While the Hazara District, in which Kakul was located, was inhabited by a tribal people whose religion was Islam, Abbottabad and the larger villages had been home to a large colony of Sikhs and Hindus. Many were shopkeepers or moneylenders; many others performed menial tasks such as those of washermen and sweepers (disposers of excreta and other noisome residue) that no one else would touch. When first I decided on Kakul as the site of the PMAI believed that all Hindus and Sikhs had either been killed or had left for India. I was wrong. Soon after I moved into the Commandant’s House, Adalat Khan, my Muslim bearer for many years, came into my room one day and informed me that a dhobi (washerman) was requesting an interview. We needed a dhobi to look after the household laundry, and I had been wondering where one might be found, so I told Adalat to bring him in. When Adalat returned he was ushering before him a wizened little man wearing a dhoti (loincloth), a garment worn exclusively by Hindus.
I was amazed: a Hindu in Kakul! I thought he had come to ask for my protection. Not so. Speaking with great dignity, he explained that he had come to pay his respects to me as the new Commanding Officer, just as he had always done in the past whenever a new pultan (battalion) came to Kakul. His father had been the dhobi here, and his father before him; his wife was dead and his children had fled to India. But he was not afraid: ‘If they kill me, it will be because my time has come.’ In the meantime he wanted to stay as my dhobi.
‘If I may serve you,’ he finished, ‘I will always pray for Your Honour’s long life and prosperity.’ And he placed his hands together and bowed his head over them in the traditional attitude of obeisance.
I was much moved by his faith and dignity. He was of indeterminate age but looked wiry enough, capable of doing a full day’s work. I agreed to give him the job as my personal dhobi. Adalat took him under his wing and gave him a quarter close to the house. He was still there, washing sheets and pillowcases on the rocks, when I left three years later. My Muslim servants were kind to him and bought his grain and vegetables in the bazaar so that he never had to leave the compound and be exposed to the ruffians of Abbottabad who surely would have killed him.
Later I heard of many other good deeds performed by honest people during this troubled time, but alas, they were few and far between; the acts of bestiality outnumbered them by far. I was proud of Adalat Khan and my other Muslim servants for their acts of charity and kindness.
But as a foreigner and non-Muslim, I had to think very carefully before deciding on certain matters which the Commandant of a military academy in his own country and among his own people would never have to face. I had served with Muslim soldiers for years in the Indian Imperial Army and therefore had some acquaintance with their religious beliefs and customs. I had also read much of the Koran Sharif, in an English translation, and on accepting the appointment as Commandant of the PMA had taken the Precaution of brushing up my knowledge of the tenets of Islam. But I still found it wise to tread warily.
For example, during my first few months in command we faced the Muslim holy month of Ramzan. Throughout Ramzan Muslims are expected to fast from sunrise to sunset, and I wondered if this might cause problems with our work schedule. I called a conference of my senior instructors to discuss the matter, reminding them that our first priority was to train officers for the Pakistan Army and commission them on time.
At first there was silence in the room. My regular officers were waiting for the Director of Studies to speak: Lieutenant-Colonel Dr M. M. Ahmed, one of the special ‘officer civilians’ I had recruited. Dr Ahmed was very orthodox and he obviously felt out of his depth in this military environment, so far removed from the peaceful world of students and academics. He looked at me with a pained expression; I had to take pity on him. Far better that I should state my case, then allow modifications to emerge in discussion afterwards. So, with some temerity, I launched into the deep water.
First of all I made it plain that there would be no deviation of either day or night work as scheduled for the month; equally that I expected the fast to be kept within the meaning of the Good Book – but, as I understood it, the Holy Prophet himself permitted certain exceptions. Those who were sick or were on a journey or had a special task to perform might break the fast in moderation. I looked around the room; everyone was nodding agreement.
‘All right,’ I went on, ‘we have four cadet company messes and the officers’ mess. During Ramzan, all except one mess shall remain closed. In that one mess, food will be available throughout the day for those who feel they cannot complete their workload without it. Is that agreeable?’
