Hira Singh : when India came to fight in Flanders by Talbot Mundy (best big ereader txt) 📕

called up the other daffadars, and we all sat facing the Kurd, with Abraham a little to one side between him and us, to act interpreter. That was the first time Ranjoor Singh had taken so many at once into his confidence and I took it for a good sign, although unable to ignore a twinge of jealousy.

"Now?" said the Kurd. "Speak plain words!"

"You have not yet offered us food," said Ranjoor Singh.

The Kurd stared hard at him, eye to eye. "I have good reason," he answered. "By our law, he who eats our bread can not be treated as an enemy. If I feed you, how can I let my men attack you afterward?"

"You could not," said Ranjoor Singh. "We, too, have a law, that he with whom we have eaten salt is not enemy but friend. Let us eat bread and salt together, then, for I have a plan."

"A plan?" said the Kurd. "What manner of a plan? I await gold. What are words?"

"A good plan," said Ranjoor Singh.

"And on the strength of an empty boast am I to eat bread and salt with you?" the Kurd asked.

"If you wish to hear the plan," said Ranjoor Singh. "To my enemy I tell nothing; however, let my friend but ask!"

The Kurd thought a long time, but we facing him added no word to encourage or confuse him. I saw that his curiosity increased the more the longer we were silent; yet I doubt whether his was greater than my own! Can the sahib guess what Ranjoor Singh's plan was? Nay, that Kurd was no great fool. He was in the dark. He saw swiftly enough when explanations came.

"I have three hundred mounted men!" the Kurd said at last.

"And I near as many!" answered Ranjoor Singh. "I crave no favors! I come with an offer, as one leader to another!"

The Kurd frowned and hesitated, but sent at last for bread and salt, for all our party, except that he ordered his men to give none to our prisoners and none to the Syrians, whom he mistook for Turkish soldiers. If Ranjoor Singh had told him they were Syrians he would have refused the more, for Kurds regard Syrians as wolves regard sheep.

"Let the prisoners be," said Ranjoor Singh, "but feed those others! They must help put through the plan!"

So the Kurd ordered our Syrians, whom he thought Turks, fed too, and we dipped the flat bread (something like our Indian chapatties) into salt and ate, facing one another.

"Now speak, and we listen," said the Kurd when we had finished. Some of his men had come back, clustering around him, and we were quite a party, filling all the shadow of the great rock.

"How much of that gold was to have been yours?" asked Ranjoor Singh, and the Kurd's eyes blazed. "Wassmuss promised me so-and-so much," he answered, "if I with three hundred men wait here for the convoy and escort it to where he waits."

"But why do ye serve Wassmuss?" asked Ranjoor Singh.

"Because he buys friendship, as other men buy ghee, or a horse, or ammunition," said the Kurd. "He spends gold like water, saying it is German gold, and in return for it we must harry the British and Russians."

"Yet you and I are friends by bread and salt," said Ranjoor Singh, "and I offer you all this gold, whereas he offers only part of it! Nay, I and my men need none of it—I offer it all!"

"At what price?" asked the Kurd, suspiciously. Doubtless men who need no gold were as rare among these mountains as in other places!

"I shall name a price," said Ranjoor Singh. "A low price. We shall both be content with our bargain, and possibly Wassmuss, too, may feel satisfied for a while."

"Nay, you must be a wizard!" said the Kurd. "Speak on!"

"Tell me first," said Ranjoor Singh, "about the party who went through this defile two days ahead of us."

"What do you know of them?" asked the Kurd.

"This," said Ranjoor Singh. "We have followed them from Mosul, learning here a little and there a little. What is it that they have with them? Who are they? Why were they let pass?"

"They were let pass because Wassmuss gave the order," the Kurd answered. "They are Germans—six German officers, six German servants—and Kurds—twenty-four Kurds of the plains acting porters and camp-servants—many mules—two mules bearing a box slung on poles between them."

"What was in the box?" asked Ranjoor Singh.

"Nay, I know not," said the Kurd.

"Nevertheless," said Ranjoor Singh, "my brother is a man with eyes and ears. What did my brother hear?"

"They said their machine can send and receive a message from places as far apart as Khabul and Stamboul. Doubtless they lied," the Kurd answered.

"Doubtless!" said Ranjoor Singh. By his slow even breathing and apparent indifference, I knew he was on a hot scent, so I tried to appear indifferent myself, although my ears burned. The Kurds clustering around their leader listened with ears and eyes agape. They made no secret of their interest.

"They said they are on their way to Khabul," the Kurd continued, "there to receive messages from Europe and acquaint the amir and his ruling chiefs of the true condition of affairs."

"How shall they reach Afghanistan?" asked Ranjoor Singh. "Does a road through Persia lie open to them?"

"Nay," said the Kurd. "Persia is like a nest of hornets. But they are to receive an escort of us Kurds to take them through Persia. We mountain Kurds are not afraid of Persians."

"Which Kurds are to provide the escort?" Ranjoor Singh asked him, and the Kurd shook his head.

"Nay," he said, "that none can tell. It is not yet agreed. There is small competition for the task. There are better pickings here on the border, raiding now and then, and pocketing the gold of this Wassmuss between-whiles! Who wants the task of escorting a machine in a box to Khabul?"

"Nevertheless," said Ranjoor Singh, "I know of a leader and his men who will undertake the task."

"Who, then?" said the Kurd.

"I and my men!" said Ranjoor Singh; and I held my breath until I thought my lungs would burst. "Persia!" thought I. "Afghanistan!" thought I. "And what beyond?"

