Books: Hira Singh
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Talbot Mundy >> Hira Singh
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"We be troops from India," said he. "We have been fighting in Europe
on the side of France and England, and the Germans and Turks have
been so badly beaten that you see for yourself what is happening.
Behold us! We are an advance party. These Turkish officers you see
are prisoners we have taken on our way. Behold, we have also a
German prisoner! You will find all the Turks between here and Syria
in a state of panic, and if plunder is what you desire you would
better make haste and get what you can before the great armies come
eating the land like locusts! Plunder the Turks and prove yourselves
the friends of French and English!"
Sahib, those Kurds would rather loot than go to heaven, and, like
all wild people, they are very credulous. There are Kurds and Kurds
and Kurds, nations within a nation, speaking many dialects of one
tongue. Some of them are half-tame and live on the plains; those the
Turks are able to draft into their armies to some extent. Some of
the plainsmen, like those I speak of now, are altogether wild and
will not serve the Turks on any terms. And most of the hillmen
prefer to shoot a Turk on sight. I would rather fight a pig with
bare hands than try to stand between a Kurd and Turkish plunder, and
it only needed just those few words of Ranjoor Singh's to set that
part of the world alight!
We rode for very many days after that, following the course of the
Tigris unmolested. The tale Ranjoor Singh told had gone ahead of us.
The village Kurds waited to have one look, saw our Turkish prisoners
and our Sikh turbans, judged for themselves, and were off! I believe
we cost the Turkish garrisons in those parts some grim fighting; and
if any Turks were on our trail I dare wager they met a swarm or two
of hornets more than they bargained for!
Instead of having to fight our way through that country, we were
well received. Wherever we found Kurds, either in tents or in
villages, the unveiled women would give us DU, as they call their
curds and whey, and barley for our horses, and now and then a little
bread. When other persuasion failed, we could buy almost anything
they had with a handful or two of cartridges. They were a savage
people, but not altogether unpleasing.
Once, where the Tigris curved and our road brought us near the
banks, by a high cliff past which the river swept at very great
speed, we took part in a sport that cost us some cartridges, but no
risk, and gave us great amusement. The Kurds of those parts, having
heard in advance of our tale of victory, had decided, to take the
nearest loot to hand; so they had made an ambuscade down near the
river level, and when we came on the scene we lent a hand from
higher up.
Rushing down the river at enormous speed (for the stream was narrow
there) forced between rocks with a roar and much white foam the
goatskin rafts kept coming on their way to Mosul and Bagdad, some
loaded with soldiers, some with officers, and all with goods on
which the passengers must sit to keep their legs dry. The rafts were
each managed by two men, who worked long oars to keep them in mid-
current, they turning slowly round and round.
The mode of procedure was to volley at them, shooting, if possible,
the men with oars, but not despising a burst goatskin bag. In case
the men with oars were shot, the others would try to take their
place, and, being unskilful, would very swifly run the raft against
a rock, when it would break up and drown its passengers, the goods
drifting ashore at the bend in the river in due time.
On the other hand, when a few goatskin bags were pierced the raft
would begin to topple over and the men with oars would themselves
direct the raft toward the shore, preferring to take their chance
among Kurds than with the rocks that stuck up like fangs out of the
raging water. No, sahib, I could not see what happened to them after
they reached shore. That is a savage country.
One of our first volleys struck a raft so evenly and all together
that it blew up as if it had been torpedoed! We tried again and
again to repeat that performance, until Ranjoor Singh checked us for
wasting ammunition. It was very good sport. There were rafts and
rafts and rafts--KYAKS, I think they call them--and the amount of
plunder those Kurds collected on the beach must have been
astonishing.
We gave the city of Mosul a very wide berth, for that is the largest
city of those parts, with a very large Turkish garrison. Twenty
miles to the north of it we captured a good convoy of mules,
together with their drivers, headed toward Mosul, and the mules'
loads turned out to consist of good things to eat, including butter
in large quantities. We came on them in the gathering dusk, when
their escort of fifty Turkish infantry had piled arms, we being
totally unexpected. So we captured the fifty rifles as well as the
mules; and, although the mule-drivers gave us the slip next day, and
no doubt gave information about us in Mosul, that did not worry us
much. We cut two telegraph wires leading toward Mosul that same
night; we cut out two miles of wire in sections, riding away with
it, and burned the poles.
After that, whenever we could catch a small party of men, Turks
excepted (for that would have been to give the Turks more
information than we could expect to get from them), Ranjoor Singh
would ask questions about Wassmuss. Most of them would glance toward
the mountains at mention of his name, but few had much to tell about
him. However, bit by bit, our knowledge of his doings and his
whereabouts kept growing, and we rode forward, ever toward the
mountains now, wasting no time and plundering no more than
expedient.
