down into the hollow and
enlightened him, we standing around the rim of the rise with our
bayonets fixed and rifles at the "ready." I did not hear what
Ranjoor Singh said to the Turkish captain because he left me to
prevent the men from stampeding toward the smell of food--no easy
task.

After five minutes he shouted for Tugendheim, and the German went
down the slope visibly annoyed by the four guards who kept their
bayonets within a yard of his back. It was a fortunate circumstance
for us, not only then but very many times, that Tugendheim would
have thought himself disgraced by appealing to a Turk. Seeing there
was no German officer in the hollow, he adopted his arrogant manner,
and the Turkish officer drew back from him like a man stung. After
that the Turkish captain appeared to resign himself to impotence,
for he ordered his men to pile arms and retired into his tent.

Then Ranjoor Singh came up the slope and picked the twenty men who
seemed least ready to drop with weariness, of whom I regretted to be
one. He set us on guard where the Turkish sentries had been, and the
Turks were sent below, where presently they fell asleep among their
brethren, as weary, no doubt, from plundering as we were from
marching on empty bellies. None of them seemed annoyed to be
disarmed. Strange people! Fierce, yet strangely tolerant!

Then all the rest of the men, havildars no whit behind the rest,
swooped down on the camp-fires, and presently the smell of toasting
corn began to rise, until my mouth watered and my belly yearned.
Fifteen or twenty minutes later (it seemed like twenty hours,
sahib!) hot corn was brought to us and we on guard began to be new
men. Nevertheless, food made the guard more sleepy, and I was hard
put to it walking from one to another keeping them awake.

All that night I knew nothing of what passed in the camp below, but
I learned later on that Ranjoor Singh found among the Syrians whose
business was to load and drive carts a man named Abraham. All in the
camp who were not Turks were Syrians, and these Syrians had been
dragged away from their homes scores of leagues away and made to
labor without remuneration. This Abraham was a gifted man, who had
been in America, and knew English, as well as several dialects of
Kurdish, and Turkish and Arabic and German. He knew better German
than English, and had frequently been made to act interpreter.
Later, when we marched together, he and I became good friends, an