Part 9 (2/2)

”Nay,” said he, ”there can be no 'but' There is false and true The one has no part in the other What say the men?”

”They are true to the raj,” said I

”All of them?” he asked

”Nay, sahib,” said I ”Not quite all of them, but al which are false and which are true,” said he, and then he left me

So I told the an neondering and new conjecturing The majority decided at once that ere to be sent to Gallipoli to fight beside the Turks in the trenches there, and presently they all grew very detero to Gallipoli with good will Once there, said they all, it should be easy to cross to the British trenches under cover of the darkness

”We will take Ranjoor Singh with us,” they said darkly ”Then he can make explanation of his conduct in the proper time and place!” I saw one e over his eyes, and several others snapped their fingers to suggest a firing party Many of the others laughed Men in the dark, thought I, are fools to do anything but watch and listen Outlines change with the dawn, thought I, and I determent on all points except one-that I set full faith in Ranjoor Singh But the ment and decided on a plan; so it ca them to Stamboul-or Constantinople, as Europeans call it

At a place in Bulgaria whose naotten we disembarked and beca by forced et how hts we reached a railway and were once h we traversed wild country where any or all of us h seemed so well to understand our intention that he scarcely troubled hiht, and slept beside it wrapped in an overcoat and blanket And e boarded a train again he was once more alone in a compartendheih hee me

”Soon,” said he, ”you shall have your bayonet in the belly of an Englishrandfather fought for the British in '57, sahib, and h to run, carried food to hi little enough food at that tiendheiht I was iht like the devil,” said he, ”for if they catch you they'll skin you!”

Partly he wished to discover what hts were, and partly, I think, his intention was to fill e; and, since it would not have done to keep silence altogether, I began to project the ht be after the war should have been won I made him believe that the hope of all us Sikhs was to seek official eovernood job for every one of us We spent hours discussing what nature of eenius, and he took opportunity at intervals to go to the staff officer and acquaint him with all that I had said By the time we reached Stamboul at last I was more weary of him than an ill-matched bullock of its yoke

But we did reach Sta through its crooked streets, scarcely noticed by the inhabitants Men seelanced once swiftly and passed on German officers were everywhere, h narrow thoroughfares, scattering people to right and left; the Turkish officers appeared to treat theh I noticed here and there a feho looked indifferent, and occasionally others who seeh not so bad as that in Flanders, was nearly as depressing The rain chilled the air, and shut in the view, and few of us had very endheirowl Ranjoor Singh, striding in front of us with the staff officer at his side, shook the rain fro

We were marched to a ferry and taken across what I knoas the Golden Horn; and there was so much mist on the water that at times we could scarcely see the ferry Many troopers asked me if ere not already on our way to Gallipoli, and I, knowing no more than they, bade them wait and see

On the other side of the Golden Horn ere h narrow streets, uphill, uphill, uphill to a very great barrack and given a section of it to ourselves Ranjoor Singh was assigned private quarters in a part of the building used by ue, those officers were obliged to converse with hilish, and I observed reat ah was also rew far better humored and readier to talk

Sahib, that barrack was like a zoo-like the zoo I saw once at Baroda, with ani within walls, packed with Kurds and Arabs and Syrians of more different tribes than a man would readily believe existed in the whole world Few aue that we knew, but they were full of curiosity and crowded round us to ask questions; and when Gooja Singh shouted aloud that ere Sikhs from India they produced a man who seemed to think he knew about Sikhs, for he stood on a step and harangued the with all their ears

Then ca in the rain in an open court between four walls-and he told them truly ere Doubtless he added that ere in revolt against the British, for they began to welco about us, those who could cos we could not understand

Presently they found a an to fill our ears with infor our train journey I had aendhei to the strings of lies he thought fit to narrate But what Tugendheim had told were alendheiueness there was detail in such profusion that I can not recall now the hundredth part of it

He told us the British fleet had long been rusting at the bottoenerals and half the ar tribute money to their conquerors, and the principal reason why the war continued was that the British could not find enough donkeys to carry all the gold to Berlin, and to prevent trickery of any kind the fighting must continue until the last coin should have been counted

The British and French, he told us, were all to be compelled, at the point of the sword, to turn Muha scoured that race the hareenerals, all of whoo accepted Islam The kaiser, indeed, had becohting in Gallipoli, and lie said that was a bagatelle ”When we shall have driven the remnants of those there into the sea,” said he, ”one part of us will arrison England and France”

When he had done and ere all under cover at last I repeated to the men all that this fool had said, and they were very ed; for they reasoned that if the Turks and Germans needed to fill up their men with such lies as those, then they must have a poor case indeed With our coats off, and a an to feel alh caendheim at his heels

”The plan now is to keep us here a week,” said he ”After that to send us to Gallipoli by steamer”