hout all the world, Mother, and yet these sons of
mean fathers must proclaim a beggars' festival in order to add to it!
There should be an order of the Government to take all those lazy
rascals out of India into France and put them in our front-line that
their bodies may be sieves for the machine guns. Why cannot they
blacken their faces and lie in a corner with a crust of bread? It is
certainly right to feed the family priests, Mother, but when the idle
assemble in thousands begging and making sickness and polluting the
drinking-water, punishment should be administered.

Very much sickness, such as cholera and dysentery, is caused by
drinking foul water. Therefore, it is best to have it boiled, Mother,
no matter what is said. When clothes are washed in foul water, sickness
also spreads. You will say, Mother, that I am no longer a trooper but a
washer-woman or an apothecary, but I swear to you, my Mother, what I
have said is true. Now, I have two charges to deliver to you as to the
household under you. I beg you, my Mother, to give order that my son
drink water which is boiled, at least from the beginning of the hot
weather till after the Rains. That is one charge. The second is that
when I was going down to the sea with the Regiment from home, the Lady
Doctor Sahiba in the Civil Lines asked of our Colonel's lady whether
any of us desired that their households should take the charm against
the small-pox [be vaccinated]. I was then busy with my work and I made
no reply. Now let that Doctor Sahiba know that I desire by her favour
that my son take the charm as soon as may be. I charge you, Mother,
upon _his_ head that it is done soon. I beg you respectfully to take
this charge upon you.

Oh, my Mother, if I could now see you for but half of one watch in the
night or at evening preparing food! I remember the old days in my
dreamings but when I awake--there is the sleeper and there is the
bedding and it is more far off than Delhi. But God will accomplish the
meetings and surely arrange the return.

Mother, before going out to the attack the other day, I had a dream. I
dreamed that a great snake appeared in our trenches in France and at
the same time our Pir Murshid [our family priest] whose face I saw
quite clearly, appeared with a stick and destroyed it. Well then,
Mother, our lot went in to the attack and returned from it safely.
Those who were fated to be the victims of death were taken and those
who were fated to be w