to act as a buffer for their long summersaults, and to catch them when they landed on their feet.

When he went ashore with them in Rio de Janeiro they were thrown off a tram because they were not wearing ties, and they were told to take a Jim Crow tram. The trams were powered by mules.

By the time the ship had reached Buenos Aires, my father had made friends with another adventurer, an Englishman called Claude Lowe, and they decided to travel into the interior of the Argentine, to find jobs on cattle ranches, not realising that all the great estancias had offices in BA. So they made their way to the Province of Santa Fe which they had heard was the big cattle-ranching area, and put up at the Hotel Britannico in Rosario de Santa Fe, a lucky choice, because the proprietor of the Hotel was Senor Duncan Cameron, a Scot of very long residence in the Argentine. He listened to their ambitious plans, and within 24 hours they had landed jobs on a very large American estancia near Arias. The major domo or manager was Norman J Hall. They were taken on as learners on the princely salary of $30 per mensem.

The Argentinian saddles or Recados, which they had to acquire, consisted of a layer of cloth, waterproof sheeting, a leather cover, a sheep skin and on top of all this was a pigskin cover; rather like riding on a featherbed, my father thought. The stirrups were made of leather and there was only room for the toes of the boots. In fact, the sheepskin was also used as a bed, and was very comfortable for sleeping. They had to equip themselves with thick, closely woven ponchos, which kept out the rain, and kept in the warmth in winter. Their clothing was usually a check flannel shirt, bombachas (very wide trousers which were buckled at the ankles) and a wide belt of leather or a cummerbund, used to keep the bombachas in place. They decided not to carry the long Gaucho knife for self-defence, but rather a .45 Colt revolver each.

Once this was all organised, they were ready to start their lives as cowboys!

304375%20MICH%20MANUSCRIPT-3.tif

The vaqueiro Don Frederico Waugh

Circa 1905

According to Argentinian custom their first names were converted to Argentinian Spanish. My father became Don Frederico and his friend was Don Claudio. The latter was not a born horseman like my father and had initial problems, but he soon overcame these. They were now financially broke, but it did not matter as they were in jobs.

Being an Argentinian Cowboy, or Vaquero, did not just involve rounding up cattle all day. They were required to mend miles of fencing, and to look after the windmills and water tanks. However, many hours a day were spent riding alternately slowly and quickly among the cattle to spot any that might be empatchado or blown out through eating too much green grass. Such cattle had to be roped and then perforated with a special steel instrument to let out the gas. It was also necessary to be able to spot other cattle ailments.

At this time, boreholes were being drilled on the estancia for the supply of water to the various cattle tanks. My father took great interest in this work, and very soon asked permission to work on one of the rigs, and the knowledge gained from this stood him in good stead in later years.

A BRUSH WITH CATTLE RAIDERS

T he estancia was suffering from cattle theft. Not enough to be called cattle rustling, but half a dozen animals were being driven off on a fortnightly to monthly basis. Clearly something had to be done about this, and the Major Domo ordered a night patrol of the ring fence, which extended for some 39 miles. In those days, the Major Domo of a large estancia had the powers of a police commissario. Therefore, Norman J Hall ordered that the patrol should be armed with Winchester repeating rifles. The tracks of previous raids had of course, been quite clearly marked where the fencing had been cut and the raids had taken place in the same area, but never at the same point .The vaqueros went out in pairs, four a night, and were allotted special sections by the capitan so that there would be no clashing.

My father was lucky enough to be one of the pair who spotted the raiders cutting the fence. There were half a dozen of them. The vaqueros heard the raiders’ horses first, and immediately dismounted and crawled forward near enough to be able to get a clear view of them in the moonlight, about two hundred yards away. They then opened fire with their Winchesters, and the raiders disappeared in a flash. Either the raiders or their unfortunate horses had been wounded as a lot of blood was found near the fence. However, it appeared that no one was killed, and this action stopped the cattle thieving.

Don Claudio and my father had another problem with some Italian peons engaged in building the earthworks for new Australian water tanks. They were checking on the work and measuring up the cubic capacity of the banks, which they announced to the Italians in their broken Spanish. These peons were doing the work on contract, and were angered by the announcement, and replied in no uncertain manner that they were being cheated. They became very aggressive, cursing and shouting, and one man drew a knife on Don Claudio. He and my father immediately drew their colts and demonstrated to the peons that they knew how to use them. This ended the dispute and all was settled amicably in the end.

Soon after this, Norman J. Hall left for the United States, but before he left, he obtained an offer of work for the two men to go to Tierra-del-Fuego with a gold-prospecting party. Don Claudio accepted but as the destination was near to the Antarctic Circle, my father who could not stand the cold, refused the opportunity.

