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.