Books: Hira Singh
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Talbot Mundy >> Hira Singh
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"Stand forth, Gooja Singh!" he ordered. And Gooja Singh stood a
little forward from the others, half-truculent and half-afraid.
"What do you want?" asked Ranjoor Singh. "Of what were you
whispering?" But Gooja Singh did not answer.
"No need to tell me!" said Ranjoor Singh. "I know! Ye all seek leave
to loot! As sons of THALUKDARS [Footnote: Land holder]--as trusted
soldiers of the raj--as brave men--honorable men--ye seek to prove
yourselves!"
They gasped at him--all of them, Tugendheim included. I tell you he
was a brave man to stand and throw that charge in the teeth of such
a regiment, not one man of whom reckoned himself less than
gentleman. I looked to my pistol and made ready to go and die beside
him, for I saw that he had chosen his own ground and intended there
and then to overcome or fail.
"Lately but one thought has burned in all your hearts," he told
them. "Loot! Loot! Loot! Me ye have misnamed friend of Germany--
friend of Turkey--enemy of Britain! Yourselves ye call honorable
men!"
"Why not?" asked Gooja Singh, greatly daring because the men were
looking to him to answer for them. "Hitherto we have done no
shameful thing!"
"No shameful thing?" said Ranjoor Singh. "Ye have called me traitor
behind my back, yet to my face ye have obeyed me these weeks past.
Ye have used me while it served your purpose, planning to toss me
aside at the first excuse. Is that not shameful? Now we reach the
place where ye must do instead of talk. Below is the plunder ye have
yearned for, and here stand I, between it and you!"
"We have yearned for no such plunder as that!" said Gooja Singh, for
the men would have answered unless he did, and he, too, was minded
to make his bid for the ascendency.
"No?" said Ranjoor Singh. "'No carrion for me!' said the jackal. 'I
only eat what a tiger killed!'"
He folded his arms and stood quite patiently. None could mistake his
meaning. There was to be, one way or the other, a decision reached
on that spot as to who sought honor and who sought shame. He himself
submitted to no judgment. It was the regiment that stood on trial! A
weak man would have stood and explained himself.
Presently Ramnarain Singh, seeing that Gooja Singh was likely to get
too much credit with the men, took up the cudgels and stood forward.
"Tell us truly, sahib," he piped up. "Are you truly for the raj, or
is this some hunt of your own on which you lead us?"
"Ye might have asked me that before!" said Ranjoor Singh. "Now ye
shall answer me my question first! When I have your answer, I will
give you mine swiftly enough, in deeds not words! What is the
outcome of all your talk? Below there is the loot, and, as I said,
here stand I between it and you! Now decide, what will ye!"
He turned his back, and that was bravery again; for under his eye
the men were used to showing him respect, whereas behind his back
they had grown used to maligning him. Yet he had thrown their shame
in their very teeth because he knew their hearts were men's hearts.
Turning his back on jackals would have stung them to worse dishonor.
He would not have turned his back on jackals, he would have driven
them before him.
It began to occur to the men that they once made me go-between, and
that it was my business to speak up for them now. Many of them
looked toward me. They began to urge me. Yet I feared to speak up
lest I say the wrong thing. Once it had not been difficult to
pretend I took the men's part against Ranjoor Singh, but that was no
longer so easy.
"What is your will?" said I at last, for Ranjoor Singh continued to
keep his back turned, and Gooja Singh and Rarnnarain were seeking to
forestall each other. Anim Singh and Chatar Singh both strode up to
me.
"Tell him we will have none of such plunder as that!" they both
said.
"Is that your will?" I asked the nearest men, and they said "Aye!"
So I went along the line quickly, repeating the question, and they
all agreed. I even asked Tugendheim, and he was more emphatic than
the rest.
"Sahib!" I called to Ranjoor Singh. "We are one in this matter. We
will have none of such plunder as that below!"
He turned himself about, not quickly, but as one who is far from
satisfied.
"So-ho! None of SUCH plunder!" said he. "What kind of plunder, then?
What is the difference between the sorts of plunder in a stricken
land?"
Gooja Singh answered him, and I was content that he should, for not
only did I not know the answer myself but I was sure that the
question was a trap for the unwary.
"We will plunder Turks, not wretches such as these!" said Gooja
Singh.
