More from David Omissi’s fine collection of Indian soldiers’ letters.

Ressaidar Hushyar Singh (Sikh, 34) to Jemadar Harband Singh (9th Hodson’s Horse, France, 24)
16th Cavalry, Mesopotamia, 30 January 1916

We have got a fine opportunity of fighting. No doubt you are right in thinking that you too are fighting; but you are having a very different time from us, for you have everything you can want while the country here is absolutely uninhabited and desolate. Never mind: when we are winning we are equally indifferent to comfort and inconvenience. [Letter passed]

- David Omissi, Indian Voices of the Great War: Soldiers’ Letters, 1914-1918 (London: 1999), 144.


 Indian troops laying telephone wires over desert in Mesopotamia.

Abdul Rauf Khan to Lance Dafadar Abdul Jabar Khan (Hindustani Muslim, 6th Cavalry, France)
21st Combined Field Ambulance, Mesopotamia, 7th March 1916

You know very well that I am not in India. I am here with Force D. You must know very well where Force D is [Mesopotamia]. Since coming here I have met many men who were formerly in France. From them we have heard all about France. In truth you must be very comfortable there, since the ‘public’ there are so civilized, and money, too, is plentiful. The particular part of the world where I am is a strange place. The seasons here are quite different from what you experience anywhere else. We have already had experience of the cold and wet. Now the heat is threatening us from afar. It rains very heavily and the entire surface of the land becomes a quagmire in which the slush is knee deep. When I used to march in this slush, I used to remember God! Since I left India I have not seen a metalled road. Except for date trees which one sees here and there along the course of the river, there is not another tree to swear by. We drink river water. Wells cannot be dug here. Except for the barren, naked plain, there is nothing to see. The soil certainly is fertile, but the ‘public’ here are so thoughtless and careless that they do not make any attempt to till it. The lice infest one’s clothes to such an extent that our hope [of release from them] is in God alone. The summer is coming on gradually. It is stated here that the mosquitoes are enormous, and I have been afraid of them from the beginning.

- Omissi, Indian Voices of the Great War, 160-161.

Adbul Najid Khan (Muslim) to Suliman Khan (3rd Skinner’s Horse, France)
Rohtak, Punjab, 18th March 1916

I had a letter received today from my brother Sadikall Khan from Basrah, three days ago. He says he is constantly ill, and that every few days his health changes. He says also that the heat is unbearable and that the country [Mesopotamia] is the very opposite of France; that he is neither fit to fight nor ill enough to return to India; that, except for dates and the heat, nothing is to be found. Where, he asks, is that France, and those courteous people; where those fine open roads; where all those nice things? In short, this country, he says, is the entire opposite of France. [Letter passed]

- Omissi, Indian Voices of the Great War, 165.