not think any
grumbled on that score. There was a French staff officer to each
train, and he who rode in our train had an orderly who knew English;
the orderly climbed in beside me and we rode miles together, talking
all the time, he surprising me vastly more than I him. We exchanged
information as two boys that play a game--I a move, then he a move,
then I again, then he.

The game was at an end when neither could think of another question
to ask; but he learned more than I. At the end I did not yet know
what his religion was, but he knew a great deal about mine. On the
other hand, he told me all about their army and its close
association between officers and men, and all the news he had about
the fighting (which was not so very much), and what he thought of
the British. He seemed to think very highly of the British, rather
to his own surprise.

He told me he was a pastry cook by trade, and said he could cook
chapatties such as we eat; and he understood my explanation why
Sikhs were riding in the front trains and Muhammadans behind--because
Muhammadans must pray at fixed intervals and the trains must
stop to let them do it. He understood wherein our Sikh prayer
differs from that of Islam. Yet he refused to believe I am no
polygamist. But that is nothing. Since then I have fought in a
trench beside Englishmen who spoke of me as a savage; and I have
seen wounded Germans writhe and scream because their officers had
told them we Sikhs would eat them alive. Yes, sahib; not once, but
many times.

The journey was slow, for the line ahead of us was choked with
supply trains, some of which were needed at the front as badly as
ourselves. Now and then trains waited on sidings to let us by, and
by that means we became separated from the other troop trains, our
regiment leading all the others in the end by almost half a day. The
din of engine whistles became so constant that we no longer noticed
it.

But there was another din that did not grow familiar. Along the line
next ours there came hurrying in the opposite direction train after
train of wounded, traveling at great speed, each leaving a smell in
its wake that set us all to spitting. And once in so often there
came a train filled full of the sound of screaming. The first time,
and the second time we believed it was ungreased axles, but after
the third time we understood.

Then our officers came walking along the footboards, speaking to us
through the windows and prete