Читать книгу Captain Jack White - Leo Keohane - Страница 9

Chapter 1

Beginnings

An Act of Defiance

Doornkop (‘Thorn Hill’), today a suburb of Soweto, was on 28 May 1900 the scene of what became known as the Battle of Johannesburg during the Second South African War, the Boer War. It was one of a series of ridges held by the Boers, and the British generals decided that it should be taken, not by cavalry but by the ‘grunts’, the original cannon fodder, officially known as the infantry. Fourteen rows of these unfortunates, spread across four miles, steadily made their way up the hill under a withering hail of bullets from the Boers. Comparisons have been made with Balaclava and the set-piece battles of that time.

Among the seven battalions were the Gordon Highlanders, and in the midst of these was a young subaltern, James Robert (Jack) White. Although fresh out of Sandhurst, White could clearly see that the Boer had a ready escape route behind the row of ridges they occupied, and while they had targets sufficiently far away to allow escape, they continued to fire. Eighteen of the Highlanders were killed and anything up to 100 wounded – there were at most about 600 of the enemy. Jack and his platoon were in the tenth row, and by the time they got to the top, most of the Boers had cleared off. Having been under fire, possibly for the first time in his career, he still managed with two of his men to be about fifty yards ahead of his line.

As he reached the dugouts that had been occupied by the Boer he spotted a rifle protruding from behind a rock and, quickly grabbing it, apprehended a very frightened youth. As the rest of his men caught up they were all for bayoneting this obviously shell-shocked fifteen-year-old; they believed he had been directly responsible for the death of a number of their comrades. The commanding officer arrived on horseback and immediately ordered him to be shot. White, as he said himself, was overcome with a ‘wave of disgust’ that ‘swamped his discipline’. He turned, pointing his carbine at the officer, and said, ‘If you shoot him, I’ll shoot you.’

If proper procedure had been carried out at that time for this extraordinary act of defiance, Jack White would have been summarily executed. But a combination of good fortune, his forceful personality, and the fact that his father was a field marshal in the same war must have saved him; there is no account of even a reprimand. It does, however, give some insight into the kind of man Jack White was – a consistent supporter of the disadvantaged regardless of the unpopularity or danger to himself.

Origins

The grave of Jack White is to be found in the village of Broughshane, just outside Ballymena. He lies within a few miles of the foot of Slemish, a corruption of Sliabh Mis, the legendary Irish mountain, on whose slopes St Patrick tended sheep and swine. That his final resting place is there is one of those synchronicities of history that hints at grander schemes.

Although only just over 1,400ft and described unflatteringly by geologists as a volcanic plug, it dominates the landscape for miles around. Looking a little like the remnants of a volcano, its steep barren upper reaches contrast dramatically with the well-husbanded farmlands surrounding it. It is a suitable backdrop to finding God, as the founder of Christianity in this island did more than 1,500 years ago. Modern historians do not connect St Patrick with this place; the nearest acknowledgment is that the territory of Miliucc, the petty king who enslaved Patrick, extended to its slopes.

Mythology, however, does not defer to the discipline of history and has a young man escaping bondage from there and subsequently introducing an island to the ‘one true faith’. Or maybe in more mundane terms, delivering Ireland, as it was later called, from the unconscious of prehistory to the modern world. Christianity either coincided with, or was the principal facilitator of, the introduction of writing to the island; the only evidence of the island’s existence up to then, in the outlook of Graeco-Roman consciousness, lay in the glancing references of commentators like Strabo.

Lack of writing is not evidence of primitiveness (in fact a case could be made that this was a conscious abnegation), rather it is an indication of a culture and outlook that contrasted quite substantially with the familiar Euro-centric approach that has established itself over the past couple of millennia. It is fitting, however, that Jack White should be associated with this iconic, and seminal, figure of mythology on the Irish landscape. He was also a representative of alternative perspectives, as Patrick would have been albeit substantially different. He was a sceptic of the status quo who displayed through his actions and writings an empathy with the outsiders and the disadvantaged. This led along the way to charges of incorrigibility and even downright perversity. On the other hand, his conclusion, towards the end of his life, that he was an anarchist corresponds with a philosophy that would not have been out of place with these earlier, pre-Christian communities.

