 In Bombay, he joined the 22nd Mountain (Indian Artillery) Regiment, and took charge of an artillery battery.His linguistic skills were immensely valuable in overcoming poor communications within the unit (he mastered the basics of Urdu to make it possible for the officers to communicate with their men), though the culturally diverse nature of the unit, half Muslim and half Sikh but with British officers and signallers, continued to cause problems.The regiment, made up of four batteries, was stationed in Singapore, the most important British naval base in the Far East.