And he struck me on the thigh with his open palm.  The noise was like powder detonating, and the pain was acute.  I cursed him in his teeth and he grinned at me as if he and I were old friends.  Little blue eyes he had, sahib—­light blue, set in full red cheeks.  There were many little red veins crisscrossed under the skin of his face, and his breath smelt of beer and tobacco.  I judged he had the physical strength of a buffalo, although doubtless short of wind.

He had very little hair.  Such as he had was yellow, but clipped so short that it looked white.  His yellow mustache was turned up thus at either corner of his mouth; and the mouth was not unkind, not without good humor.

“What is your name?” said I.

“Tugendheim,” said he.  “I am Sergeant Fritz Tugendheim, of the 281 (Pappenheim) Regiment of Infantry, and would God I were with my regiment!  What do they call you?”

“Hira Singh,” said I.

“And your rank?”

“Havildar,” said I.

“Oh-ho!” said he.  “So you’re all non-commissioned in here, are you?  Seven of you, eh?  Seven is a lucky number!  Well—–­” He looked us each slowly in the face, narrowing his eyes so that we could scarcely see them under the yellow lashes.  “Well,” said he, “they won’t mistake me for any of you, nor any of you for me—­not even if I should grow whiskers!”

He laughed at that joke for about two minutes, slapping me on the thigh again and laughing all the louder when I showed my teeth.  Then he drew out a flask of some kind of pungent spirits from his pocket, and offered it to me.  When I refused he drank the whole of it himself and flung the glass flask through the window.  Then he settled himself in the corner from which he had ousted me, put his feet on the edge of the seat opposite, and prepared to sleep.  But before very long our German staff officer shouted for him and he went in great haste, a station official opening the door for him and locking us in again afterward.  He rode for hours with the staff officer and Gooja Singh examined the whole of his kit, making remarks on each piece, to the great amusement of us all.

He came back before night to sleep in our compartment, but before he came I had taken opportunity to pass word through the window to the troopers in the carriage next behind.

“Ranjoor Singh,” said I, “warns us all to be on guard against this German.  He is a spy set to overhear our talk.”

That word went all down the train from, window to window and it had some effect, for during all the days that followed Tugendheim was never once able to get between us and our thoughts, although he tried a thousand times.

Night followed day, and day night.  Our train crawled, and waited, and crawled, and waited, and we in our compartment grew weary to the death of Tugendheim.  A thousand times I envied Ranjoor Singh alone with his thoughts in the next compartment; and so far was he from suffering because of solitude that he seemed to keep more and more apart from us, only passing swiftly down the train at meal-times to make sure we all had enough to eat and that there were no sick.