James Robert (Jack) White was born at Cleveland, Montague Place, Richmond, Surrey, England, on 22 May 1879, the only son of Field Marshal Sir George Stuart White (1835–1912) and his wife, Amelia Maria (Amy), née Baly (d. 1935).1 He had four sisters, Rose, who was older than he, May Constance, Amy Gladys, and Georgina Mary.2 Although the family’s permanent residence was at Whitehall, Broughshane, Co. Antrim, Ireland, Sir George (or, as he was then, Major White), was campaigning in India at the time of Jack’s birth. The later-to-become Lady Amy stayed with her parents for the confinement, and Jack White seems to have been quite influenced by his grandfather, an archdeacon, in those early years. George and Amy had actually met in India when he was first stationed there, and they were married in Simla in 1874.

Joseph Baly, Amy’s father, held an MA from Oxford and had spent a considerable time in India in education before temporarily going back to England as Rector of Falmouth. In 1872 he was appointed Archdeacon of Calcutta. The position was essentially a sinecure, but Baly earned a reputation for social work; he was particularly concerned about the plight of Eurasians. He was a popular figure, being described as an extraordinary speaker in the pulpit, ‘and in the dance hall he was an angel amongst mortals’.3 He finally returned to England in 1883, having been appointed ‘chaplain of the Royal Chapel in Windsor Park’, retaining his post until his death in 1909 at the age of 85.4

Practically the only surviving records for that period concerning White are the reminiscences included in his autobiography. His elder sister, Rose, makes only one glancing reference to him when she mentions that she and Jack were read stories by Sir George from Treasure Island, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Alice in Wonderland, and The Little Red Deer.5

Rose compiled a memoir around 1914 as a kind of family history and this provides invaluable detail on Jack White’s antecedents. The White family, according to their own lore, were originally of English Presbyterian stock, not planters in the strictest sense of the term, but refugees from the English Civil War:

The Family of White is of English extraction, and from the County of York, in the West Riding of which they held considerable property in the reign of Charles the First.

Hudson Hall was the name of their residence there, during the Civil War of that distracted period they espoused the Royal cause, and in the King’s behalf raised and maintained a troop of Dragoons at their own expense, involved in their Masters ruin one individual sought refuge in Ireland, settled in the town of Antrim, and maintained himself and family by teaching a classical school, being a Clergyman of the Presbyterian Church he some time after he was chosen by the Broughshane Congregation of the same persuasion, and near that his descendants still live where he spent his last days. His remains were among the first interred in the Burying Ground at present surrounding the Meeting House at Broughshane. The above mentioned person who spelt his name Whyte was christened Fulke and left two sons, James and Timothy, both preachers.6

That was the year 1716 and this testimony, complete with idiosyncratic syntax, was written in 1829 by Miss Victoria White, great-aunt of Rose and Jack White. Rose goes on to relate that the same Fulke, despite being a Royalist, welcomed William of Orange ‘on his landing at Carrickfergus’. She explains this apparent change in loyalties by noting that the Pope himself had congratulated William after the Battle of the Boyne, adding that ‘I think it would be a fearful shock to most of the Orangemen of today to hear that.’7 It could also indicate an ancestor demonstrating the unconventional behaviour that was to be Jack White’s trademark.

