SIR JAMES WILLCOCKS.

Bush Advocate, Volume XX, Issue 1003, 15 April 1908, Page 2

SIR JAMES WILLCOCKS.

The career of Sir James "Willcocks, the commander of the successful expedition against the .Zakka Kliels/ should serve as a fine example- to young soldiers. His biographer in the Daily Mail draws an interesting picture of this soldier of fifty who feels twenty-five, prides ' himself on keeping fit, prefers shooting tigers in, the heat to recruiting at mountain stations, studies zealously,.. has- perhaps never read a novel, and has ■made it his one aim in, life to be where powder was burning. Eleven years ago he was an obscure staff officer at a small Indian station, with no influence and no prospect of rapid advancement. Four years later he was receiving the freedom of the city of London and a sword of honour from the Lord Mayor for his brilliant relief of Kumasi. Just after he joined the army, the Afghan war broke out. His regiment was oix the frontier, but not on the list for active service. He telegraphed to Simla, where, he had no friends in high places, asking for employment. No doubt scores of officers put in similar applications and were disappointed. AVillcocks' offer happened to be accepted ; he had luck, without which Lord "Wolsley has said a" soldier cannot succeed. Arrived at the rail-head, he found himself stranded, with fifty other men, for ■want of conveyances to Peshawar. A case of heliographs marked "very urgent" caught his eye. He bluffed the postmaster into forwarding them at once, and set off lry night on. the top of a mail-cart. That was his first step on the ladder, and since then he lias seen much fighting on the frontier, in Burma, and on the African coast. Mr Chamberlain, with something of Pitt's ' eye for a .good man, marked him out for command, and his brilliant conduct . of the Kumasi campaign fully justified the Colonial Secretary's action. Like a greater soldier, he is most careful to keep himself in training, and it is lii's pride never to have spent a holiday at a hill station. He thinks that subalterns playing croquet at Simla would be better employed wifli a rifle in the jungle. Perhaps lie is wrong, but it is an excellent thing for the Empire that there are men like him.