To those who understand Indians there can be no greater mistake than to be niggardly in the bestowal of war honours. The Indian Order of Merit carried with it a small life pension, and this was of very great importance to men who gave their services for a totally inadequate remuneration. It was the highest honour a soldier could earn until the Victoria Cross was opened to him by His Majesty the King at the great Delhi Durbar. To show how well Lord Roberts understood the value of immediate rewards to the Indian Army, after the defence of Thobal in Manipore by Major Grant in 1891, a feat which made India ring with praise of the gallant little band, Grant was especially promoted from Lieutenant to Brevet Major and awarded the Victoria Cross, and every man of his party (I think about seventy) received the Indian Order of Merit. How much greater were the toils and dangers of Flanders! Willans of the 57th Rifles received a D.S.O., and his brother-officers, Captain W. S. Trail and Lieut. E. K. Fowler, the Military Cross. Dill of the 129th Baluchis received the D.S.O.; and besides Sepoy Khudadad, who, as already told, won the first V.C. given to the Indian Army, the five men of his Maxim detachment who were all killed were rewarded posthumously, the havildar receiving the Indian Order of Merit, and his comrades the I.D.S.M. It was the fate of the Indian Corps to be allotted for nearly fourteen months almost exactly the same part of front, with only two small breaks in the monotony. One has already been described, and the other was when the Lahore Division was temporarily detached for a few days to take its share in the second battle of Ypres in April 1915. With these two exceptions the Indians were confined to the fronts from just north of Neuve Chapelle to Givenchy, a distance in a direct line of about seven miles. If any one had thought how best to dishearten good soldiers, they could not have chosen a better method. Often did I urge that we might be given a change from the same bogs and swamps to somewhere north or south, but it was not agreed to, and so for over thirteen months the men went up to the same old trenches and returned to the same monotonous billets, until many of them believed it was probably all or a greater part of the entire British line. We often wondered what could be the reason: I knew myself, but that is another story.