I learned afterward the name of the regiment in the end of the trench nearest us.  With these two eyes in the Hills I once saw that same regiment run like a thousand hares into the night, because it had no supper and a dozen Afridi marksmen had the range.  Can the sahib explain?  I think I can.  A man’s spirit is no more in his belly than in the cart that carries his belongings; yet, while he thinks it is, his enemies all flourish.

We dismounted to rest the horses, and waited behind the forest until it grew so dark that between the bursting of the star-shells a man could not see his hand held out in front of him.  Now and then a stray shell chanced among us, but our casualties were very few.  I wondered greatly at the waste of ammunition.  My ears ached with the din, but there seemed more noise wrought than destruction.  We had begun to grow restless when an officer came galloping at last to Colonel Kirby’s side and gave him directions with much pointing and waving of the arm.

Then Colonel Kirby summoned all our officers, and they rode back to tell us what the plan was.  The din was so great by this time that they were obliged to explain anew to each four men in turn.  This was the plan: 

The Germans, ignorant of our arrival, undoubtedly believed the British infantry to be without support and were beginning to press forward in the hope of winning through to the railway line.  The infantry on our right front, already overwhelmed by weight of artillery fire, would be obliged to evacuate their trench and fall back, thus imperiling the whole line, unless we could save the day.

Observe this, sahib:  so—­I make a drawing in the dust.  Between the trench here, and the forest there, was a space of level ground some fifty or sixty yards wide.  There was scarcely more than a furrow across it to protect the riflemen—­nothing at all that could stop a horse.  At a given signal the infantry were to draw aside from that piece of level land, like a curtain drawn back along a rod, and we were to charge through the gap thus made between them and the forest.  The shock of our charge and its unexpectedness were to serve instead of numbers.

Fine old-fashioned tactics, sahib, that suited our mind well!  There had been plenty on the voyage, including Gooja Singh, who argued we should all be turned into infantry as soon as we arrived, and we had dreaded that.  Each to his own.  A horseman prefers to fight on horseback with the weapons that he knows.

Perhaps the sahib has watched Sikh cavalry at night and wondered how so many men and horses could keep so still.  We had made but little noise hitherto, but now our silence was that of night itself.  We had but one eye, one ear, one intellect among us.  We were one!  One with the night and with the work ahead!

One red light swinging near the corner of the forest was to mean be ready!  We were ready as the fuse is for the match!  Two red lights would mean that the sidewise movement by the infantry was under way.  Three lights swinging together were to be our signal to begin.  Sahib, I saw three red lights three thousand times between each minute and the next!