Unnamed Indian Troops

The Indian subadar in "Ad Astra" refers to the colonial troops brought to Europe from India to fight for England during the First World War as "my people" (424). It needs to be said, however, that as they are described, they are not people so much as stereotypes, and the racial assumptions behind the stereotypes are clearly Faulkner's. The subadar also calls them "children" (425), who thought of the rifles they were issued as "spears" (424). When a "whole battalion" went into battle without loading those rifles, less than twenty survived (425). (Over one million members of the Indian Army fought with the Allies in World War I, including 130,000 in France and Belgium.)