While they two spoke I asked Ranjoor Singh whether that truly had been a British submarine, and he nodded; but he was not able to tell me whether or not it had been hit by gun-fire.  Some of the men overheard, and although we all knew that our course to Gallipoli would be the more hazardous in that event we all prayed that the artillery might have missed.  Fear comes and goes, but a man’s love lives in him.

When the Turkish captain and the German officer finished speaking, the Turk went back to his steamer without any apparent pleasure, and we were marched up the gangway after him.  It was pitch-dark by that time and the only light was that of a lantern by which the German officer stood, eying us one by one as we passed.  Tugendheim came last, and he talked with Tugendheim for several minutes.  Then he went away, but presently returned with, I should say, half a company of Kurdish soldiers, whom he posted all about the dock.  Then he departed finally, with a wave of his cigar, as much as to say that sheet of the ledger had been balanced.

It was a miserable steamer, sahib.  We stood about on iron decks and grew hungry.  There were no awnings—­nothing but the superstructure of the bridge, and, although there were but two-hundred-and-thirty-four of us, including Tugendheim, we could not stow ourselves so that all could be sheltered from the rain and let the mud cake dry on our legs and feet.  There was a little cabin that Tugendheim took for himself, but Ranjoor Singh remained with us on deck.  He stood in the rain by the gangway, looking first at one thing, then at another.  I watched him.

Presently he went to the door of the engine-room, opened it, and looked through.  I was about to look, too, but he shut it in my face.

“It is enough that they make steam?” said he; and I looked up at the funnel and saw steam mingled with the smoke.  In a little wheel-house on the bridge the Turkish captain sat on a shelf, wrapped in his shawl, smoking a great pipe, and his mate, who was also a Turk, sat beside him staring at the sky.  I asked Ranjoor Singh whether we might expect to have the whole ship to ourselves.  Said I, “It would not be difficult to overpower those two Turks and their small crew and make them do our bidding!” But he answered that a regiment of Kurds was expected to keep us company at dawn.  Then he went up to the bridge to have word with the Turkish captain, and I went to the ship’s side to stare about.  Over my shoulder I told the men about the Kurds who were coming, and they were not pleased.

Peering into the dark and wondering that so great a city as Stamboul should show so few lights, I observed the Kurdish sentinels posted about the dock.

“Those are to prevent us from going ashore until their friends come!” said I, and they snarled at me like angry wolves.

“We could easily rush ashore and bayonet every one of them!” said Gooja Singh.

But not a man would have gone ashore again for a commission in the German army.  Gallipoli was written in their hearts.  Yet I could think of a hundred thousand chances still that might prevent our joining our friends the British in Gallipoli.  Nor was I sure in my own mind that Ranjoor Singh intended we should try.  I was sure only of his good faith, and content to wait developments.