Books: Hira Singh
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Talbot Mundy >> Hira Singh
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"Where is Tugendheim?" said I, but it was some minutes before he
answered me, for, since the loaves were counted he went to see them
distributed, and I followed him.
"Tugendheim," he said at last, "has driven the Turkish officer to
seek refuge in seclusion! I used the word 'Wassmuss,' and that had
effect; but Tugendheim's insolence was our real passport. Nobody
here doubts that we are in full favor at Stamboul. Wassmuss can keep
for later on."
"Sahib," said I, seeing he was in good humor now, "tell me of this
Wassmuss."
"All in good time!" he answered. And when he has decided it is not
yet time to answer, it is wisest to be still. After fifteen or
twenty minutes with the men, I followed him across the yard and
entered the station waiting-room--a pretentious place, with fancy
bronze handles on the doors and windows.
Lo, there sat Tugendheim, with his hands deep in his pockets and a
great cigar between his teeth. His four guards stood with bayonets
fixed, making believe to wait on him, but in truth watching him as
caged wolves eye their dinner. Ranjoor Singh was behaving almost
respectfully toward him, which filled me with disgust; but presently
I saw and understood. There was a little window through which to
sell tickets, and down in one corner of it the frosting had been
rubbed from off the glass.
"There is an eye," said I in an undertone, "that I could send a
bullet through without difficulty!" But Ranjoor Singh called me a
person without judgment and turned his back.
"When do we start?" asked Tugendheim.
"When the men have finished eating," he answered, and at that I
stared again, for I knew the men's mood and did not believe it
possible to get them away without a long rest, nor even in that case
without argument.
"What if they refuse?" said I, and Ranjoor Singh faced about to look
at me.
"Do you refuse?" he asked. "Go and warn them to finish eating and be
ready to march in twenty minutes!"
So I went, and delivered the message, and it was as I had expected,
only worse.
"So those are his words? What are words!" said they. "Ask him
whither he would lead us!" shouted Gooja Singh. He had been talking
in whispers with a dozen men at the rear of the middle hut.
"If I take him such dogs' answers," said I, "he will dismiss me and
there will be no more a go-between."
"Go, take him this message," shouted Gooja Singh. "But for his
sinking of our ship we should now be among friends in Gallipoli!
Could we not have seized another ship and plundered coal? Tell him,
therefore, if he wishes to lead us he must use good judgment. Are we
leaves blown hither and thither for his amusement? Nay! We belong to
the British Army! Tell him we will march toward Gallipoli or
nowhither! We will march until opposite Gallipoli, and search for
some means of crossing."
"I will take that as Gooja Singh's message, then," said I.
"Nay, nay!" said he. "That is the regiment's message!" And the dozen
men with whom he had been whispering nodded acquiescence. "Is Gooja
Singh the regiment?" I asked.
"No," said he, "but I am OF the regiment. I am not a man running
back and forth, false to both sides!"
I was not taken by surprise. Something of that sort sooner or later
I knew must come, but I would have preferred another time and place.
"Be thou go-between then, Gooja Singh!" said I. "I accepted only
under strong persuasion. Gladly I relinquish! Go thou, and carry thy
message to Ranjoor Singh!" And I sat down in the entrance of the
middle hut, as if greatly relieved of heavy burdens. "I have
finished!" I said. "I am not even havildar! I will request reduction
to the ranks!"
For about a minute I sat while the men stared in astonishment. Then
they began to rail at me, but I shook my head. They coaxed me, but I
refused. Presently they begged me, but I took no notice.
"Let Gooja Singh be your messenger!" said I. And at that they turned
on Gooja Singh, and some of them went and dragged him forward, he
resisting with arms and feet. They set him down before me.
"Say the word," said they, "and he shall be beaten!"
So I got on my feet again and asked whether they were soldiers or
monkey-folk, to fall thus suddenly on one of their number, and he a
superior. I bade them loose Gooja Singh, and I laid my hand on his
shoulder, helping him to his feet.
"Are we many men with many troubles, or one regiment?" said I.
At that most of them grew ashamed, and those who had assaulted Gooja
Singh began to make excuses, but he went back to the rear to the men
who had whispered with him. They drew away, and he sat in silence
apart, I rejoicing secretly at his discomfiture but fearful
nevertheless.
"Now!" said I. "Appoint another man to wait on Ranjoor Singh!"
But they cried out, "Nay! We will have none but you. You have done
well--we trust you--we are content!"
