Part 28 (1/2)

Then the reallop away, and some of thean at once to try to get thee several hundred frightened horses that were never more than half tamed in any case, and many of them broke away froer in a hurry to Ranjoor Singh, to say the uth accoer was cut down by the first of a crowd of fugitive Kurds, who seized his reins and fought a theun to fall back in disorder, and had actually burst through our et to their own horses; for like ourselves, the Kurds prefer to fight mounted and have far less confidence in theh, with our men, all h our friends were too busy burdening thes of the fallen to render as ht

I left my horse, and climbed a rock, and looked for half a minute Then I knehat to do; and I wonder whether ever in the world was such a running fight before I had only lost onethe Kurds' horses up the valley in the direction they wished to take, to atteKurds very easily, so we adopted the saain

First we drove the horses helter-skelter up the valley a mile or two Then we halted, and hid our own horses, and took cover behind the rocks to wait for the Kurds; and as they ca hither and thither behind the boulders to try to pick off Ranjoor Singh's men, ould open fire on their rear unexpectedly, thus throwing theain

We opened fire always at too great distance to doit more important to preserve my own men's lives and so to continue able to deh commended me for that But I was also acutely aware of the risk that our bullets o past the Kurds and kill our own Sikhs I am not at all sure some accidents of that nature did not happen

So e had fired at the Kurds enough to h, ould get to horse again and send the Kurdish horses galloping up the pass in front of us Finally, we lost sight of h we captured one apiece-which is all a e besides his own and a rifle

By that time it was three in the afternoon already and the pass forked about a dozen different ways, so that we lost the Kurds at last, they scattering to right and left and shooting at us at long range froher up We were all dead beat, and the horses, too, so we rested, the Kurds continuing to fire at us, but doing no dae They fired until dusk

Our own three hundred Kurdish friends were not very far behind Ranjoor Singh, and I observed when they came up with us presently that he took up position down the pass behind them They were too fond of loot to be trusted between us and that gold! They were so burdened with plunder that some of them could scarcely ride their horses Several had as reat bundles of food and blankets where the ene had cost theet what their eyes lusted for They had lost more than fifty men But we had losttale of wounded, so that Ranjoor Singh looked serious as he called the roll The Greek doctor had to work that night as if his own life depended on it-as in fact it did! We endhei of first aid

Then, because the Kurds could not be trusted on such an errand, Ranjoor Singh senton the Syrians and our h to help, and glad I was to have hih, and now that all suspicion of our leader eaned out of hiht did I say? That was a night like death itself, when a man could scarcely see his own hand held thus before his face-cold and rainy to make matters worse

We had two Kurds to show us the way, and, I suppose because our ene or co Our train oftheain Weary htened men ot back that h's side

Of all the nights I ever lived through, except those last we spent in the trench in Flanders before our surrender, that was the worst Hunger and cold and fear and weariness all wrought their worst with me; yet I had to set an example to the h; he draggedbones Yet it was beginning to be dawn then, and we had to be up and off again Our dead were buried; our wounded were bound up; the Kurds would be likely to begin on us again at anyto wait there for We left little fires burning above the long grave (for our h our Kurdish friends left theirs behind theh led on I slept on the march Nay, I had no eyes for scenery just then!

After that the unexpected, a, happened as it so often does in war We were at the mercy of any handful who cared to waylay us, for the hillsides shut us in, and there was cover enough areat army It was true we had worsted the Wassmuss men utterly; I think we slew at least half of them, and doubtless that, and the loss of their horses, must have taken much heart out of the rest But we expected at least to be attacked by friends of the men we had worsted-by mountain cutthroats, thieves, and plunderers, any fifty of who us fro happened, and nobody attacked us As we h andus go free For two days we rode, and ca ever forward to where we could see the peaks that our friendly chief assured us were in Persia Formiles it seemed the passes all led upward; but there came a noon at last ere able to feel, and even see-when at least we knew in our hearts that the uphill as over We could see other ranges, running in other directions, and mountains with tree-draped sides But chiefly it was our hearts that told us ere really in sight of Persia at last

Then wounded and all gathered together, with Ranjoor Singh in thethe Anand, our Sikh hy (not forgetting nevertheless to watch for opportunity to snatch that gold and run!)

And there, on the very ridge dividing Persia froiven to us to understand at last a little of the why and wherefore of ourunmolested We came to a crack in a rock by the wayside And in the crack had been thrust, so that it stood upright, a gnarled tree-trunk, carried from who kno far And there, crucified to the dry as our daffadar Gooja Singh, with his flesh all tortured and torture written in his open eyes-not very long dead, for his flesh was scarcely cold-although the birds had already begun on hiaped like fools!

At last I said, ”Leave hih, who had ever hated Gooja Singh for reasons of his own, joined his voice to mine; and because they had no wish to offend h rose into a towering passion over e said, nahteous to be trusted!

”What proof have we against him?” he deh screwed up courage to answer ”Call for witnesses against him and hear them!”

”Who can try a dead h thundered back ”He left us to go and be our hostage, for our safety-for the safety of your ungrateful skins! He died a hostage, given by us to savages They killed hies than they? Which of our dead lie dishonored anywhere? Have they not all had burning or else burial? Are ye judges of the dead? Or are ye content to live like men? Take him down, and lay hirave!”

Aye, sahib So he gave the order, and so we obeyed, saying no h with bayonets, working two together turn and turn about, I, who had been all along his ene of the talks he and I had had, and the disputes And here was the outcome! Aye

It was not a very deep trench but it served, and we laid him in it with his feet toward India, and covered hirave the tree to which he had been crucified, and piled a great cairn of stone above hireat mountain that looks down on Persia

It was perhaps two hours, or it h (we rode on in silence, thinking of hi now and then, but even the words of con instead of speech because none cared to speak) that we learned the explanation, and ood place to caather fuel Then so to our Kurdish friends overtook us, and with them a few of our Kurdish wounded and soain on the battlefield These brought with them two prisoners e set in theuntil his tongue must have almost fallen out eariness Bit by bit, we pieced a tale together that had reason in it and so brought us understanding

Our first guess had been right; the Turks had already sent (so of the gold The Kurds of those parts, who fight a theether to fight Turks; therefore those who had been attacking us were now behind us with thousands of other Kurds fro to dispute the passes with the conificant handful, to be dealt with later on The woun; and the prisoners bade our Kurds s tribal enmity and hurry to do their share! The chief listened to thee thinking while lust drew hiht!