It was not only the Germans who had not expected us.  Now, sahib, for the first time the British infantry began to understand who it was who had come to their aid, and they began to sing—­one song, all together.  The wounded sang it, too, and the stretcher-bearers.  There came a day when we had our own version of that song, but that night it was new to us.  We only caught a few words—­the first words.  The sahib knows the words—­the first few words?  It was true we had come a long, long way; but it choked us into silence to hear that battered infantry acknowledge it.

Color and creed, sahib.  What are color and creed?  The world has mistaken us Sikhs too long for a breed it can not understand.  We Sikhs be men, with the hearts of men; and that night we knew that our hearts and theirs were one.  Nor have I met since then the fire that could destroy the knowledge, although efforts have been made, and reasons shown me.

But my story is of Ranjoor Singh and of what he did.  I but tell my own part to throw more light on his.  What I did is as nothing.  Of what he did, you shall be the judge—­remembering this, that he who does, and he who glories in the deed are one.  Be attentive, sahib; this is a tale of tales!

CHAPTER II

Can the die fall which side up it will?  Nay, not if it be honest.  —­Eastern proverb.

Many a league our infantry advanced that night, the guns following, getting the new range by a miracle each time they took new ground.  We went forward, too, at the cost of many casualties—­too many in proportion to the work we did.  We were fired on in the darkness more than once by our own infantry.  We, who had lost but seventy-two men killed and wounded in the charge, were short another hundred when the day broke and nothing to the good by it.

Getting lost in the dark—­falling into shell-holes—­swooping down on rear-guards that generally proved to have machine guns with them—­ weary men on hungrier, wearier horses—­the wonder is that a man rode back to tell of it at dawn.

One-hundred-and-two-and-seventy were our casualties, and some two hundred horses—­some of the men so lightly wounded that they were back in the ranks within the week.  At dawn they sent us to the rear to rest, we being too good a target for the enemy by daylight.  Some of us rode two to a horse.  On our way to the camp the French had pitched for us we passed through reenforcements coming from another section of the front, who gave us the right of way, and we took the salute of two divisions of French infantry who, I suppose, had been told of the service we had rendered.  Said I to Gooja Singh, who sat on my horse’s rump, his own beast being disemboweled, “Who speaks now of a poor beginning?” said I.

“I would rather see the end!” said he.  But he never saw the end.  Gooja Singh was ever too impatient of beginnings, and too sure what the end ought to be, to make certain of the middle part.  I have known men on outpost duty so far-seeing that an enemy had them at his mercy if only he could creep close enough.  And such men are always grumblers.