ISSUE 75 : Mar/Apr - 1989 - Australian Defence Force Journal

RLMNANTS OF THE RAJ }].J!,:*.Wood wallahs with hooded donkeys deliver wood at Australian quarter, 22 William Rd, Quetta.A band of AH Baba's decendants appeared— the wood wallahs. Their small donkeys, almostbuckling under their loads, were blindfolded,whilst Mohamed supervised the weighingof the wood, piece by piece, on hand scalesand argued the cost with the swarthy desperadoleader. A Staff College truck delivered our coalration and by evening, coal fires were warmingsome of the house.We sat down to hot soup served meticulouslyby the Bearer; the table laid with our best silver.Finally crawling exhausted into a small hardbed, my toes touched a hot water bottle.Mohamed, that 'seedy, grubby fellow', was indeeda Bearer beyond price.Next day, David signed on at the Quetta StaffCollege which was modelled on Camberley inEngland and provided a post-graduate year forCaptains and Majors 'on the way up'. Australia,Canada and India had similar Collegesand they all exchanged students. Some Britishinstructors remained, but they were rapidlybeing replaced by Pakistanis. That year, twoBritish, a Canadian, an American, Turk andIraqi made up the other foreign students. Onthe plaque listing students for 1911, CaptainT.A. Blarney's name had a star to show he'dreach Field Marshal. Australia's first studentat Quetta had made his mark.The Deputy Commandant, Brigadier ShahabzadarYaqub Khan' addressed the studentson the importance of maintaining high standardsof work and warned against cheating. Headvised that required reading for current affairswould be American Time and Dawn, Pakistan'smain English language daily.Two weeks later, Dawn's editorial thunderedagainst a proposed routine visit to Pakistan ofFirst Sea Lord Mountbatten, 'this principal instrumentof the rape of Kashmir and of themisery of millions'. Dawn reminded readersthat from March 23rd Pakistan would be aRepublic, that the Navy would no longer beRoyal and therefore Britain's First Sea Lord'nobody to it'. The Pakistanis blamed Mountbatten,last Viceroy of India, for all the troubleswhich followed the Partition of India in 1947.Pakistan still remained in the Commonwealth,but the British were on the way out.How would we colonials be accepted? Currentaffairs for David might be tricky.Each morning he hurried off early to meetwith the ten men of his Syndicate. Very often,they returned to our house to work together onan Appreciation of a Military Situation in whichAIDNI was the enemy. (I didn't have to be acryptic crossword fan to work out who thatwas.) Whilst they planned, I remained on stand