India is a big place--a dreadfully big place--and the chances of finding any one particular person there are about as great as of discovering a needle in a haystack.

He might have left India long ago; he might have fallen in the massacres of the past few months; he might be somewhere right across the continent.

And so, though I could not get rid of a vague sort of expectation, during the first few days of my being in India, I always laughed at myself for a simpleton for thinking such a chance possible.
However, we had no time for thinking just then.

From the moment we landed in Bombay, and for a week or two afterwards, we were continually on the move.

Long forced marches under a broiling sun, it was enough to wear out any ordinary troops.