patched with the syce on two double marches to the
railway terminus. Then I had to procure free railway passes from the
station staff officer, whose office, the day being Sunday, was of course
closed. There was also the putting of oneself, on the one hand, and
one's wife and family on the other, on sound financial bases,
preparatory to an indefinite period of separation. There was also a lot
of sorting and packing to be done, and farewell visits to be made, where
these were officially expected of one. (One's real friends, of course,
one left without a thought.)

I got off on the Monday. People at home are often horror-struck at the
speed with which the married officer has to leave his family when
ordered on service. Fond parents have been known to forbid their
daughters marrying soldiers on this very account. They are quite wrong.
Given that you have to separate, it is much better to get the separation
over as quickly as possible. In this case the speed with which those
busy thirty-six hours passed between the receipt of the telegram and my
departure was a real godsend. A long-drawn-out anticipation of
separation would by comparison have been intolerable.

My wife came to the top of the road that leads to the plains to see me
off. The quickest mode of conveyance was the 'rickshaw.' There ought to
be some glamour of romance about a wife seeing her husband off to the
wars, but how could there be when the husband started in a rickshaw? I
stepped solemnly into the vehicle, and an officious 'jampani' tried to
tuck me up with a rug as though I had been something very dainty and
precious, while my wife, who still preserves a critical eye for Indian
manners and customs, exclaims:--

'Oh dear, oh dear, this is a funny country, when one's husband starts
for field service in a perambulator!'

The rickshaw carried me at break-neck pace to the plains, where, with my
ears singing from the sudden drop of 6,000 feet, and the heat oppressing
me, I took train to my former station, to which I had to make a detour
before proceeding to the base.

It was a terrible two days that I had here. Dismantling a furnished
house, packing and warehousing your household goods, paying your
outstanding bills, having parting drinks at your friends' expense,
giving certificates of saintly character to every black man who has ever
served you in any capacity during the past two years, and who drops from
the clouds for his 'chitthi' as soon as your final