Their Majesties’ gifts and thoughtfulness for their Eastern subjects were appreciated in a manner difficult for Britishers who know not the East to understand. One sepoy had wrapped up a small metal tobacco box given him by a British soldier and showed it to me with much pride. “General Sahib,” he said, “this once belonged to the King, and I am going to carry it about as a charm; I shall get back safely enough to my home.” Another man, very severely wounded, whom I was seeing off in the ambulance, asked me for a “nishan” (souvenir) of the war, and I gave him a handkerchief with blue edges, a part of one of Her Majesty’s gifts to the Staff; he asked me to tie it round his arm as it would be a passport at Bombay, and with a touch of humour he added, “When they see it the Customs officers will not dare to examine my baggage.” This consisted of a German helmet which he had tied on to his haversack. And whilst all these and other signs were not wanting to show the interest taken by our people at home in the Indian soldiers, there had started in England an association which has since rendered signal service to the Indian Army in many theatres of war. The “Indian Soldiers’ Fund” was inaugurated in October 1914 under the Chairmanship of Sir John Hewett, late Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Many ladies and gentlemen connected with India became members, and Lord Curzon of Kedleston very kindly lent his London residence as a Headquarters. Sir C. McLeod, with whom I had played many a game of polo when quartered with my battalion in Calcutta, was the Chairman of the City Committee. He paid me a visit in France and very generously gave some handsome prizes for competition amongst Indian soldiers of all corps. Money and gifts of clothing, necessaries, and all kinds of comforts were liberally supplied. Lady Sydenham, assisted by many others, including my wife, helped to deal with the gifts, etc., and no one can appreciate or understand better than myself the immense benefits the Indians derived during the early days of the war from the gratuitous labours of all those who so ungrudgingly gave their services. It was then a different task from what it became afterwards when experience had perfected the machine. It is not too much to say, that as far as the soldiers of India were concerned, for nothing that was done for them were they more grateful than the work of the “Indian Soldiers’ Fund.” Through Mrs. Morant the hospital at Brockenhurst Park was started and named after the late Lady Hardinge of Penshurst.