We saw no more living Armenians on all that long journey. The Turks
and Kurds had exterminated them! We rode by burned villages, and
through villages that once had been half-Armenian. The non-Armenian
houses would all be standing, like to burst apart with plunder, but
every single one that had sheltered an Armenian family would lie in
ruins. God knows why! On all our way we found no man who could tell
us what those people had done to deserve such hatred. We asked, but
none could tell us.
One town, through which we rode at full gallop, had Armenian bodies
still lying in the streets, some of them half-burned, and there were
Kurds and Turks busy plundering the houses. Some of them came out to
fire at us, but failed to do us any harm, and, the wind being the
right way, we set a light to a dozen houses at the eastward end. Two
or three miles away we stopped to watch the whole town go up in
flames, and laughed long at the Turks' efforts to save their loot.
As we drew near enough to the mountains to see snow and to make out
the lie of the different ranges, we ceased to have any fear of
pursuit. There was plenty of evidence of Turkish armies not very far
away; in fact, at Mosul there was gathering a very great army
indeed; but they were all so busy killing and torturing and hunting
down Armenians that they seemed to have no time for duty on that
part of the frontier. Perhaps that was why the Germans had sent
Wassmuss, in order that the Turks might have more leisure to destroy
their enemies at home! Who knows? There are many things about this
great war to which none know the answer, and I think the fate of the
Armenians is one of them.
But who thought any more of Armenians when the outer spurs of the
foot-hills began to close around us? Not we, at any rate. We had
problems enough of our own. What lay behind us was behind, and the
future was likely to afford us plenty to think about! Too many of us
had fought among the slopes of the Himalayas now to know how
difficult it would be for Turks to follow us; but those
mountaineers, who are nearly as fierce as our mountaineers of
northern India, and who have ever been too many for the Turks, were
likely to prove more dangerous than anything we had met yet.
We had enough food packed on our captured mules to last us for
perhaps another eight days when we at last rode into a grim defile
that seemed to lead between the very gate-posts of the East--two
great mountains, one on either hand, barren, and ragged, and hard.
We were being led at that time by a Kurdish prisoner, who had lain
by the wayside with the bellyache. Our Greek doctor had physicked
him, and he was now compelled to lead us under Ranjoor Singh's
directions, with his hands made fast behind him, he riding on a mule
with one of our men on either hand. By that time Ranjoor Singh had
picked up enough information at different times, and had added
enough of it together to know whither we must march, and the Kurd
had nothing to do but obey orders.
We had scarcely ridden three hundred yards into the defile of which
I speak, remarking the signs of another small body of mounted men
who had preceded us, when fifty shots rang out from overhead and we
took open order as if a shell had burst among us. Nobody was hit,
however, and I think nobody was intended to be hit. I saw that
Ranjoor Singh looked unalarmed. He beckoned for Abraham, who looked
terrified, and I took Abraham by the shoulder and brought him
forward. There came a wild yell from overhead, and Ranjoor Singh
made Abraham answer it with something about Wassmuss. In the
shouting that followed I caught the word Wassmuss many times.
Presently a Kurdish chief came galloping down, for all the world as
one of our Indian mountaineers would ride, leaping his horse from
rock to rock as if he and the beast were one. I rode to Ranjoor
Singh's side, to protect him if need be, so I heard what followed,
Abraham translating.
"Whence are ye?" said the Kurd. "And whither? And what will ye?"
They are inquisitive people, and they always seem to wish to know
those three things first.
"I have told you already, I ride from Farangistan, [Footnote:
Europe] and I seek Wassmuss. These are my men," said Ranjoor Singh.
"No more may reach Wassmuss unless they have the money with them!"
said the Kurd, very truculently. "Two days ago we let by the last
party of men who carried only talk. Now we want only money!"
"Who was ever helped by impatience?" asked Ranjoor Singh.
"Nay," said the Kurd, "we are a patient folk! We have waited
eighteen days for sight of this gold for Wassmuss. It should have
been here fifteen days ago, so Wassmuss said, but we are willing to
wait eighteen more. Until it comes, none else shall pass!"
I was watching Ranjoor Singh very closely indeed, and I saw that he
saw daylight, as it were, through darkness.
"Yet no gold shall come," he answered, "until you and I shall have
talked together, and shall have reached an agreement."
"Agreement?" said the Kurd. "Ye have my word! Ride back and bid them
bring their gold in safety and without fear!"
"Without fear?" said Ranjoor Singh. "Then who are ye?"