Rose’s elegantly written account of various antecedents does have its share of characters displaying an eccentricity and often obduracy against complying with conventional mores. In passing it has to be noted that Sir Mortimer Durand helped himself to extensive passages reproduced verbatim in his authorised biography of Sir George with only the barest acknowledgment of Rose.8 At one stage she summarises her own perception of the family dispositions:

One of the oldest inhabitants of Broughshane says that ‘the old Whites’ (referring principally to my great-grandfather and his children) were ‘quare people’ but the word queer has a double sense in Ireland and implies quite as much admiration as criticism. To judge my forbears by what I have heard about them and from the characteristics of their descendants I should say they had very marked individuality and idiosyncrasies without any wild eccentricity, great dash and fearlessness combined, in some cases, with considerable indecision, especially in the smallest details of life and almost hypersensitiveness in social relations.9

Written around 1913, after Sir George’s death and prior to the publication of Durand’s biography, these observations could have been applied directly to Jack White himself, and although hypersensitivity is not commonly associated with White, it might explain some of the rash actions he took. Even a detached account like Arthur Mitchell’s from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography comments on White’s temperament; writing about his precipitate departure from the Irish Volunteers, Mitchell notes, ‘characteristically, his involvement was short-lived and ended in his acrimonious departure’.10 There are numerous accounts of White’s disruptive behaviour in relationships, political or otherwise, and the reasons for this may lie in the family tendency to sensitivity rather than the more common attribution of perversity on his part. White acknowledges what he frankly calls his own ‘immaturity’ at various points of his autobiography. In one of his later letters in 1945 to his niece, he mentions that he went to a play with his second wife Noreen (née Shanahan) and admits to an inordinate timidity:

Noreen and I, of course meet, as far as we do meet, on the artistic plane and largely for her sake, I forced myself to conquer the frightful inferiority complex, the sense of being a loathsome worm on which the kindest thing is the stamp [of] the heel.11

Certainly, his grandfather displayed remarkable extremes of diffidence and rashness. For example, on one occasion, having taken umbrage at the attitude of the judge, he precipitately ended his career as a barrister:

[H]e was called to the bar and was always referred to, about Whitehall, as ‘The Councillor’ but he certainly did not do much to earn this title. One story is that he once pleaded in Court and was so much upset by being told by the judge to speak up that he never repeated the attempt. But another story, as told us by the son of the solicitor who sent him his first brief and who thought he had the makings of a brilliant barrister. The brief was returned by my grandfather who said he could not possibly take the responsibility of it. Yet this man when very old and after several periods of feebleness each of which had been supposed to be the beginning of the end, could terrify both his sons by the reckless speed at which he drove a car over a wild mountain road at night in torrents of rain and a heavy thunderstorm. They dared not interfere until at last he suggested himself that it would be well for them to keep a look out as he could neither see nor hear.12

Sir George White

Jack’s father, Sir George, was a remarkable man who achieved the highest level of success in his chosen profession. There was little to distinguish him from other Antrim landowning stock as he languished in various minor military posts from Cork to India. Then, when well into middle age, in an act of madness by any normal standards, he charged up a hill in Afghanistan to attack, single-handedly, a group of Pathan ‘rebels’ and was awarded a Victoria Cross. From there he ended up as a personal favourite of the Queen, and family lore has it that near the end of his life he refused an earldom.

Regardless of his tardiness in joining the ranks of the careerists, there appears no evidence of a willingness to step unthinkingly on others. In fact he seems to have earned a title, most rare among the ambitious, that of a perfect gentleman. Among the more unusual of elegies to him is a letter written long after his death by archive staff employed by his daughter Gladys, who by this stage had become Lady Napier. By the time they had sorted his papers they had come to form an attachment to him that they had not experienced with any other individuals whose papers they had handled before. Allowing even for a certain deference to Lady Gladys (a formidable woman) in this letter, it is still a remarkable tribute to a long dead man. They wrote:

He must have been an exceptionally charming person to have left such an impression behind him. One always gets interested in the people whose papers one’s working on, but one doesn’t necessarily like them in the way we came to like Sir George.13