The look of relief on their faces was answer enough. It was agreed.
My arrangements could not have worked in a more satisfactory manner. On the first two days of the fast the open mess had no customers during the daylight hours; but on the following days there began a trickle, and after ten days quite a number found they could not go the pace and fast as well.
Fasting was not the only requirement during Ramzan, for Muslims also had to abstain from tobacco. It was understood that any cadet or officer found having a surreptitious drag at a cigarette during fasting hours would be on a charge. I spoke to all my non-Muslim staff and made it plain that during Ramzan there would be no smoking in public, not even in the comparative privacy of administrative offices. In those days I was a heavy smoker, but I applied the rule to myself as well; I’m sure it gave my lungs a breather.
My readers must remember that the state of Pakistan, carved out of British India, was still only a few months old. The vast majority of its people were of the Muslim faith, although there were a few Hindus left and a number of Christians. In the early days there were some who wanted the land to be governed according to the tenets of the Shariat law; for example, death for adulterers, the loss of a hand for theft, and a total ban on the sale and use of alcohol. The majority of the intelligentsia were not for Shariat law, however, but rather for continuance of the British system of law which had been in force in the subcontinent for about two hundred years. At the same time, most people did accept a more stringent code of social and moral behaviour now, and a closer observance of the basic requirements of Islam.
It is the tradition in Muslim countries for all married ladies and ladies of marriageable age to observe purdah, the wearing of the veil. In some families the ladies lived in a separate part of the house and never appeared without the veil in front of any male who was not a part of the family. Most of my married Muslim staff had served in regiments with British commanding officers and with brother officers who were British; wanting to share in the social activities of the regiment, they therefore encouraged their womenfolk to forsake the veil and join in the normal life of the station. But I did have a number of instructors who were rather straightlaced, both socially and religiously, and who were not accustomed to letting their wives appear unveiled in public.
It was here that the two sophisticated sisters from Bhopal came to my aid. One married to Colonel Latif Khan, my deputy, the other to Major Abid Bilgrami, a company commander, they did much to help the wives of other officers and staff, particularly those who came from very orthodox Muslim backgrounds. I explained to these two ladies that I wanted to encourage my cadets and their future families to play the fullest possible role in their country’s affairs, so the staff should set them an appropriate example. I was anxious to avoid offending anyone’s religious susceptibilities and would not countenance any attempt to force the orthodox ladies to relinquish the veil; on the other hand they needed to be shown that a new day had dawned and that they could not help in the establishment of their country by remaining hidden in the women’s quarters. This the Bhopal sisters understood; as well as organizing the social life of the Academy, they began gently to emancipate their sisters.
I formed a Ladies’ Welfare Committee and requested the organizers to see that all the purdah ladies were included in its activities. For example, early in 1948 the Welfare Committee organized a meena bazaar (jumble sale) in the grounds of the officers’ mess. Of course, all the ladies made goods and sweetmeats for sale, including those in purdah, for this sale was in aid of the Kashmir Refugees’ Relief Fund; donations to and support of this fund were almost a matter of national honour to the Pakistanis, who considered that the plight of the refugees was caused solely by the Indian invasion of Kashmir. So I informed all of my officers whose ladies were in purdah that I expected them to do their part of the meena bazaar and to make an appearance; special arrangements would be made to sequester them in a screened-off comer of the garden and after that it was up to them.
The party started well, with people coming from all over the valley to attend. There were games, prizes and auctions. The purdah ladies could get only fleeting glimpses of the fun by peering through the gaps in the screens behind which they had hid themselves. After a while I noticed that one of the screens had been moved, then that one or two of the ladies were actually mingling with the throng – albeit heavily draped in their burkhas (a sort of tent-like affair with slits for the eyes). Later, I saw that one at least had joined a group of unveiled ladies and lifted her own veil. So we were making progress.
