The Drabi and Kahar[11] are no longer followers. They are combatants and eligible for decorations, and their names appear in the columns of honour in the Army List, and occupy an increasing space. If cooks, syces, bhisties, bearers and sweepers were eligible too, their names would also appear; for the war has proved that chivalry exists under the most unlikely exteriors. A great deal has been written about the Drabi and the Kahar, and their indifference to danger. The nature of their work keeps them constantly under fire, whether they are bringing up rations to the trenches, or searching the ground for the wounded. The recognition of them as combatants is a belated act of justice, and one wishes that the devotion of the humbler menial classes could be recognised in the same way. One meets followers of the wrong kind, but the old type of Indian servant has increased his prestige in the war. Officers who did not know him before are impressed with his worth. He has shown courage in emergency, and, what is more, he has the British habit, only in the passive voice, of "slogging on." One admires the Indian's impassivity under fire, and one is sometimes led into neglecting cover on account of it. It does not do for the Sahib to sneak along behind an A.T. cart when the Drabi is taking his chance with the mules in front. In France I heard an amusing story of a Sergeant-Major who had to thread a bombarded area much more slowly than his wont, on account of the sang-froid of a syce. An officer was taking an extra horse with him into Ypres at a time when the town was beginning to establish its reputation for unpleasantness, and he came in for a heavy bombardment. Besides the usual smaller stuff, seventeen-inch shells were coming over like rumbling trains, and exploding with a burst like nothing on earth. The officer wished he had left his second horse behind, and was wondering if it would be safe to send his syce back on the chance of his finding the new dump when he met the Sergeant-Major who was returning direct to it. The Sergeant-Major undertook to show the syce the way, and to look after him. When next the two met, the officer asked the Sergeant-Major if the syce had given him any trouble. "Trouble, sir! He came along fast enough until we got to the _pavé_. Then he pulled up, and wouldn't go out of a walk. It was as nasty a mess-up as ever I've been in, but he wouldn't quit his walk." The Sergeant-Major's language, I believe, was as explosive as his surroundings; but the syce humbly repeated that it was the Sahib's orders never to go out of a walk where there was hard ground or stones, and "here it was all stones." Five battery mules were knocked out, and a syce and horse killed next door to him; still he walked--or capered, for the horse, even more than the sergeant-major, was for taking over charge.