Crossword-Solution: TOPEES 6 letters, 5 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 8

Having dined hurriedly in the dak bungalow we asked for our sedan chairs, and, drawing our roof-like topees over our eyes, we started.

That was the joy of dressing up in the true tropical kit worn at Mudros; brown brogue shoes; pale brown stockings, turned down at the calves; khaki drill shorts, displaying bare knees; khaki shirts open at the throats, and with sleeves rolled up above white elbows; our topees, and no more.

Men shouted and waved their topees, or shouted and performed equestrian gymnastics, and the jockeys _en masse_ cursed their masters' presence, and the more or less mythical value of their respective mounts.

Jim and I spent weeks and weeks out in the sun wearing the pith helmets that had now replaced our cork topees, getting browner by the day as we toiled away with plane table, tripod, sighting rule and chain (well, we didn't have a chain but we managed with a 100-foot steel tape), gradually building up a map of the camp to our superiors' satisfaction.

Then we grinned as we looked at our neighbours; and then realized that we too were black as sweeps, topees, white helmets, and uniforms all covered with a fine black oily rain.