Mess trophies and treasures had to be packed; the regimental office had to be packed; all surplus kit had to be packed. Officers’ bungalows found new tenants; officers’ dogs found new owners; officers’ wives stood ready for their voyage to England on such dates and in such ships as the embarkation officer’s wire should direct. Very quickly the armed host shook itself free of encumbrance and stood equipped for war, the while post-cards from the sepoys’ homes fluttered into their camp, pleading ‘Come to me. Don’t go.’ And the voices that answered this pleading of hidden wives, the voices that replied to the hundred rumours—deep voices of sepoys speaking in the vernacular—will ring in my heart till I die. Thus, a Sikh, speaking to his officer’s wife of his ‘house’: ‘Nay, Huzur, I have not written. What profit to write? She will but say, “Take leave and come, I am ill,” and at this hour what man can get leave? This is without doubt no hour for leave. She will say, “Do not go,” having no understanding, but the Presence knows that there is an Order to go. Therefore from Karachi I will send a post-card saying, “I have gone. _Bǎs!_”[8]’ Yet it took thought for the welfare of its wives, this regiment of married men, and there was satisfaction in their tones when they announced to the Englishwoman,—‘The Colonel Sahib says that the Government will make provision for them, and that it will be in no man’s power to take it from them. _That_ money will be no one’s “hukh,”[9] Protector of the Poor.’ Some hundred husbands knew content at the word of one man,—‘the Colonel Sahib says.’ And thus the Indian officers, very courteously,—‘We have eaten your salt and we fear nothing: it is good that we go.’ The Hindus spoke ever of the King, ‘Our King calls us,’ but the Mahomedan looked to his officer, ‘My Sahib is pleased to go; I also am pleased.’ All ranks spoke of the regiment’s name: ‘It is good for the name of the regiment that we go.’ A stripling rose up from among the hot shadows on the veranda, ‘Huzur, I am now the Sahib’s orderly. When the regiment went to Somaliland my father was the Sahib’s orderly. My father is dead, but I am the orderly of the Sahib.’ Something more here than the vow taken on enlistment: some vow this of the heart’s own making. And in the camp a spirit stirring among the menials: a young sweeper, son of a line sweeper, salaaming low to his Memsahib, ‘I am known to all men of the regiment, I go with the regiment.’ Surely they go upward as they go onward, these armed hosts of men who lift such humble beings out of the dust of themselves?