Part 19 (1/2)

”I tell you Ranjoor Singh is dead!” said he. ”Hira Singh swears he is only asleep, but Hira Singh lies! Ranjoor Singh lies dead on top of the corn in the cart in yonder gully, and Hira Singh-”

I know not what more he would have said, but Ranjoor Singh stopped him. He stepped forward, smiling.

”Ranjoor Singh, as you see, is alive,” he said, ”and if I am dead, then I must be the ghost of Ranjoor Singh come among you to enforce his orders! Rise!” he ordered. ”Rise and fall in! Havildars, make all ready to resume the march!”

”Shoot him, sahib!” I urged, taking out my pistol, that had once been Tugendheim's. ”Shoot him, or let me do it!”

”Nay, nay!” he said, laughing in my face, though not unkindly. ”I am not afraid of him.”

”But I, sahib,” I said. ”I fear him greatly!”

”Yet thou and I be two men, and I command,” he answered gently. ”Let Gooja Singh alone.”

So I went and grew very busy ordering the column. In twenty minutes we were under way, with a screen of hors.e.m.e.n several hundred yards ahead and another little mounted rear-guard. But when the order had been given to resume the march and the carts were squeaking along in single file, I rode to his side again with a question. I had been thinking deeply, and it seemed to me I had the only answer to my thoughts.

”Tell me, sahib,” I said, ”our nearest friends must be the Russians. How many hundred miles is it to Russia?”

But he shook his head and laughed again. ”Between us and Russia lies the strongest of all the Turkish armies,” he said. ”We could never get through.”

”I am a true man!” I said. ”Tell me the plan!” But he only nodded, and rode on.

”G.o.d loves all true men,” said he.

CHAPTER VI

Where the weakest joint is, smite.-RANJOOR SINGH.

Well, sahib, Abraham caught up with us on the evening of the third day after leaving with that letter to the Germans in Angora, having ridden moderately to spare his horse. He said there were only two German officers there when he reached the place, and they seemed worried. They gave him the new saddle asked for, and a new horse under it; also a letter to carry back. Ranjoor Singh gave me the horse and saddle, letting Abraham take my sorry beast, that was beginning to recover somewhat under better treatment.

Ranjoor Singh smiled grimly as he read the letter. He translated parts of it to me-mainly complaints about lack of this and that and the other thing, and very grave complaints against the Turks, who, it seemed, would not cooperate. You would say that was good news to all of us, that should have inspired us with new spirit. But as I said in the beginning, sahib, there are reasons why the British must rule India yet a while. We Sikhs, who would rule it otherwise, are all divided.

We were seven non-commissioned officers. If we seven had stood united behind Ranjoor Singh there was nothing we could not have done, for the men would then have had no example of disunity. You may say that Ranjoor Singh was our rightful officer and we had only to obey him, but I tell you, sahib, obedience that is worth anything must come from the heart and understanding. Ranjoor Singh was as much dependent on good-will as if we had had the choosing of him. So he had to create it, and that which has once been lost, for whatever reason, is doubly and redoubly hard to make again. He did what he did in spite of us, although I tried to help.

Of us seven, first in seniority came I; and as I have tried already to make clear I was Ranjoor. Singh's man (not that he believed it altogether yet). If he had ordered me to make black white, I would have perished in the effort to obey; but I had yet to prove that.

Next in order to me was Gooja Singh, and although I have spared the regiment's shame as much as possible, I doubt not that man's spirit has crept out here and there between my words-as a smell creeps from under coverings. He hated me, being jealous. He hated Ranjoor Singh, because of merited rebuke and punishment. He was all for himself, and if one said one thing, he must say another, lest the first man get too much credit. Furthermore, he was a BADMASH, [Footnote: Low ruffian.] born of a money-lender's niece to a man mean enough to marry such. Other true charges I could lay against him, but my tale is of Ranjoor Singh and why should I sully it with mean accounts; Gooja Singh must trespa.s.s in among it, but let that be all.

Third of us daffadars in order of seniority was Anim Singh, a big man, born in the village next my father's. He was a naik in the Tirah in '97 when he came to the rescue of an officer, splitting the skull of an Orakzai, wounding three others, and making prisoner a fourth who sought to interfere. Thus he won promotion, and he held it after somewhat the same manner. A blunt man. A fairly good man. A very good man with the saber. A gambler, it is true-but whose affair is that? A ready eye for rustling curtains and footholds near open windows, but that is his affair again-until the woman's husband intervenes. And they say he can look after himself in such cases. At least, he lives. Behold him, sahib. Aye, that is he yonder, swaggering as if India can scarcely hold him-that one with his arm in a sling. A Sikh, sahib, with a soldier's heart and ears too big for his head-excellent things on outpost, where the little noises often mean so much, but all too easy for Gooja Singh to whisper into.

Of the other four, the next was Ramnarain Singh, the shortest as to inches of us all, but perhaps the most active on his feet. A man with a great wealth of beard and too much dignity due to his father's THALUKDARI [Footnote: Landed estate.] His father pockets the rent of three fat villages, so the son believes himself a wisehead. A great talker. Brave in battle, as one must be to be daffadar of Outram's Own, but too a.s.sertive of his own opinion. He and Gooja Singh were ever at outs, resentful of each other's claim to wisdom.

Next was Chatar Singh, like me, son and grandson of a soldier of the raj-a bold man, something heavy on his horse, but able to sever a sheep in two with one blow of his saber-very well regarded by the troopers because of physical strength and willingness to overlook offenses. Chatar Singh's chief weakness was respect for cunning. Having only a great bull's heart in him and ability to go forward and endure, he regarded cunning as very admirable; and so Gooja Singh had one daffadar to work on from the outset (although I did what I could to make trouble between them).

The remaining two non-commissioned officers were naiks-corporals, as you would say-Surath Singh and Mirath Singh, both rather recently promoted from the ranks and therefore likely to see both sides to a question (whereas a naik should rightly see but one). Very early I had taken those two naiks in hand, showing them friends.h.i.+p, harping on the honor and pleasure of being daffadar and on the chance of quick promotion.

Given a British commanding officer-just one British officer-even a little young one-one would have been enough-it would have been hard to find better backing for him. Even Gooja Singh would scarcely have failed a British leader. But not only was the feeling still strong against Ranjoor Singh; there was another cloud in the sky. Did the sahib ever lay his hands on loot? No? Ah! Love of that runs in the blood, and crops out generation after generation!

Until the British came and overthrew our Sikh kingdom-and that was not long ago-loot was the staff of life of all Sikh armies. In those days when an army needed pay there was a war. Now, except for one month's pay that, as I have told, the Germans had given us, we had seen no money since the day when we surrendered in that Flanders trench; and what the Germans gave us Ranjoor Singh took away, in order to bribe the captain of a Turkish s.h.i.+p. And Gooja Singh swore morning, noon and night that as prisoners of war we should not be ent.i.tled to pay from the British in any event, even supposing we could ever contrive to find the British and rejoin them.