The strength of the Regiment when it embarked, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Symons, was 20 officers,[7] including the Medical Officer, 499 other ranks, including the Assistant-Surgeon, 560 horses, and 1 pony. Several officers were on leave in England, and some of them were expected to join later; but others had already gone to the Front, of whom 2 had been killed and 2 wounded.[8] The Regiment was distributed in two transports--Headquarters and three squadrons, “A,” “B,” and “D,” on board the _Dunluce Castle_, “C” Squadron and the machine-gun detachment on board the _Risaldar_. During the 18th of November the vessels remained at anchor, for they were to form part of a convoy, and some of the other ships were not quite ready to sail; but on the 19th all was in order, and then at 9 o’clock in the morning the whole convoy, to the number of 26, weighed anchor and steamed slowly out over the sunlit waters of the harbour. Outside, the convoy stopped to pick up a few more ships joining from another port, and then the whole formed up, six abreast, and, led by an escorting cruiser, sailed away to the westward. It was a fine sight, though a sad one for the women of the Regiment, who were left behind on shore. Many of them had looked their last upon their men. But that is war. [Illustration: THE DEPARTURE FROM BOMBAY. 19TH NOVEMBER 1914] It was a striking incident that the convoy was escorted from Bombay by the _Dupleix_, a French man-of-war. In the old days, when the French and English were fighting out their long struggle for the mastery of India, the English had no more dangerous enemy than Dupleix, who tried to raise against them a confederacy of Indian powers, and as some believe taught them the use of Indian soldiery trained after the manner of Europe. Sea-power, which he did not understand, baffled all his efforts and decided the struggle in favour of England. Now, if the spirit of the great Frenchman had returned to the shores of India, he would have seen the same sea-power again triumphantly exerted, and would have watched his own countrymen, in a vessel which bore his name, joining with his old enemies to convey to the shores of France, for the help of France, thousands of Indian soldiery drilled and disciplined after his own fashion. If he could have gone with them he might have seen another and even more striking example of the irony of fate. He might have seen on the shores of the Channel the figure of another and greater Frenchman, looking down from his lofty column, not upon the ranks of his veterans gathered together for the invasion of England, but upon the tents of numberless British encampments full of Englishmen assembled on French soil to fight for France. A hundred years before, English sea-power had foiled his vast schemes of conquest. “Those far-distant, storm-beaten ships upon which the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and the dominion of the world.” And they had prevailed.