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Updated: June 14, 2025
Nor was Gooja Singh allowed to march last, as I expect he had hoped; he and his twenty-two were set in the midst, where they could eat shame, always under the eyes of half of us. Then Ranjoor Singh raised his voice again. "To try to reach Gallipoli," he said, "would be as wise as to try to reach Berlin! Both shores are held by Turkish troops under German officers.
"Let us hope," said I, "to a place where orders are obeyed in military manner without question! Have you heard the order?" I asked, and I made as if to go and wake our officer. Without another word Gooja Singh climbed down from the rock and went about shouting his commands as if he himself were their originator.
"He has to clean his own rifle," I answered. And Ranjoor Singh nodded. Then suddenly his meaning dawned on me. "You think it was Gooja Singh who struck the blow?" I asked. We were sitting up by that time. The camels were out of sight. He rose to his feet and beckoned for his horse before he answered. "I wished to know who else might properly be suspected," he said, taking his horse's bridle.
Then he will be in the same trap with us all, and must lead us out of it or perish with us!" So Gooja Singh offered himself, all unintentionally, to be the scapegoat for us all and I have seldom seen a man so shocked by what befell him. Only a dozen words spoke Ranjoor Singh yet it was as if he lashed him and left him naked. Whips and a good man's wrath are one.
Let us salute our own loyalty to India, and the British and the Allies, with determination to give one another credit at least for that in future! Pre sent arms!" So we presented arms, he kissing the hilt of his saber again; and it was not until three days afterward that I overheard one of the troopers saying that Gooja Singh had called attention to the fact of its being a German saber.
Even so I think I would have held my tongue, only that Gooja Singh, who dozed in a niche on the other side of the funk-hole entrance, heard the same as I. Said Gooja Singh that evening to the troopers round about: "They chose well," said he. "They picked a brave man a clever man, for a desperate venture!"
By the time we reached the Tigris and crossed it near Diarbekr we were happy men; for we were not in search of idleness; all most of us asked was a chance to serve our friends, and making trouble for the Turks was surely service! One way and another we made more trouble than ten times our number could have made in Flanders. Every one of us but Gooja Singh was happy.
"But how?" said I. "He is an officer. He is not bound to lay bare his thoughts to us." They thought a long time about that. It grew dark, and we were ordered to our huts, and lights were put out, and still they lay awake and talked of it. At last Gooja Singh flitted through the dark and came to me and asked me my opinion on the matter.
"For the present, you shall teach a new kind of lesson to the men you have misled. They toil with ammunition boxes. You shall stride free!" Gooja Singh had handed his rifle to me, and I passed it to a trooper. He stepped forward now to regain it with something of a smirk on his fat lips. "Nay, nay!" said Ranjoor Singh, with another laugh. "No rifle, Gooja Singh! Be herdsman without honor!
Our presence in the hills and Gooja Singh's escape was all set down to Turkish trickery; and doubtless they did not believe we truly had gold with us, or they would have detached at least a party to follow us up and keep in touch. The clearest thing of all that the disjointed scraps of tale betrayed was that we were in luck!
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