"Not at all. The last two transport officers I have had knew everything--one could not teach them anything. Are you willing to learn?" That officer did his best to learn, and remained Gatacre's transport officer till his regiment left the station. He remembers especially his General's friendly manner, tells us how the dignity and power of his personality enabled him to dispense with the formalities of his position, and to do things which in other men might have resulted in undue familiarity. There was an arrangement by which the other staff officer carried on the work in the office, while the transport officer accompanied the General on all his tours. It is to this officer that we are indebted for the following story. [Sidenote: Maymyo] About forty miles from Mandalay there is a little hill-station called Maymyo, at an elevation of 3,500 ft. It is now full of red-brick buildings, and is the headquarters of the Lieutenant-General commanding the Burma Division, and there is a railway up from Mandalay which runs on to Lashio. But in 1889 Maymyo was but a collection of huts and tents, and the road that led thither was not only execrable to travel on, but infested with robbers. However, it served as a sanatorium, and the sick folk from Mandalay had to brave the dangers of the road. The transport officer had been spending a month at Maymyo with his wife, and, having met with exceptional difficulties in making his journey down, was very much alive to its discomforts. Only two days before another party had been {89} attacked, their native driver killed, and their kit dacoited. When they met next morning the General told the officer to lay a dak to Maymyo, as he intended going there next day. The thought of doing that journey again so soon was most distasteful, but the officer only asked: "What time do we start?" "There is no 'we' in it. You don't go. I am going alone." "That's ridiculous!" followed on, with such simplicity and directness that both broke into laughter.