A Sikh soldier on guard duty while Canadian soldiers attend a church service at Flanders.

• A Sikh soldier on guard duty while Canadian soldiers attend a church service at Flanders.
• - The Graphic Jan 1915

• In the autobiography of Brigadier SIR JOHN SMYTH V.C. we find the following harrowing account of Sikh bravery in the trenches at Festubert as the young Lt. Smyth and a group of Sikh volunteers under his command carried ammunition to frontline trenches: . . ......

•  .... "By means of pagris [turban material] attached to the boxes, the men in front pulled them along over and through the dead bodies that encumbered the trench, while those behind pushed with all their might. The danger was enough to have appalled the stoutest heart. Rifle and machine-gun bullets ripped up the ground all round them, while the air above was white with the puff of shrapnel. If a single bullet, a single fragment of shell, penetrated one of the boxes of explosives, the men propelling it would infallibly be blown to pieces.