Books: Hira Singh
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Talbot Mundy >> Hira Singh
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"Now," said he to me when they were out of hearing, "I shall take
with me one daffadar, one naik, and forty mounted men. Sometimes I
shall take Abraham, sometimes Tugendheim, sometimes the Turk. This
time I shall take the Turk, and before dawn I shall be gone. Let it
be known that the best behaved of those I leave with you shall be
promoted to ride with me--just as my unworthy ones shall be degraded
to march on foot with you. That will help a little."
"Aye," said I, "a little. Which daffadar will you take? That will
help more!" said I.
"Gooja Singh," he answered, and I marveled.
"Sahib," I said, "take him out of sight and bury his body! Make an
end!" I urged. "In Flanders they shot men against a wall for far
less than he has talked about!"
"Flanders is one place and this another," he answered. "Should I
make those good men more distrustful than they are? Should I shoot
Gooja Singh unless I am afraid of him?"
I said no more because I knew he was right. If he should shoot Gooja
Singh the troopers would ascribe it to nothing else than fear. A
British officer might do it and they would say, "Behold how he
scorns to shirk 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 men along, and the
more I thought of it, the worse the prospect seemed; so I began to
tell of things I had heard Gooja Singh say against him, and which of
the men I had heard and seen to agree, for there is no good sense in
a man who is afraid.
"Is it my affair to take vengeance on them, or to lead them into
safety?" he asked. And what could I answer?
After some silence he spread out his map where firelight shone on it
and showed Abraham and me where the Tigris River runs by Diarbekr.
"Thus," he said, "we must go," pointing with his finger, "and thus--
and thus--by Diarbekr, down by the Tigris, by Mosul, into Kurdistan,
to Sulimanieh, and thence into Persia--a very long march through
very wild country. Outside the cities I am told no Turk dare show
himself with less than four hundred men at his back, so we will 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 from trying to plunder the first city they see! And as for
tribes--they are in a mood to join with any one who will 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 down toward the
camp-fires, where very few men slept and voices rose upward like the
noise of a quarrelsome waterfall.
Just as on that night when we 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 make the forty Turkish prisoners
change clothes with Syrians--the Turks objecting with much bad
language and the Syrians not seeming to 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 them and teach them
discipline! He set him to drilling them there and then, with a row
of fires to see by.
In the flash of an eye, as you might say, we had thus fifty extra
infantry, ten of them neither uniformed nor armed as yet, but all of
them at least afraid to run away. Tugendheim looked doubtful for a
minute, but he was given 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 manner of consenting) that Ranjoor Singh
would send him into action against the first Turks we could find,
thus committing him to further treason against 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 treatment, and had recently been taught to associate Germans
with Turks; so if Tugendheim should meditate treachery it was
unlikely his Syrians would join him in it. It was promotion to a new
life for them--occupation for Tugendheim, who had been growing bored
and perhaps dangerous on that account--and not so dreadfully
distressing to the Turkish soldiers, who could now ride on the carts
instead of marching on 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 away, which
surprised us greatly (for in the absence of lance or saber, we
regarded our rifles as evidence of manhood). They objected to the
dirty garments they received in exchange for the uniforms, and they
despised us Sikhs for men without religion (so they said!); but it
did not seem to trouble them whether they fought 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
when we asked them why, they said because we fed them! They added
they had not been paid for more than eighteen months.
Why did not Ranjoor Singh make this arrangement sooner, you ask. Why
did he wait so long, and then choose the night of all times? Not all
thoughts are instantaneous, sahib; some seem to develop out of
patience and silence and attention. Moreover, it takes time for
captured men to readjust their attitude--as the Germans, for
instance, well knew when they gave us time for thought in the prison
camp at Oescherleben. When we first took the Syrians prisoner they
were so tired and timid as to be worthless for anything but driving
carts, whereas now we had fed them and befriended them. On the other
hand, in the beginning, the Turks, if given a chance, would have
stampeded with the carts toward Angora.