I made much play of unwillingness, but allowed them to persuade me
in the end, yielding a little at a time and gaining from them ever
new protestations of their loyalty until at last I let them think
they had convinced me.
"Nevertheless," said they, "tell Ranjoor Singh he must lead us
toward Gallipoli!" They were firm on that point.
So I went back to the waiting-room and told Ranjoor Singh all that
had happened, omitting nothing, and he stood breaking pieces from a
loaf of bread, with his fingers, not burying his teeth into the loaf
as most of us had done. He asked me the names of the men who had so
spoken and I told him, he repeating them and considering each name
for a moment or two.
"Have they finished eating?" he asked at last, and I told him they
had as good as finished. So he ate his own bread faster.
"Come," he ordered presently, beckoning to Tugendheim and the four
guards to follow.
It was raining as hard as ever as we crossed the station yard, and
the men had excuse enough for disliking to turn out. Yet they
scented development, I think, and none refused, although they fell
in just not sullenly enough to call for reprimand. Ranjoor Singh
drew the roll from his inner pocket and they all answered to their
names. Then, without referring to the list again, he named those who
I had told him used high words to me, beginning at Gooja Singh and
omitting none.
"Fall out!" he ordered. And when they had obeyed, "Fall in again
over there on the left!"
There were three-and-twenty of them, Gooja Singh included, and they
glared at me. So did others, and I wondered grimly how many enemies
I had made. But then Ranjoor Singh cleared his throat and we
recognized again the old manner that had made a squadron love him to
the death at home in India--the manner of a man with good legs under
him and no fear in his heart. All but the three-and-twenty forgot
forthwith my part in the matter.
"Am I to be herdsman, then?" said he, pitching his voice against
wind and rain. "Are ye men--or animals? Hunted animals would have
known enough to eat and hurry on. Hunted animals would be wise
enough to run in the direction least expected. Hunted animals would
take advantage of ill weather to put distance between them and their
foe. Some of you, then, must be less than animals! Men I can lead.
Animals I can drive. But what shall be done with such less-than-
animals as can neither be led nor driven?"
Then he turned about half-left to face the three-and-twenty, and
stood as it were waiting for their answer, with one hand holding the
other wrist behind his back. And they stood shifting feet and
looking back at him, extremely iil-at-ease.
"What is the specific charge against us?" asked Gooja Singh, for the
men began to thrust him forward. But Ranjoor Singh let no man draw
him from the main point to a lesser one.
"You have leave," said he, "to take one box of cartridges and go!
Gallipoli lies that way!" And he pointed through the rain.
Then the two-and-twenty forgot me and began at once abusing Gooja
Singh, he trying to refute them, and Ranjoor Singh watching them all
with a feeling, I thought, of pity. Tugendheim, trying to make the
ends of his mustaches stand upright in the rain, laughed as if he
thought it a very great joke; but the rest of the men looked
doubtful. I knew they were unwilling to turn their backs on any of
our number, yet afraid to force an issue, for Ranjoor Singh had them
in a quandary. I thought perhaps I might mediate.
"Sahib," said I.
"Silence!" he ordered. So I stepped back to my place, and a dozen
men laughed at me, for which I vowed vengeance. Later when my wrath
had cooled I knew the reprimand and laughter wiped out suspicion of
me, and when my chance came to take vengeance on them I refrained,
although careful to reassert my dignity.
After much argument, Gooja Singh turned his back at last on the two-
and-twenty and saluted Ranjoor Singh with great abasement.
"Sahib," said he, "we have no wish to go one way and you another. We
be of the regiment."
"Ye have set yourselves up to be dictators. Ye have used wild words.
Ye have tried to seduce the rest. Ye have my leave to go!" said
Ranjoor Singh.
"Nay!" said Gooja Singh. "We will not go! We follow the regiment!"
"Will ye follow like dogs that pick up offal, then?" he asked, and
Gooja Singh said, "Nay! We be no dogs, but true men! We be faithful
to the salt, sahib," said he. "We be sorry we offended. We be true
men--true to the salt."
Now, that was the truth. Their fault had lain in not believing their
officer at least as faithful as they and ten times wiser. Every man
in the regiment knew it was truth, and for all that the rain poured
down in torrents, obscuring vision, I could see that the general
feeling was swinging all one way. If I had dared, I would have
touched Ranjoor Singh's elbow, and have whispered to him. But I did
not dare. Nor was there need. The instant he spoke again I knew he
saw clearer than I.
