Headquarters were established at Hinges (pronounced by us phonetically), a large château not far from Bethune. In a very few hours we had adapted ourselves to circumstances; electric lights, telephones, and telegraphs were all erected with surprising speed, the Indian Signalling Company under Captain Franklin working as if it had been accustomed to such luxuries, though here they were absolute necessities. The Indian servants adapted themselves at once to kitchen ranges, and meals were served up as if in an Indian bungalow. In the hall, orderlies and messengers, French, British and Indian, fraternised and exchanged a jargon of words; outside stood a couple of German prisoners guarded by a mud-bespattered trooper, waiting to be interrogated. What must have been their feelings as they watched the medley, and heard the mother tongues of races as far apart as London and Peshawar. As I leaned over the banisters, I felt a stern joy that it was my good fortune to be entrusted for the first time in war with so varied a task as the control of such divergent elements of humanity, in the heart of a great European country. Before General Smith-Dorrien handed over the command and left the château, I had the advantage of a long conversation with him. For him I have a great admiration, and I felt his advice would be valuable, and in those two hours I learned much which stood me in good stead during the war. I discovered that in addition to his own war-seasoned Army Corps he had had an extra Brigade. This was news to me; and as I was taking over his front I knew I must hold my trenches very lightly. He knew India and its troops, and had been Adjutant-General as well as commander of a Division in that country, so could speak from personal experience. I received many useful hints from him, and as he drove away I felt we had with the Expeditionary Force a General who thoroughly understood the Corps, and when the day came, which it soon must, for the formation into Armies, I hoped might have us in his command. [Illustration: COUNTRY ADJOINING INDIAN CORPS FRONT.] With the exception of Sir John French and Smith-Dorrien I was at that time the senior officer in France, but I never for an instant suffered under the delusion that this meant anything to me. I had come with the Indians, and I knew that there I should remain and so long only as they chose to keep me. Commands of Armies were altitudes too dizzy to be reached by a soldier who had lived in khaki it is true, but had worn it in far-away portions of the Empire, and had seldom been seen on the Downs of Salisbury or in the purlieus of Pall Mall or Whitehall. The front assigned to the Corps was about eight miles in length from north of Givenchy on our right, passing east of Festubert and Richebourg l’Avoué (only a name on the map), west of Neuve Chapelle, past Mauquissart, and taking a bend to Rouges Bancs on our left.