Books: Hira Singh
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Talbot Mundy >> Hira Singh
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He came back before night to sleep in our compartment, but before he
came I had taken opportunity to pass word through the window to the
troopers in the carriage next behind.
"Ranjoor Singh," said I, "warns us all to be on guard against this
German. He is a spy set to overhear our talk."
That word went all down the train from, window to window and it had
some effect, for during all the days that followed Tugendheim was
never once able to get between us and our thoughts, although he
tried a thousand times.
Night followed day, and day night. Our train crawled, and waited,
and crawled, and waited, and we in our compartment grew weary to the
death of Tugendheim. A thousand times I envied Ranjoor Singh alone
with his thoughts in the next compartment; and so far was he from
suffering because of solitude that he seemed to keep more and more
apart from us, only passing swiftly down the train at meal-times to
make sure we all had enough to eat and that there were no sick.
I reached the conclusion myself that we were being sent to fight
against the Russians, and I know not what the troopers thought; they
were beginning to be like caged madmen. But suddenly we reached a
broad river I knew must be the Danube and were allowed at last to
leave the train. We were so glad to move about again that any news
seemed good news, and when Ranjoor Singh, after much talk with our
staff officer and some other Germans, came and told us that Bulgaria
had joined the war on the side of the Central Powers, we laughed and
applauded.
"That means that our road lies open before us," Ranjoor Singh said
darkly.
"Our road whither?" said I.
"To Stamboul!" said he.
"What are we to do at Stamboul?" asked Gooja Singh, and the staff
officer, whose name I never knew, heard him and came toward us.
"At Stamboul," said he, in fairly good Punjabi, "you will strike a
blow beside our friends, the Turks. Not very far from Stamboul you
shall be given opportunity for vengeance on the British. The next-
to-the-last stage of your journey lies through Bulgaria, and the
beginning of it will be on that steamer."
We saw the steamer, lying with its nose toward the bank. It was no
very big one for our number, but they marched us to it, Ranjoor
Singh striding at our head as if all the world were unfolding before
him, and all were his. We were packed on board and the steamer
started at once, Ranjoor Singh and the staff officer sharing the
upper part with the steamer's captain, and Tugendheim elbowing us
for room on the open deck. So we journeyed for a whole day and part
of a night down the Danube, Tugendheim pointing out to me things I
should observe along the route, but grumbling vastly at separation
from his regiment.
"You bloody Sikhs!" said he. "I would rather march with lice--yet
what can I do? I must obey orders. See that castle!" There were many
castles, sahib, at bends and on hilltops overlooking the river.
"They built that," said he, "in the good old days before men ever
heard of Sikhs. Life was worth while in those days, and a man lived
a lifetime with his regiment!"
"Ah!" said I, choosing not to take offense; for one fool can make
trouble that perhaps a thousand wise men can not still. If he had
thought, he must have known that we Sikhs spend a lifetime with our
regiments, and therefore know more about such matters than any
German reservist. But he was little given to thought, although not
ill-humored in intention.
"Behold that building!" said he. "That looks like a brewery!
Consider the sea of beer they brew there once a month, and then
think of your oath of abstinence and what you miss!"
So he talked, ever nudging me in the ribs until I grew sore and my
very gorge revolted at his foolishness. So we sailed, passing along
a river that at another time would have delighted me beyond power of
speech. A day and a night we sailed, our little steamer being one of
a fleet all going one way. Tugs and tugs and tugs there were, all
pulling strings of barges. It was as if all the tugs and barges out
of Austria were hurrying with all the plunder of Europe God knew
whither.
"Whither are they taking all this stuff?" I asked Ranjoor Singh when
he came down among us to inspect our rations. He and I stood
together at the stern, and I waved my arm to designate the fleet of
floating things. We were almost the only troops, although there were
soldiers here and there on the tugs and barges, taking charge and
supervising.
"To Stamboul," said he. "Bulgaria is in. The road to Stamboul is
open."
"Sahib," said I, "I know you are true to the raj. I know the
surrender in Flanders was the only course possible for one to whom
the regiment had been entrusted. I know this business of taking the
German side is all pretense. Are we on the way to Stamboul?"
"Aye," said he.
"What are we to do at Stamboul?" I asked him.
"If you know all you say you know," said he, "why let the future
trouble you?"
"But---" said I.
