A TERRITORIAL IN INDIA.
I.
My dear Mr. Punch,—We take special pride in the fact that we were the very first Territorials ever to land in India. As our battalion swung through the streets of Bombay before the critical eyes of the assembled natives, this knowledge enabled us to preserve an air of dignity despite the rakish angle of our unaccustomed topees. When you first march at attention with a rifle and a very large helmet you discover that the only possible position for the latter is well over the right ear. Later on you realise that this is a mistake, like most of the discoveries made during the first few days' residence in India.
On that memorable day, of which our battalion poet has written—
"O day of pride and perspiration,
When, 'scaping from the dreary sea,
We marched full blithely to our station
And filled ourselves with eggs and tea—"
we were eight hundred strong, having spent thirty-two days in a transport and passed through all the salutary trials of inoculation, vaccination and starvation with considerable éclat. Now, alas! we are decimated. Decimated, did I say? Far, far worse than that. We are practically wiped out.