We had arranged to take Guy straight to a picnic with a nice Mrs.
Willmott of Agra, who comes here for the hot weather. So we rode up
past the lake and to the very top of Agarpatta, one of the humps on
the rim of hills. It took us over two hours, and the mist settled in
just as we arrived, about 5, so we picnicked chillily on a misty
mountain-top; but Mrs. Willmott and her sister are exceptionally nice
people, so we all enjoyed it. They have two small children and a lady
nurse for them. I never met one before, but it is quite a sensible
plan out here.

We only got back to this Hotel just before dinner, and there I found a
wire from Major Wyatt asking me if I would command a draft and take it
to the 4th Hants in the Persian Gulf. This is the exact fulfilment of
the calculation I wrote to you in April, but it came as a surprise at
the moment. I was more excited than either pleased or depressed. I
don't hanker after fighting, and I would, of course, have preferred to
go with the regiment and not as a draft. But now that I'm in for it,
the interest of doing something after all these months of hanging
about, and in particular the responsibility of looking after the draft
on the way, seems likely to absorb all other feelings. What appeals to
me most is the purely unmilitary prospect of being able to protect the
men, to some extent, from the, I'm sure, largely preventible sickness
there has been in the P.G. The only remark that ever made me feel a
sudden desire to go to any front was when O'Connor at Lahore told me
(quite untruly as it turned out) that "the Hampshires are dying like
flies at Basra." As a matter of fact, they only had ten deaths, but a
great deal of sickness, and I do enjoy the prospect of trying to be
efficient about that. As for fighting, it doesn't look as if there
would be much, whereon Purefoy greatly commiserates me; but if that is
the only privation I shan't complain!