y
that he took up position down the pass behind them. They were too
fond of loot to be trusted between us and that gold! They were so
burdened with plunder that some of them could scarcely ride their
horses. Several had as many as three rifles each, and they had found
great bundles of food and blankets where the enemy's horses had been
tethered. Their plundering had cost them dear, for they had exposed
themselves recklessly to get what their eyes lusted for. They had
lost more than fifty men. But we had lost more than twenty killed,
and there was a very long tale of wounded, so that Ranjoor Singh
looked serious as he called the roll. The Greek doctor had to work
that night as if his own life depended on it--as in fact it did! We
made Tugendheim help him, for, like all German soldiers, he knew
something of first aid.

Then, because the Kurds could not be trusted on such an errand,
Ranjoor Singh sent me back with fifty men to bring on the Syrians
and our mules and belongings, and the gold. He gave me Chatar Singh
to help, and glad I was to have him. A brave good daffadar is Chatar
Singh, and now that all suspicion of our leader was weaned out of him,
I could ask for no better comrade on a dark night. Night did I say?
That was a night like death itself, when a man could scarcely see his
own hand held thus before his face--cold and rainy to make matters worse.

We had two Kurds to show us the way, and, I suppose because our
enemies had had enough of it, we were not fired on once, going or
coming. Our train of mules clattered and stumbled and our Syrians
kept losing themselves and yelling to be found again. Weary men and
animals ever make more noise than fresh ones; frightened men more
than either, and we were so dead weary by the time we got back that
my horse fell under me by Ranjoor Singh's side.

Of all the nights I ever lived through, except those last we spent
in the trench in Flanders before our surrender, that was the worst.
Hunger and cold and fear and weariness all wrought their worst with
me; yet I had to set an example to the men. My horse, as I have
told, fell beside Ranjoor Singh; he dragged me to my feet, and I
fell again, dizzy with misery and aching bones. Yet it was beginning
to be dawn then, and we had to be up and off again. Our dead were
buried; our wounded were bound up; the Kurds would be likely to
begin on us again at any minute; there was nothing to wait there
for. We left little fires burning ab