"Nay," said he, "there can be no 'but.' There is false and true. The
one has no part in the other. What say the men?"
"They are true to the raj," said I.
"All of them?" he asked.
"Nay, sahib," said I. "Not quite all of them, but almost all."
He nodded. "We shall discover before long which are false and which
are true," said he, and then he left me.
So I told the men that we were truly on our way to Stamboul, and
there began new wondering and new conjecturing. The majority decided
at once that we were to be sent to Gallipoli to fight beside the
Turks in the trenches there, and presently they all grew very
determined to put no obstacle in the Germans' way but to go to
Gallipoli with good will. Once there, said they all, it should be
easy to cross to the British trenches under cover of the darkness.
"We will take Ranjoor Singh with us," they said darkly. "Then he can
make explanation of his conduct in the proper time and place!" I saw
one man hold his turban end as if it were a bandage over his eyes,
and several others snapped their fingers to suggest a firing party.
Many of the others laughed. Men in the dark, thought I, are fools to
do anything but watch and listen. Outlines change with the dawn,
thought I, and I determined to reserve my judgment on all points
except one--that I set full faith in Ranjoor Singh. But the men for
the most part had passed judgment and decided on a plan; so it came
about that there was no trouble in the matter of getting them to
Stamboul--or Constantinople, as Europeans call it.
At a place in Bulgaria whose name I have forgotten we disembarked
and became escort to a caravan of miscellaneous stores, proceeding
by forced marches over an abominable road. And after I forget how
many days and nights we reached a railway and were once more packed
into a train. Throughout that march, although we traversed wild
country where any or all of us might easily have deserted among the
mountains, Ranjoor Singh seemed so well to understand our intention
that he scarcely troubled himself to call the roll. He sat alone by
a little fire at night, and slept beside it wrapped in an overcoat
and blanket. And when we boarded a train again he was once more
alone in a compartment to himself. Once more I was compelled to sit
next to Tugendheim.
I grew no fonder of Tugendheim, although he made many efforts to
convince me of his friendship, making many prophetic statements to
encourage me.
"Soon," said he, "you shall have your bayonet in the belly of an
Englishman! You will be revenged im them for '57!" My grandfather
fought for the British in '57, sahib, and my father, who was little
more than old enough to run, carried food to him where he lay on the
Ridge before Delhi, the British having little enough food at that
time to share among their friends. But I said nothing, and
Tugendheim thought I was impressed--as indeed I was. "You will need
to fight like the devil," said he, "for if they catch you they'll
skin you!"
Partly he wished to discover what my thoughts were, and partly, I
think, his intention was to fill me with fighting courage; and,
since it would not have done to keep silence altogether, I began to
project the matter further and to talk of what might be after the
war should have been won. I made him believe that the hope of all us
Sikhs was to seek official employment under the German government;
and he made bold to prophesy a good job for every one of us. We
spent hours discussing what nature of employment would best be
suited to our genius, and he took opportunity at intervals to go to
the staff officer and acquaint him with all that I had said. By the
time we reached Stamboul at last I was more weary of him than an
ill-matched bullock of its yoke.
But we did reach Stamboul in the end, on a rainy morning, and
marched wondering through its crooked streets, scarcely noticed by
the inhabitants. Men seemed afraid to look long at us, but glanced
once swiftly and passed on. German officers were everywhere, many of
them driven in motor-cars at great speed through narrow
thoroughfares, scattering people to right and left; the Turkish
officers appeared to treat them with very great respect--although I
noticed here and there a few who looked indifferent, and
occasionally others who seemed to me indignant.
The mud, though not so bad as that in Flanders, was nearly as
depressing. The rain chilled the air, and shut in the view, and few
of us had very much sense of direction that first day in Stamboul.
Tugendheim, marching behind us, kept up an incessant growl. Ranjoor
Singh, striding in front of us with the staff officer at his side,
shook the rain from his shoulders and said nothing.
We were marched to a ferry and taken across what I know now was the
Golden Horn; and there was so much mist on the water that at times
we could scarcely see the ferry. Many troopers asked me if we were
not already on our way to Gallipoli, and I, knowing no more than
they, bade them wait and see.