It was the same in our cinemas. First the purdah ladies demanded a special screened off area, which I duly arranged, though not in the best viewing area. Then I noticed that some were moving out of this area into seats of their own choice, though still in burkha. After some weeks one or two were sitting in the stalls with their veils actually lifted, only covering their faces when the lights went up in the interval. Gradually some of the younger ones forsook the veil altogether, and, as I had hoped, began to play a much more active part in the academy’s social life. It was, I knew, largely thanks to the encouragement of the two Bhopal sisters, whose activities contributed so much to the cohesion and happiness of the staff and cadets of the Academy.
Our efforts, however, were not universally appreciated as I was to discover.
There was a local group of maulvis (religious teachers) in Abbottabad who were always preaching that hell and damnation would overcome the Academy and myself. They did not approve of the fact that most of our ladies did not wear the veil or that many of my Muslim staff were accustomed to take a drink once in a while. They were aided and abetted by a local character, a small-time thug and conman who lived in the village of Jadote, about ten miles from the Academy on the road to Murree. It was a typical village of the smaller sort – about three or four mud-built huts called bastis clinging to the hillside – but the impudent fellow had granted himself an illusory title: Khan Faquira Khan, Khan of Jadote.
Our friend was a rather typical Pathan of the baser sort. Tall, with a shaven head under his kullah and pagri, he was a heavyweight in most senses of the term. It was said that he had at least twelve murders on his hands. With the advent of Partition, however, he had thought he would become a leading figure in the district. He hoped, by siding with the militant maulvis, to achieve more local influence, and published a disreputable bazaar newspaper, the Inkishaf, in which he called for total governance of Pakistan by Islamic Shariat law.
The man became a constant thorn in my flesh, regularly calling at my private residence with some request or grievance. He would push his turban back over his hennaed side hairs and say in English: ‘Now, my dear Jenail Saab (General Sahib) …’ and then lapse into Urdu to express his demands. No amount of coolness on my part could deter him. Eventually I was constrained to lodge a complaint with the Deputy Commissioner of his district and request that he be banned from the Academy grounds. The following day his rag came out with a banner headline: ‘BRIGADIER BARS LOCAL KHAN FROM OUR NATIONAL ACADEMY!’ He stirred up quite a mare’s nest of protest in the bazaars of Abbottabad, in the course of which the local riff-raff burned down the Officers’ Club in the Abbottabad cantonment. More headlines: ‘ENGLISH CLUB BURNS TO THE GROUND! PAKISTANI OFFICERS AND THEIR WOMEN SEEN RUNNING NAKED FROM THE FLAMES!’ For good measure he reported that, with his own eyes, he had seen me swimming alone with Pakistani ladies in the officers’ mess pool at the Academy.
It was all getting too much, so I sent for him to my house and read him a lecture on nationalism, since he claimed to be a nationalist, and told him how he was damaging our urgent business at the Academy. He was like a little boy who had been caught in a practical joke. I told him that, if he continued to play the fool, I would see to it that he would never attend a function at the Academy – for this was all he was after, the kudos of meeting our distinguished visitors.
My words must have done the trick. He changed tack completely and his newspaper started printing laudatory articles about the PMA. He ceased to pester me, so when the Governor-General came to visit I rewarded him with a seat at the reception. To judge by his reaction one would have thought I had made him a Nawab. Soon afterwards he died in rather mysterious circumstances – sent to his just reward by a well-wisher, no doubt.
Not all of the local gentry were as tiresome as Khan Faquira Khan. Many were kind and hospitable. During one of the between-term breaks, my wife and I accepted an invitation to visit Amb, a fortified town about eighty miles north-west of Attock Fort, located in a gorge above the River Indus. The town was built around the palace of the Nawab of Amb, a minor prince who in those days ruled over a few hundred square miles of lofty and almost impenetrable mountains. Until 1947 most of the business people and shopkeepers of the town of Amb were either Sikh or Hindu, many of whom had fled to India at Partition; the revenues of the state had suffered as a result. The Nawab was a most amiable and tolerant man – but only as far as his friends and subjects were concerned; for years he had been at odds with his neighbouring states of Dir and Swat. There was a saying in this frontier state that all disputes were caused by Zan, Zer, Zamin (Women, Jewels or Land); in the Nawab of Amb’s case it was land.
