the whole line.

Colonel Kirby led us, but I speak of Ranjoor Singh. I never once saw
Colonel Kirby until the fight was over and we were back again
resting our horses behind the trees while the roll was called.
Throughout the fight--and I have no idea whatever how long it
lasted--I kept an eye on Ranjoor Singh and spurred in his wake,
obeying the least motion of his saber. No, sahib, I myself did not
slay many men. It is the business of a non-commissioned man like me
to help his officers keep control, and I did what I might. I was
nearly killed by a wounded German officer who seized my bridle-rein;
but a trooper's lance took him in the throat and I rode on
untouched. For all I know that was the only danger I was in that
night.

A battle is a strange thing, sahib--like a dream. A man only knows
such part of it as crosses his own vision, and remembers but little
of that. What he does remember seldom tallies with what the others
saw. Talk with twenty of our regiment, and you may get twenty
different versions of what took place--yet not one man would have
lied to you, except perhaps here and there a little in the matter of
his own accomplishment. Doubtless the Germans have a thousand
different accounts of it.

I know this, and the world knows it: that night the Germans melted.
They were. Then they broke into parties and were not. We pursued
them as they ran. Suddenly the star-shells ceased from bursting
overhead, and out of black darkness I heard Colonel Kirby's voice
thundering an order. Then a trumpet blared. Then I heard Ranjoor
Singh's voice, high-pitched. Almost the next I knew we were halted
in the shadow of the trees again, calling low to one another,
friend's voice seeking friend's. We could scarcely hear the voices
for the thunder of artillery that had begun again; and whereas
formerly the German gun-fire had been greatest, now we thought the
British and French fire had the better of it. They had been re-enforced,
but I have no notion whence.

The infantry, that had drawn aside like a curtain to let us through,
had closed in again to the edge of the forest, and through the noise
of rifle-firing and artillery we caught presently the thunder of new
regiments advancing at the double. Thousands of our Indian infantry--those
who had been in the trains behind us--were coming forward at
a run! God knows that was a night--to make a man glad he has lived!

It was not only the Germans who had not expected us. Now, sah