On the other side of the Golden Horn we were marched through narrow
streets, uphill, uphill, uphill to a very great barrack and given a
section of it to ourselves. Ranjoor Singh was assigned private
quarters in a part of the building used by many German officers for
their mess. Not knowing our tongue, those officers were obliged to
converse with him in English, and I observed many times with what
distaste they did so, to my great amusement. I think Ranjoor Singh
was also much amused by that, for he grew far better humored and
readier to talk.
Sahib, that barrack was like a zoo--like the zoo I saw once at
Baroda, with animals of all sorts in it!--a great yellow building
within walls, packed with Kurds and Arabs and Syrians of more
different tribes than a man would readily believe existed in the
whole world. Few among them could talk any tongue that we knew, but
they were full of curiosity and crowded round us to ask questions;
and when Gooja Singh shouted aloud that we were Sikhs from India
they produced a man who seemed to think he knew about Sikhs, for he
stood on a step and harangued them for ten minutes, they listening
with all their ears.
Then came a Turk from the German officers' mess--we were all
standing in the rain in an open court between four walls--and he
told them truly who we were. Doubtless he added that we were in
revolt against the British, for they began to welcome us, shouting
and dancing about us, those who could come near enough taking our
hands and saying things we could not understand.
Presently they found a man who knew some English, and, urged by
them, he began to fill our ears with information. During our train
journey I had amused myself for many weary hours by asking
Tugendheim for details of the fighting he had seen and by listening
to the strings of lies he thought fit to narrate. But what
Tugendheim had told were almost truths compared to this man's
stories; in place of Tugendheim's studied vagueness there was detail
in such profusion that I can not recall now the hundredth part of
it.
He told us the British fleet had long been rusting at the bottom of
the sea, and that all the British generals and half the army were
prisoners in Berlin. Already the British were sending tribute money
to their conquerors, and the principal reason why the war continued
was that the British could not find enough donkeys to carry all the
gold to Berlin, and to prevent trickery of any kind the fighting
must continue until the last coin should have been counted.
The British and French, he told us, were all to be compelled, at the
point of the sword, to turn Muhammadan, and France was being scoured
that minute for women to grace the harems of the kaiser and his sons
and generals, all of whom had long ago accepted Islam. The kaiser,
indeed, had become the new chief of Islam.
I asked him about the fighting in Gallipoli, and lie said that was a
bagatelle. "When we shall have driven the remnants of those there
into the sea," said he, "one part of us will march to conquer Egypt
and the rest will be sent to garrison England and France."
When he had done and we were all under cover at last I repeated to
the men all that this fool had said, and they were very much
encouraged; for they reasoned that if the Turks and Germans needed
to fill up their men with such lies as those, then they must have a
poor case indeed. With our coats off, and a meal before us, and the
mud and rain for-gotten, we all began to feel almost happy; and
while we were in that mood Ranjoor Singh came to us with Tugendheim
at his heels.
"The plan now is to keep us here a week," said he. "After that to
send us to Gallipoli by steamer."
Sahib, there was uproar! Men could scarcely eat for the joy of
getting in sight of British lines again--or rather for joy of the
promise of it. They almost forgot to suspect Ranjoor Singh in that
minute, but praised him to his face and even made much of
Tugendheim.
But I, who followed Ranjoor Singh between the tables in case he
should have any orders to give, noticed particularly that he did not
say we were going to Gallipoli. He said, "The plan now is to send us
to Gallipoli." The trade of a leader of squadrons, thought I, is to
confound the laid plans of the enemy and to invent unexpected ones
of his own.
"The day we land in Gallipoli behind the Turkish trenches," said I
to myself, "is unlikely to be yet if Ranjoor Singh lives."
And I was right, sahib. But If I had been given a thousand years in
which to do it, I never could have guessed how Ranjoor Singh would
lead us out of the trap. Can the sahib guess?
CHAPTER IV
Fear comes and goes, but a man's love lives with him.
--EASTERN PROVERB.
Stamboul was disillusionment--a city of rain and plagues and stinks!
The food in barracks was maggoty. We breathed foul air and yearned
for the streets; yet, once in the streets, we yearned to be back in
barracks. Aye, sahib, we saw more in one day of the streets than we
thought good for us, none yet understanding the breadth of Ranjoor
Singh's wakefulness. He seemed to us like a man asleep in good
opinion of himself--that being doubtless the opinion he wished the
German officers to have of him.