The roads were almost nonexistent, more like cart tracks and barely suitable for cars. So it was after a slow, hot and dusty trip that my wife, Heather, and I arrived in Amb. We were met by a guard of honour and a nondescript band playing the most outlandish tunes. Then we were welcomed at a reception where as usual there were no other woman present; my wife became an object of fascination among the other guests, many of whom had never seen a white woman before. After the customary exchange of speeches we were shown to our rooms in the palace – very primitive but clean, with tiny windows overlooking the valley. Under each bed was the inevitable ‘peespat’ and on the bedside table stood a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. Perhaps our host assumed that no Englishman could survive the business of the day without a shot of scotch. In some cases he may well have been right.
That evening we were bidden to an early supper, as we were told that the fighting had intensified between the Nawab and his current enemy, the Nawab of Dir, and that some of the notables might have to leave for the front before nightfall. Dinner was sumptuous: mountains of pulao, goat’s meat curry and kebabs followed by sherbet and all sorts of sticky sweets. After dinner the so-called court jester came in to entertain us; he was a gnome-like little man of uncertain age but with a great twinkle in his eyes and I guessed some of his Pathan songs were not for the ears of a lady – but as she could not understand them it did not matter. He had just regaled us with his one and only English language song, ‘I will buy you a packet of pins’, when the Prime Minister of Amb burst into the room in a state of great agitation. The performance stopped and he prostrated himself before the ruler. When given permission to speak, he produced a schoolboy’s copy-book from which he read the latest dispatch from the front. The news was not good: it seemed the enemy had penetrated about five miles into Amb territory.
Our host seemed not at all upset. Calmly he took us all out to a courtyard to watch him muster his forces. In the late evening sunlight I watched in growing fascination as two field guns were trundled forward for inspection. One was stamped with the maker’s mark – Krupp – but the other one, though it lacked the stamp, looked identical. I asked the Nawab about the two guns. Apparently the one with the stamp had been captured from the Turks in the First World War and afterwards had been presented to the Nawab, in recognition of his services, by the Government of India. The Indians had intended the gun to be used purely for decorative purposes, but the wily Nawab had a better idea. He found a blacksmith who not only made this museum piece operable, but also copied it exactly and constructed a second gun. As the original had been designed to fire a ‘separate charge’ rather than a single shell, they were able to use their own fabricated ammunition: black powder and bags of old nails or nuts and bolts. The calibre was quite small, about the equivalent of a British thirteen-pounder of that era, but it was a formidable weapon as well as a work of art.
Still marvelling at the untutored craftsmanship of the copy, I turned to my host and asked how his men would get the guns into action; after all, the terrain was not exactly suitable. He told me he had plenty of strong young men who could manhandle them up the steepest mountains; in any case, this time they didn’t have far to go.
‘We have enticed the enemy into an enclosed valley,’ he explained. ‘There is a small hill overlooking the valley and when my men get there with the guns, then – poof! We shall blow them all to Gehenna (hell)!’
Another visit I made was to the Nawab of Amb’s other traditional enemy, the Wali of Swat. I had known the Wali, Major-General Miangul Jahanzeb, for some years and his son was in the first batch of cadets at Kakul. Waliahd Miangul Aurungzeb, the heir apparent, was an excellent cadet, an under-officer and runner up for the Sword of Honour. After he graduated his father invited us to visit the state of Swat.
Swat lies north of the Malakand Pass with Russian Turkestan as its northern neighbour. It was at Malakand, in the latter part of the last century, that Winston Churchill got his first job as a war correspondent with the Malakand Field Force. And, according to tradition, it was near the Malakand Pass that the incident occurred that led Rudyard Kipling to write his poem about the water-carrier, Gunga Din. Since those days the Swatis had been loyal subjects of the British Crown, and today of Pakistan. The Swat valley is beautiful and water and game are abundant; the climate is equable all year round, though the surrounding hills are covered with snow in winter.
