Part 3 (1/2)
The horse his trooper-servant rode was blown and nearly useless, so that the trooper died that night for lack of a pair of heels, leaving us none to question as to Ranjoor Singh's late doings But Bagh, Ranjoor Singh's charger, being a h and Ranjoor Singh led us like a ind beckoning a stored his heart was on fire He led us slantwise into a tight-packed regiment We rolled it over, and he took us beyond that into another one In the dark he re-formed us (and few but he could have done that then)-lined us up again with the other squadrons-and brought us back by the e had coainst remnants of the iment that checked and balked beyond The Germans probably believed us ten times as many as we truly were, for that one setback checked their advance along the whole line
Colonel Kirby led us, but I speak of Ranjoor Singh I never once saw Colonel Kirby until the fight was over and ere back again resting our horses behind the trees while the roll was called Throughout the fight-and I have no idea whatever how long it lasted-I kept an eye on Ranjoor Singh and spurred in his wake, obeying the least motion of his saber No, sahib, I myself did not slay many men It is the business of a non-commissioned man like ht I was nearly killed by a wounded German officer who seized my bridle-rein; but a trooper's lance took him in the throat and I rode on untouched For all I know that was the only danger I was in that night
A battle is a strange thing, sahib-like a dream A man only knows such part of it as crosses his own vision, and remembers but little of that What he does remember seldom tallies hat the others saw Talk with twenty of our regiet twenty different versions of what took place-yet not one man would have lied to you, except perhaps here and there a little in the matter of his own accomplishment Doubtless the Germans have a thousand different accounts of it
I know this, and the world knows it: that night the Germans melted They were Then they broke into parties and were not We pursued them as they ran Suddenly the star-shells ceased fro overhead, and out of black darkness I heard Colonel Kirby's voice thundering an order Then a truh-pitched Almost the next I kneere halted in the shadow of the trees again, calling low to one another, friend's voice seeking friend's We could scarcely hear the voices for the thunder of artillery that had begun again; and whereas forht the British and French fire had the better of it They had been re-enforced, but I have no notion whence
The infantry, that had drawn aside like a curtain to let us through, had closed in again to the edge of the forest, and through the noise of rifle-firing and artillery we caught presently the thunder of new regi at the double Thousands of our Indian infantry-those who had been in the trains behind us-were coht-to lad he has lived!
It was not only the Germans who had not expected us Now, sahib, for the first tian to understand who it ho had coether The wounded sang it, too, and the stretcher-bearers There ca, but that night it was new to us We only caught a feords-the first words The sahib knows the words-the first feords? It was true we had co way; but it choked us into silence to hear that battered infantry acknowledge it
Color and creed, sahib What are color and creed? The world hasfor a breed it can not understand We Sikhs be ht we knew that our hearts and theirs were one Nor have I e, although efforts have been made, and reasons shown h and of what he did I but tell ht on his What I did is as nothing Of what he did, you shall be the judge-relories in the deed are one Be attentive, sahib; this is a tale of tales!