Now that both Turks and Syrians had grown used to being prisoners
and to obeying us, they were less likely to think independently--in
the same way that a new-caught elephant in the keddah is frenzied
and dangerous, but after a week or two is learning tricks.
And as for choosing the night-time for the change, every soldier
knows that the darkness is on the side of him whose plans are laid.
He who is taken unawares must then contend with both ignorance and
darkness. Thieves prefer the dark. Wolves hunt in the dark.
Fishermen fish in the dark. And the wise commander who would change
his dispositions makes use of darkness, too. Men who might disobey
by daylight are like lambs when they can not see beyond the light a
camp-fire throws.
But such things are mental, sahib, and not to be explained like the
fire of heavy guns or the shock tactics of cavalry--although not one
atom less effective. If Ranjoor Singh had lined up the men and
argued with them, there might have been mutiny. Instead, when he
judged the second ripe, he made sudden new dispositions in the night
and gave them something else to think about without suggesting to
their minds that he might be worried about them or suspicious of
them. On the contrary, he took opportunity to praise some
individuals and distribute merited rewards.
For instance, he promoted the two naiks, Surath Singh and Mirath
Singh, to be daffadars on probation, to their very great surprise
and absolute contentment. The four who guarded Tugendheim he raised
to the rank of naik, bidding them help Tugendheim drill the Syrians
without relaxing vigilance over him. Then he chose six more troopers
to be naiks. And of the eighty mounted men he degraded eighteen to
march on foot again, replacing them with more obedient ones. Then at
last I understood why he had chosen some grumblers to ride in the
first instance--simply in order that he might make room for
promotion of others at the proper time, offsetting discontent with
emulation.
Then of the eighty mounted men he picked the forty best. He gave
Abraham's saddle to Gooja Singh, set one of the new naiks over the
left wing, and Gooja Singh over the right wing of the forty, under
himself, and ordered rations for three days to be cooked and served
out to the forty, including corn for their horses. They had to carry
it all in the knap-sacks on their own backs, since no one of them
yet had saddles.
Gooja Singh eyed me by firelight while this was going on, with his
tongue in his cheek, as much as to say I had been superseded and
would know it soon. When I affected not to notice he said aloud in
my hearing that men who sat on both sides of a fence were never on
the right side when the doings happen. And when I took no notice of
that he asked me in a very loud voice whether my heart quailed at
the prospect of being left a mile or two behind. But I let him have
his say. Neither he, nor any of the men, had the slightest idea yet
of Ranjoor Singh's real plan.
After another talk with me Ranjoor Singh was to horse and away with
his forty an hour before daybreak, the Turkish officer riding
bareback in Syrian clothes between the four who had been set to
guard him. And the sound of the departing hooves had scarcely ceased
drumming down the valley when the men left behind with me began to
put me to a test. Abraham was near me, and I saw him tremble and
change color. Sikh troopers are not little baa-lambs, sahib, to be
driven this and that way with a twig! Tugendheim, too, ready to
preach mutiny and plunder, was afraid to begin lest they turn and
tear him first. He listened with both ears, and watched with both
eyes, but kept among his Syrians.
"Whither has he gone?" the men demanded, gathering round me where I
stooped to feel my horse's forelegs. And I satisfied myself the
puffiness was due to neither splint nor ring-bone before I answered.
There was just a little glimmer of the false dawn, and what with
that and the dying fires we could all see well enough. I could see
trouble--out of both eyes.
"Whither rides Ranjoor Singh?" they demanded.
"Whither we follow!" said I, binding a strip from a Syrian's loin-
cloth round the horse's leg. (What use had the Syrian for it now
that he wore uniform? And it served the horse well.)
A trooper took me by the shoulder and drew me upright. At another
time he should have been shot for impudence, but I had learned a
lesson from Ranjoor Singh too recently to let temper get the better
of me.
"Thou art afraid!" said I. "Thy hand on my shoulder trembles!"
The man let his hand fall and laughed to show himself unafraid.
Before he could think of an answer, twenty others had thrust him
aside and confronted me.
"Whither rides Ranjoor Singh? Whither does he ride?" they asked.
"Make haste and tell us!"
