CONCLUSION
Thus ended for the sepoy the “Great Adventure” on the plains of Flanders. What memories it brings back! what future possibilities it has in store! Some of them may arise sooner than the most imaginative can foreshadow.
I have throughout this book endeavoured to do full justice to the Indian Army, both to its British officers and all Indian ranks, but I venture to offer one final word of advice to those in whose hands may lie the future destinies of that Army. This advice has at least one merit, it is based on a very wide and lifelong experience of India, its people, its Provinces, its Frontiers in every direction, and, above all, of its Army.
It is this. Whatever you do as regards the inhabitants of India, whatever form of Government they may eventually possess, so long as the Union Jack floats over Hindustan do not reduce the present status of the British officer. You will find Indians as brave, loyal gentlemen and splendid comrades, and hence you may find it difficult to refuse equality of command; but you must make this a cardinal principle, for no argument decked in rhetoric will alter the fact, that you can NEVER replace the British officer in the Indian Army.