The goodwill he generated was not due to a charming manner alone; he, with his brother John, were noted for treating their tenants in a most considerate manner. They had to actively persuade these people to buy out their farms when the Land Acts provided for this; the tenants felt they were so well treated that they did not want to take over their own holdings. Earlier still, in 1881, the Belfast Morning Telegraph reported:

Major White, who lately so gallantly distinguished himself in Roberts’ famous march on Candahar, has made a generous abatement in rents to his tenants on his Cushleak estate here – giving 25, 20 and 15 per cent reduction respectively […] Last year his brother Mr John White, of London, gave his tenants here 33 per cent reduction. The White family have certainly shown themselves sympathetic and generous to their tenantry in these depressed times.14

This article was filed under a column called ‘Land Agitation’, and directly underneath it was a report of evictions in County Armagh, indicating that the Whites’ actions were far from conventional practice.

Sir George was not free of the social inhibition seemingly typical of the Whites. Rose recounts an incident where he excused himself ‘for leaving a party early on the grounds that he could not bear to keep his wife waiting up for him and quite making his hearers believe he was married though only eighteen’.15 For all his seeming urbanity, he had considerable problems with socialising, which became more and more a requirement as he rose through the military ranks. Rose again treats of the mannerisms of Sir George and his brother John:

The Whites have an unsociable side to them which is rather hard to explain as they are sympathetic and interested in their fellows. Everyone who met my father and uncle socially seemed to find a peculiar charm in them and they took pains too to make themselves agreeable, but my uncle would hardly ever spend a night under anyone else’s roof (including ours) and Father always had a dread of ‘other people’s homes’ especially in anticipation. When the ordeal was over he would often realise, quite as if it were a pleasant surprise that he had been markedly well received and ‘got on alright’ but, never, even at times when he was being very much lionized did it seem to dawn upon him that his presence would be missed if he sent his womenfolk alone to any social function.

Father liked to meet interesting or lively people (more especially in his own house), but it bored him to have to conform to other people’s habits of life or to go in for any social round and my uncle simply would not face it. Yet, when they were in society neither of them ever showed that he was bored. My uncle was especially impatient of what he called ‘a platitudinous dog’ but while talking to such a person would be almost extravagantly courteous.16

Again this analysis may throw light on some of Jack White’s behaviour. Referring, for example to D.H. Lawrence’s accounts of him, including, most famously, White punching the author in what appears to be a thuggish act, the fact that he was ill at ease and under stress might provide mitigating circumstances.17

Unlike his son, George White pursued a lifetime career in the army. He was appointed an ensign when aged eighteen in 1853 in the 27 Foot and, although quite ambitious, took five years to become a lieutenant, another five to reach captain, and was 38 before he became a major. Instead of being posted to ‘a real war in the Crimea’, he found himself in India which he detested, at first telling his sister that if he ‘had known what sort of a place it was I should have left the army and taken to breaking stones in Ireland’.18 Things changed, however, and he did see action in the Indian Mutiny of 1857–59 in which he won a medal, but it was not until the Afghan War (1879–80) that his much-desired career took off when he had attained the mature age of forty-four. The citation for the award of his Victoria Cross runs as follows:

George Stuart White, Major (now Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel), 92nd Regiment (Gordon Highlanders). Date of Act of Bravery: 6th October, 1879. For conspicuous bravery during the engagement at Charasia on the 6th October, 1879, when, finding that the artillery and rifle fire failed to dislodge the enemy from a fortified hill which it was necessary to capture, Major White led an attack on it in person. Advancing with two companies of his regiment, and climbing from one steep ledge to another, he came upon a body of the enemy strongly posted and outnumbering his force by about eight to one. His men being much exhausted and immediate action being necessary, Major White took a rifle and, going on by himself, shot the leader of the enemy. This act so intimidated the rest that they fled round the side of the hill and the position was won. Again on the 1st September, 1880, at the Battle of Kandahar, Major White, in leading the final charge under heavy fire from the enemy, who held a strong position supported by two guns, rode straight up to within a few yards of them, and seeing the guns, dashed forward and secured one of them, immediately after which the enemy retired.19