"We," said the Kurd, "are the escort, to bring the gold in safety
through the mountain passes."
"So that he may divide it among others?" asked Ranjoor Singh, and I
saw the Kurd wince. "Gold is gold!" he went on. "Who art thou to let
by an opportunity?"
"Speak plain words," said the Kurd.
"Here?" said Ranjoor Singh. "Here in this defile, where men might
come on us from the rear at any minute?"
"That they can not do," the Kurd answered, "for my men watch from
overhead."
"Nevertheless," said Ranjoor Singh, "I will speak no plain words
here."
The Kurd looked long at him--at least a whole minute. Then he wiped
his nose on the long sleeve of his tunic and turned about. "Come in
peace!" he said, spurring his horse.
Ranjoor Singh followed him, and we followed Ranjoor Singh, without
one word spoken or order given. The Kurd led straight up the defile
for a little way, then sharp to the right and uphill along a path
that wound among great boulders, until at last we halted, pack-mules
and all, in a bare arena formed by a high cliff at the rear and on
three sides by gigantic rocks that fringed it, making a natural
fort.
The Kurd's men were mostly looking out from between the rocks, but
some of them were sprawling in the shadow of a great boulder in the
midst, and some were attending to the horses that stood tethered in
a long line under the cliff at the rear. The chief drove away those
who lay in the shadow of the boulder in the midst, and bade Ranjoor
Singh and me and Abraham be seated. Ranjoor Singh called up the
other daffadars, and we all sat facing the Kurd, with Abraham a
little to one side between him and us, to act interpreter. That was
the first time Ranjoor Singh had taken so many at once into his
confidence and I took it for a good sign, although unable to ignore
a twinge of jealousy.
"Now?" said the Kurd. "Speak plain words!"
"You have not yet offered us food," said Ranjoor Singh.
The Kurd stared hard at him, eye to eye. "I have good reason," he
answered. "By our law, he who eats our bread can not be treated as
an enemy. If I feed you, how can I let my men attack you afterward?"
"You could not," said Ranjoor Singh. "We, too, have a law, that he
with whom we have eaten salt is not enemy but friend. Let us eat
bread and salt together, then, for I have a plan."
"A plan?" said the Kurd. "What manner of a plan? I await gold. What
are words?"
"A good plan," said Ranjoor Singh.
"And on the strength of an empty boast am I to eat bread and salt
with you?" the Kurd asked.
"If you wish to hear the plan," said Ranjoor Singh. "To my enemy I
tell nothing; however, let my friend but ask!"
The Kurd thought a long time, but we facing him added no word to
encourage or confuse him. I saw that his curiosity increased the
more the longer we were silent; yet I doubt whether his was greater
than my own! Can the sahib guess what Ranjoor Singh's plan was? Nay,
that Kurd was no great fool. He was in the dark. He saw swiftly
enough when explanations came.
"I have three hundred mounted men!" the Kurd said at last.
"And I near as many!" answered Ranjoor Singh. "I crave no favors! I
come with an offer, as one leader to another!"
The Kurd frowned and hesitated, but sent at last for bread and salt,
for all our party, except that he ordered his men to give none to
our prisoners and none to the Syrians, whom he mistook for Turkish
soldiers. If Ranjoor Singh had told him they were Syrians he would
have refused the more, for Kurds regard Syrians as wolves regard
sheep.
"Let the prisoners be," said Ranjoor Singh, "but feed those others!
They must help put through the plan!"
So the Kurd ordered our Syrians, whom he thought Turks, fed too, and
we dipped the flat bread (something like our Indian chapatties) into
salt and ate, facing one another.
"Now speak, and we listen," said the Kurd when we had finished. Some
of his men had come back, clustering around him, and we were quite a
party, filling all the shadow of the great rock.
"How much of that gold was to have been yours?" asked Ranjoor Singh,
and the Kurd's eyes blazed. "Wassmuss promised me so-and-so much,"
he answered, "if I with three hundred men wait here for the convoy
and escort it to where he waits."
"But why do ye serve Wassmuss?" asked Ranjoor Singh.
"Because he buys friendship, as other men buy ghee, or a horse, or
ammunition," said the Kurd. "He spends gold like water, saying it is
German gold, and in return for it we must harry the British and
Russians."
"Yet you and I are friends by bread and salt," said Ranjoor Singh,
"and I offer you all this gold, whereas he offers only part of it!
Nay, I and my men need none of it--I offer it all!"
"At what price?" asked the Kurd, suspiciously. Doubtless men who
need no gold were as rare among these mountains as in other places!
"I shall name a price," said Ranjoor Singh. "A low price. We shall
both be content with our bargain, and possibly Wassmuss, too, may
feel satisfied for a while."
