"STALKY"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 79, 28 December 1918, Page 9

"STALKY"

A KIPLING HEEO IN EEAL LIFE.

General Dunsterville, commanding tho British forces in- Persia, is none other than Kipling's "Stalky." Kipling was "Beetlo" in tlio firm of "Stalky, end Co.'," and the two have keptup a- fast friendship since tho days of Westward Ho! Dunstorville- is a well-known', figure , in India. Until recently ho was in command of tho 20th Punjabis.' His arrival iii Mesopotamia was characteristically dramatic. A secret expedition was being organised for 'some mysterious mission in tho north. .Picked'officers were detached for the adventure. No 0110 was supposed to know' where they were going or what they were going to do; only it became known that they were always changing rupees at the Field Treasury for the. Persian The ■'mystic word "Caspian" was in the air. Then, to complete the mystification, who should step 011 to the stage as their leader, a veritable god out of tho machine, but "Stalky."

General Dunstorville's namn appeared in connection with tho expedition .-for the first time when it was officially divulged that "Stalky and Go." )w& peW--1 rated as .far.as Baku, whence they had been compelled to withdraw on account of the defection of the' Armenians. ■ "Stalky,"-as maybe gathered from the pages of his prophetic chronicler, is a diplomatist as well as a •'soldier.' find there is as much scope.,for diplomacy in the envionment in '.'which he now finds himself as for tho high soldierly qualities which he is known-to possess. He speaks Russian like a Slav. Tn Peking ho was the (inly Englishman who could cbnverso easily' with the representatives v- <f. the different. Powers in their own ton,. \ In his command of Pushtu and all , of • the North-West Frontier he is second to none. : Ho has always been a good, Persian scholar, and no doubt he has mastered Kurdish and all the'dialects of tho tribes on tho road to tho Caspian long ago. And he can interpret, what is in the hearts of strange peoples as well as what is on their lips. Psychology, racial and individual, is his hobby. Another virtue that has alroadv stood him in pond stead ifl his remarkable control of his' temper.. ■ In the early days of the cxneilitio" lie rnn inlo a .'Hornets' nest of Bolsheviki. our late.allies, who explained aifrrily that thev could not allow this, that, or the other, because they wore now Hie friends o.f the Germans and the Turks, and they might rni-e it in ill part. '.' .

"Of cflirwv yon would be" pnid. "I quite bop vour.point of view. Tt woiO'l 'be.impossible (hat. y.nu should be niivtlnuf else. And noir -svbat about a little lii;lit. vefre'liment?".,.

And "Stalky" gained .his point.