"Ye are not Kurds," the chief answered, after he had considered a while. "Wassmuss said the escort must consist of three hundred Kurds or he will not pay."

"The payment shall be arranged between me and thee!" said Ranjoor Singh. "You shall have all the gold of this next convoy, if you will ride back to Wassmuss and agree that you and your men shall be the escort to Afghanistan."

"Who shall guard this pass if I ride back?" the Kurd asked.

"I!" said Ranjoor Singh. "I and my men will wait here for the gold. Leave me a few of your men to be guides and to keep peace between us and other Kurds among these mountains. Ride and tell Wassmuss that the gold will not come for another thirty days."

"He will not believe," said the Kurd.

"I will give you a letter," said Ranjoor Singh.

"He will not believe the letter," said the Kurd.

"What is that to thee, whether he believes it or not?" said Ranjoor Singh. "At least he will believe that Turks brought you the letter, and that you took it to him in good faith. Will he charge you with having written it?"

"Nay," said the Kurd, nodding, "I can not write, and he knows it."

"Do that, then," said Ranjoor Singh. "Ride and agree to be escort for these Germans and their machine to Afghanistan. Leave me here with ten or a dozen of your men, who will guide me after I have the gold to where you shall be camping with your Germans somewhere just beyond the Persian border. I will arrange to overtake you after dusk—perhaps at midnight. There I will give you the gold, and you shall ride away. I and my men will ride on as escort to the Germans."

"What if they object?" said the Kurd.

"Who? The men with the box, or Wassmuss?" asked Ranjoor Singh.

"Nay," said the Kurd, "Wassmuss will be very glad to get a willing escort. He is in difficulty over that. There will be no objection from him. But what if the men with the box object to the change of escorts?"

"We be over two hundred, and they thirty!" answered Ranjoor Singh, and the Kurd nodded.

"After all," he said, "that is thy affair. But how am I to know that you and your men will not ride off with the gold? Nay, I must have the gold first!"

Ranjoor Singh shook his head.

"Then I and my men will stay here and help seize the gold," the Kurd said meaningly.

"Nay!" said Ranjoor Singh. "For then you would fight me for it!"

"Thou and I have eaten bread and salt together!" said the Kurd.

"True," said Ranjoor Singh, "therefore trust me, for I am a Sikh from India."

"I know nothing of Sikhs, or of India," said the Kurd. "Gold I know in the dark, by its jingle and weight, but who knows the heart of a man?"

"Then listen," said Ranjoor Singh. "If you and your men seize the gold, you must bear the blame. When the Turks come later on for vengeance, you will hang. But if I stay and take the gold, who shall know who I am? You will be able to prove with the aid of Wassmuss that neither you nor your men were anywhere near when, the attack took place."

"Then you will make an ambush?" said the Kurd.

"I will set a trap," said Ranjoor Singh. "Moreover, consider this: You think I may take the gold and keep it. How could I? Having taken it from the Turks, should I ride back toward Turkey? Whither else, then? Shall I escape through Persia, with you and your Kurds to prevent? Nay, we must make a fair bargain as friend with friend—and keep it!"

"If I do as you say," said the Kurd, "if I take this letter to Wassmuss, and agree with him to escort those Germans across Persia, what, then, if you fail to get the gold? What if the Turks get the better of you?"

"Dead men can not keep bargains!" answered Ranjoor Singh. "I shall succeed or die. But consider again: I have led these men of mine hither from Stamboul, deceiving and routing and outdistancing Turkish regiments all the way. Shall I fail now, having come so far?"

"Insha' Allah!" said the Kurd, meaning, "If God wills."

"Since when did God take sides against the brave?" Ranjoor Singh asked him, and the Kurd said nothing; but I feared greatly because they seemed on the verge of a religious argument, and those Kurds are fanatics. If anything but gold had been in the balance against him, I believe that Kurd would have defied us, for, although he did not know what Sikhs might be, he knew us for no Musselmen. I saw his eyes look inward, meditating treachery, not only to Wassmuss, but to us, too. But Ranjoor Singh detected that quicker than I did.

"Let us neglect no points," he said, and the Kurd brought his mind back with an effort from considering plans against us. "It would be possible for me to get that gold, and for other Kurds—not you or your men, of course, but other Kurds—to waylay me in the mountains. Therefore let part of the agreement be that you leave with me ten hostages, of whom two shall be your blood relations."

The Kurd winced. He was a little keen man, with, a thin face and prominent nose; not ill-looking, but extremely acquisitive, I should say.

"Wassmuss holds my brother hostage!" he answered grimly, as if he had just then thought of it.

"I have a German prisoner here," said Ranjoor Singh, with the nearest approach to a smile that he had permitted himself yet, "and Wassmuss will be very glad to exchange him against your brother when the time comes."

"Ah!" said the Kurd, and—

"Ah!" said Ranjoor Singh. He saw now which way the wind blew, and, like all born cavalry leaders, he pressed his advantage.

"Do the Turks hold any of your men prisoner?" he asked.

"Aye!" said the Kurd. "They hold an uncle of mine, and my half-brother, and seven of my best men. They keep them in jail in fetters."

"I have five Turkish prisoners, all officers, one a bimbashi, whom I will give you when I hand over the gold. The Turks will gladly trade your men against their officers," Ranjoor Singh assured him. "You shall have them and the German to make your trade with."

It was plain the Kurd was more than half-convinced. His men who swarmed around him were urging him in whispers. Doubtless they knew he would keep most, if not all, of the gold for himself, but the safety of their friends made more direct appeal and