"Would ye bring him back?" said I, wondering what to say. Ranjoor
Singh had told me little more than that we were drawing near the
neighborhood of danger, and that I was to follow warily along his
track. "God will put true thoughts in your heart," he told me, "if
you are a true man, and are silent, and listen." His words were
true. I did not speak until I was compelled. Consider the sequel,
sahib.
"Ye have talked these days past," said I, "of nothing but loot--
loot--loot! Ye have lusted like wolves for lowing cattle! Yet now ye
ask me whither rides Ranjoor Singh! Whither SHOULD he ride? He rides
to find bees for you whose stings have all been drawn, that ye may
suck honey without harm! He rides to find you victims that can not
strike back! Sergeant Tugendheim," said I, "see that your Syrians do
not fall over one another's rifles! March in front with them," I
ordered, "that we may all see how well you drill them! Fall in,
all!" said I, "and he who wishes to be camp guard when the looting
begins, let him be slow about obeying!"
Well, sahib, some laughed and some did not. The most dangerous said
nothing. But they all obeyed, and that was the main thing. Not more
than an hour and a half after Ranjoor Singh had ridden off our carts
were squeaking and bumping along behind us. And within an hour after
that we were in action! Aye, sahib, I should say it was less than an
hour after the start when I halted to serve out ten cartridges
apiece to the Syrians, that Tugendheim might blood them and get
himself into deeper water at the same time. He was angry that I
would not give him more cartridges, but I told him his men would
waste those few, so why should I not be frugal? When the time came I
don't think the Syrians hit anything, but they filled a gap and
served a double purpose; for after Tugendheim had let them blaze
away those ten rounds a piece there was less fear than ever of his
daring to attempt escape. Thenceforward his prospects and ours were
one. But my tale goes faster than the column did, that could travel
no faster than the slowest man and the weakest mule.
We were far in among the hills now--little low hills with broad open
spaces between, in which thousands of cattle could have grazed. Only
there were no cattle. I rode, as Ranjoor Singh usually did, twenty
or thirty horses' length away on the right flank, well forward,
where I could see the whole column with one quick turn of the head.
I had ten troopers riding a quarter of a mile in front, and a rear-
guard of ten more, but none riding on the flanks because to our left
the hills were steep and impracticable and to our right I could
generally see for miles, although not always.
We dipped into a hollow, and I thought I heard rifle shots. I urged
my horse uphill, and sent him up a steep place from the top of which
I had a fine view. Then I heard many shots, and looked, and lo a
battle was before my eyes. Not a great battle--really only a
skirmish, although to my excited mind it seemed much more at first.
And the first one I recognized taking his part in it was Ranjoor
Singh.
I could see no infantry at all. About a hundred Turkish cavalry were
being furiously attacked by sixty or seventy mounted men who looked
like Kurds, and who turned out later really to be Kurds. The Kurds
were well mounted, riding recklessly, firing from horseback at full
gallop and wasting great quantities of ammunition.
The shooting must have been extremely bad, for I could see neither
dead bodies nor empty saddles, but nevertheless the Turks appeared
anxious to escape--the more so because Ranjoor Singh with his forty
men was heading them off. As I watched, one of them blew a trumpet
and they all retreated helter-skelter toward us--straight toward us.
There was nothing else they could do, now that they had given way.
It was like the letter Y--thus, sahib,--see, I draw in the dust--the
Kurds coming this way at an angle--Ranjoor Singh and his forty
coming this way--and we advancing toward them all along the bottom
stroke of the Y, with hills around forming an arena. The best the
Turks could do would have been to take the higher ground where we
were and there reform, except for the fact that we had come on the
scene unknown to them. Now that we had arrived, they were caught in
a trap.
There was plenty of time, especially as we were hidden from view,
but I worked swiftly, the men obeying readily enough now that a
fight seemed certain. I posted Tugendheim with his Syrians in the
center, with the rest of us in equal halves to right and left,
keeping Abraham by me and giving Anim Singh, as next to me in
seniority, command of our left wing. We were in a rough new moon
formation, all well under cover, with the carts in a hollow to our
rear. By the time I was ready, the oncoming Turks were not much more
than a quarter of a mile away; and now I could see empty saddles at
last, for some of the Kurds had dismounted and were firing from the
ground with good effect.