"Ye speak of the salt," said he.
"Aye!" said Gooja Singh. "Aye, sahib! In the name of God be good to
us! Whom else shall we follow?"
"Aye, sahib!" said the others. "Put us to the test!"
The lined-up regiment, that had been standing rigid, not at
attention, but with muscles tense, now stood easier, and it might
have been a sigh that passed among them.
"Then, until I release you for good behavior, you three-and-twenty
shall be ammunition bearers," said Ranjoor Singh. "Give over your
rifles for other men to carry. Each two men take a box of
cartridges. Swiftly now!" said he.
So they gave up their rifles, which in itself was proof enough that
they never intended harm, but were only misled by Gooja Singh and
the foolishness of their own words. And they picked up the cartridge
boxes, leaving Gooja Singh standing alone by the last one. He made a
wry face. "Who shall carry this?" said he, and Ranjoor Singh
laughed.
"My rank is havildar!" said Gooja Singh.
Ranjoor Singh laughed again. "I will hold court-martial and reduce
you to the ranks whenever I see the need!" said he. "For the
present, you shall teach a new kind of lesson to the men you have
misled. They toil with ammunition boxes. You shall stride free!"
Gooja Singh had handed his rifle to me, and I passed it to a
trooper. He stepped forward now to regain it with something of a
smirk on his fat lips.
"Nay, nay!" said Ranjoor Singh, with another laugh. "No rifle, Gooja
Singh! Be herdsman without honor! If one man is lost on the road you
shall be sent back alone to look for him! Herd them, then; drive
them, as you value peace!"
There being then one box to be provided for, he chose eight strong
men to take turns with it, each two to carry for half an hour; and
that these might know there was no disgrace attached to their task,
they were placed in front, to march as if they were the band. Nor
was Gooja Singh allowed to march last, as I expect he had hoped; he
and his twenty-two were set in the midst, where they could eat
shame, always under the eyes of half of us. Then Ranjoor Singh
raised his voice again.
"To try to reach Gallipoli," he said, "would be as wise as to try to
reach Berlin! Both shores are held by Turkish troops under German
officers. We found the one spot where it was possible to slip
through undetected. We must make the most of that. Moreover, if they
refuse to believe we were drownd last night, they will look for us
in the direction of Gallipoli, for all the German officers in
Stamboul knew how your hearts burned to go thither. It was a joke
among them! Let it be our business to turn the joke on them! There
will be forced marches now--long hungry ones--Form fours!" he
ordered. "By the right--Quick march!" And we wheeled away into the
rain, he marching on the flank. I ran and overtook him.
"Take a horse, sahib!" I urged. "See them in that shed! Take one and
ride, for it is more fitting!"
"Better plunder and burn!" said he. "If a man stole my dinner I
might let him run; but if he stole my horse, he and I and death
would play hide-and-seek! We need forgetfulness, not angry memories,
behind us! Keep thou a good eye on Tugendheim!"
So I fell to the rear, where I could see all the men, Tugendheim
included! In a very few minutes we had lost the station buildings in
the rain behind us and then Ranjoor Singh began to lead in a wide
semicircle, so that before long I judged we were marching about
southeastward. At the end of an hour or so he changed direction to
due east, and presently we saw another telegraph line. I overtook
him again and suggested that we cut it.
"Nay!" said he. "If that line works and we are not believed drowned,
too many telegrams will have been sent already! To cut it would give
them our exact position! Otherwise--why make trouble and perhaps
cause pursuit?"
So we marched under the telegraph wire and took a course about
parallel to it. At noon it ceased raining and we rested, eating the
bread, of which every man had brought away three loaves. After that,
what with marching and the wind and sun our clothes began to dry and
we became more cheerful--all, that is to say, except the ammunition
bearers, who abused Gooja Singh with growing fervency. Yet he was
compelled to drive them lest he himself be court martialed and
reduced to the ranks.
Cheerfulness and selfishness are often one, sahib, for it was not
what we could see that raised our spirits. We marched by village
after village that had been combed by the foragers for Turkish
armies,--and saw only destitution to right and left, behind and
before. The only animals we saw were dead ones except the dogs
hunting for bones that might have marrow in them still.
We saw no men of military age. Only very old men were left, and but
few of those; they and the women and children ran away at sight of
us, except a very few who seemed careless from too much misery. One
such man had a horse, covered from head to foot with sores, that he
offered to sell to Ranjoor Singh. I did not overhear what price he
asked, but I heard the men scoffing at such avarice as would rob the
vultures. He went away saying nothing, like a man in stupor, leaving
the horse to die. Nay, sahib, he had not understood the words.
