After that the wounded had to ride on mules, some of them two to a mule, holding each other on, and the cartridge boxes were packed on the backs of other mules, except that men who tried to make free with native women were invariably ordered to relieve a mule.  Then we had no further use for the forty Turks, so we turned them loose with enough food to enable them to reach Diarbekr if they were economical.  They went off none too eagerly in their Syrian clothes, and I have often wondered whether they ever reached their destination, for the Kurds of those parts are a fierce people, and it is doubtful which they would rather ill-treat and kill, a Turk or a Syrian.  The Turks have taught them to despise Armenians and Syrians, but they despise Turks naturally. (All this I learned from Abraham, who often marched beside me.)

“Those Turks we have released will go back and set their people on our trail,” said Gooja Singh, overlooking no chance to throw discredit.

“If they ever get safely back, that is what I hope they will do!” Ranjoor Singh answered.  “We will disturb hornets and pray that Turks get stung!”

He would give no explanation, but it was not long before we all understood.  Little by little, he was admitting us to confidence in those days, never telling at a time more than enough to arouse interest and hope.

Rather than have him look like a Turk any longer, we had dressed up Abraham in the uniform of one of our dead troopers; and when at last a Kurdish chief rode up with a hundred men at his back and demanded to know our business, Ranjoor Singh called Abraham to interpret.  We could easily have beaten a mere hundred Kurds, but to have won a skirmish just then would have helped us almost as little as to lose one.  What we wanted was free leave to ride forward.

“Where are ye, and whither are ye bound?  What seek ye?” the Kurd demanded, but Ranjoor Singh proved equal to the occasion.

“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!