"Nay, you must be a wizard!" said the Kurd. "Speak on!"
"Tell me first," said Ranjoor Singh, "about the party who went
through this defile two days ahead of us."
"What do you know of them?" asked the Kurd.
"This," said Ranjoor Singh. "We have followed them from Mosul,
learning here a little and there a little. What is it that they have
with them? Who are they? Why were they let pass?"
"They were let pass because Wassmuss gave the order," the Kurd
answered. "They are Germans--six German officers, six German
servants--and Kurds--twenty-four Kurds of the plains acting porters
and camp-servants--many mules--two mules bearing a box slung on
poles between them."
"What was in the box?" asked Ranjoor Singh.
"Nay, I know not," said the Kurd.
"Nevertheless," said Ranjoor Singh, "my brother is a man with eyes
and ears. What did my brother hear?"
"They said their machine can send and receive a message from places
as far apart as Khabul and Stamboul. Doubtless they lied," the Kurd
answered.
"Doubtless!" said Ranjoor Singh. By his slow even breathing and
apparent indifference, I knew he was on a hot scent, so I tried to
appear indifferent myself, although my ears burned. The Kurds
clustering around their leader listened with ears and eyes agape.
They made no secret of their interest.
"They said they are on their way to Khabul," the Kurd continued,
"there to receive messages from Europe and acquaint the amir and his
ruling chiefs of the true condition of affairs."
"How shall they reach Afghanistan?" asked Ranjoor Singh. "Does a
road through Persia lie open to them?"
"Nay," said the Kurd. "Persia is like a nest of hornets. But they
are to receive an escort of us Kurds to take them through Persia. We
mountain Kurds are not afraid of Persians."
"Which Kurds are to provide the escort?" Ranjoor Singh asked him,
and the Kurd shook his head.
"Nay," he said, "that none can tell. It is not yet agreed. There is
small competition for the task. There are better pickings here on
the border, raiding now and then, and pocketing the gold of this
Wassmuss between-whiles! Who wants the task of escorting a machine
in a box to Khabul?"
"Nevertheless," said Ranjoor Singh, "I know of a leader and his men
who will undertake the task."
"Who, then?" said the Kurd.
"I and my men!" said Ranjoor Singh; and I held my breath until I
thought my lungs would burst. "Persia!" thought I. "Afghanistan!"
thought I. "And what beyond?"
"Ye are not Kurds," the chief answered, after he had considered a
while. "Wassmuss said the escort must consist of three hundred Kurds
or he will not pay."
"The payment shall be arranged between me and thee!" said Ranjoor
Singh. "You shall have all the gold of this next convoy, if you will
ride back to Wassmuss and agree that you and your men shall be the
escort to Afghanistan."
"Who shall guard this pass if I ride back?" the Kurd asked.
"I!" said Ranjoor Singh. "I and my men will wait here for the gold.
Leave me a few of your men to be guides and to keep peace between us
and other Kurds among these mountains. Ride and tell Wassmuss that
the gold will not come for another thirty days."
"He will not believe," said the Kurd.
"I will give you a letter," said Ranjoor Singh.
"He will not believe the letter," said the Kurd.
"What is that to thee, whether he believes it or not?" said Ranjoor
Singh. "At least he will believe that Turks brought you the letter,
and that you took it to him in good faith. Will he charge you with
having written it?"
"Nay," said the Kurd, nodding, "I can not write, and he knows it."
"Do that, then," said Ranjoor Singh. "Ride and agree to be escort
for these Germans and their machine to Afghanistan. Leave me here
with ten or a dozen of your men, who will guide me after I have the
gold to where you shall be camping with your Germans somewhere just
beyond the Persian border. I will arrange to overtake you after
dusk--perhaps at midnight. There I will give you the gold, and you
shall ride away. I and my men will ride on as escort to the
Germans."
"What if they object?" said the Kurd.
"Who? The men with the box, or Wassmuss?" asked Ranjoor Singh.
"Nay," said the Kurd, "Wassmuss will be very glad to get a willing
escort. He is in difficulty over that. There will be no objection
from him. But what if the men with the box object to the change of
escorts?"
"We be over two hundred, and they thirty!" answered Ranjoor Singh,
and the Kurd nodded.
"After all," he said, "that is thy affair. But how am I to know that
you and your men will not ride off with the gold? Nay, I must have
the gold first!"
Ranjoor Singh shook his head.
"Then I and my men will stay here and help seize the gold," the Kurd
said meaningly.
"Nay!" said Ranjoor Singh. "For then you would fight me for it!"