This visit was a much more sophisticated affair. Arriving in the capital of Saidu Sharif we found ourselves staying in the princely guesthouse, which looked as though it had been furnished by Liberty’s of London. That afternoon our host took us out duck-shooting, for many waterfowl spent the summer months in the valley. We crouched inside carefully constructed, natural-looking hides, waiting for the birds to fly – it is considered unsportsmanlike to shoot a duck sitting on the water, hence the expression ‘a sitting duck’ – and towards the evening the ducks and geese duly began to return from feeding in the fields. There were no gundogs to retrieve the birds; each hide had a couple of local men who splashed happily through the water and retrieved as efficiently as any spaniel.
Among other distractions our host laid on, apart from picnics in the lovely countryside up on the Russian-Kashmiri borders, were golf (on a half-completed golfcourse) and a visit to the emerald mines. I still have an emerald tie-pin with the very stone I saw being dug out of the ground in the valley of Swat.
That first year at the Academy had almost finished by the time we had the official opening, on 25 November, 1949. It all went very well – but of course the main event, the whole purpose of our existence, was the first passing out parade on 4 February, 1950. This important ceremony was to be attended by vast numbers of guests, including the most important in the land: Mr Liaquat Ali Khan, who was both Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. He it was who would finally present the colours to the Cadet Battalion.
I made a special trip to Rawalpindi to collect the flags, newly arrived from the Royal School of Needlework in London. They were magnificent. The Battalion Colour was of Pakistan green, mounted on a staff with a brass-tipped spike, while the King’s Colour featuring the Union Jack was on a staff tipped with a crown. Both were trimmed with a fringe of gold and were encased for travel in leather sheaths. I returned to Kakul in high spirits.
Our preparations for the parade were complete at last, even the tricky business of the seating plan which had to accord with precedence and protocol. The PM and his wife, the Begum Liaquat, were to stay in my private residence and the day before the ceremony I was beset by a swarm of secret service agents who checked on all my servants, looked up every chimney and peered into every bush in the garden. All was well, however, and in addition to their presence a ceremonial guard was posted at the house.
On the evening before the big event I had planned a dinner party for the PM and his wife, and about a dozen other guests including the senior members of my staff. When the PM arrived I took him to the drawing-room, while the Begum retired to her quarters, and wondered whether he would like a drink. I knew he was a pretty liberal man but orthodox Muslim groups were increasingly vocal in their opposition to alcohol. But, charming and tactful as ever, he simply asked what the custom was in my officers’ mess. With the exception of one of my senior officers, all were accustomed to drink liquor; but I simply said that we served all kinds of drinks in the officers’ mess and I left it up to individuals to decide.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘May I have a whisky and soda?’
Before the others arrived for dinner we talked about the next day’s parade, and the PM remarked on the excellent progress we had made at the Academy. By the time dinner was served I was feeling this was a pretty good day. My cook had produced an excellent meal; everyone was relaxed and at ease. The PM was asking what was expected of him during the ceremony tomorrow, and I sketched out the timing and what would happen when he reached the parade ground.
‘And when the time comes to present the colours,’ I went on, ‘I will escort you forward, together with the Cadet Battalion Commander, the Commander-in-Chief and the Regimental Sergeant-Major. There are two colours, the King’s Colour and—’
The PM choked and his face went purple. ‘Brigadier Ingall, are you seriously telling me that you expect me to present a KING’s Colour? I would remind you that Pakistan is a sovereign state – we owe no allegiance to the King!’
Needless to say, after that the soufflé was as flat as last week’s rice pudding. As soon as the dinner was over I told the Battalion Commander to get the colours up to my house in double-quick time. In very short order Mr Duffield and the Battalion Adjutant appeared and, with much stamping and saluting, Mr Duffield revealed the standards to the PM. I did my best to explain the reason the AHQ committee had decided on a King’s Colour, but had to admit that I didn’t know who had given the design the final approval. The PM was not to be mollified.
‘I’m not going to present that flag tomorrow,’ he said, ‘not to anyone anywhere in Pakistan.’
