Be this as it may, our sepoy, seeing he must now feign hatred of us or go under, by signs and gestures soon assured his captors that his one object in life was to cut the throats of the English, and to give emphasis to his bloodthirsty proclivities he passed his hand across his throat, repeating with angry looks, “English, English.” This was enough to at once bring him a liberal supply of rations and other trench luxuries. His next business was to discover some means of escape, and he managed by counting on his fingers and saying, “_Beimān_” (unfaithful) whilst pointing to our trenches, to impress his would-be friends that other scoundrels as black as he were willing to desert. Coffee followed this interesting bit of news, and after much palavering the sepoy was allowed to leave on his mission. Creeping carefully he rejoined his battalion and the Huns saw him no more. All ranks felt the bitter cold and there were a large number of frost-bites and trench feet as they were called, but taken all round the Indian troops stood it far better than I had ever believed possible. A factor in their health was the extraordinarily good arrangements for giving the men baths and providing them with hot water. Once out of the trenches (such occasions were rare in those times) a man was certain to get a hot tub of sorts. All kinds of contrivances were gradually furnished by Government; heaters, clothes driers, fumigators, travelling boilers were sent out by kind friends and by the “Indian Soldiers’ Fund.” The Indian with water of any kind is like a child by the sea, he must at once dabble in it. Now the sea is pure, but our sepoy has a bad habit of entirely ignoring all sanitary laws where his _pani_ (water) is concerned; so long as it is water he will drink from any pool or wash in any gutter, and much as I admire and like him, I have in my time been obliged to inflict very severe punishments to lead and keep him in the path of sanitation. Hence when he found clean hot water was as easily procured as muddy cold water, he naturally chose the former. Riding out one day I saw a shower of paper descending earthwards evidently dropped from an aeroplane. They were leaflets printed in Hindi calling on our Indian soldiers to rise against the British. Comically enough the call was headed, “True information”! thereby proving the Germans can sometimes perpetrate a joke. Here is the text: The Sheik Ul Islam has proclaimed a Jihad (Holy War) on the Id (a festival day) at Mecca against the British, Russians, and French. The Sultan of Turkey has started a war against the same oppressive people, and he has been joined by the King of Afghanistan.