The long and short of that was that Ranjoor Singh was sent for; and when he returned to the trench after two days’ absence it was to work independently of us—­from our trench, but irrespective of our doings.  Even Colonel Kirby now had no orders to give him, although they two talked long and at frequent intervals in the place Colonel Kirby called his funk-hole.  It was now that the squadron’s reawakening love for Ranjoor Singh received the worst check of any.  We had almost forgotten he knew German.  Henceforward he conversed in German each day with the enemy.

It is a strange thing, sahib,—­not easy to explain—­but I, who have achieved some fluency in English and might therefore have admired his gift of tongues, now began to doubt him in earnest—­hating myself the while, but doubting him.  And Gooja Singh, who had talked the most and dropped the blackest hints against him, now began to take his side.

And Ranjoor Singh said nothing.  Night after night he went to lie at the point where our trench and the enemy’s lay closest.  There he would talk with some one whom we never saw, while we sat shivering in the mud.  Cold we can endure, sahib, as readily as any; it is colder in winter where I come from than anything I felt in Flanders; but the rain and the mud depressed our spirits, until with these two eyes I have seen grown men weeping.

They kept us at work to encourage us.  Our spells in the trench were shortened and our rests at the rear increased to the utmost possible.  Only Ranjoor Singh took no vacation, remaining ever on the watch, passing from one trench to another, conversing ever with the enemy.

We dug and they dug, each side laboring everlastingly to find the other’s listening places and to blow them up by means of mining, so that the earth became a very rat-run.  Above-ground, where were only ruin and barbed wire, there was no sign of activity, but only a great stench that came from bodies none dared bury.  We were thankful that the wind blew oftenest from us to them; but whichever way the wind blew Ranjoor Singh knew no rest.  He was ever to be found where the lines lay closest at the moment, either listening or talking.  We understood very well that he was carrying out orders given him at the rear, but that did not make the squadron or the regiment like him any better, and as far as that went I was one with them; I hated to see a squadron leader stoop to such intrigues.

It was plain enough that some sort of intrigue was making headway, for the Germans soon began to toss over into our trench bundles of printed pamphlets, explaining in our tongue why they were our best friends and why therefore we should refuse to wage war on them.  They threw printed bulletins that said, in good Punjabi, there was revolution from end to end of India, rioting in England, utter disaster to the British fleet, and that our way home again to India had been cut by the German war-ships.  They must have been ignorant of the fact that we received our mail from India regularly.  I have noticed this about the Germans:  they are unable to convince themselves that any other people can appreciate the same things they appreciate, think as swiftly as they, or despise the terrors they despise.  That is one reason why they must lose this war.  But there are others also.