Ex-Brigadier

Last week's principal discovery was a onetime Brigadier General of the English Army washing dishes in a Quebec hotel. While he scrubbed, Charles Henry Gough could ponder a seesaw career in which he had at various times been custodian of drumsticks, sabres, human lives, counters of lingerie, saxophones, dishrags.

He was born in England in 1884, joined the colors as drummer boy at the age of 14, served 21 years in the British and Australian armies. His campaigning carried him to the Occupation of Crete, 1898; the South African War, 1900-02; the Tibet Expedition, 1904-05; the North West Frontier Expedition, 1908-12; Australia; Egypt; Gallipoli; France.

At Bullecourt during the Great War an explosive shell ripped out part of his right thigh; a remarkable operation of bone grafting proved effective; after five months he left the hospital. Official dispatches cited him as an officer with "vim ... initiative ... intimate knowledge ... smart demeanor." He was twice awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal of the British Empire, wears the Croix de Guerre with Palms, of France, the Cross of St. George, of Russia. Demobilized in 1919, he was a ranking Colonel and temporary Brigadier General. At this time he came to the U. S. where he was employed as a floorwalker in the New York department stores, of Abraham & Straus and John Wanamaker. He played the clarinet in the Police Reserves Band of New York City. For a special concert at Fort Hamilton the bandsmen were ordered to wear what decorations they possessed; Brigadier General Gough's ribbons of rank awed his companions; he was the feted hero of the musicians, who had hitherto known nothing of his history. Reserved, unwilling to rely on his military connections to further his welfare, he later became saxophonist-director of a dance orchestra at the Club Polle, Manhattan. At this period the floorwalker, syncopater, broadcaster was earning $7,500 a year, but a malicious busybody informed the immigration authorities that he had overstayed his leave, and Versatile Gough went to Canada. Quebec offered him nothing but the position of dishwasher at the famed Chateau Frontenac. Here a wartime subordinate arriving on the cruiser Australia discovered him, exposed his situation in a letter to the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph. The determined, zestful officer is now forcibly in the limelight, receiving belated offers of worthy employment. Mrs. Gough and two children have lived in Nova Scotia while General Gough tried gallantly to provide.

Said Mrs. Hannah Andrews, of Brooklyn : "He was a lovely man, so gay and happy, never minding his comedown in the world a bit. I'll never forget the day he brought home a saxophone. Just like a child, the way he took it up. He was one of my best boarders."