They began to make ready there and then, and while they packed the knapsacks I urged them to shout and laugh as if growing mutinous.  Soldiers, unless prevented, load themselves like pack animals with a hundred unnecessary things, but none of us had more than the full kit for each man that the Germans had served out, so that packing took no time at all.  An hour after we were ready came Ranjoor Singh, standing in the door of our quarters with that senior German officer beside him, both of them scowling at us, and the German making more than a little show of possessing a repeating pistol.  So that Gooja Singh made great to-do about military compliments, rebuking several troopers in loud tones for not standing quickly to attention, and shouting to me to be more strict.  I let him have his say.

Angrily as a gathering thunder-storm Ranjoor Singh ordered us to fall in, and we scrambled out through the doorway like a pack of hunting hounds released.  No word was spoken to us by way of explanation, Ranjoor Singh continuing to scowl with folded arms while the German officer went back to look the quarters over, perhaps to see whether we had done damage, or perhaps to make certain nothing had been left.  He came out in a minute or two and then we were marched out of the barrack in the dimming light, with Tugendheim in full marching order falling into step behind us and the senior German officer smoking a cigar beside Ranjoor Singh.  A Kurdish soldier carried Tugendheim’s bag of belongings, and Tugendheim kicked him savagely when he dropped it in a pool of mud.  I thought the Kurd would knife him, but he refrained.

I think I have said, sahib, that the weather was vile.  We were glad of our overcoats.  As we marched along the winding road downhill we kept catching glimpses of the water-front through driving rain, light after light appearing as the twilight gathered.  Nobody noticed us.  There seemed to be no one in the streets, and small wonder!

Before we were half-way down toward the water there began to be a very great noise of firing, of big and little cannon and rifles.  There began to be shouting, and men ran back and forth below us.  I asked Tugendheim what it all might mean, and he said probably a British submarine had shown itself.  I whispered that to the nearest men and they passed the word along.  Great contentment grew among us, none caring after that for rain and mud.  That was the nearest we had been to friends in oh how many months—­if it truly were a British submarine!

We reached the water-front presently and were brought to a halt in exactly the place where Ranjoor Singh had halted us those five times on the day we tramped the streets.  We faced a dock that had been vacant two days ago, but where now a little steamer lay moored with ropes, smoke coming from its funnel.  There was no other sign of life, but when the German officer shouted about a dozen times the Turkish captain came ashore, wrapped in a great shawl, and spoke to him.