Another circumstance in the last year of his command revived his hopes of re-employment. This was a visit by the Commander-in-Chief to Colchester and other places in the Eastern District. Everything had gone very well, the Commander-in-Chief had expressed himself highly satisfied with all that he had seen, and on the last day, at a garden party at Chelmsford, the Chief Staff Officer handed on the encouraging message that Lord Roberts had been much pleased with his visit, and that he had remarked a higher tone amongst officers and men at Colchester than at any other camp. This was, of {271} course, said in private conversation, but it was taken as "inspired." In August of the same year, 1903, when preparations were being made for extensive manoeuvres to be held on Salisbury Plain, Gatacre was appointed as Umpire-in-Chief of the Blue Army. This was a good omen, for it seemed incredible that a post of such importance in the training of the troops engaged should be given to an officer who was likely soon to be struck off the active list, who was, so to speak, already cast. That he had a genuine belief that his services might yet be utilised by the State in some capacity is shown by his decision to go on half pay. In the summer of 1903 he called on the Secretary of State for the Colonies and asked him to consider his name for any suitable post in that Department. I believe that he would have taken the Governorship of any island, regardless of its size or climate, just for the love of the service of the State--just for the pleasure of using powers that he knew himself still to possess unimpaired. The term of the command ran out on December 8, 1903. That he should vacate the post without immediate prospect of re-employment was in itself a bitterness to him, and chilled the expectations that had contributed to the harmony of his days. His memory hung about Colchester for many years. It was not merely that his portrait hung in the Soldiers' Institute that he had opened, {272} nor that he had won many extra comforts for both officers and men in the new barracks that were built under his direction. It was more than this; it was the weight of his name, the tradition of love and esteem that the name revived. When the men were decorating their rooms for Christmas 1906 they made a banner which carried these words: "To the memory of Major-General Sir William Forbes Gatacre--one of the best." This spontaneous tribute was set up nearly a year after his death, and four years after he had left Colchester, a time long enough for the reliefs to have removed all the battalions that had known him there; but there was scarcely a regiment in the service that had not known him somewhere in his thirteen years' service as General Officer. {273} CHAPTER XVIII 1904-1906 ABYSSINIA