to follow me painfully round _via_ Agra. And if I post this at Basra,
it will have to go back to Bombay before starting for England; though
people here are already talking of the time when we shall have
finished the Baghdad Railway and letters come by rail from England to
Basra in about 5 days.

Meanwhile as I have no letters of your's to answer and no news to
discuss, I will try and give you an account of myself and my fifty
veterans since I last wrote.

The fifty just form a platoon. You see, my retromotion goes on apace.
A Company Commander from August to April, a Company Second in Command
from May to August, and now a platoon Commander. I shall find the
stage of Sergeant harder still to live up to if it comes to that.

Twenty-five are from 'D' Double Company; but only seven of these are
from my own original lambs of 'F': because they wouldn't take anyone
under twenty-three, and as I have mentioned before, I think, very few
of 'F' have qualified for pensions. As it is, two of the seven gave
false ages. The other twenty-five are from a Portsmouth
Company--townees mostly, and to me less attractive than the village
genius: but I daresay we shall get on all right.

Our start wasn't altogether auspicious--in fact taking a draft across
the middle East is nearly as difficult to accomplish without loss as
taking luggage across Scotland. We had a very good send-off, and all
that--concert, dinner, band, crowd on the platform and all the moral
alcohol appropriate to such occasions. It was a week ago, to-day, when
we left Agra, and Agra climate was in its top form, 96° in the shade
and stuffy at that. So you can imagine that it was not only our