yo A Sportswoman in India 



cheery lunch, drank all sorts of toasts, and heard and 

 told all sorts of news. 



The officers' own individual tents struck us a good 

 deal : the best way in was on all fours, for they were 

 only high enough, long enough, and wide enough for a 

 man to lie comfortably at full length. The Tommies 

 were not provided with one of these little khaki graves 

 apiece ; but slept sixteen in a large tent, with their 

 rifles rolled up inside their blankets with them. The 

 Afridis and Pathans are wonderful rifle thieves, and 

 love a rifle better than their own souls. In spite of 

 sentries, hardly a night passed without their visiting 

 the camp, and drawing revolvers from underneath 

 pillows, rifles almost out of the sleeping men's very 

 arms, and disappearing with their booty. 



The troops at Ali Musjid had begun to play hockey, 

 in default of any other sort of recreation, and had 

 had a match against Jamrud. But it was already 

 getting hot, and later on, when our troops were still 

 quartered there, the number of deaths among them 

 was appalling. The sun-scorched valley was fitly 

 named by the Tommies " Helly Musjid" In the 

 winter it had been bitterly cold : General Hart told 

 us their average for tubs was one in eleven days, and 

 most of the officers found it resulted in a cold. Spring 

 brought freezing, piercing winds, which whistled un- 

 mercifully down the valley, as down a funnel ; to be 

 succeeded later on by a hot wind, which, if the other 

 had flayed ofF every particle of skin, burnt and dried 

 and covered with sand all that was left on the bones. 