He did not like the man who was appointed as the new Major Domo either, so he loaded up his two horses with his belongings, and set out on an extremely long journey to the distant Western Camps where new development was just starting.

THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY 1905

T here were no railways, and horseback was the only means of transport. He only came across an occasional sheep grazier or ranchero who were always happy to see someone to chat to, and to hear news from further east, and he had no trouble getting food and fodder for his horses. His bed was his recardo and his roof was the sky. After many days riding he at last joined up with the Buenos Aires-Pacific rail track which was in construction, and finally arrived at Buena Esperanza (Good Hope). Here, he put up at the Hotel, a corrugated iron building and was able to have his first proper bath and first glass of whiskey for a very long time.

The proprietor introduced him to the owner of a large estancia, which was full of wild life including Nutria, a kind of giant rat and many bird species including the Rhea or South American ostrich.

Unfortunately, at this point, he was taken ill. No one on the estancia had any medical knowledge, and there was no doctor in Buena Esperanza, the end of the railway track, which was many miles distant. He gradually became worse and was unconscious for long periods. The Major Domo had to do something about it, so he took my father into Buena Esperanza. He must have been semiconscious as he remembered very little of the journey. The Major Domo sent a telegram to the agents of the estancia to meet the train in Buenos Aires, and after a night in the hotel, some kind persons took charge of him on the train and put him to bed before the train left. He had no recollection of arriving in BA, or how he got to the hospital. The next thing he remembered was waking up in the British Hospital and feeling very weak but comfortable. Staff told him that he had been unconscious for the whole of the three weeks that he had been there, and that they did not expect for a moment on his arrival, that he would live the day through. He gradually recovered under the most expert care of Doctor O’Connor and his staff, and was soon able to walk about the hospital grounds.

Before he was fit to be discharged, a revolution broke out. The revolt commenced on the 4th February 1905. The President of the Republic at that time was Dr. Quintana, and the leader of the revolt was Hipolito Irigoyen.. The revolution gained success in many parts of the country, but was later defeated by Dr. Quintana who remained President. During this period, my father wished to visit a Mr Cameron Patterson, a friend of his at Quilmes, a suburb of BA, which he attempted to do as soon as he was strong enough and the Doctor had given him permission for the outing.

Things had quietened down in the city, but the streets were still obstructed by overturned trams, and barricades of wagons, paving stones, furniture, and in fact, anything that the insurgents could lay hands on for the purpose. It was of course, quite impossible to find a cab, so my father had to walk. He proposed to go to Retiro Station and get a train from there, but had not walked very far when he heard shots, and it soon became apparent to him that he was going to get mixed up in some trouble. He did not have long to wait, because a crowd of insurgents rushed into the street and manned a barricade at the end of it. At the time, my father did not know which side they were on, but since he was among them, he was obliged to be on their side anyway! They were all armed, and so, the battle commenced. He managed to take cover in a doorway to avoid bullets and brick ends, as he did not feel very warlike at the time.

There appeared to be a good many casualties judging by the number of men he could see lying about who had obviously been hit by bullets. The crowd began to back away from the barricade, and started to run in his direction. At the last moment, the door at his back was opened and he was pulled inside. He was pushed through the house and into the garden at the back. He was not feeling too good and sat down under a tree. A short while later the sounds of battle appeared to move further away, and the lady who had opened the door for him, suggested that he make his getaway out of the back garden. He told her that he was a patient at the British Hospital and wanted to get back there, so she very kindly gave him a drink and set him on his way. Doctor O’Connor was not very pleased with him!

Later on he managed to get to his friend Cameron Patterson who very kindly kept him at Quilmes near BA, until he was really fit again. By then, he was short of funds and decided to look for a job back in Rosario da Santa Fe, but found that there was still fighting going on. In fact, if he had not been able to take shelter in the nearby cathedral he would have been caught in a cavalry charge which he observed from the cathedral tower. He again went to see Senor Duncan Cameron at the Hotel Britannico. As he had no horse or saddle or other equipment, Senor Cameron introduced him to an American called Ford who was about to do some water drilling at Vernado Tuerto. He jumped at this opportunity because of his previous experience at Arias. After his initial training at Vernado Tuerto, he went with Ford to Buena Esperanza where the latter had obtained a contract to drill for water on the Buenos Aires-Pacific Railway.

During this period, railway construction was being pushed ahead at a great speed, and the Buenos Aires Western Railway had reached Rancul in the Pampa Central, and construction had begun, taking the track to Bagual in San Luis Province. The railway construction work was carried on with Italians making the terraplano or track for the rails. The rail-laying was done by immigrants of a great many nations, mainly from the Balkans. They were the riff-raff of Europe, and a tougher more murderous crowd it was impossible to find anywhere in the world.