Part of the German plan became evident at once, for, noticing our
great enthusiasm at the prospect of being sent to Gallipoli,
Tugendheim, in the hope of winning praise, told a German officer we
ought to be paraded through the streets as evidence that Indian
troops really were fighting with the Central Powers. The German
officer agreed instantly, Tugendheim making faces thus and brushing
his mustache more fiercely upward.
So the very first morning after our arrival we were paraded early
and sent out with a negro band, to tramp back and forth through the
streets until nearly too weary to desire life. Ranjoor Singh marched
at our head looking perfectly contented, for which the men all hated
him, and beside him went a Turk who knew English and who told him
the names of streets and places.
It did not escape my observation that Ranjoor Singh was interested
more than a little in the waterfront. But we all tramped like dumb
men, splashed to the waist with street dirt, aware we were being
used to make a mental impression on the Turks, but afraid to refuse
obedience lest we be not sent to Gallipoli after all. One thought
obsessed every single man but me: To get to Gallipoli, and escape to
the British trenches during some dark night, or perish in the
effort.
As for me, I kept open mind and watched. It is the non-commissioned
officer's affair to herd the men for his officer to lead. To have
argued with them or have suggested alternative possibilities would
have been only to enrage them and make them deaf to wise counsels
when the proper time should come. And, besides, I knew no more what
Ranjoor Singh had in mind than a dead man knows of the weather. We
marched through the streets, and marched, stared at silently,
neither cheered nor mocked by the inhabitants; and Ranjoor Singh
arrived at his own conclusions. Five several times during that one
day he halted us in the mud at a certain place along the water-
front, although there was a better place near by; and while we
rested he asked peculiar questions, and the Turk boasted to him,
explaining many things.
We were exhausted when it fell dark and we climbed up the hill again
to barracks. Yet as we entered the barrack gate I heard Ranjoor
Singh tell a German officer in English that we had all greatly
enjoyed our view of the city and the exercise. I repeated what I had
heard while the men were at supper, and they began to wonder
greatly.
"Such a lie!" said they.
"That surely was a lie?" I asked, and they answered that the man who
truly had enjoyed such tramping to and fro was no soldier but a mud-
fish.
"Then, if he lies to them," I said, "perhaps he tells us the truth
after all."
They howled at me, calling me a man without understanding. Yet when
I went away I left them thinking, each man for himself, and that was
good. I went to change the guard, for some of our men were put on
sentry-go that night outside the officers' quarters, in spite of our
utter weariness. We were smarter than the Kurds, and German officers
like smartness.
Weary though Ranjoor Singh must have been, he sat late with the
German officers, for the most part keeping silence while they
talked. I made excuse to go and speak with him half a dozen times,
and the last time I could hardly find him among the wreaths of
cigarette smoke.
"Sahib, must we really stay a week in this hole?" I asked. "So say
the Germans," said he.
"Are we to be paraded through the streets each day?" I asked.
"I understand that to be the plan," he answered.
"Then the men will mutiny!" said I.
"Nay!" said he, "let them seek better cause than that!"
"Shall I tell them so?" said I, and he looked into my eyes through
the smoke as if he would read down into my very heart.
"Aye!" said he at last. "You may tell them so!"
So I went and shook some of the men awake and told them, and when
they had done being angry they laughed at me. Then those awoke the
others, and soon they all had the message. On the whole, it
bewildered them, even as it did me, so that few dared offer an
opinion and each began thinking for himself again. By morning they
were in a mood to await developments. They were even willing to
tramp the streets; but Ranjoor Singh procured us a day's rest. He
himself spent most of the day with the German officers, poring over
maps and talking. I went to speak with him as often as I could
invent excuse, and I became familiar with the word Wassmuss that
they used very frequently. I heard the word so many times that I
could not forget it if I tried.
The next day Ranjoor Singh had a surprise for us. At ten in the
morning we were all lined up in the rain and given a full month's
pay. It was almost midday when the last man had received his money,
and when we were dismissed and the men filed in to dinner Ranjoor
Singh bade me go among them and ask whether they did not wish
opportunity to spend their money.
So I went and asked the question. Only a few said yes. Many
preferred to keep their money against contingencies, and some
thought the question was a trick and refused to answer it at all. I
returned to Ranjoor Singh and told him what they answered.
"Go and ask them again!" said he.