I gave no order to open fire until they came within three hundred
yards of us. Then I ordered volleys, and the Syrians forthwith made
a very great noise at high speed, our own troopers taking their
time, and aiming low as ordered. We cavalrymen are not good shots as
a rule, rather given, in fact, to despising all weapons except the
lance and saber, and perhaps a pistol on occasion. But the practise
in Flanders had worked wonders, and at our first volley seven or
eight men rolled out of the saddles, the horses continuing to gallop
on toward us.
The surprise was so great that the Turks drew rein, and we gave them
three more volleys while they considered matters, bringing down a
number of them. They seemed to have no officer, and were much
confused. Not knowing who we were, they turned away from us and made
as if to surrender to the enemy they did know, but the Kurds rode in
on them and in less than five minutes there was not one Turk left
alive. My men were for rushing down to secure the loot, but it
seemed likely to me that the Kurds might mistake that for hostility
and I prevailed on the men to keep still until Ranjoor Singh should
come. And presently I saw Ranjoor Singh ride up to the leader of the
Kurds and talk with him, using our Turkish officer prisoner as
interpreter. Presently he and the Kurdish chief rode together toward
us, and the Kurd looked us over, saying nothing. (Ranjoor Singh told
me afterward that the Kurd wished to be convinced that we were many
enough to enforce fair play.)
The long and the short of it was that we received half the captured
horses--that is, thirty-five, for some had been killed--and all the
saddles, no less than ninety of them, besides mauser rifles and
uniforms for our ten unarmed Syrians. The Kurds took all the
remainder, watching to make sure that the Syrians, whom we sent to
help themselves to uniforms, took nothing else. When the Kurds had
finished looting, they rode away toward the south without so much as
a backward glance at us.
I asked Ranjoor Singh how Turkish cavalry had come to let themselves
get caught thus unsupported, and he said he did not know.
"Yet I have learned something," he said. "I shot the Turkish
commander's horse myself, and my men pounced on him. That
demoralized his men and made the rest easy. Now, I have questioned
the Turk, and between him and the Kurdish chief I have discovered
good reason to hurry forward."
"I would weigh that Kurd's information twice!" said I. "He cut those
Turks down in cold blood. What is he but a cutthroat robber?"
"Let him weigh what I told him, then, three times!" he answered with
a laugh. "Have you any men hurt?"
"No," said I.
"Then give me a mile start, and follow!" he ordered. And in another
minute he was riding away at the head of his forty, slowly for sake
of the horses, but far faster than I could go with all those laden
carts. And I had to give a start of much more than a mile because of
the trouble we had in fitting the saddles to our mounts. I wished he
had left the captured Turkish officer behind to explain his nation's
cursed saddle straps!
We rode on presently over the battle-ground; and although I have
seen looting on more than one battlefield I have never seen anything
so thorough as the work those Kurds had done. They had left the dead
naked, without a boot, or a sock, or a rag of cloth among them. Here
and there fingers had been hacked off, for the sake of rings, I
suppose. There were vultures on the wing toward the dead, some
looking already half-gorged, which made me wonder. I wondered, too,
whither the Kurds had ridden off in such a hurry. What could be
happening to the southward? Ranjoor Singh had gone due east.
It was not long before Ranjoor Singh rode out of sight in a cloud of
dust, disappearing between two low hills that seemed to guard the
rim of the hollow we were crossing. At midday I let the column rest
in the cleft between those hills, not troubling to climb and look
beyond because the men were turbulent and kept me watchful, and also
because I knew well Ranjoor Singh would send back word of any danger
ahead. And so he did. I was sitting eating my own meal when his
messenger came galloping through the gap with a little slip of
twisted paper in his teeth.
"Bring them along," said the message. "Don't halt again until you
overtake me."
