Part 10 (1/2)
Sahib, there was uproar! Men could scarcely eat for the joy of getting in sight of British lines again-or rather for joy of the proh in that endheih between the tables in case he should have any orders to give, noticed particularly that he did not say ere going to Gallipoli He said, ”The plan now is to send us to Gallipoli” The trade of a leader of squadrons, thought I, is to confound the laid plans of the enemy and to invent unexpected ones of his own
”The day we land in Gallipoli behind the Turkish trenches,” said I to h lives”
And I was right, sahib But If I had been given a thousand years in which to do it, I never could have guessed how Ranjoor Singh would lead us out of the trap Can the sahib guess?
CHAPTER IV
Fear cooes, but a man's love lives with him-EASTERN PROVERB
Staues and stinks! The food in barracks was oty We breathed foul air and yearned for the streets; yet, once in the streets, we yearned to be back in barracks Aye, sahib,ood for us, none yet understanding the breadth of Ranjoor Singh's wakefulness He seeood opinion of hi doubtless the opinion he wished the German officers to have of him
Part of the Gerreat enthusiasendheiht to be paraded through the streets as evidence that Indian troops really were fighting with the Central Powers The Ger faces thus and brushi+ng hisafter our arrival ere paraded early and sent out with a negro band, to trah the streets until nearly too weary to desire life Ranjoor Singhperfectly contented, for which the lish and who told him the names of streets and places
It did not escape h was interested more than a little in the waterfront But we all tramped like dumb men, splashed to the waist with street dirt, aere being used to make a mental impression on the Turks, but afraid to refuse obedience lest we be not sent to Gallipoli after all One thought obsessed every single et to Gallipoli, and escape to the British trenches during soht, or perish in the effort
As for me, I kept open mind and watched It is the non-commissioned officer's affair to herd the ued with theested alternative possibilities would have been only to enrage them and make them deaf to wise counsels when the proper tih had in h the streets, and marched, stared at silently, neither cheered nor h arrived at his own conclusions Five several ti that one day he halted us in the h there was a better place near by; and while we rested he asked peculiar questions, and the Turk boasted to his
We were exhausted when it fell dark and we cliain to barracks Yet as we entered the barrack gate I heard Ranjoor Singh tell a Gerreatly enjoyed our view of the city and the exercise I repeated what I had heard while the reatly
”Such a lie!” said they
”That surely was a lie?” I asked, and they answered that theto and fro was no soldier but a mud-fish
”Then, if he lies to them,” I said, ”perhaps he tells us the truth after all”
They howled atYet when I went away I left theood I went to change the guard, for soht outside the officers' quarters, in spite of our utter weariness We were smarter than the Kurds, and Gerh must have been, he sat late with the Ger silence while they talked I o and speak with him half a dozen ti the wreaths of cigarette smoke
”Sahib, must we really stay a week in this hole?” I asked ”So say the Gerh the streets each day?” I asked
”I understand that to be the plan,” he answered
”Then the men will mutiny!” said I
”Nay!” said he, ”let them seek better cause than that!”