"Aha!" said Ranjoor Singh, unfolding his arms and folding them
again, beginning to stand truculently, as if his patience were
wearing thin. "Ye will let the Turks rob the weak ones, in order
that ye may rob the Turks! That is a fine point of honor! Ye poor
lost fools! Have ye no better wisdom than that? Can ye draw no finer
hairs? And yet ye dare offer to dictate to me, and to tell me
whether I am true or not! The raj is well served if ye are its best
soldiers!"
He spat once, and turned his back again.
"Ye have said we will have no such plunder!" shouted Gooja Singh,
but he did not so much as acknowledge the words even by a movement
of the head. Then Gooja Singh went whispering with certain of the
men, those who from the first had been most partial to him, and
presently I saw they were agreed on a course. He stood forward with
a new question.
"Tell us whither you are leading?" he demanded. "Tell us the plan?"
Ranjoor Singh faced about. "In order that Gooja Singh may interfere
and spoil the plan?" he asked, and Ramnarain Singh laughed very loud
at that, many of the troopers joining. That made Gooja Singh angry,
and he grew rash.
"How shall we know," he asked, "whither you lead or whether you be
true or not?"
"As to whither I lead," said Ranjoor Singh, "God knows that better
than I. At least I have led you into no traps yet. And as to whether
I am true or not, it is enough that each should know his own heart.
I am for the raj!" And he drew his saber swiftly, came to the
salute, and kissed the hilt.
Then I spoke up, for I saw my opportunity. "So are we for the raj!"
said I. "We too, sahib!" And it was with difficulty then that I
restrained the men from bursting into cheers. Ranjoor Singh held his
hand up, and we daffadars flung ourselves along the line commanding
silence. A voice or two--even a dozen men talking--were inaudible,
but the Turks would have heard a cheer.
"Ye?" said Ranjoor Singh. "Ye for the raj? I thought ye were all for
loot?"
"Nay!" said Gooja Singh, for he saw his position undermined and
began to grow fearful for consequences. "We are all for the raj, and
all were for the raj from the first. It is you who are doubtful!"
He thought to arouse feeling again, but the contrast between the one
man and the other had been too strong and none gave him any backing.
Ranjoor Singh laughed.
"Have a care, Gooja Singh!" he warned. "I promised you court martial
and reduction to the ranks should I see fit! To your place in the
rear!"
So Gooja Singh slunk back to his place behind the men and I judged
him more likely than ever to be dangerous, although for the moment
overcome. But Ranjoor Singh had not finished yet.
"Then, on one point we are agreed," he said. "We will make the most
of that. Let us salute our own loyalty to India, and the British and
the Allies, with determination to give one another credit at least
for that in future! Pre--sent arms!"
So we presented arms, he kissing the hilt of his saber again; and it
was not until three days afterward that I overheard one of the
troopers saying that Gooja Singh had called attention to the fact of
its being a German saber. For the moment there was no more doubt
among us; and if Gooja Singh had not begun to be so fearful lest
Ranjoor Singh take vengeance on him there never would have been
doubt again. We felt warm, like men who had come in under cover from
the cold.
It was growing dusk by that time, and Ranjoor Singh bade us at once
to return to where the horses and Syrians waited in the hollow, he
himself continuing to sit alone on the summit of the ridge,
considering matters. We had no idea what he would do next, and none
dared ask him, although many of the men urged me to go and ask. But
at nightfall he came striding down to us and left us no longer in
doubt, for he ordered girths tightened and ammunition inspected.
The Syrians had no part in that night's doings. They were bidden
wait in the shadow of the ridge; with mules inspanned, and with
Tugendheim in charge we trusted them, to guard our Turkish
prisoners. Tugendheim bit his nails and made as if to pull his
mustache out by the roots, but we suffered no anxiety on his
account; his safety and ours were one. He had no alternative but to
obey.
Before the moon rose we sent our unmounted men to the top of the
ridge under Chatar Singh, and the rest of us rode in a circuit,
through a gap that Ranjoor Singh had found, to the plain on the far
side.
The Turks had driven their convoy into the desert and had camped
behind them, nearly three hundred strong. They had made one big fire
and many little ones, and looked extremely cheerful, what with the
smell of cooking and the dancing flame. Their horses were picketed
together in five lines with only a few guards, so that their capture
was an easy matter. We caught them entirely by surprise and fell on
them from three sides at once, our foot-men from the ridge
delivering such a hot fire that some of us were hit. I looked long
for the Turk who had fouled the water, and for the other one who had
lanced the child's body, but failed to identify either of them. I
found two who looked like them, crawling out from under a heap of
slain, and shot them through the head; but as to whether I slew the
right ones or not I do not know.
