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?”