The railhead at Buena Esperanza at that time consisted of corrugated iron sheds, drinking saloons, gambling dens, brothels, and one or two so-called hotels. The same description applied to Bagual. There was not much to choose between these two pueblos, though my father thought that Bagual was the tougher of the two.

It was always necessary to carry arms. The English and Americans carried revolvers and the Argentinian Gauchos carried long knives and were most skilful in using them. It was said that Gauchos in fights at close quarters could nearly always defeat an opponent armed with a revolver, because they moved so quickly and could instantly estimate where the revolver bullets would go. They used their ponchos wrapped around the left arm to shield themselves when their opponent was another knife-fighter.

The other toughs used anything they had, lengths of iron or large clasp knives, and some even had guns. The gambling fraternity who did nothing else but gamble for a living, also carried guns and were very quick on the draw. They had to be because they made their money by cheating either at cards or dice. In Bagual the average weekend killings were three or more, and there were always a lot of wounded. Any Sunday morning a corpse or two could be seen lying in the street. In fact, Bagual became so notorious for its lawlessness, that the government finally sent for Andreas Baxter, a Commisario of Police, to clean up the pueblo.

(My father once described Baxter to me as a United States Marshall, and I suppose it is possible that he was on loan to the Argentine Government. MD-W.)

LAWLESSNESS AND A LAWMAN

A n yway, Don Andreas Baxter was well known in the Argentine as a man whose particular talent it was, to clean up the tough spots. He arrived in Bagual with his squad of hand picked police, without any warning, and took over the police station. This consisted of the usual iron-roofed shanty and the staff of three or four vigilantes, who were kept well supplied with drink, food and money by the drinking-saloon and gambling-den owners, and who were consequently happy to leave any unpleasantness alone.

Baxter took no action for several days, and then, on a Saturday night, or rather, in the early hours of the Sunday morning, he attacked. He knew by this time, the men he wanted and where to find them.

My father was in Bagual at the time, and had been warned by Baxter to keep clear of the town that night.

Baxter posted men at the doors of the gambling houses, and then entered quickly and called the men he wanted to come out. Then the fun commenced. Some started to draw their weapons, but Baxter was so quick, he shot them before they could open fire. His Lieutenant attended to another house in the same manner, but, unfortunately, was not quick enough to save himself from being severely wounded.

Five of the gamblers and trouble makers were shot dead that night, while the remainder put up their hands and were taken prisoner. Some twenty-five of the worst characters were marched off to the railway station goods shed, and were made to stand on four gallon paraffin tins, and were not allowed to move. My father witnessed the police covering them with their revolvers until two empty goods wagons of the lock-up type were moved alongside the shed. The prisoners were then marched into these, the doors were locked and the wagons coupled to a goods train. Police guards were posted on the train and the train then departed for Buenos Aires. My father believed that they were eventually sent up to one of the convict battalions in El Gran Chaco.

About this time a gang of American bandits started operating in the Western Camps and Mendoza Province. They did a lot of cattle and horse thieving, and had their hideout in the foothills of the Corderillas (Andes Mountains) between the Argentine and Chile, and were alleged to drive their stolen cattle over one of the passes into Chile.

Their first bank robbery took place at Villa Mercedes, the Capital of San Luis Province. It was well planned because they arrived at the bank at 10 a.m. on the weekly cattle market day.

They had camped the previous night in a small wood where they had left men stationed with a troop of remounts. These men were armed with Winchester repeating rifles.

The five men who actually did the robbery, rode into town and dismounted outside the bank. They did not tie their horses up, as Argentinian horses are trained to stand still when the lead rein is dropped to the ground. One man stood with them, and one man stood at the door of the bank with a pistol in each hand. The other three ran into the bank shooting. They killed the manager and one clerk and began collecting the money.

Meanwhile, a tailor who had a shop opposite, heard the shooting and opened fire at the man stationed in the doorway, who retaliated immediately, killing the tailor. The robbers inside the bank meanwhile, had collected thousands of dollars in paper money. They ran out, remounted and made off at full speed toward the trees. The alarm in the town was raised, and the police accompanied by most of the men in the market gave chase, only to be held back by fire from the guards stationed among the trees.

This gave time for the robbers to change horses, after which they all made off across country as fast as they could.

Ford and my father were drilling at a small station on the Pacific Railway, which runs several miles South of Villa Mercedes. The Station Master received a telegram from Villa Mercedes warning them that the bandits might cross the railway going toward the South West. My father and Ford and some others cleaned their Winchester rifles, formed a posse and rode out into the Pampas to intercept the bandits, but never saw hide nor hair of them. My father thought that this was probably a lucky break for him and his friends!

The bandits who later raided banks in Rio Galleagos and Punta Arenas, got away completely, and must have cleared out of the country through Chile, where, of course, they did not rob any banks.