So I made every one of the mounted men take up a man behind, and the
rest of the unmounted men I ordered into the carts, including
Tugendheim's Syrians, judging it better to overtax the animals than
to be too long on the road. And the long and short of that was that
we overtook Ranjoor Singh at about four that afternoon. Our animals
were weary, but the men were fit to fight.
Ranjoor Singh ordered Abraham to take the Syrians and all the carts
and horses down into a hollow where there was a water-hole, and to
wait there for further orders. Tugendheim was bidden come with us on
foot; and without any explanation he led us all toward a low ridge
that faced us, rising here and there into an insignificant hill. It
looked like blown sand over which coarse grass had grown, and such
it proved to be, for it was on the edge of another desert. It was
fifty or sixty feet high, and rather difficult to climb, but he led
us straight up it, cautioning us to be silent and not to show
ourselves on the far side. On the top we crawled forward eighteen or
twenty yards on our bellies, until we lay at last gazing downward.
It was plain then whence those half-gorged vultures came.
Who shall describe what we saw? Did the sahib ever hear of Armenian
massacres? This was worse. If this had been a massacre we would have
known what to do, for our Sikh creed bids us ever take the part of
the oppressed. But this was something that we did not understand,
that held us speechless, each man searching his own heart for
explanation, and Ranjoor Singh standing a little behind us watching
us all.
There were hundreds of men, women and little children being herded
by Turks toward the desert--southward. The line was long drawn out,
for the Armenians were weary. They had no food with them, no tents,
and scarcely any clothing. Here and there, in parties at intervals
along the line, rode Turkish soldiers; and when an Armenian, man or
woman or child, would seek to rest, a Turk would spur down on him
and prick him back into line with his lance--man, woman or child, as
the case might be. Some of the Turks cracked whips, and when they
did that the Armenians who were not too far spent would shudder as
if the very sound had cut their flesh. How did I know they were
Armenians? I did not know. I learned that afterward.
Some wept. Some moaned. But the most were silent and dry-eyed,
moving slowly forward like people in a dream. Oh, sahib, I have had
bad dreams in my day, and other men have told me theirs, but never
one like that!
There was a little water-hole below where we lay--the merest cupful
fed by a trickle from below the hill. Some of them gathered there to
scoop the water in their hands and drink, and I saw a Turk ride
among them, spurring his horse back and forward until the water was
all foul mud. Nevertheless, they continued drinking until he and
another Turk flogged them forward.
"Sahib!" said I, calling to Ranjoor Singh. "A favor, sahib!"
He came and lay beside me with his chin on his hand. "What is it?"
said he.
"The life of that Turk who trod the water into mud!" said I. "Let me
have the winding up of his career!"
"Wait a while!" said he. "Let the men watch. Watch thou the men!"
So I did watch the men, and I saw cold anger grow among them, like
an anodyne, making them forget their own affairs. I began to wonder
how long Ranjoor Singh would dare let them lie there, unless perhaps
he deliberately planned to stir them into uncontrol. But he was
wiser than to do that. Just so far he meant their wrath should urge
them--so far and no further. He watched as one might watch a fuse.
"Those Kurds of this morning," he told me (never taking his eyes off
the men) "hurried off to the southward expecting to meet this very
procession. Kurds hate Turks, and Turks fear Kurds, but in this they
are playing to and fro, each into the other's hands. The Turks drive
Armenians out into the desert, where the Kurds come down on them and
plunder. The Turks return for more Armenians, and so the game goes
on. I learned all that from our Turkish officer we took this
morning."
While he spoke a little child died not a hundred yards away from
where I lay. Its mother lay by it and wept, but a Turk spurred down
and skewered the child's body on his lance, tossing it into the
midst of a score of others who went forward dumbly. Another Turk
riding along behind him thrashed the woman to her feet.
"That ought to do," said Ranjoor Singh, crawling backward out of
sight and then getting to his feet. Then he called us, and we all
crawled backward to the rear edge of the ridge. And there at last we
stood facing him. I saw Gooja Singh whispering in Anim Singh's great
ear. Ranjoor Singh saw it too.
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