We slept that first night in a village whose one street was a
quagmire and a cesspool. There was no difficulty in finding shelter
because so many of the houses were deserted; but the few inhabitants
of the other houses could not be persuaded to produce food. Ranjoor
Singh took their money away from, the four men whom I had overlooked
when we all gave up our money on the steamer, and with that, and
Tugendheim for extra argument, he went from house to house.
Tugendheim used no tenderness, such being not his manner of
approach, but nothing came of it. They may have had food hidden, but
we ate stale bread and gave them some of it, although Ranjoor Singh
forbade us when he saw what we were doing. He thought I had not been
looking when he gave some of his own to a little one.
We were up and away at dawn, with all the dogs in Asia at our heels.
They smelled our stale bread and yearned for it. It was more than an
hour before the last one gave up hope and fell behind. They are hard
times, sahib, when the street dogs are as hungry as those were.
Hunger! We met hunger day after day for eight days--hunger and
nothing else, although it was good enough land--better than any I
have seen in the Punjab. There was water everywhere. The air, too,
was good to breathe, tempting us to fill our lungs and march like
new men, yet causing appetite we could not assuage. We avoided
towns, and all large villages, Ranjoor Singh consulting his map
whenever we halted and marching by the little compass the Germans
had given him. We should have seen sheep or goats or cattle had
there been any; but there was none. Utterly not one! And we Sikhs
are farmers, not easily deceived on such matters; we knew that to be
grazing land we crossed. It was a land of fruit, too, in the proper
season. There had been cattle by the thousand, but they were all
gone--plundered by the Turks to feed their armies.
Ranjoor Singh did his best to make us husband our stale loaves, but
we ate the last of them and became like famished wolves. Some of us
grew footsore, for we had German boots, to which our feet were not
yet thoroughly accustomed, but he gave us no more rest than he
needed for his own refreshment--and that was wonderfully little. We
had to nurse and bandage our feet as best we could, and march--
march--march! He had a definite plan, for he led unhesitatingly, but
he would not tell us the plan. He was stern when we begged for
longer rests, merciless toward the ammunition bearers, silent at all
times unless compelled to give orders or correct us. Most of the
time he kept Tugendheim marching beside him, and Tugendheim, I
think, began to regard him with quite peculiar respect; for he
admired resolution.
Most of us felt that our last day of marching was upon us, for we
were ready to drop when we skirted a village at about noon on the
eighth day and saw in the distance a citadel perched on a rocky hill
above the sky-line. We were on flat land, but there was a knoll
near, and to that Ranjoor Singh led us, and there he let us lie. He,
weary as we but better able to overcome, drew out his map and spread
it, weighting the four corners with stones; and he studied it chin
on hand for about five minutes, we watching him in silence.
"That," said he, standing at last and pointing toward the distant
citadel, "is Angora. Yonder" (he made a sweeping motion) "runs the
railway whose terminus is at Angora. There are many long roads
hereabouts, so that the place has become a depot for food and stores
that the Turks plunder and the Germans despatch over the railway to
the coast. The railway has been taken over by the Germans."
"Are we to storm the town?" asked a trooper, and fifty men mocked
him. But Ranjoor Singh looked down kindly at him and gave him a word
of praise.
"No, my son," he said. "Yet if all had been stout enough to ask
that, I would have dared attempt it. No, we are perhaps a little
desperate, but not yet so desperate as that."
He began sweeping the horizon with his eyes, quartering the
countryside mile by mile, overlooking nothing. I saw him watch the
wheeling kites and look below them, and twice I saw him fix his gaze
for minutes at a time on one place.
"We will eat to-night!" he said at last. "Sleep," he ordered. "Lie
down and sleep until I summon you!" But he called me to his side and
kept me wakeful for a while yet.
"Look yonder," said he, and when I had gazed for about two minutes I
was aware of a column of men and animals moving toward the city. A
little enough column.
"How fast are they moving?" he asked me, and I gazed for several
minutes, reaching no decision. I said they were too far away, and
coming too much toward us for their speed to be accurately judged.
Yet I thought they moved slowly.
Said he, "Do you see that hollow--one, two, three miles this side of
them?" And I answered yes. "That is a bend of the river that flows
by the city," said he. "There is water there, and fire-wood. They
have come far and are heading toward it. They are too far spent to
reach Angora before night. They will not try. That is where they
will camp."
