red the carts and Turks and
Syrians, he now used the cover of darkness to reorganize; and the
very first thing he did was to make the forty Turkish prisoners
change clothes with Syrians--the Turks objecting with much bad
language and the Syrians not seeming to relish it much, for fear, I
suppose, of reprisals. But he made the Turks hand over their rifles,
as well, to the Syrians; and then, of all unlikely people he chose
Tugendheim to command the Syrians and to drill them and teach them
discipline! He set him to drilling them there and then, with a row
of fires to see by.

In the flash of an eye, as you might say, we had thus fifty extra
infantry, ten of them neither uniformed nor armed as yet, but all of
them at least afraid to run away. Tugendheim looked doubtful for a
minute, but he was given his choice of that, or death, or of wearing
a Syrian's cast-off clothes and driving mules. He well understood
(for I could tell by his manner of consenting) that Ranjoor Singh
would send him into action against the first Turks we could find,
thus committing him to further treason against the Central Powers;
but he had gone too far already to turn back.

And as for the Syrians-they had had a lifetime's experience of
Turkish treatment, and had recently been taught to associate Germans
with Turks; so if Tugendheim should meditate treachery it was
unlikely his Syrians would join him in it. It was promotion to a new
life for them--occupation for Tugendheim, who had been growing bored
and perhaps dangerous on that account--and not so dreadfully
distressing to the Turkish soldiers, who could now ride on the carts
instead of marching on weary feet. They had utterly no ambition,
those Turkish soldiers; they cared neither for their officer (which
was small wonder) nor for the rifles that we took away, which
surprised us greatly (for in the absence of lance or saber, we
regarded our rifles as evidence of manhood). They objected to the
dirty garments they received in exchange for the uniforms, and they
despised us Sikhs for men without religion (so they said!); but it
did not seem to trouble them whether they fought on one side or the
other, or whether they fought at all, so long as they had cigarettes
and food. Yet I did not receive the impression they were cowards--brutes,
perhaps, but not cowards. When they came under fire later on
they made no effort to desert with the carts to their own side; and
when we asked them why, they said be