Three officers we made prisoner, making five that we had to care
for. The other officers were slain. We never knew how few or how
many Turks escaped under cover of darkness, but I suspect not more
than a dozen or two at the most. Whatever tale they told when they
got home again, it is pretty certain they gave the Kurds the blame,
for, how should they suppose us to be anything except Kurds?
We took no loot except the horses and rifles. We stacked the rifles
in a cart, picked the best horses, taking twenty-five spare ones
with us, and gave our worst horses to the Armenians to eat. We sent
a few Syrians in a hurry to warn the Armenians in the desert against
those Kurds who had ridden to the south to intercept them, and
tipped out two cartsful of corn that we could ill spare, putting our
wounded in the empty carts. We had one-and-twenty wounded, many of
them by our own riflemen.
Then we rode on into the night, Ranjoor Singh urging us to utmost
speed. The Armenians begged us to remain with them, or to take them
with us. Some clung to our stirrups, but we had to shake them loose.
For what could we do more than we had done for them? Should we die
with them in the desert, serving neither them nor us? We gave them
the best advice we could and rode away. We bade them eat, and
scatter, and hide. And I hope they did.
We rode on, laughing to think that Kurds would be blamed for our
doings, and wondering whether the Armenians had enough spirit left
to make use of the loot we did not touch. Some of us had lances now;
a few had sabers; all had good mounts and saddles. We were likely to
miss the corn we had given away; but to offset that we had a new
confidence in Ranjoor Singh that was beyond price, and I sang as I
rode. I sang the ANAND, our Sikh hymn of joy. I knew we were a
regiment again at last.
CHAPTER VII
Since when did god take sides against the brave?
--RANJOOR SINGH.
Did the sahib ever chance to hear that Persian proverb--"DUZD NE
GIRIFTAH PADSHAH AST"? No? It means "The uncaught thief is king."
Ho! but thenceforward that was a campaign that suited us! None could
catch us, for we could come and go like the night wind, and the
Turks are heavy on their feet. We helped ourselves to what we
needed. And a reputation began to hurry ahead of us that made
matters easier, for our numbers multiplied in men's imagination.
The Turks whom we had recently defeated gave Kurds the credit for
it, and after the survivors had crawled back home whole Turkish
regiments were ordered out by telegraph to hunt for raiding Kurds,
not us! We cut all the wires we could find uncut, real Kurds having
attended to the business already in most instances, and now, instead
of slipping unseen through the land we began to leave our signature,
and do deliberate damage.
None can beat Sikhs at such warfare as we waged across the breadth
of Asiatic Turkey, and none could beat Ranjoor Singh as leader of
it. We could outride the Turks, outwit them, outfight them, and
outdare them. As the spring advanced the weather improved and our
spirits rose; and as we began to take the offensive more and more
our confidence increased in Ranjoor Singh until there might never
have been any doubt of him, except that Gooja Singh was too
conscious of his own faults to dare let matters be. He was ever on
the watch for a chance to make himself safe at Ranjoor Singh's
expense. He was a good enough soldier when so minded. All of us
daffadars were developing into very excellent troop commanders, and
he not least of us; but the more efficient he grew the more
dangerous he was, for the very good reason that Ranjoor Singh
scorned to take notice of his hate and only praised him for
efficiency. Whereas he watched all the time for faults in Ranjoor
Singh to take advantage of them.
So I took thought, and used discretion, and chose twelve troopers
whom I drafted into Gooja Singh's command by twos and threes, he not
suspecting. By ones and twos and threes I took them apart and tested
them, saying much the same to each.
Said I, "Who mistrusts our sahib any longer?" And because I had
chosen them well they each made the same answer. "Nay," said they,
"we were fools. He was always truer than any of us. He surrendered
in that trench that we might live for some such work as this!"
"If he were to be slain," said I, "what would now become of us?"
"He must not be slain!" said they.
"But what if he IS slain?" I answered. "Who knows his plans for the
future?"
"Ask him to tell his plans," said they. "He trusts you more than any
of us. Ask and he will tell."
"Nay," said I, "I have asked and he will not tell. He knows, as well
as you or I, that not all the men of this regiment have always
believed in him. He knows that none dare kill him unless they know
his plans first, for until they have his plans how can they dispense
with his leadership?"
