The training takes three months, and when winter starts the whole 4th Gorkha Rifles sets off for Kathmandu, and then for Karachi. The brothers have entered a new world. Never had anybody exercised any discipline over them, not even their parents. Manbir has adapted quickly, for him every step in the army is a step closer to showing himself as a master in battle, to exhibit his heroism, to use the kukri. He accepts the authority of the British officers, and does not mind obeying them without questioning the orders. His education as a carpenter seems forgotten, and instead of feeling homesick for the hill, his parents, and the sisters, he looks forward to the future. Dilu is not interested in a military carreer. He cannot get motivated, does not care about discipline, and after the daily exercises, looks for a quiet spot where he plays the basuri until the images of his sheep, his meadows, his sisters are clearly in his mind. He is unfit for military purposes, until the sergeant one day catches him at playing the basuri, and gives him a new task in the regiment : he becomes the bugler. He does not like the simple, cold-copper instrument very much, but at least now he does not need to get involved as a real soldier into the battle. He only has to translate the orders of the officers into designated musical sounds. He tries to enliven those a bit, and in this way the morning call is sometimes friendly and inviting, or melancholic or sad. Also English they have learned, enough to understand orders and execute them, and some recruits even learned how to write and read a few words. On the sixteenth September 1914 they board the s/s Erinpura in Karachi, a modern ship, that leaves the stinking, hot port in an enormous cloud of black smoke, and sets off to Marseilles. The sea ! Not one of the Gorkhas could have imagined anything like this. Endless, never-ending. They are eighty four : most of them have the rank of Rifleman, some have made Corporal. Also the colonel is a Gorkha, Rana Nain Sing is his name. But the most beautiful rank is Bugler, it is unique, and especially made for Dilu. During the voyage Dilu amuses himself, and the whole crew, by practicing the signals (charge, cease fire, alarm, tattoo), but he also still plays the basuri, the high tones break the sound of the stinking engine room, and turn the men on deck restless and sad. After the sea : the desert. The steaming trip through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, new landscapes – the desert is baked daily in the eternal sun, movement is hardly possible, the transit takes three days, and then the stop in Port Said to take bunkers and provisions. Then, finally, again breathable air, through the Mediterranean to Marseilles. There the voyage is over. Riflemen, Bugler, officers, all of a sudden they are nervous and anxious. The continent promises war, although nothing seems to hint at it at this point. The town is one brothel, the soldiers are immediately quartered, but they are set free one evening : letting off steam after a three weeks voyage, the British authorities have understanding for that. Manbir and Dilu go into town together, totally unknown terrain. Nobody understands them, they understand nothing, nobody. In this country they have come to fight – the enemy is invisible. Here there is sunshine, a party seems to be going on all day. The truth comes after three days in Marseilles. By train they go to Orleans, then further on to Saint Omer, then to Ypres. The front. ....... to be continue