CHAPTER II
Can the die fall which side up it will? Nay, not if it be honest-EASTERN PROVERB
Many a league our infantry advanced that night, the guns following, getting the new range by a round We went forward, too, at the cost of many casualties-too many in proportion to the e did We were fired on in the darkness more than once by our own infantry We, who had lost but seventy-two e, were short another hundred when the day broke and nothing to the good by it
Getting lost in the dark-falling into shell-holes-swooping down on rear-guards that generally proved to have rier, wearier horses-the wonder is that a man rode back to tell of it at dawn
One-hundred-and-two-and-seventy were our casualties, and sohtly wounded that they were back in the ranks within the week At dawn they sent us to the rear to rest, we being too good a target for the eneht Some of us rode two to a horse On our way to the cah reenforceave us the right of way, and we took the salute of two divisions of French infantry who, I suppose, had been told of the service we had rendered Said I to Gooja Singh, who sat ondise?” said I
”I would rather see the end!” said he But he never saw the end Gooja Singh was ever too iht to be, to make certain of thethat an eneh And suchnoho had been first to prophesy hoe should be turned into infantry They kept us at the rear, and took away our horses-took even our spurs,us drill with unaccusto of the new distrust of Ranjoor Singh was in resentment at his patience with the bayonet drill We soldiers are like women, sahib, ever resentful of the new-aye, like women in more ways than one; for e have loved best we hate e comes
Once, at least a squadron of us had loved Ranjoor Singh to the death He was a Sikh of Sikhs It had been our boast that fire could not burn his courage nor love corrupt him, and I was still of that an to remember how he had stayed behind e left India We had all seen hiuise, in conversation with that German by the Delhi Gate We kne busy he had been in the bazaars while the rumors flew And the trooper who had stayed behind with hie that night, died in the charge; so that there was none to give explanation of his conduct Ranjoor Singh himself was a very rock for silence Our British officers said nothing, doubtless not suspecting the distrust; for it was a byword that Ranjoor Singh held the honor of the squadron in his hand Yet of all the squadron only the officers and I now trusted him-the Sikh officers because they imitated the British; the British because faith is a habit with theed, and I-God knows There were hours when I did distrust hiotten
The war settled down into a siege of trenches, and soon ere given a section of a trench to hold Little by little we greise at the business of tossing explosives over blind banks-ould rather have been at it with the lance and saber Yet, can a die fall which side up it will? Nay, not if it be honest! We were there to help We who had carried coal could shovelheavy, and curiosity regarding Ranjoor Singh led froh asked Captain Fellowes, and he said that Ranjoor Singh had stayed behind to expose a Ger done so, he had hurried after us That explanation ought to have satisfied every one, and I think it did for a tih that the squadron's faith in hie How should we know that he had been forbidden to tell us what had kept him? When he set aside his pride and made us overtures, there was no response; so his heart hardened in hiood Secrecy is better than all the lame explanations in the world But in this war there has been tooplace They should have let him line us up and tell us his whole story But later, when perhaps he reat or his sense of obedience too tightly spun To this day he has never told us Not that it h's tongue did not lack subtlety on occasion He made it his business to remind the squadron daily of its doubts, and I, who should have known better, laughed at soreed with others One is the fool who speaks with him who listens I have never been rebuked for it by Ranjoor Singh, and more than once since that day he has seen fit to praise me; but in that hour when most he needed friends I became his half-friend, which is worse than enemy I never raised my voice once in defense of hirew very wise at this trench warfare, Colonel Kirby and the other British officers taking great cos to the Gerle theht of dressing turbans on the end of poles and thrusting them forward at the hour before dahen fear and chill and darkness have done their worst work That started a panic that cost the Gerhty men
I think his leadershi+p would have won the squadron back to love him I know it saved his life We had all heard tales of how the British soldiers in South Africa made short work of the officers they did not love, and it would have been easy to ht But he led too well; men were afraid to take the responsibility lest the others turn on theht, and they suspected I had overheard I said nothing, but they were afraid, as I knew they would be Has the sahib ever heard of ”left-hand casualties”? I will explain
We Sikhs have a saying that in fear there is no wisdom None can be wise and afraid None can be afraid and wise The ht I knoho feared to fight longer in the trenches were seized in those early days with the foolish thought of inflicting soh to cause a spell of absence at the base and a rest in hospital Folly being the substance of that idea, and ht-handed, such self-inflicted wounds were practically always in the hand or foot and always on the left side The ambulance men knew them, on the instant
Those two fools of my squadron wounded the that their pale I was sent to the rear to give evidence against them (for I saw them commit the foolishness) The cross-examination we all three underas clever-at the hands of a young British captain, who, I dare swear, was suckled by a Sikh nurse in the Punjab In less than thirty minutes he had the whole story out of us; and the two troopers were shot that evening for an exareatly ih, and he called me back afterward and asked me a hundred questions more-until he must have known the very color of my entrails and I knew not which way I faced To all of this a senior officer of the Intelligence Department listened with both ears, and presently he and the captain talked together