A vast plain, now converted into a bog, was literally strewn with vehicles and horses; every species of conveyance found a place, and the fair at Nijni Novgorod could not have shown greater variety; the char-a-banc and the baker’s cart; structures on prehistoric springs; pole and draught harness; horses in hundreds without collars, head or heel ropes—in fact, just loose. It might have appeared grave if it had not been so amusing. But the cart horses and harness were all as nothing to the drivers. Good fellows, who a month later had become useful soldiers, to-day they were indeed a sore trial. I went round to one diminutive man and said, “Do you know anything about horses?” “I do not,” was his reply. “How many days have you been a soldier?” “Thirteen days.” He was doing his best to find his horses, which in company with many others were taking a stroll along the banks of the Loire anywhere within five miles of the camp. I liked that man. Such were some of our first trials, but what minute ones in comparison to the real ones we should soon be facing. The Indian soldiers could not understand all these things! The motor lorries were new to them, and they simply took it for granted that in a European war everything was going to be new. But to see hundreds of magnificent horses wandering about because there was nothing to fasten them with, and drivers who were very much at sea, with a force going into the field, they did not understand. They have learned a good many things since. Of all arms of the Indian Corps there was one not surpassed in any army—the Field Artillery. True, that to furnish the British equivalent of a corps in guns many other divisions in India had lost their brigades, but the artillery as it stood was near perfection. Superbly horsed; with officers and men who had been trained on excellent and varied manœuvre grounds; comparatively old, and in every respect highly disciplined soldiers; the field artillery I had in France was a thing any General might well envy. And moreover, as it was put to no such test as the Mons retreat it went into action fully equipped, and remained throughout the year the Corps was in France a fine fighting machine. Officers and men disappeared as in other brigades of the Expeditionary Force, but the nucleus remained, and improved as time went on. The Indian Divisions had each an entire regiment of cavalry attached as Divisional troops, and in addition a battalion of Pioneers, and in this respect were ahead of British troops in organisation. These Pioneer battalions proved of inestimable value, being trained in various kinds of technical work as well as all ordinary fighting duties. In addition each Division had two companies of Sappers and Miners; acknowledged by all who have ever seen them in the field to be some of the finest engineer troops in our army.