and some of them died as we lifted them. When we reached the
German trench and they counted us, including Ranjoor Singh and
three-and-forty wounded there were two-hundred-and-three-and-fifty
of us left alive.

They led Ranjoor Singh apart. He had neither rifle nor saber in his
hand, and he walked to their trench alone because we avoided him. He
was more muddy than we, and as ragged and tired. He had stood in the
same foul water, and smelt the same stench. He was hungry as we. He
had been willing to surrender, and we had not. Yet he walked like an
officer, and looked like one, and we looked like animals. And we
knew it, and he knew it. And the Germans recognized the facts.

He acted like a crowned king when he reached the trench. A German
officer spoke with him earnestly, but he shook his head and then
they led him away. When he was gone the same officer came and spoke
to us in English, and I understanding him at once, he bade me tell
the others that the British must have witnessed our surrender.
"See," said he, "what a bombardment they have begun again. That is
in the hope of slaying you. That is out of revenge because you dared
surrender instead of dying like rats in a ditch to feed their
pride!" It was true that a bombardment had begun again. It had begun
that minute. Those truly had been ranging shells. If we had stayed
five minutes longer before surrendering we should have been blown to
pieces; but we were in no mood to care on that account.

The Germans are a simple folk, sahib, although they themselves think
otherwise. When they think they are the subtlest they are easiest to
understand. Understanding was reborn in my heart on account of that
German's words. Thought I, if Ranjoor Singh were in truth a traitor
then he would have leaped at a chance to justify himself to us. He
would have repeated what that German had urged him to tell us. Yet I
saw him refuse.

As they hurried him away alone, pity for him came over me like warm
rain on the parched earth, and when a man can pity he can reason, I
spoke in Punjabi to the others and the German officer thought I was
translating what he told me to say, yet in truth I reminded them
that man can find no place where God is not, and where God is is
courage. I was senior now, and my business was to encourage them.
They took new heart from my words, all except Gooja Singh, who wept
noisily, and the German officer was pleased with what he mistook for
the effect of his spee