"I drank it by the barrel, straight off ice, and it went
to my head!

"That must be why I boasted about knowing Indian languages before I
had been two hours in port. I was drunk, and glad to be home, and on
the lookout for another job to keep from starving; so I boasted I
could speak and write Urdu and Punjabi. That brought me employment
in an export house. But who would have guessed it would end in my
being dragged away from my regiment to march with a lot of Sikhs?
Eh? Who would have guessed it? There goes my regiment one way, and
here go I another! What's our destination? God knows! Who are you,
and what are you? God neither knows nor cares! What's to be the end
of this? The end of me, I expect--and all because I got drunk on the
way home! It I get alive out of this," said he, "I'll get drunk once
for the glory of God and then never touch beer again!"

And he struck me on the thigh with his open palm. The noise was like
powder detonating, and the pain was acute. I cursed him in his teeth
and he grinned at me as if he and I were old friends. Little blue
eyes he had, sahib--light blue, set in full red cheeks. There were
many little red veins crisscrossed under the skin of his face, and
his breath smelt of beer and tobacco. I judged he had the physical
strength of a buffalo, although doubtless short of wind.

He had very little hair. Such as he had was yellow, but clipped so
short that it looked white. His yellow mustache was turned up thus
at either corner of his mouth; and the mouth was not unkind, not
without good humor.

"What is your name?" said I.

"Tugendheim," said he. "I am Sergeant Fritz Tugendheim, of the 281
(Pappenheim) Regiment of Infantry, and would God I were with my
regiment! What do they call you?"

"Hira Singh," said I.

"And your rank?"

"Havildar," said I.

"Oh-ho!" said he. "So you're all non-commissioned in here, are you?
Seven of you, eh? Seven is a lucky number! Well---" He looked us
each slowly in the face, narrowing his eyes so that we could
scarcely see them under the yellow lashes. "Well," said he, "they
won't mistake me for any of you, nor any of you for me--not even if
I should grow whiskers!"

He laughed at that joke for about two minutes, slapping me on the
thigh again and laughing all the louder when I showed my teeth. Then
he drew out a flask of some kind of pungent spirits from his pocket,
and offered it to me. When I refused he drank the whole of it
himself and flung t