Part 20 (2/2)
I went and found the the Turkish private soldier's uniforain (because, the Turkish soldier having done nothing h had ordered hiether ent and found the Turk sitting between a Syrian and Gooja Singh; and although I did not overhear one word of what they were saying, I saw that Gooja Singh believed I had been listening It seeood to me to let him deceive himself, so I smiled as I touched the Turk's shoulder
”Lo! Here is our second-in-coh, but I affected not to notice
”Co up clumsily like a buffalo out of the mud, he followed Abraham and me Some of the h recalled theht the Turk uphill to the fire-side, Ranjoor Singh had only one word to say to him
”Strip!” he ordered
Aye, sahib! There and then, without excuse or explanation, he e with Abraha or resentful! Abraham had told me all about Turkish treatment of Syrians, and it is the way of the world that men h Turks have no caste distinctions that I know of, that one felt like a high-caste Braharments with a sweeper He looked as if he would infinitely rather die
”Hurry!” Ranjoor Singh ordered hilish
”HURRIET?” said the Turk HURRIET is their Turkish for LIBERTY All the troops in Stah told me it means much the same as the French cry of ”Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!” The Turk seemed bewildered, and opened his eyes wider than ever; but whatever his thoughts were about ”HURRIET” he rightly interpreted the look in Ranjoor Singh's eye and obeyed, griars of a driver of mules if you talk any h ”If I proposed to loot, I would bury you for a beginning, lest there be nothing for the rest of us!”
He ist of it be lost, and I sat coe the unifore, too, cauessed the positions had once been reversed Abraham looked like an officer The Turk looked like a peasant He was a big up-standing ave the lie to his look of strength Now for the first ti out the nah the dark
”Let your honor and this man's ward be one!” said he, and they answered ”Our honor be it!”
He could not have chosen better if he had lined up the regiment and taken half a day Those four were troopers wholed out as men to be depended on when a pinch should coh should so surely know them, too
”Take him and keep him!” he ordered, and they went off, not at all sorry to be excused fro the four who guarded Tugendheiht troopers probably incorruptible, for there is nothing, sahib, that can co sure of e them about with precautions and they will revolt or be half-hearted; impose open trust in them, and if they be well-chosen they will die true
”Now,” said he to , ”I shall take with me one daffadar, one naik, and forty endheim, sometimes the Turk This tione Let it be known that the best behaved of those I leave with you shall be proraded to march on foot with you That will help a little”
”Aye,” said I, ”a little Which daffadar will you take? That will help h,” he answered, and I ht and bury his body! Make an end!” I urged ”In Flanders they shot ainst a wall for far less than he has talked about!”
”Flanders is one place and this another,” he answered ”Should I ood h unless I am afraid of hiht If he should shoot Gooja Singh the troopers would ascribe it to nothing else than fear A British officer ht do it and they would say, ”Behold how he scorns to shi+rk responsibility!” Yet of Ranjoor Singh they would have said, ”He fears us, and behold the butchery begins! Who shall be next?” Nevertheless, had I stood in his shoes, I would have shot and buried Gooja Singh to forestall trouble I would have shot Gooja Singh and the Turk and Tugendheim all three with one volley And the Turk's forty men would have met a like fate at the first excuse But that is because I was afraid, whereas Ranjoor Singh was not I greatly feared being left behind to bring the ht of it, the worse the prospect seeh say against hiree, for there is no good sense in a eance on them, or to lead them into safety?” he asked And what could I answer?
After soht shone on it and showed Abraharis River runs by Diarbekr ”Thus,” he said, ”we er, ”and thus-and thus-by Diarbekr, down by the Tigris, by Mosul, into Kurdistan, to Sulih very wild country Outside the cities I am told no Turk dare show himself with less than four hundred men at his back, so ill keep to the open If the Turks mistake us for Turks, the better for us If the tribes mistake us for Turks, the worse for us; for they say the tribes hate Turks worse than smallpox If they think we are Turks they will attack us We need ride warily”
”It would take more Turks than there are,” I said, ”to keep our ruffians fro to plunder the first city they see! And as for tribes-they are in a mood to join with any one ill help make trouble!”
”Then it may be,” he answered quietly, ”that they will not lack exercise! Follow me and lend a hand!” And he led doard the camp-fires, where very few men slept and voices rose upward like the noise of a quarrelsoht e captured the carts and Turks and Syrians, he now used the cover of darkness to reorganize; and the very first thing he did was to e clothes with Syrians-the Turks objecting withto relish it much, for fear, I suppose, of reprisals But he made the Turks hand over their rifles, as well, to the Syrians; and then, of all unlikely people he chose Tugendheim to command the Syrians and to drill the them there and then, with a row of fires to see by
In the flash of an eye, as you ht say, we had thus fifty extra infantry, ten of them neither uniformed nor arendheiiven his choice of that, or death, or of wearing a Syrian's cast-off clothes and driving mules He well understood (for I could tell by his h would send hiainst the first Turks we could find, thus coainst the Central Powers; but he had gone too far already to turn back
And as for the Syrians-they had had a lifetime's experience of Turkish treatht to associate Gerendheim should meditate treachery it was unlikely his Syrians would join him in it It was proendheierous on that account-and not so dreadfully distressing to the Turkish soldiers, who could now ride on the carts instead ofon weary feet They had utterly no ambition, those Turkish soldiers; they cared neither for their officer (which was small wonder) nor for the rifles that we took ahich surprised us greatly (for in the absence of lance or saber, we regarded our rifles as evidence of are for the uniforion (so they said!); but it did not seeht on one side or the other, or whether they fought at all, so long as they had cigarettes and food Yet I did not receive the impression they were cowards-brutes, perhaps, but not cowards When they came under fire later on they made no effort to desert with the carts to their own side; and e asked them why, they said because we fed thehteen months