PIONEERING IN THE BAGUAL AREA OF THE ARGENTINE

I n 1908, my father went to England and made his peace with his father, and was very glad he had done so, because after his return to the Argentine, he never saw him again. It was the greatest regret of his life that he had treated his father so badly.

He travelled back to Buenos Aires in the company of his cousin Don Gregorio Dean, who at a later period became the first manager of the new Harrods in BA.

They decided to go to Bagual where Don Gregorio was well known, and had done previous contract work. The estancias there were nearly all owned by people of British origin, and were all in the process of formation. Most had been ring-fenced, but Alfalfa was being laid down, and water supplies were a critical issue. They decided to set up business drilling wells and erecting the necessary pumping equipment, (usually windmills with thirty to forty foot towers) and Australian-type storage tanks.

In the Bagual area they only had to drill down manually to a depth of about forty to sixty feet to achieve the desired flow of one thousand gallons per hour.

The two men made these installations in practically all the estancias in the Bagual area, some of them requiring as many as twenty or thirty boreholes. There was no competition as nobody else in Bagual had any knowledge of drilling procedures. In fact in the travesia or desert areas where ranchers were convinced that there was no water, they found plenty, though at a deeper level. In this way, as the years went by, they saw the estancias and even the travesia develop and blossom, and had the satisfaction of knowing that it was largely due to their efforts.

At night, they often slept in a tent or under the stars, following a delicious meal of asado, half a sheep roasted on an iron spit over an open fire. When the flames had died down the land was dark and silent, and there was little sign of light from distant estancias. And this is how it was in 1910 when Halley’s Comet began to appear. There were no trees, houses or mountains to obstruct their view, and they were able to observe it from its point of appearance to its point of disappearance. At one period it stretched right across the night sky, and its light was so bright that they were even able to play cricket. It was indeed a most awesome and wonderful sight, but, unfortunately, the superstitious Argentines in the towns and villages thought that the end of the world was at hand, so they prayed in the streets, and many even committed suicide.

REVELRY BY NIGHT

I n 1911, the Western Railway commenced construction of its line from Bagual into the Province where my father and his cousin, Don Gregorio Dean, had obtained the contract for the railway’s boreholes. In Mendoza Province, the water was much deeper at about three hundred feet, and they had to switch to motor power for drilling.

In lifting a wooden beam, about twenty five feet long by nine by three inches, a rope broke and the beam came down with my father under it. His body fell alongside a piece of Ten Inch diameter casing, which saved his life, but of course, he was badly bruised and shaken. This happened only a short time after he had been thrown and dragged by his horse while taking part in a Rodeo in Bagual, and so he was obliged to stay in bed for several days. However, no bones were broken, and he was soon back on his feet.

More serious than this was an outbreak of small pox which started among the railway labour gangs. Hundreds died of the disease. My father and his men were vaccinated three times, but, in his case, none of them took.

Through the good offices of the owner of the Estancia Bagual, Senor Don Haroldo Schwind, my father and Don Gregorio were introduced to the Belgian firm of Bunge Born and Co., of Buenos Aires, which owned vast tracts of land in Mendoza Province and El Gran Chaco. This gave them work drilling test holes for water in Mendoza for the whole of 1911. The following year, the Company asked them to carry out similar exploratory tests in El Gran Chaco, and to do so my father had to obtain a drilling rig from his old friend Ford, who now owned several, and was well established in BA.

The work which he had to undertake at that time caused him to spend more time in BA than he had done hitherto, and he always stayed at Dirty Dicks in Calle Bartolome Mitre, which had the advantage of being moderately cheap, and most of the Englishmen from the camp used it. He knew many of these men and when several of them got together it was, as he put it, a hot time in the old town.

The usual routine was, dinner at the Petit Salon, which establishment boasted that it had not closed its doors day and night for twenty-five years. Having got well primed up by about 11 p.m., they would proceed to the Casino, the grand entrance hall of which had two marble staircases. These rose to the top of the hall in two half circles, meeting at the landing. At the back of the landing were two saloon bars each one of which contained many girls. Both bars were equipped with enormous tin trays measuring three feet by two, on which a man could sit with his knees under his chin.

The girls knew the drill, and the Englishmen would select a tray each and commence tobogganing down the stairs. Each pair would lay off bets as to the winner, and so they ran off the heats, the public enjoying every minute of it, knowing as they did, that it was only the mad English.

Sometimes the Casino authorities would get a bit annoyed and call the police, who also knew the drill. A five dollar tip, from each of the combatants would solve the problem in a friendly manner. Of course, the girls also had to be rewarded for the loan of the trays, and recompensed for those that were of no further service.

Later in the evening at about 2 a.m., it was the custom to hire