Fortunately for us the perfectly idiotic accounts that used to appear in those early days of what the Indians were expected to do, or were doing, seldom reached or interested them. They simply did their duty and cared nothing for daily papers; but more than once Indian officers have told me how surprised they were that our newspapers could lie as they did. In any case such stories did much harm, for when instead of finding that the Indian soldiers were some mythical kind of beings, the British public discovered that they were only ordinary men trying to do their duty under inconceivable difficulties, they grew disappointed; but we did gain one advantage, and that was, we were left more alone, and pictures of charging Lancers and bearded Gurkhas ceased to appear. The Seaforth Highlanders was the first British battalion of the Meerut Division to come up against the Germans, when on the 7th November they found their right flank assailed; but the Seaforths, the old 72nd, did not on service allow any man through their lines without a pass, and the enemy could not produce that document. One or two of the attacking Huns reached the trench and remained there for good, and the others were driven back faster than they came, leaving many dead and wounded behind them. The enemy on this occasion used a very large and long-range trench mortar, which did much damage, and to which of course we had no reply. Captain R. S. Wilson and sixteen men were killed and 2nd Lieut. I. Macandrew and sixty-three other ranks were wounded. It was a heavy toll for a short affair, but the battalion at once found that a Corps which had won battle honours from Mysore and Sebastopol to South Africa had nothing to fear from the Kaiser’s legions. During the short time the battalion had been in the trenches it had already, in addition to the above, suffered many casualties, losing four officers wounded, including their splendid Chaplain Rev. McNeill, and one missing, and other ranks suffered in proportion. Part of the 2nd Gurkhas were again employed this day in support of the Seaforths, and during this operation Captain Beauchamp-Duff, son of the Commander-in-Chief in India, was killed. He was a popular officer and a great loss to the regiment. The description of the fighting by the Army Corps in France is of necessity nothing but a long record, practically of siege warfare, on the same front, relieved occasionally by an attack or defence against the enemy, and it therefore lacks the incidents which furnish the war correspondent with copy for stirring descriptions of battles. Nevertheless, even in this somewhat gloomy atmosphere will be found occasional bursts of flame helping to light up the otherwise sombre picture; and after all what is being recorded is the long and patient sacrifice made of course by our own men who had everything at stake on the final decision, but still more by the loyal soldiers of India who were equally enduring.