On the Bench continues...

Rear Admiral Rattery was the officer-in-charge of the Naval Establishment in Bombay and it was alleged that it was his tactlessness that had led to the mutiny. In my cross-examination I tried to get to the bottom of it and my searching questions made some of the witnesses uneasy. Admiral Rattary got frightened as he thought he might not be able to stand the cross-examination in the witness box. He sent a request to the Commission through one of its members that no questions should be put to him in cross-examination. I strongly objected to such a request by a witness which in my opinion amounted to contempt of court. He had to face the cross-examination.

I had disagreement on several points at issue with another member of the Commission, General Rees. One of the alleged causes of the so called mutiny was the bad treatment given by the British officers to the Indian officers and ratings and the extremely bad food, full of pebbles and stones, that was given to them. General Rees’s view seemed to be that the army was fed very nicely and underweights blossomed into overweights by the good food given in Naval and Army establishments. He maintained that pure ghee was supplied to the army. I held that the Army and Navy paid for pure ghee but got Dalda at the price of pure ghee. In order to prove his point, he asked us to visit the Naval Establishment at Lonavla and the army headquarters at Poona. He took us to the headquarters of a brigade and called upon the Indian officer in charge of the stores to produce ten tins of ghee. He got them opened and exclaimed, “See what fine ghee it is”. He asked the Subedar about the quality of the ghee. To please the General Sahib he said it was pure ghee. The Subedar was a Sikh from Lyallpur District. I asked the Subedar whether he had any ghee of his own in his possession. He answered that he had recently come from Lyallpur and had brought a tin.

to be continued....