Hira Singh : when India came to fight in Flanders Part 30

The Germans, who were cl.u.s.tered all about their chief, kept straight faces, but their eyes popped round and their mouths grew stiff with the effort to suppress emotion.

"This, Your Highness, is the last new invention," said the German chief.

"Then my engineers shall look at it," said the amir, "for we wish to keep abreast of the inventions. As you remarked just now, we are a little shut off from the world. We must not let slip such opportunities for education." And then and there he made his engineers go forward to inspect everything, he scarce concealing his merriment; and the Germans stood aside, looking like thieves caught in the act while the workings were disclosed of such a wireless apparatus as might serve to teach beginners.

"It might serve perhaps between one village and the next, while the batteries persisted," they said, reporting to the amir presently. The amir laughed, but I thought he looked puzzled-perplexed, rather than displeased. He turned to Ranjoor Singh:

"And you are a liar, too?" he asked.

"Nay, Your Royal Highness, I speak truth," said Ranjoor Singh, saluting him in military manner.

"Then what do you wish?" asked the amir. "Do you wish to be interned, seeing this is neutral soil on which you trespa.s.s?"

"Nay, Your Royal Highness," answered Ranjoor Singh, with a curt laugh, "we have had enough of prison camps."

"Then what shall be done with you?" the amir asked. "Here are men from both sides, and how shall I be neutral?"

The German chief stepped forward and saluted.

"Your Royal Highness, we desire to be interned," he said. But the amir glowered savagely.

"Peace!" said he. "I asked you nothing, one string of lies was enough! I asked thee a question," he said, turning again to Ranjoor Singh.

"Since Your Royal Highness asks," said Ranjoor Singh, "it would be a neutral act to let us each leave your dominions by whichever road we will!"

The amir laughed and turned to his attendants, who laughed with him.

"That is good," said he. "So let it be. It is an order!"

So it came about, sahib, that the Germans and ourselves were ordered hotfoot out of the amir's country. But whereas there was only one way the Germans could go, viz, back into Persia, there to help themselves as best they could, the road Ranjoor Singh chose was forward to the Khyber Pa.s.s, and so down into India.

Aye, sahib, down into India! It was a long road, but the Afghans were very kind to us, providing us with food and blankets and giving some of us new horses for our weary ones, and so we came at last to Landi Kotal at the head of the Khyber, where a long-legged English sahib heard our story and said "Shabash!" to Ranjoor Singh-that means "Well done!" And so we marched down the Khyber, they signaling ahead that we were coming. We slept at Ali Mas jib because neither horses nor men could move another yard, but at dawn next day we were off again. And because they had notice of our coming, they turned out the troops, a division strong, to greet us, and we took the salute of a whole division as we had once taken the salute of two in Flanders, Ranjoor Singh sitting his charger like a graven image, and we-one hundred three-and-thirty men and the prisoner Tugendheim, who had left India eight hundred strong-reeling in the saddle from sickness and fatigue while a roar went up in Khyber throat such as I scarcely hope to hear again before I die. Once in a lifetime, sahib, once is enough. They had their bands with them. The same tune burst on our ears that had greeted us that first night of our charge in Flanders, and we-great bearded men-we wept like little ones. They played IT IS A LONG, LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY.

Then because we were cavalry and ent.i.tled to the same, they gave us BONNIE DUNDEE and the horses cantered to it; but some of us rolled from the saddle in sheer weakness. Then we halted in something like a line, and a general rode up to shake hands with Ranjoor Singh and to say things in our tongue that may not be repeated, for they were words from heart to heart. And I remember little more, for I, too, swooned and fell from the saddle.

The shadows darkened and grew one into another. Hira Singh sat drawing silently in the dust, with his injured feet stretched out in front of him. A monkey in the giant tree above us shook down a little shower of twigs and dirt. A trumpet blared. There began much business of closing tents and reducing the camp to superhuman tidiness.

"So, sahib," he said at last, "they come to carry me in. It is time my tale is ended. Ranjoor Singh they have made bahadur. G.o.d grant him his desire! May my son be such a man as he, when his day comes.

"Me! They say I shall be made commissioned officer-the law is changed since this great war began. Yet what did I do compared to what Ranjoor Singh did? Each is his own witness and G.o.d alone is judge. Does the sahib know what this war is all about?

"I believe no two men fight for the same thing. It is a war in each man's heart, each man fighting as the spirit moves him. So, they come for me. Salaam, sahib. Bohut salaam. May G.o.d grant the sahib peace. Peace to the sahib's grandsons and great-grandsons. With each arm thus around a trooper's neck will the sahib graciously excuse me from saluting?"

THE END