y at last,
for taking advantage of the darkness I had let my horse draw very
near to them. Now I had to rein back and make pretense that my horse
had been unruly, for Ranjoor Singh came riding toward us, showing
his teeth in a great grin, and Captain Fellowes with a word of
reproof thrown back to me spurred on to meet him.

"Hurrah, Major Ranjoor Singh!" said Captain Fellowes. "I'm damned
glad to see you!" That was a generous speech, sahib, from a man who
must now yield command of the squadron, but Captain Fellowes had a
heart like a bridegroom's always. He must always glory in the
squadron's luck, and he loved us better than himself. That was why
we loved him. They shook hands, and looked in each other's eyes.
Ranjoor Singh wheeled his charger. And in that same second we all
together saw three red lights swinging by the corner.

"TIN!" said we, with one voice. Tin means three, sahib, but it
sounded rather like the scream of a shell that leaves on its
journey.

My horse laid his ears back and dug his toes into the ground. A
trumpet sounded, and Colonel Kirby rose in his stirrups:

"Outram's Own!" he yelled, "by squadrons on number One--"

But the sahib would not be interested in the sequence of commands
that have small meaning to those not familiar with them. And who
shall describe what followed? Who shall tell the story of a charge
into the night, at an angle, into massed regiments of infantry
advancing one behind another at the double and taken by surprise?

The guns of both sides suddenly ceased firing. Even as I used my
spurs they ceased. How? Who am I that I should know? The British
guns, I suppose, from fear of slaying us, and the German guns from
fear of slaying Germans; but as to how, I know not. But the German
star-shells continued bursting overhead, and by that weird light
their oncoming infantry saw charging into them men they had never
seen before out of a picture-book!

God knows what tales they had been told about us Sikhs. I read their
faces as I rode. Fear is an ugly weapon, sahib, whose hilt is more
dangerous than its blade. If our officers had told us such tales
about Germans as their officers had told them about us, I think
perhaps we might have feared to charge.

Numbers were as nothing that night. Speed, and shock, and
unexpectedness were ours, and lies had prepared us our reception. D
Squadron rode behind Ranjoor Singh like a storm in the night--swung
into line beside the other squadrons