Gatacre was forty years old when he succeeded Colonel Colquhoun; he had served very little with the regiment, but the time spent on the staff had added to his professional value. While his acute perceptions and easy receptiveness had ripened his judgment on many points, his simplicity of character and natural integrity remained unimpaired. He had downright notions about right and wrong, but was influenced more by the spirit than by the letter of the {56} bond: he was very just, but never hard, always showing a lofty sympathy for those in trouble of any sort, and a tender consideration for their feelings. There was about him a curious balance of moral austerity and physical tenderheartedness; these apparently contradictory qualities both came into fuller play when in the field. He taught the regiment to work with the disinterested spirit that animated himself; to work for the work's sake: he insisted on every duty being done correctly and conscientiously and strictly according to regulations. He never shrank from the disagreeable duty of rebuke, where the interests of the service were at stake; but at the same time he never unduly worried his subordinates, or interfered with their province, and in no way passed the frontier of his own department. If he wanted more work, he looked beyond and not below his own sphere of influence. Even at this time Gatacre's willingness to accept responsibility and to undertake troublesome and unexpected tasks was remarkable. Where some men might raise objections and fear obstructions when asked, or even ordered, to get something done that was new or out of the common, he would welcome the call on his resources, and do his utmost, by enlisting the goodwill and co-operation of those about him, to carry the business through. Later on, one of his colleagues in Poona looked upon his trick of saying, "No difficulty about that," as evidence of a very valuable quality; and in {57} the Office in Bombay there was a joke that the word "impossible" was not allowed.