It is clear that White displayed a total disregard for the conventional instincts of self-preservation on 6 October 1879. Of course this is a primary requirement for such an award, but, as the citation makes clear, he acted in this fashion on more than one occasion. This lead some to mistakenly believe he had won a double VC; family documents maintain he was recommended on both occasions and ‘his VC bears the two dates’.20 At the age of 44, and with a newly-born son, White displayed a character that could appear enigmatic, at least to a modern sensibility. There are numerous other examples, but these occasions are the most dramatic indications of dedication to a cause that would have to be called selfless.

What The Times called ‘his readiness for any service’ manifested itself in accepting an offer of duty, ‘when at home in command of his own regiment in Edinburgh (a very pleasant duty)’, in Egypt where ‘the post assigned to him was less important than he deserved, and afforded little opportunity for military distinction’.21 A family record of his subsequent career provides details:

In October 1885 he was given a Brigade in Burma and six months later, in March 1886, he was given command of the field force in Burma with the local rank of Major General and remained in this command till 1888, when the subjugation of Upper Burma was complete […] From 1893 to 1898 he was the Commander in Chief in India after which he was appointed Quarter Master General in the War Office. At the outbreak of the South African War in 1899, he was appointed to command the Natal Field Force and defended Ladysmith in the famous siege. 22

For more than twenty years, despite his ambitions, his career had been undistinguished – a rank of major when his compatriot Frederick Roberts (Bobs), just three years older, was already a major general – but from the moment he charged up the hill of Takht-i-shah, his path to eminence took a similar trajectory.

Although earning the soubriquet ‘Hero of Ladysmith’ could be described as the apogee of his fame – he was probably the most famous man in the United Kingdom in 190023 – he continued to earn further plaudits and became a field marshal in 1903. When he died in London in 1912 his body was brought for burial to Fulke Whyte’s plot in Broughshane and his funeral was described as one of the biggest ever in the north of Ireland. Crowds met the ferry at Larne and accompanied it to the graveside; the town of Ballymena, en route, was completely shut down for a number of hours.24

Sir George, despite being known as the ‘Hero of Ladysmith’, had been the subject of questions about the wisdom of his actions in the Boer campaign. Even his obituary in The Times mentioned that ‘he had never commanded an army in the field against forces armed with modern weapons’ and acknowledged that ‘criticisms ha[d] been directed at him’ during the siege.25 However, his popularity overrode any such misgivings and on his return to England, Durand said, ‘it would serve no purpose to describe the various complimentary ceremonials’ that Sir George received except ‘a great dinner given in his honour by the Ulster Association in London’ where he was congratulated ‘upon the way in which he had acted upon the motto of Ulster, “No surrender”’.26 Queen Victoria commissioned a portrait of him by Philip De László, and it still forms part of the royal family painting collection today.27

On 11 July 1900 Sir George White ‘was sworn in as Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the City and Garrison’ of Gibraltar.28 This strategic promontory had been occupied continuously by the British since 1713. It was a staging post for anyone travelling by sea to the Mediterranean, and since the completion of the Suez Canal all shipping bound for the Far East passed through its waters as well. France and Germany during this time were competing for influence in Morocco and a considerable amount of diplomatic activity took place prior to the Algeciras agreement in 1906 shortly after Sir George retired in 1905. The British Empire made its presence felt with flotillas of naval ships steaming around the area in various maritime exercises. The governor’s visitors’ book is replete with a list of the ‘great and good’ as well as those of a more commercial disposition; the fact that it features both King Edward and the Kaiser (twice) indicates the importance of the posting.29 Jack White joined his father there in 1902 as an aide-de-camp and it is probably the only occasion that the two were together for any extended period. It was there also that Jack saw at first hand the real face of imperialism, that is, those operators, those ‘movers and shakers’ whose creed was the garnering of the resources of the world towards primarily themselves.