"Thou and I have eaten bread and salt together!" said the Kurd.
"True," said Ranjoor Singh, "therefore trust me, for I am a Sikh
from India."
"I know nothing of Sikhs, or of India," said the Kurd. "Gold I know
in the dark, by its jingle and weight, but who knows the heart of a
man?"
"Then listen," said Ranjoor Singh. "If you and your men seize the
gold, you must bear the blame. When the Turks come later on for
vengeance, you will hang. But if I stay and take the gold, who shall
know who I am? You will be able to prove with the aid of Wassmuss
that neither you nor your men were anywhere near when, the attack
took place."
"Then you will make an ambush?" said the Kurd.
"I will set a trap," said Ranjoor Singh. "Moreover, consider this:
You think I may take the gold and keep it. How could I? Having taken
it from the Turks, should I ride back toward Turkey? Whither else,
then? Shall I escape through Persia, with you and your Kurds to
prevent? Nay, we must make a fair bargain as friend with friend--and
keep it!"
"If I do as you say," said the Kurd, "if I take this letter to
Wassmuss, and agree with him to escort those Germans across Persia,
what, then, if you fail to get the gold? What if the Turks get the
better of you?"
"Dead men can not keep bargains!" answered Ranjoor Singh. "I shall
succeed or die. But consider again: I have led these men of mine
hither from Stamboul, deceiving and routing and outdistancing
Turkish regiments all the way. Shall I fail now, having come so
far?"
"Insha' Allah!" said the Kurd, meaning, "If God wills."
"Since when did God take sides against the brave?" Ranjoor Singh
asked him, and the Kurd said nothing; but I feared greatly because
they seemed on the verge of a religious argument, and those Kurds
are fanatics. If anything but gold had been in the balance against
him, I believe that Kurd would have defied us, for, although he did
not know what Sikhs might be, he knew us for no Musselmen. I saw his
eyes look inward, meditating treachery, not only to Wassmuss, but to
us, too. But Ranjoor Singh detected that quicker than I did.
"Let us neglect no points," he said, and the Kurd brought his mind
back with an effort from considering plans against us. "It would be
possible for me to get that gold, and for other Kurds--not you or
your men, of course, but other Kurds--to waylay me in the mountains.
Therefore let part of the agreement be that you leave with me ten
hostages, of whom two shall be your blood relations."
The Kurd winced. He was a little keen man, with, a thin face and
prominent nose; not ill-looking, but extremely acquisitive, I should
say.
"Wassmuss holds my brother hostage!" he answered grimly, as if he
had just then thought of it.
"I have a German prisoner here," said Ranjoor Singh, with the
nearest approach to a smile that he had permitted himself yet, "and
Wassmuss will be very glad to exchange him against your brother when
the time comes."
"Ah!" said the Kurd, and--
"Ah!" said Ranjoor Singh. He saw now which way the wind blew, and,
like all born cavalry leaders, he pressed his advantage.
"Do the Turks hold any of your men prisoner?" he asked.
"Aye!" said the Kurd. "They hold an uncle of mine, and my half-
brother, and seven of my best men. They keep them in jail in
fetters."
"I have five Turkish prisoners, all officers, one a bimbashi, whom I
will give you when I hand over the gold. The Turks will gladly trade
your men against their officers," Ranjoor Singh assured him. "You
shall have them and the German to make your trade with."
It was plain the Kurd was more than half-convinced. His men who
swarmed around him were urging him in whispers. Doubtless they knew
he would keep most, if not all, of the gold for himself, but the
safety of their friends made more direct appeal and I don't think he
would have dared neglect that opportunity for fear of losing their
allegiance. Nevertheless, he bargained to the end.
"Give me, then, ten hostages against my ten, and we are agreed!" he
urged.
"Nay, nay!" said Ranjoor Singh. "It is my task to fight for that
gold. Shall I weaken my force by ten men? Nay, we are already few
enough! I will give you one--to be exchanged against your ten at the
time of giving up the gold in Persia."
"Ten!" said the Kurd. "Ten against ten!"
"One!" said Ranjoor Singh, and I thought they would quarrel and the
whole plan would come to nothing. But the Kurd gave in.
"Then one officer!" said the Kurd, and I trembled, for I saw that
Ranjoor Singh intended to agree to that, and I feared he might pick
me. But no. If I had thought a minute I would not have feared, yet
who thinks at such times? The men who think first of their charge
and last of their own skin are such as Ranjoor Singh; a year after
war begins they are still leading. The rest of us must either be
content to be led, or else are superseded. I burst into a sweat all
over, for all that a cold wind swept among the rocks. Yet I might
have known I was not to be spared.
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