It is on record that the Gurkhas were so overjoyed at finding themselves for once out of a bog that they literally tore over the rolling country until within 300 yards of the German lines. An officer who was present, and who afterwards went to Gallipoli, wrote to say that when his men saw the barren hills there, they shouted, “Hurrah! at last we shall be able to shoot on a hillside—no more snipe _jheels_ for us.” Oh! if some one who knew what many of our Indian battalions could do (outside of eternal mire) had given us a chance in France, even for a short spell, what an opportunity it would have been of proving once for all that the hillmen of India with British officers cannot be beaten in hilly country no matter who the foe. But the depression caused by existence in the same fetid morass for fourteen long and blood-stained months, without any change, was enough to turn sour the cheeriest mortal that ever shouldered a rifle. I make bold to say that no other Corps, Division, Brigade, or unit in France was ever kept as long on such a narrow, cheerless front as was the Indian Corps, nor, had they been, would they have stuck it out any better. The right battalion, 1/4th Gurkhas, in its rush arrived near the farm, the vicinity of which had been the scene of Captain Tarrant’s exploit. Here they were joined by their supporting battalion, the Highland Light Infantry. In this operation the rapidity of the Gurkha advance served them well, as only some fifty casualties were recorded. The Highlanders had eighty casualties, including 2nd Lieut. McIntosh of the Indian Army attached to the battalion, killed. The 1st Gurkhas only finished their rush when but 200 yards severed them from the German trenches—that fateful “No Man’s Land,” so familiar to every soldier, so dreaded by every mother and wife, the Lethean zone which alone separated civilisation from modern barbarism; that 200 yards which was more difficult to cross than the 600 leagues over which Xenophon retreated, or the vast expanses Marco Polo explored. But in the ranks of the army of Great Britain’s King the occasion always finds the man. Close by the German front was a trench: Who was in it—friend or foe? Havildar Bhakat Sing Rana of the 2/4th Gurkhas, attached to the 1st battalion, offered to solve the riddle. With a small chosen band he crept out and, cheating death, discovered it was held by our Allies. The Indian Order of Merit could not have been better won. The 1st Gurkhas had about seventy casualties in this attack, and the supporting battalion, the 4th King’s Liverpools, added forty-five, including Captain Lumsden killed, and Major Beall, who had led so well a few days previously, wounded. I will quote from General Keary’s report, which concisely explains the movements of the Brigade: