9th-12th-Lancers - Year 2002 - Page 0081
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| Regiment | 9th/12th Lancers |
|---|---|
| Year | 2002 |
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REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE 9TH/12TH ROYAL LANCERS (PRINCE OF WALES’S) 79 Colonel James Hunter by David Ramsay and scion of a military family, was a student at the Royal gricultural College at Cirencester when his elder brother died. In a long and distinguished military career, his grandfather, General Sir Martin Hunter, had fought in the American War of Independence and in the wars against the chief French ally in India, the formidable Tippoo Sultan, the ruler of Mysore. He later became President of the Council and Commander-in-Chief of the forces in New Brunswick, then a frontier province, although his term ended shortly before the War of 1812. The tradition in the Hunter family was that the eldest son served in the army. After his brother’s death, James left Cirencester for Sandhurst and was commissioned in the Ninth Lancers in 1878.‘ He served with the Regiment throughout the Second Afghan War of 1879-80, the only successful invasion of Afghanistan before the recent American action which resulted in the overthrow of the Taliban. James Hunter, the second son of a Berwickshire landowner Throughout his life James was a man of few words. The author recalls that in the Borders he was sometimes referred to, albeit at second hand and a couple of generations later, as Silent Jim and, no doubt because of his prowess with his sword, as Slashing Jim. The rousing account of the Afghan War in E.W Sheppard’s history of the Ninth Lancers quotes from several of the vivid and highly descriptive letters which James Hunter wrote throughout the campaign. Silent man he may have been but he had inherited a family ability with the pen. Writing from the garrison town of Nowshera in November 1878: ‘It was a pretty sight this morning crossing the Indus by the bridge of boats at Attock, with all the lances glinting in the sun as we wound down the steep hill under the old fort to cross the bridge which is about 400 yards long. It is very cold in the mornings now; one’s fingers get quite numb: while in the daytime the temperature is generally about 80 in the shade: and yet this sud- den change from hot to cold agrees with us wonderfully, every- one eats enormously, and the only thing we are frightened of is growing too fat’ The Lancers stayed at Nowshera for four months and the officers had plenty of time for shooting as James noted in February 1879 ‘ a great triumph over all the other reg- iments in that we shot five woodcock, whereas no one else knew there were any in the station; they are even scarcer than they are at home.’ At the beginning of March 1879, James Hunter’s squadron was ordered into Afghanistan to join the force commanded by General Sir Frederick Roberts, the famous Bobs. He wrote that ‘The scenery along the Kurrum Valley is verybeautiful; we have been in sight of the snow mountains and now we are encamped at their foot; they looked dazzling in the bright sun against the clear blue sky’. The squadron was stationed in the valley until September when the British representative in Kabul, Sir Louis Cavagnari, and his staff and escorts were murdered by rebels. Retribution was instantly ordered and Roberts was instructed to recapture Kabul. The General started his advance on September 27th with the Lancers squadron as his escort. Attacked by tribesmen, James describes his baptism of fire: ‘We had halted...to allow the baggage to come up, when an orderly came galloping back from the advanced guard to say that there were 2,000 Mongels (sic) on the heights who looked as if they meant mischief. The Generals... sent an officer of the 5th Punjab Cavalry with ten of his own men and ten of ours, to see what was up...we heard firing and then the advance sounded. A company of the 92nd went ahead in skirmishing order, support- ed by dismounted men of our squadron of whom I was left in command close to the two Generals and their staff. No sooner had the dismounted men got well forward than a volley was fired into the staff from about four hundred yards up the hill, whereupon we all skedaddled into the wood behind us. Curiously the only man hit was the Surgeon-General. We had to wait there for two hours while the 92nd were clearing the heights’. On the next day when Roberts arrived at his advance camp, James noted that he was visited by the Amir of Afghanistan. Expressing the professional soldier’s scepticism about oriental rulers, he wrote ‘I wonder how many lies he will tell in the course of conversation. ’ Judging by the behaviour of many warlords since the overthrow of the Taliban, nothing much can have changed in Afghanistan in a hundred and twen- ty years. After Kabul had been retaken and a new Amir installed, Roberts was ordered to march on Kandahar, 340 miles away, to relieve a British force besieged there. The Ninth, with three Indian reg- iments, formed part of the cavalry brigade in Roberts’s expedi- tion, commandedby Brigadier-General Hugh Gough, a member of that famous military family and one of two brothers who had won the VC in the Indian Mutiny. After a forced march taking only 23 days, Roberts reached Kandahar on August 31st. James recorded the severe conditions and the toll they took of animals and camp followers: ‘The natives used to go off the road and hide themselves where they could escape the eyes of the rear- guard, that they might be left to die in peace. I have seen some of the transport ponies with the skin worn off their backs and their bones showing through, and this in spite of every care. We had a good moon the greater part of the march, so reveille used to sound at 11.30 and we generally got into camp about 7 am’ On the following day, Roberts attacked the Afghans, who, con- fronted with superior force, fled with such speed that his caval- ry could not catch them. James wrote ruefully: ‘We arrived as usual just an hour too late. However, we did a great advance across the plain in echelon of squadrons against what turned out to be a party consisting of women and children, donkeys, cows and camels, which presented a most formidable appearance at a distance. So much for the battle’ The Ninth were however lit- erally to enjoy the fruits of their victory. James related: ‘Two days after, we marched out here and encamped close to a vine- yard. That vineyard does not contain a single grape now, although when we first arrived they might have been taken out of it by the cartloads and weighed by tons. We used to lie under the trees and gorge ourselves with them. There was also a gar- den of very fine pomegranates and these are also finished.’ Sheppard wrote: ‘In these idyllic surroundings, the Second Afghan War, as far as the Ninth Lancers was concerned, came to a happy end’. James himself was Mentioned in Dispatches. Shortly after the end of the war, James resigned his commission and returned to Berwickshire to run his estate, Anton’s Hill, about five miles north of Coldstream. His widowed mother Isabella organized a hero’s welcome for him when he arrived home, putting a lighted candle in every window of the house. For one terrible moment James thought that his family home was on fire. When the carriage reached the Anton’s Hill lodge his tenants and employees removed the horses from the traces and pulled him in triumph for the remaining few hundred yards of his journey.2 He continued his military career in the 2nd Volunteer Battalion of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers as a Major, being promoted Lieutenant-Colonel when he retired in 1903.3 He brought with him his Australian bred charger, Brigadier, who had carried him throughout the war, including the arduous march to Kandahar and for whom he had a great fondness. One of James’s brother-officers once told his daughter that in one action Brigadier, who had a bullet hole in one of his ears, had |
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