'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' [‎35r] (69/118)

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with the tip of the third finger of my left hand and dislocated the too
^ int ; 1 , d lt n ^ t ^ ake 0ff my ^e until we came into the pavilion and ‘
then found that the finger was Z shaped. No one present was prepared
to pull the thing straight, so Jane and I bicycled off to the military
hospital. As it was a Sunday, no doctor was present and the Indian Sub-
Assistant burgeon on duty wanted to put the finger in plaster without
first straightening it out. This did not make sense to me so off we
bicyded to the Mission Hospital Compound where luckily we found Honnie
Holland.. He gave me a local anaesthetic and I then pulled the finger
out of dislocation myself, but ever since then it has had a decided kink
in it.
Jane was expecting our second child in September 19^3, and at the
beginning 01 July I drove her up to Ziarat, the hill station for Quetta,
about 63 miles away, and 4,000 ft. higher, to stay with the Resident and
Lady Metcalfe. They had a small great niece of about Christopher's age
with them and the two children got on famously. I was able to spend the
weekend there and then had to return to the heat of Quetta. Jane and
Christopher spent a fortnight with the Metcalfes and the rest of July in
the Dredge's house, with their English nanny and children, Tessa and Peter,
while Peggy and Allen went off to Kashmir. We had got to know them well
in Nowshera in 1941, when Allen was the local Political Officer there. I
managed to get another weekend up in Ziarat in mid-July and then returned
to Quetta to take Sir Henry Holland on the Toba Kakari tour which I have
already described.
While Jane and I were in Ziarat, Mahomed Ali Jinnah, the Muslim
League leader and his formidable sister Begum Courteous or formal title for (usually Muslim) women of elite status, especially of Turko-Mongol lineage. Fatima were also staying at
the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. , and it was interesting to meet them. Jinnah was tall, spare
and always immaculately clad in Savile Row suits. He was polite and fluent
but seemed to me to be somewhat lacking in a sense of humour. Anyone more
unlike Gandhi, in appearance and temperament, it would have been hard to
find and,quite apart from their religious and political differences, it was
not difficult to understand why the two did not get on well together.
Jinnah's house before Partition was in Bombay but he was very fond of
Quetta and Ziarat, and visited Quetta several times while we were there
but I can never remember seeing him smile.
Jane returned to Quetta on July 30th, having got a lift down with
Scott, the Superintendent of Police. She did this just in time as an hour
after they had left Ziarat there was a colossal thunderstorm and the road
behind them was cut by spates in a number of places, and remained impassable
for several days. I had come back earlier the same day from my Toba Kakari
tour.
About this time I acquired a horse, a large Waler called Wild Ranger,
the first horse I had owned since I had had to leave Frippet behind me in
Rajknt in 1939. On tour I usually rode Levy ponies, as one generally