“But I, sahib,” I said.  “I fear him greatly!”

“Yet thou and I be two men, and I command,” he answered gently.  “Let Gooja Singh alone.”

So I went and grew very busy ordering the column.  In twenty minutes we were under way, with a screen of horsemen several hundred yards ahead and another little mounted rear-guard.  But when the order had been given to resume the march and the carts were squeaking along in single file, I rode to his side again with a question.  I had been thinking deeply, and it seemed to me I had the only answer to my thoughts.

“Tell me, sahib,” I said, “our nearest friends must be the Russians.  How many hundred miles is it to Russia?”

But he shook his head and laughed again.  “Between us and Russia lies the strongest of all the Turkish armies,” he said.  “We could never get through.”

“I am a true man!” I said.  “Tell me the plan!” But he only nodded, and rode on.

“God loves all true men,” said he.

CHAPTER VI

Where the weakest joint is, smite. 
—­Ranjoor Singh.

Well, sahib, Abraham caught up with us on the evening of the third day after leaving with that letter to the Germans in Angora, having ridden moderately to spare his horse.  He said there were only two German officers there when he reached the place, and they seemed worried.  They gave him the new saddle asked for, and a new horse under it; also a letter to carry back.  Ranjoor Singh gave me the horse and saddle, letting Abraham take my sorry beast, that was beginning to recover somewhat under better treatment.

Ranjoor Singh smiled grimly as he read the letter.  He translated parts of it to me—­mainly complaints about lack of this and that and the other thing, and very grave complaints against the Turks, who, it seemed, would not cooperate.  You would say that was good news to all of us, that should have inspired us with new spirit.  But as I said in the beginning, sahib, there are reasons why the British must rule India yet a while.  We Sikhs, who would rule it otherwise, are all divided.

We were seven non-commissioned officers.  If we seven had stood united behind Ranjoor Singh there was nothing we could not have done, for the men would then have had no example of disunity.  You may say that Ranjoor Singh was our rightful officer and we had only to obey him, but I tell you, sahib, obedience that is worth anything must come from the heart and understanding.  Ranjoor Singh was as much dependent on good-will as if we had had the choosing of him.  So he had to create it, and that which has once been lost, for whatever reason, is doubly and redoubly hard to make again.  He did what he did in spite of us, although I tried to help.

Of us seven, first in seniority came I; and as I have tried already to make clear I was Ranjoor.  Singh’s man (not that he believed it altogether yet).  If he had ordered me to make black white, I would have perished in the effort to obey; but I had yet to prove that.