"Who are these who wish to kill him?" said they. "Let there be court
martial and a hanging!"
"Nay," said I, "let there be a silence and forgetting, lest too many
be involved!"
They nodded, knowing well that not one man of us all would escape
condemnation if inquiry could be carried back far enough.
"Let there be much watchfulness!" said I.
"Who shall watch Ranjoor Singh?" said they. "He is here, there and
everywhere! He is gone before dawn, and perhaps we see him again at
noon, but probably not until night. And half the night he spends in
the saddle as often as not. Who shall watch him?"
"True!" said I. "But if we took thought, and decided who might--
perhaps--most desire to kill him for evil recollection's sake, then
we might watch and prevent the deed."
"Aye!" said they, and they understood. So I arranged with Ranjoor
Singh to have them transferred to Gooja Singh's troop, making this
excuse and that and telling everything except the truth about it. If
I had told him the truth, Ranjoor Singh would have laughed and my
precaution would have been wasted, but having lied I was able to
ride on with easier mind--such sometimes being the case.
We had little trouble in keeping on the horizon whenever we sighted
Turks in force; and then probably the distance deceived them into
thinking us Turks, too, for we rode now with no less than five
Turkish officers as well as a German sergeant. And in the rear of
large bodies of Turks there was generally a defenseless town or
village whose Armenians had all been butchered, and whose other
inhabitants were mostly too gorged with plunder to show any fight.
We helped ourselves to food, clothing, horses, saddlery, horse-feed,
and anything else that Ranjoor Singh considered we might need, but
he threatened to hang the man who plundered anything of personal
value to himself, and none of us wished to die by that means.
We soon began to need medicines and a doctor badly, for we lost no
less than eight-and-twenty men between the avenging of those
Armenians in the desert and reaching the Kurdish mountains, and once
we had more than forty wounded at one time. But finally we captured
a Greek doctor, attached to the Turkish army, and he had along with
him two mule-loads of medicines. Ranjoor Singh promised him seven
deaths for every one of our wounded men who should die of neglect,
and most of them began to recover very quickly.
If we had tried merely to plunder; or had raided the same place
twice; or, if we had rested merely because we were weary; or, if we
had once done what might have been expected of us, I should not now
sit beneath this tree talking to you, sahib, because my bones would
be lying in Asiatic Turkey. But we rode zigzag-wise, very often
doubling on our tracks, Ranjoor Singh often keeping half a day's
march ahead of us gathering information.
When we raided a town or village we used to tie our Turkish officers
hand and foot and cover them up in a cart, for we wished them to be
mistaken for Kurds, not Turks. And in almost the first bazaar we
plundered were strange hats such as Kurds wear, that gave us when we
wore them in the dark the appearance, perhaps, of Kurds who had
stolen strange garments (for the Kurds wear quite distinctive
clothes, of which we did not succeed in plundering sufficient to
disguise us all).
In more than one town we had to fight for what we took, for there
were Turkish soldiers that we did not know about, for all Ranjoor
Singh's good scouting. Sometimes we beat them off with very little
trouble; sometimes we had about enough fighting to warm our hearts
and terrify the inhabitants. But in one town we were caught
plundering the bazaar by several hundred Turkish infantry who
entered from the far side unexpectedly; and if we had not burned the
bazaar I doubt that we should have won clear of that trap. But the
smoke and flame served us for a screen, and we got to the rear of
the Turks and killed a number of them before galloping off into the
dark.
But who shall tell in a day what took weeks in the doing? I do not
remember the tenth part of it! We rode, and we skirmished, and we
plundered, growing daily more proud of Ranjoor Singh, and most of us
forgetting we had ever doubted him. Once we rode for ten miles side
by side in the darkness with a Turkish column that had been sent to
hunt for us! Perhaps they mistook our squeaky old carts for their
cannon; that had camped for the night unknown to them! Next day we
told some Kurds where to find the cannon, and doubtless the Kurds
made trouble. We let the column alone, for it was too big for us--
about two regiments, I think. They camped at midnight, and we rode
on.
We gave our horses all the care we could, but that was none too
much, and we had to procure new mounts very frequently. Often we
picked up a dozen at a time in the towns and villages, slaying those
we left behind lest they be of use to the enemy. Once we wrought a
miracle, being nearly at a standstill from hard marching, and almost
surrounded by regiments sent out to cut us off. We raided the horse-
lines of a Turkish regiment that had camped beside a stream,
securing all the horses we needed and stampeding the remainder! Thus
we escaped through the gap that regiment had been supposed to close.