I was shattered. It was after 9.30 in the evening and the ceremony was due to commence at 9 am the following morning. Mr Duffield was marvellous: ‘Not to worry, sir, I’ll have it all squared away by parade time.’ He and the Adjutant and the colours disappeared into the darkness. I returned to my drawing-room to what I thought would be a very awkward atmosphere. Not a bit of it. In my absence, Begum Liaquat had ordered my Chief Instructor to send for our two portable 16mm film projectors, as she wanted to see films about a refugee rehabilitation development. I suggested rather bleakly that we adjourn to the 16mm cinema.
‘Oh no,’ she replied brightly, ‘it’s much more comfortable here.’
My drawing-room was a shambles, everything topsy-turvy. I called for Adalat Khan to bring the drinks tray and attempted to make the best of a bad situation. The PM realized that I was upset and that the faux pas was not of my making, so we chatted lightly of other things while I kept my fingers crossed and tried to stop worrying about the morrow.
Mr Duffield rose to the occasion, as usual. When he left me he went to his office and sketched out an amended drill for the presentation of the Battalion Colour only. He had the colour party on parade at 6 am for rehearsal, and by the time the ceremony commenced all was in order. The passing out parade went off without a hitch. The rejected King’s Colour reposed in the hallway of my house for some weeks, then I took it back to AHQ and handed it over to Major Wilson, the Chief’s military secretary. I don’t know what happened to it finally, but I have often regretted not keeping it as a memento.
I said the parade went off without a hitch. It was some days later that I received a charming letter from the PM, full of praise for the parade and my achievements at Kakul. However, there was a less welcome letter in the same mail. It was signed by a Mr Khan, a newly appointed Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of Defence on Karachi. Using the most vitriolic language he slanged me, my race, my inefficiency as Commandant, and bluntly accused me of being anti-Pakistani. Then he got down to the real reason for his complaint. He and his wife had been insulted at the ceremony. They had been seated in the third row back. Mr Khan thought he should have been seated in the front row.
Knowing how carefully we had arranged the seating plan, I was pretty sure of my ground, but, just to check, I sent for the staff officers who had been responsible for showing guests to their seats. Two of them remembered Mr Khan very well for he had created an almighty fuss when shown his allotted seat; he had demanded the place in the front row that had been reserved for the Governor of the North West Frontier Province. Rightly the two officers had insisted he sit where bidden; ignoring his threats and curses, they considered the incident to be of no great consequence and had not thought it worth mentioning to me.
Mr Khan’s letter could not be ignored, but I seethed over it for twenty-four hours; the man was not merely pompous but had personally insulted two of my officers and now me as well. A devious thought crept into my mind. The PM was also the Minister of Defence, and therefore was not only my ultimate boss, but also Mr Khan’s.
I wrote an abject apology to Mr Khan. Then I wrote in reply to the PM’s letter, thanking him for his warm remarks but pointing out that his view of my efficiency and efforts on behalf of Pakistan was quite possibly coloured by the glamour and pageantry of a special occasion. To reinforce my deprecating remarks I said that not all of the Ministry of Defence seemed as satisfied with either my achievements or my loyalty – and I enclosed copies of Mr Khan’s letter to me and my reply.
It could not have worked better. Mr Khan was sent for by the PM and given the biggest rocket of his fledgling career. He was demoted to Assistant Secretary and banished to the pedestrian offices of the Public Works Department. A riposte in kind would have done me no good, and might have caused all sorts of repercussions. So much for diplomacy when one is serving in the limelight!
The dispute in Kashmir had deteriorated into a series of skirmishes between the regular forces of Pakistan and India. More and more units kept disappearing in the direction of Kashmir. Senior officers, whose numbers were in short supply in the Pakistan Army, were at a premium; and my second in command, Colonel Latif, had to leave the Academy to take over a brigade. Latif and I had become close friends and I would miss his very competent support, but he took a house at nearby Abbottabad for his weekend leaves from the front line, so we still saw each other occasionally.
