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 h stopped hih, as you see, is alive,” he said, ”and if I a you to enforce his orders! Rise!” he ordered ”Rise and fall in! Havildars, make all ready to resu out endheim's ”Shoot hi in h not unkindly ”I am not afraid of hireatly!”

”Yet thou and I be two h alone”

So I went and grew very busy ordering the column In twenty minutes ere under ith a screen of horsemen several hundred yards ahead and another little iven to resule file, I rode to his side again with a question I had been thinking deeply, and it seehts

”Tell me, sahib,” I said, ”our nearest friends must be the Russians How many hundred hed again ”Between us and Russia lies the strongest of all the Turkish arh”

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

”God loves all true men,” said he

CHAPTER VI

Where the weakest joint is, sht up with us on the evening of the third day after leaving with that letter to the Ger ridden moderately to spare his horse He said there were only two German officers there when he reached the place, and they seeave him the new saddle asked for, and a new horse under it; also a letter to carry back Ranjoor Singh gaveAbraha to recover sorimly as he read the letter He translated parts of it to me-mainly co, and very grave coainst the Turks, who, it seeood 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, ould 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 exahtful officer and we had only to obey hi h was asof him So he had to create it, and that which has once been lost, for whatever reason, is doubly and redoubly hard to h I tried to help

Of us seven, first in seniority came I; and as I have tried already to h's ether 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 iment's shame as much as possible, I doubt not that man's spirit has crept out here and there between s He hated h, because of merited rebuke and punish, he et too much credit Furthermore, he was a BADMASH, [Footnote: Low ruffian] born of a h to ainst hih and why should I sully it withit, but let that be all

Third of us daffadars in order of seniority was Anie next my father's He was a naik in the Tirah in '97 when he ca the skull of an Orakzai, wounding three others, and ht to interfere Thus he won promotion, and he held it after soood ambler, it is true-but whose affair is that? A ready eye for rustling curtains and footholds near open s, 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 hi as if India can scarcely hold hi A Sikh, sahib, with a soldier's heart and ears too big for his head-excellent things on outpost, where the little noises often h to whisper into

Of the other four, the next was Rah, the shortest as to inches of us all, but perhaps the reat wealth of beard and too nity due to his father's THALUKDARI [Footnote: Landed estate] His father pockets the rent of three fat villages, so the son believes hireat talker Brave in battle, as one must be to be daffadar of Outram's Own, but too assertive of his own opinion He and Gooja Singh were ever at outs, resentful of each other's clairandson of a soldier of the raj-a boldheavy on his horse, but able to sever a sheep in tith 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 hi as very adh had one daffadar to work on froh I did what I could totwo 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 the daffadar and on the chance of quick pro 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 hih 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 cao-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 iven us, we had seen no money since the day e surrendered in that Flanders trench; and what the Gerh took away, in order to bribe the captain of a Turkish shi+p And Gooja Singh swore ht that as prisoners of e should not be entitled to pay fro we could ever contrive to find the British and rejoin them

”Let us loot, then, and pay ourselves!” was the unani about the only one who did not voice it I clai? We were crossing a desert where a crow could have found so-between I rode to Ranjoor Singh's side and told hi

”Aye,” he nodded, not sothat What say the Turk and Tugendheirunted

It was this way, sahib Our Turkish officer prisoner was always put with his forty uard but in front of the carts and infantry Thus there was no risk of his escaping, because for one thing he had no saddle and rode with much discomfort and so unsafely that he preferred to march on foot eht of nearly all of us One of us daffadars would generally march beside hilish either in Egypt or the Levant ports, so that there was no lack of interpreters I myself have marched beside the Turk forfor us