Fourgues added some other things, but it is better not to tell you because you will imagine that I am grousing too much and you know I’m not made that way. The _Pamir_ steered for Marseilles first. We had fairly good weather, we rolled and pitched a little, as we were a bit light, but it was enough to lay five hundred out of the six hundred Hindus on their backs. Almost all the rice is left, for they couldn’t eat a thing. It was better thus, for I don’t know what our cook would have done with six hundred of them to feed. He had no time to waste as it was, though it is easy to take care of Hindus--all you need is some rice and water. A dozen of them had brought flutes or drums, and they did not once stop playing from Port Said to Havre. They played in relays, two at a time, installing themselves just at the foot of the bridge so that those in the hold who were seasick could hear, and all the time, night and day, they beat the drum and played the flute. You have no idea what that Oriental music can be. At first it seemed as though they played the same notes all the time, but it’s not so at all. It comes and goes like a thought! When I had the watch at night sometimes I longed to sleep, listening to them, and then sometimes I wanted to cry. There were times when I wanted to tell them to shut up because it was too stupid to feel so confoundedly blue. And then it would seem as though I must have it and I listened after all. I’m talking rot, old chap. At Marseilles we simply went in and out again. An officer of the English Mission came to tell us to go to Havre with our Hindus, but the senior officers, who had had enough of it in the pigeon-holes of Muriac and Blangy and who had finished their port and their whiskey the day before, asked to leave at once. As they were lords, or little tin gods of sorts they went without waiting and the “subs” took their places. The _Pamir_ went all around Spain and the Atlantic coast with the six hundred Hindus, who got seriously ill and arrived at Havre like rags. Fourgues said that it was just a little barbarous, the more so as nothing is really saved by the trip, for it will take a month at least before all those poor devils will be able to go to the front. They were exhausted. Some of them almost died, they were bringing up blood. And as they were cold, bronchitis and chest complaints had set in. The only physician they had was Fourgues, and that’s all about it! He treated them with doses of rum in hot water, for our medicine chest had soon been emptied. Three of them died, which is not many, say the officers. We buried them at sea with a weight at their feet to make them sink. All of us who were French felt pretty bad about it. But the others----. It’s plain that in India human life doesn’t count for much.