So I went among them again as they lay on the cots after dinner, and
most of them jeered at me for my pains. I went and found Ranjoor
Singh in the officers' mess and told him.
"Ask them once more!" said he.
This third time, being in no mood to endure mockery, I put the
question with an air of mystery. They asked what the hidden meaning
might be, but I shook my head and repeated the question with a
smile, as if I knew indeed but would not tell.
"Says Ranjoor Singh," said I, "would the men like opportunity to
spend their money?"
"No!" said most of them, and Gooja Singh asked how long it well
might be before we should see money again.
"Shall I bear him, a third time, such an answer?" I asked, looking
more mysterious than ever. And just then it happened that Gooja
Singh remembered the advice to seek better cause for mutiny. He
drummed on his teeth with his fingernails.
"Very well!" said he. "Tell him we will either spend our money or
let blood! Let us see what he says to that!"
"Shall I say," said I, "that Gooja Singh says so?"
"Nay, nay!" said he, growing anxious. "Let that be the regiment's
answer. Name no names!"
I thought it a foolish answer, given by a fool, but the men were in
the mood to relish it and began to laugh exceedingly.
"Shall I take that answer?" said I, and they answered "Yes!"
redoubling their emphasis when I objected. "The Germans do Ranjoor
Singh's thinking for him these days," said one man; "take that
answer and let us see what the Germans have to say to it through his
mouth!"
So I went and told Ranjoor Singh, whispering to him in a corner of
the officers' mess. Some Turks had joined the Germans and most of
them were bending over maps that a German officer had spread upon a
table in their midst; he was lecturing while the others listened.
Ranjoor Singh had been listening, too, but he backed into a corner
as I entered, and all the while I was whispering to him I kept
hearing the word Wassmuss--Wassmuss--Wassmuss. The German who was
lecturing explained something about this Wassmuss.
"What is Wassmuss?" I asked, when I had given Ranjoor Singh the
men's answer. He smiled into my eyes.
"Wassmuss is the key to the door," said he.
"To which door?" I asked him.
"There is only one," he answered.
"Shall I tell that to the men?" said I.
At that he began scowling at me, stroking his beard with one hand.
Then he stepped back and forth a time or two. And when he saw with
the corner of his eye that he had the senior German officer's
attention he turned on me and glared again. There was sudden silence
in the room, and I stood at attention, striving to look like a man
of wood.
"It is as I said," said he in English. "It was most unwise to pay
them. Now the ruffians demand liberty to go and spend--and that
means license! They have been prisoners of war in close confinement
too long. You should have sent them to Gallipoli before they tasted
money or anything else but work! Who shall control such men now!"
The German officer stroked his chin, eying Ranjoor Singh sternly,
yet I thought irresolutely.
"If they would be safer on board a steamer, that can be managed. A
steamer came in to-day, that would do," said he, speaking in
English, perhaps lest the Turks understand. "And there is
Tugendheim, of course. Tugendheim could keep watch on board."
I think he had more to say, but at that minute Ranjoor Singh chose
to turn on me fiercely and order me out of the room.
"Tell them what you have heard!" he said in Punjabi, as if he were
biting my head off, and I expect the German officer believed he had
cursed me. I saluted and ran, and one of the Turkish officers aimed
a kick at me as I passed. It was by the favor of God that the kick
missed, for had he touched me I would have torn his throat out, and
then doubtless I should not have been here to tell what Ranjoor
Singh did. To this day I do not know whether he had every move
planned out in his mind, or whether part was thinking and part good
fortune. When a good man sets himself to thinking, God puts thoughts
into his heart that others can not overcome, and it may be that he
simply prayed. I know not--although I know he prayed often, as a
true Sikh should.
I told the men exactly what had passed, except that I did not say
Ranjoor Singh had bidden me do so. I gave them to understand that I
was revealing a secret, and that gave them greater confidence in my
loyalty to them. It was important they should not suspect me of
allegiance to Ranjoor Singh.
"It is good!" said they all, after a lot of talking and very little
thought. "To be sent on board a steamer could only mean Gallipoli.
There we will make great show of ferocity and bravery, so that they
will send us to the foremost trenches. It should be easy to steal
across by night to the British trenches, dragging Ranjoor Singh with
us, and when we are among friends again let him give what account of
himself he may! What new shame is this, to tell the Germans we will
make trouble because we have a little money at last! Let the shame
return to roost on him!"
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