Aside from the transports and a few small Indian ammunition carts, with open bodies made of slats, and drawn by two mules, with an impassive turbaned driver calling strange words to his team, there was no sign of war.  No bombarding disturbed the heavy atmosphere; no aeroplanes were overhead.  There was no barbed wire, no trenches.  Only muddy sugarbeet fields on each side of the narrow road, a few winter trees, and the beat of the rain on the windows.

At last, with an extra lurch, the car drew up in the village of Ham.  At a gate in a brick wall a Scotch soldier in kilts, carrying a rifle, came forward.  Our errand was explained and he went off to find Makand Singh, a major in the Lahore Lancers and in charge of the post.

It was a curious picture that I surveyed through the opened door of the car.  We were in the centre of the village, and at the intersection of a crossroads was a tall cross with a life-size Christ.  Underneath the cross, in varying attitudes of dampness and curiosity, were a dozen Indians, Mohammedans by faith.  Some of them held horses which, in spite of the rain, they had been exercising.  One or two wore long capes to the knees, with pointed hoods which fitted up over their great turbans.  Bearded men with straight, sensitive noses and oval faces, even the absurdity of the cape and pointed hood failed to lessen their dignity.  They were tall, erect, soldierly looking, and they gazed at me with the bland gravity of the East.

Makand Singh came hastily forward, a splendid figure of a man, six foot two or thereabout, and appearing even taller by reason of his turban.  He spoke excellent English.

“It is very muddy for a lady to alight,” he said, and instructed one of the men to bring bags of sacking, which were laid in the road.

“You are seeing us under very unfavourable conditions,” he said as he helped me to alight.  “But there is a fire if you are cold.”

I was cold.  So Makand Singh led the way to his living quarters.  To go to them it was necessary to pass through a long shed, which was now a stable for perhaps a dozen horses.  At a word of command the Indian grooms threw themselves against the horses’ heads and pushed them back.  By stepping over the ground pegs to which they were tethered I got through the shed somehow and into a small yard.

Makand Singh turned to the right, and, throwing open the low door of a peasant’s house, stood aside to allow me to enter.  “It is not very comfortable,” he explained, “but it is the best we have.”

He was so tall that he was obliged to stoop as he entered the doorway.  Within was an ordinary peasant’s kitchen, but cleaner than the average.  In spite of the weather the floor boards were freshly scrubbed.  The hearth was swept, and by the stove lay a sleek tortoise-shell cat.  There was a wooden dresser, a chimney shelf with rows of plates standing on it, and in a doorway just beyond an elderly peasant woman watching us curiously.