'A Grandfather's Tale: Memoirs being mainly concerned with service in the Indian Army and the Indian Political Service in India and the Persian Gulf from 1932-1947' [‎18v] (36/118)

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very close to the Taj Mahal. I could only afford to keep one pony of my
own, for business and pleasure, but both the Gunners and the Police lent
me mounts from time to time. It was very much ’’Station Polo” but great
fun all the same. On.:one occasion, however, I narrowly escaped disaster.
I had been lent for my second chukka a police ’’pony”. Actually it was a
lar ge horse with a mouth of iron and a will of its own. At first I managed
to keep it under reasonable control but then the reins broke, and the only
form of restraint I had was to grab Shallow vessel with a projecting bow. the head stall. We speedily left the
actual polo ground, but I contrived to gallop round and round the perimeter,
leaping over a deep stone built culvert on each circuit. I think in the
end we went round five times before I gradually brought the beast to a halt
in ever decreasing circles. Meanwhile an ambulance had arrived and doctors
hovered in the wings anticipating catastrophe. When I finally dismounted
intact, the ho r se and I equally were exhausted and there was a distinct air
of anti-climax. I learnt later that the horse had belonged to a rissaldar
(inspector) of mounted police, who had weighed sixteen stone and died three
months before. Since then no one had dared to exercise the animal at all
until I was given that doubtful privilege. After that I was very wary of
accepting the loan of a police horse unless I knew its history.
My own mare ’’Frippet” was very versatile, fast and handy. She was
’’staunch to pig” and would paw the ground in her eagerness to get off the
mark when a boar was put up and the laeat of three or four riders was awaiting
the signal to start. When I first reached Agra the Secretary of the Tent
Club was a subaltern in the Welsh Regiment but when he went home on transfer
to England some months later,I took over. It was in some ways much easier
for me as a District Officer to make the necessary arrangments for meets,
most of which took place in the neighbourhood of Fatehpur Sikri some thirty
miles away from Agra. Where we went exactly depended on the Tent Club
Shikari’s report as to where the boars were likely to be found. Very often
this was in sugar cane from which they had to be driven out by the beaters.
(Ian Bowman gives an excellent description of what went on, on pages 132-3
of Roland Hunt and John Harrison’s book The District Officer in India 1930“
19^7, Scolar Press 1980). It may, as he says, have been a cruel sport but
it was certainly the most exciting that I have ever taken part in, and the
local people welcomed it. The pig were very destructive of crops and
dangerous to the cultivators, and if we killed a boar the lower caste members
of the community had the meat, and in any case the bonus of a cash payment
for their services as beaters.
Sometimes other animals were put up. On one occasion when I was in
charge of a beat we ”st a rted” a panther. We chased him for a while but I
must confess I was much relieved when he escaped into thick jungle where no
horse could penetrate. On another day we put up a nilghai (blue bull) but
although I got within spearing distance I had not the he a rt to kill it. I
had, however, no such qualms in spearing a hyena when it turned and snapped
at my horse's legs. In March - June 1938 as a beginner I got five ’•'1st spears"
and encouraged by further progress in the winter of 1938-39 I entered Frippet