We got away with their baked bread, too, enough to last us at least
three days! That was not far from Diarbekr.
By the time we reached the Tigris and crossed it near Diarbekr we
were happy men; for we were not in search of idleness; all most of
us asked was a chance to serve our friends, and making trouble for
the Turks was surely service! One way and another we made more
trouble than ten times our number could have made in Flanders. Every
one of us but Gooja Singh was happy.
We crossed the Tigris in the dark, and some of us were nearly
drowned, owing to the horses being frightened. We had to abandon our
carts, so we burned them; and by the light of that fire we saw great
mounds of Turkish supplies that they intended to float down the
river to Bagdad on strange rafts made of goatskins. The sentries
guarding the stores put up a little fight, and five more of us were
wounded, but finally we burned the stores, and the flames were so
bright and high that we had to gallop for two miles before we could
be safe again in darkness. So we crossed at a rather bad place, and
there was something like panic for ten minutes, but we got over
safely in the end, wounded and all. We floated the wounded men and
ammunition and rations for men and horses across on some of those
strange goatskin rafts that go round and round and any way but
forward. We found them in the long grass by the river-bank.
At a town on the far side we seized new carts, far better than our
old ones. And then, because we might have been expected to continue
eastward, we turned to the south and followed the course of the
Tigris, straight into Kurdish country, where it did us no good to
resemble either Turks or Kurds; for we could not hope to deceive the
Kurds into thinking we were of their tribe, and Turks and Kurds are
open enemies wherever the Turks are not strong enough to overawe.
They were all Kurds in these parts, and no Turks at all, so that our
problem became quite different. After two days' riding over what was
little else than wilderness, Ranjoor Singh made new dispositions,
and we put the Kurdish headgear in our knapsacks.
In the first place, the wounded had been suffering severely from the
long forced marches and the jolting of the springless carts. Some of
them had died, and the Greek doctor had grown very anxious for his
own skin. Ranjoor Singh summoned him and listened to great
explanations and excuses, finally gravely permitting him to live,
but adding solemn words of caution. Then he ordered the carts
abandoned, for there was now no road at all. The forty Turkish
soldiers (in their Syrian clothes) were made to carry the wounded in
stretchers we improvised, until some got well and some died; those
who did not carry wounded were made to carry ammunition, and some of
our own men who had tried to disregard Ranjoor Singh's strict orders
regarding women of the country were made to help them. That
arrangement lasted until we came to a village where the Kurds were
willing to exchange mules against the rifles we had taken from the
Kurds, one mule for one rifle, we refusing to part with any
cartridges.
After that the wounded had to ride on mules, some of them two to a
mule, holding each other on, and the cartridge boxes were packed on
the backs of other mules, except that men who tried to make free
with native women were invariably ordered to relieve a mule. Then we
had no further use for the forty Turks, so we turned them loose with
enough food to enable them to reach Diarbekr if they were
economical. They went off none too eagerly in their Syrian clothes,
and I have often wondered whether they ever reached their
destination, for the Kurds of those parts are a fierce people, and
it is doubtful which they would rather ill-treat and kill, a Turk or
a Syrian. The Turks have taught them to despise Armenians and
Syrians, but they despise Turks naturally. (All this I learned from
Abraham, who often marched beside me.)
"Those Turks we have released will go back and set their people on
our trail," said Gooja Singh, overlooking no chance to throw
discredit.
"If they ever get safely back, that is what I hope they will do!"
Ranjoor Singh answered. "We will disturb hornets and pray that Turks
get stung!"
He would give no explanation, but it was not long before we all
understood. Little by little, he was admitting us to confidence in
those days, never telling at a time more than enough to arouse
interest and hope.
Rather than have him look like a Turk any longer, we had dressed up
Abraham in the uniform of one of our dead troopers; and when at last
a Kurdish chief rode up with a hundred men at his back and demanded
to know our business, Ranjoor Singh called Abraham to interpret. We
could easily have beaten a mere hundred Kurds, but to have won a
skirmish just then would have helped us almost as little as to lose
one. What we wanted was free leave to ride forward.
"Where are ye, and whither are ye bound? What seek ye?" the Kurd
demanded, but Ranjoor Singh proved equal to the occasion.
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