I took the opportunity to see as many units as possible during the short interval, and it was a great pleasure to talk with Keary, and many others of all ranks, British and Indian. The universal note was satisfaction that they had tried to do their duty. General Keary again commanded his Division at the battles near Festubert and Mauquissart, in May and September 1915, but it was not till he had been in command of a Division in Mesopotamia, much later on, that he was given any reward for his distinguished services. CHAPTER XX On every occasion the Corps had so far been called on to take part in any definite operation, I had felt sure it would acquit itself well, and had cause for satisfaction. But by this time the numbers and composition of the Indian Infantry units had been so reduced that it became a question how to allocate the duties in any offensive movement which might be ordered. At the end of March my recommendation for reorganising the Army Corps had been approved, and the two Divisions had been practically reconstituted. Each of the six Infantry Brigades was now composed of one Regular, one Territorial, and three Indian battalions. In a later chapter I shall give some figures which will show that, notwithstanding a battalion having been added, the strength per Brigade was in most cases so far short of war establishment as to amount to a nominal figure. But still the orders came for a Division to do this and a Brigade something else. Stern business was before us, and immediately the Lahore Division returned from Ypres it again took its place in the old trenches before Neuve Chapelle, whilst the Meerut Division got ready for the operations about to be undertaken for the capture of the Aubers Ridge and neighbouring villages and farms. The fighting for these lasted, as far as we were concerned, from the 9th to the 22nd of May, and during this period it was almost incessant. One attack succeeded another in monotonous sequence; if it was not on a farm it was on a strong point, or a distillery, or some position in a map square. Anyhow, it was the most unsatisfactory job that fell to our lot in France, and we were not alone in this respect, for the Fourth Corps on our left and the First on our right, as well as the Canadians, were to expend a great many lives and much effort with little gain to any of them. The French were making an offensive between the right of the British line and Arras, and Sir John French, in pursuance of a promise to support the Allied Commander-in-Chief, directed the First Army to carry out an attack on the German trenches in the neighbourhood of Rouges Banes by the Fourth Corps, and between Neuve Chapelle and Givenchy by the First and Indian Corps. A reason which we all thoroughly appreciated.