blessed apparently both with a slim waist and a
strong arm. With the former she advertised the latest thing in corsets,
and with the latter she fitted the said corset on to figures less
graceful than her own. All went well till one day she surpassed herself
by transforming a certain stately matron into a veritable sylph. This
lady went home pleased and proud, but in an hour's time an indignant
letter accompanied by the fragments of a corset reached the manager, the
letter demanding the return of the money expended on the corset, on the
ground that the latter, on the wearer having cleared her throat with a
gentle cough, had burst in several places with a loud report.

But just then the train steamed into Siliguri station, and I had to
leave my friend and his pleasant tales of frills and furbelows and
plunge into war, bloody war.

CHAPTER III

THE BASE

I have been too long describing the preliminaries that were necessary
before joining the Expedition, but there is some excuse for doing so.
For after all those preliminaries, with their suddenness and their hurry
and rush, were distinctly typical of the Indian Frontier Expedition.
When soldiers serving the Imperial Government are ordered on a campaign,
they generally have some warning. Foreign politics have generally been
simmering in the pot for some time before the pot overboils. But on the
Indian Frontier some irresponsible ruffians perpetrate some sudden
outrage, which, without any word of warning, involves the instant
despatch of troops to the scene of action. The result is a scramble, an
individual example of which I have tried above to describe.

In all books on wars a constant comparison will be found drawn between
the school-boy and the soldier on service. I dare say I shall find
myself working that comparison to death. It occurred to me first as I
reached Siliguri, and, jostling with other fellows, rushed to the Staff
Office there, to discover what was my next destination. We felt like
schoolboys, who, at the beginning of term, rush to inquire whether they
have given us our remove, or who anxiously await the publication of the
notice which will tell them whether they are to represent their house at
football. There was the same excitement before we learnt our fate. There
was that boyish jubilation on the part of those who were off to the
front, and vulgar schoolboy language from those who were to be detained
at the base or in Sikkim.

My orders were