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"Tell Wassmuss whatever lies you like, and make your peace with your own folk however you can. Here is your paper back." Tugendheim took the paper. "Let me go with you!" he urged. "It will be rope or bullet for me if ever I get back to Germany!" "Nevertheless," said Ranjoor Singh, "I promised to deliver you to Wassmuss when we made you prisoner in the first place. I must keep my word to you!"
Plunder the Turks! says Tugendheim. 'Plunder the Armenians! says the Turk." "I, too, would be all for Russia," he answered, "but it isn't possible. The coast of the Black Sea, and from the Black Sea down to the Persian frontier, is held by a very great Turkish army. The main caravan routes lie to the north of us, and every inch of them is watched."
Partly, I think, he hoped to bring us to destruction, and so perhaps offset his offense of having yielded to our threats, hoping in that way to rehabilitate himself. So goes a lawyer to court, sure of a fee if his client wins, yet sure, too, of a fee if his client loses, enjoying profit and entertainment in any event. Yet who shall blame Tugendheim?
Our train crawled, and waited, and crawled, and waited, and we in our compartment grew weary to the death of Tugendheim.
But I said nothing, and Tugendheim thought I was impressed as indeed I was. "You will need to fight like the devil," said he, "for if they catch you they'll skin you!"
The same with Tugendheim; although there was little reason for suspecting him of wanting to escape, with that letter fresh in his memory, he was nevertheless compelled to walk until daylight should make escape impossible. The Turkish officer was made to march in front with his four-and-forty soldiers, who were given back their rifles but no bayonets or ammunition.
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.
Our Flanders experience was likely to stand us in good stead. Tugendheim and the Syrians were left in charge of our belongings. There was nothing else to do with them because the Syrians were in more deathly fear of the storm than they ever had been of Turks. Nevertheless, we did not find them despicable.
At that I refused to have speech with them until they should have fallen in again, as befitted soldiers. Falling in took time, especially as they did it sulkily; and when the noise of shifting feet was finished I heard oars thumping in the oar-locks. A boat grounded amid the surf, and Ranjoor Singh jumped out of it, followed by Tugendheim and his four guards.
Part of the German plan became evident at once, for, noticing our great enthusiasm at the prospect of being sent to Gallipoli, Tugendheim, in the hope of winning praise, told a German officer we ought to be paraded through the streets as evidence that Indian troops really were fighting with the Central Powers.
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