Just before Latif’s departure the Station Commander in Abbottabad had also left and I was asked to take over his duties in addition to those of Commandant at the PM A. I now found myself having to administer all the military units in Abbottabad and liaising with the local civil authorities; fortunately this was not too time-consuming, for I had so much still to do at the Academy and considered this work far more important. But this new job as Station Commander was to land me in the middle of a very unhealthy plot.
I had heard rumours that certain ‘Young Turks’ in the Pakistan Army felt their superiors were not taking the Kashmiri situation seriously enough, and were criticizing General Gracey, the Commander-in-Chief, for not taking stronger action against the Indians. Bitterly resentful that India had – as they saw it – invaded Kashmir, when Kashmir was a Muslim country and should therefore be part of Pakistan, they wanted an all-out attack on the Indian forces. But I had been brought up to believe that ‘the Army has no politics’ and anyway was inclined to doubt the tales of planned subversion. Meanwhile I did my best to dampen the fever wherever I could. I considered my cadets were too valuable to waste on this wretched dispute; I did not want to send them out as cannon-fodder for the Indians.
As a matter of fact I had made one ‘rubber-necking’ trip to one of the forward sectors, purely out of professional interest, but all was quiet and I learned very little. My visit, however, had been noted by the Indians; years later, when I had left the Army and was living in Bombay, I found the Indian CID was investigating me as a Pakistani spy! But as I told the top CID man in Bombay, the Pakistanis, as members of the British Commonwealth, could obtain more information about Indian affairs than I was ever privy to, simply by applying direct to the British War Office!
One day Latif invited me to a dinner party at his house. I had expected the other guests to include a few old friends from the Academy and was surprised to find they were mostly young officers from the front, including a well-known major-general and an air vice-marshal. I was the only foreigner present. The conversation was mostly ‘shop’, but light and easy at first. I got a little ribbing from them about an All-India Radio report, courtesy of their Intelligence, which had claimed that: ‘That infamous Brigadier Ingall DSO, who commands the Pakistan Military Academy, is in Kashmir blooding his infant cadets.’ Gradually the tone of the conversation changed. It became increasingly political; in fact, some of the sentiments I heard being expressed were downright subversive. Uncomfortably, I turned to my host and told him I would have to leave if this sort of talk continued. But Latif insisted that I stay.
‘I asked you here this evening purposely,’ he said, ‘so that you would be aware of what is toward.’
I was astonished and perhaps a little apprehensive. After all, it seemed there was an undercover plot to subvert the Army authorities, including the British Commander-in-Chief; these men’s loyalty and discipline seemed to matter less to them than their fever for war. It was my duty as the Station Commander in Abbottabad to report such subversion to General Gracey. I said as much to the assembled guests.
Latif gave his slow smile and, for the first time in our association, called me by my first name. ‘Francis, you have done a great job at the PMA. Not even a Pakistani could have instilled such pride and enthusiasm into our young officer cadets. I know you for an honourable man and tonight you have reacted exactly as we expected. We believe that no one in authority understands how strongly we feel about the situation in Kashmir – least of all General Gracey. We asked you here tonight so that you would indeed report all you have heard to the Chief.’
I took my leave with a heavy heart. Perhaps I should have dissuaded them – but it wouldn’t have worked. They were full of revolutionary zeal. Apart from General Gracey’s reaction, I suspected the Government in Karachi would take a dim view of a group of army officers trying to run the country. I was right. The following morning I went to Rawalpindi to see the Chief, and in my presence he telephoned the PM in Karachi to recount all that I had reported.
At first the Government’s response was restrained. The officers were warned and told not to continue with their plot. But they went ahead just the same. One night the conspirators had arranged to meet at Attock Fort on the Kabul River – and the police were waiting for them. All were jailed; some of the most qualified and promising officers in the newly created country were lost to the professional army for ever.
Latif, too, was jailed: a great patriot, but misguided in his enthusiasm. He was ruined. When I last saw him in the 1960s he was the uncomfortable owner of a Shell Oil service station in Lahore.