"Sahib," I said, considering his words as a cook tastes curry, "our
men be overweary to have fight in them."
"Who spoke of fighting?" said he. So I went and lay down, and fell
asleep wondering. When he came and roused me it was already growing
late. By the time I had roused the men and they were all lined up we
could no longer see Angora for the darkness; which worked both ways-
-those in Angora could not see us.
"If any catch sight of us," said Ranjoor Singh, speaking in a loud
voice to us all, "let us hope they mistake us for friends. What Turk
or German looks for an enemy hereabouts? The chances are all ours,
but beware! Be silent as ye know how! Forward!"
It was a pitiable effort, for our bellies yearned and our feet were
sore and stiff. We stumbled from weariness, and men fell and were
helped up again. Gooja Singh and his ammunition bearers made more
noise than a squadron of mounted cavalry, and the way proved twice
as long as the most hopeless had expected. Yet we made the circuit
unseen and, as far as we knew, unheard--certainly unchallenged.
Doubtless, as Ranjoor Singh said afterward, the Turks were too
overriden by Germans and the Germans too overconfident to suspect
the presence of an enemy.
At any rate, although we made more noise than was expedient, we
halted at last among low bushes and beheld nine or ten Turkish
sentries posted along the rim of a rise, all unaware of us. Two were
fast asleep. Some sat. The others drowsed, leaning on their rifles.
Ranjoor Singh gave us whispered orders and we rushed them, only one
catching sight of us in time to raise an alarm. He fired his rifle,
but hit nobody, and in another second they were all surrounded and
disarmed.
Then, down in the hollow we saw many little campfires, each one
reflected in the water. Some Turks and about fifty men of another
nation sat up and rubbed their eyes, and a Turkish captain--an
upstanding flabby man, came out from the only tent to learn what the
trouble might be. Ranjoor Singh strode down into the hollow and
enlightened him, we standing around the rim of the rise with our
bayonets fixed and rifles at the "ready." I did not hear what
Ranjoor Singh said to the Turkish captain because he left me to
prevent the men from stampeding toward the smell of food--no easy
task.
After five minutes he shouted for Tugendheim, and the German went
down the slope visibly annoyed by the four guards who kept their
bayonets within a yard of his back. It was a fortunate circumstance
for us, not only then but very many times, that Tugendheim would
have thought himself disgraced by appealing to a Turk. Seeing there
was no German officer in the hollow, he adopted his arrogant manner,
and the Turkish officer drew back from him like a man stung. After
that the Turkish captain appeared to resign himself to impotence,
for he ordered his men to pile arms and retired into his tent.
Then Ranjoor Singh came up the slope and picked the twenty men who
seemed least ready to drop with weariness, of whom I regretted to be
one. He set us on guard where the Turkish sentries had been, and the
Turks were sent below, where presently they fell asleep among their
brethren, as weary, no doubt, from plundering as we were from
marching on empty bellies. None of them seemed annoyed to be
disarmed. Strange people! Fierce, yet strangely tolerant!
Then all the rest of the men, havildars no whit behind the rest,
swooped down on the camp-fires, and presently the smell of toasting
corn began to rise, until my mouth watered and my belly yearned.
Fifteen or twenty minutes later (it seemed like twenty hours,
sahib!) hot corn was brought to us and we on guard began to be new
men. Nevertheless, food made the guard more sleepy, and I was hard
put to it walking from one to another keeping them awake.
All that night I knew nothing of what passed in the camp below, but
I learned later on that Ranjoor Singh found among the Syrians whose
business was to load and drive carts a man named Abraham. All in the
camp who were not Turks were Syrians, and these Syrians had been
dragged away from their homes scores of leagues away and made to
labor without remuneration. This Abraham was a gifted man, who had
been in America, and knew English, as well as several dialects of
Kurdish, and Turkish and Arabic and German. He knew better German
than English, and had frequently been made to act interpreter.
Later, when we marched together, he and I became good friends, and
he told me many things.
Well, sahib, after he had eaten a little corn, Ranjoor Singh
questioned this man Abraham, and then went with him through the
camp, examining the plunder the Turks had seen fit to requisition.
It was plain that this particular Turkish officer was no paragon of
all the virtues, and Ranjoor Singh finally entered his tent
unannounced, taking Abraham with him. So it was that I learned the
details later, for Abraham told me all I asked.
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