Imagine a cold winter’s day in Flanders; a biting wind, perhaps snow falling, and a hundred odd, unwilling and unfit reservists from the tropics, standing shivering. The sound of the guns was more or less incessant; overhead passed one or more aeroplanes; an occasional burst from an anti-aircraft gun gave colour to the scene, and you have a picture of more than one inspection of reservists I carried out. It was unfair to the men themselves, still more to the Corps, and most unfair to those who had to include them in their ranks and show a battle strength of so many hundred men on paper. Of course these remarks apply chiefly to reservists, and some other drafts; there was the other side of the picture. Whole double companies occasionally arrived from other battalions, splendid fighting material and glad to be with us; and although this meant weakening the units they came from, that was another story with which we could not concern ourselves. As time wore on, India found it necessary to fill our gaps as far as was possible from all classes and parts of the country. There were at times in a single battalion men collected from nine to eleven different units, and to those who know the Army, its composition and its regimental system, it will be very evident how impossible it became to keep battalions to a proper standard. Had this been the case with the Indian ranks alone, the British and Indian officers could have worked great changes, but these had themselves disappeared in large numbers and been replaced by newcomers, some with a little and many without any experience whatever of the classes they were posted to. Towards the end of January a question was raised as to the reduction of British officers in Indian battalions. I was surprised to receive a letter through G.H.Q. asking if this could not be done. Considering our losses in officers and the absolute necessity of keeping these up to at least the number then fixed, viz. twelve combatants per unit, I found no difficulty in proving that not only was no reduction possible, but if efficiency was to be maintained an increase was necessary. I presume the suggestion was only made owing to the great shortage that then existed and the difficulty of finding replacements, but there was no question as to the answer, more especially as I was well aware that a great number of Indian Army officers were being employed on Staff duties in England or with the New Armies then in course of formation. During the winter months I received several letters from General Sir Dighton Probyn. He of course took the greatest interest in the Indians, and in one he said to me, “I wish I could reverse the figures of my age and make myself twenty-eight instead of eighty-two. I would then beg of you to take me as anything, trooper or mounted orderly,” and added that the shirkers would have a miserable existence to the end of their days, after the war.