My time at Kakul was coming to an end – surely the most constructive and creative period of my life. As Commandant of the PMA I had received many distinguished visitors: ambassadors, politicians, nawabs, members of the international press. I had played host to the Governor-General himself, His Excellency Alhaj Khwaja Nazimuddin, and to Miss Jinnah, sister of the Quaid-i-Azam who had so sadly died before ever seeing the Academy. The Prime Minister and the Begum Liaquat Ali Khan had stayed in my house – tragically his life was ended by a madman’s bullet in October, 1951. Among my military visitors had been General Sir Frank Messervy, Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army before General Gracey; Air Vice-Marshal Richard Atcherley, Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Air Force (and winner with his twin brother of the Schneider Trophy for Great Britain); Field-Marshal Sir William Slim, creator of victory in Burma in the Second World War and later Governor-General of Australia; and my former chief from the Indian Imperial Army, Field-Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck. It was Field-Marshal Auchinleck who wrote to me after his visit:
I must congratulate you on what you have done and are doing for Pakistan. Unless I had seen it for myself I would not have believed it possible that the PMA should have become what it is in so short a time. It is almost a miracle!
But my agreement to serve Pakistan for three years would expire in August, 1950. Very naturally the Pakistanis wanted to run their own show, but there was some confusion and reluctance on the part of their Government to release new terms under which British officers might continue to serve. I also was somewhat confused as to my future. I had loved my time at Kakul; it was a fascinating job and I had always intended to serve out my active years as a soldier. But my army – the old Imperial Indian Army – no longer existed. I was not keen to go into the British Army as a second choice and any continued service in Pakistan could only be for a limited time. I was forty-one; if I were going to change my profession, delay could only be a disadvantage.
I received an offer from London to transfer into the Royal Tank Regiment, but it was clouded with if’s and but’s. Because I had commanded a regiment in war, I would never have the opportunity to command again; in other words, they didn’t want to block one of their own for promotion. I would have to join them as a lieutenant-colonel, but due to my ‘record and staff qualifications’, they said, I might eventually become a brigadier on the staff. It was all too iffy.
At the same time I received a letter from the Military of Defence in Karachi asking if I would agree to another year’s extension, until August, 1951. After all I had done, I must admit to feeling just a little hurt and vaguely insulted by this offer. Couldn’t they see that a year out of my life now would be expensive to my future? I felt almost as if I were a lance-corporal being given a chance of an extra year before returning to civvy street. There were still too many ‘time-servers’ among the British officers hanging on in Pakistan; they should have been weeded out and those of us who were doing a constructive job should have been offered a worthwhile contract. At least our service in Pakistan could have counted towards our pension; I found now that it did not, though those who served on in India received such credit.
My long-range plan had always been to go into business; now seemed to be the time. I therefore declined all offers and regretfully wrote a formal letter to the War Office in London, requesting them to place it before His Majesty, praying that I be granted permission to resign my commission with effect from 1 January, 1951. In due course, formal permission was granted.
Meanwhile I had been making contacts. An old friend of mine – Leslie Sawhny, who had been my deputy at the Armoured Officers’ Training School in Ahmednagar – had joined the long-established Far Eastern firm of Killick, Nixon & Co in Bombay. I wrote to him and he kindly arranged an interview with the board of directors in Bombay. Time was short, however; and although there was a regular flight between Karachi and Bombay, regular internal air services had not yet started in Pakistan. Fortunately another old friend turned up trumps: Air Marshal Atcherley, whom I had helped set up the Air Force Academy at Risalpur. He arranged for a service plane to fly me to Karachi, to catch the connection to Bombay, and back again afterwards.
My trip was a great success and I returned to Kakul with a contract in my pocket. All that was left was to pack up and say goodbye to so many good friends at the Academy. On New Year’s Day, 1951, I bade farewell to the Pakistan Military Academy and my career as a soldier. I was very sad. It was not until my wife and I and all the dogs and luggage were aboard the coastal steamer leaving Karachi that my mood lightened. Ahead of me lay a new life in business in the mercantile world of Bombay – and, though I didn’t know it then, eventual settlement in the United States of America.