The horse his trooper-servant rode was blown and nearly useless, so that the trooper died that night for lack of a pair of heels, leaving us none to question as to Ranjoor Singh’s late doings.  But Bagh, Ranjoor Singh’s charger, being a marvel of a beast whom few could ride but he, was fresh enough and Ranjoor Singh led us like a whirlwind beckoning a storm.  I judged his heart was on fire.  He led us slantwise into a tight-packed regiment.  We rolled it over, and he took us beyond that into another one.  In the dark he re-formed us (and few but he could have done that then)—­lined us up again with the other squadrons—­and brought us back by the way we had come.  Then he took us the same road a second time against remnants of the men who had withstood us and into yet another regiment that checked and balked beyond.  The Germans probably believed us ten times as many as we truly were, for that one setback checked their advance along the whole line.

Colonel Kirby led us, but I speak of Ranjoor Singh.  I never once saw Colonel Kirby until the fight was over and we were back again resting our horses behind the trees while the roll was called.  Throughout the fight—­and I have no idea whatever how long it lasted—­I kept an eye on Ranjoor Singh and spurred in his wake, obeying the least motion of his saber.  No, sahib, I myself did not slay many men.  It is the business of a non-commissioned man like me to help his officers keep control, and I did what I might.  I was nearly killed by a wounded German officer who seized my bridle-rein; but a trooper’s lance took him in the throat and I rode on untouched.  For all I know that was the only danger I was in that night.

A battle is a strange thing, sahib—­like a dream.  A man only knows such part of it as crosses his own vision, and remembers but little of that.  What he does remember seldom tallies with what the others saw.  Talk with twenty of our regiment, and you may get twenty different versions of what took place—­yet not one man would have lied to you, except perhaps here and there a little in the matter of his own accomplishment.  Doubtless the Germans have a thousand different accounts of it.

I know this, and the world knows it:  that night the Germans melted.  They were.  Then they broke into parties and were not.  We pursued them as they ran.  Suddenly the star-shells ceased from bursting overhead, and out of black darkness I heard Colonel Kirby’s voice thundering an order.  Then a trumpet blared.  Then I heard Ranjoor Singh’s voice, high-pitched.  Almost the next I knew we were halted in the shadow of the trees again, calling low to one another, friend’s voice seeking friend’s.  We could scarcely hear the voices for the thunder of artillery that had begun again; and whereas formerly the German gun-fire had been greatest, now we thought the British and French fire had the better of it.  They had been re-enforced, but I have no notion whence.

The infantry, that had drawn aside like a curtain to let us through, had closed in again to the edge of the forest, and through the noise of rifle-firing and artillery we caught presently the thunder of new regiments advancing at the double.  Thousands of our Indian infantry--those who had been in the trains behind us—­were coming forward at a run!  God knows that was a night—­to make a man glad he has lived!