"Let us hope he may die like a rat in a hole and bring no more shame
on us!" said Gooja Singh, and many assented.

"He said he will be with us before the blood shall run!" said I.

"Then we know whose blood shall run first!" said the trooper nearest
me, and those who heard him laughed. So I held my tongue. There is
no need of argument while a man yet lives to prove himself. I had
charge of the party that burned that trooper's body. He was one of
the first to fall after we reached France.

Colonel Kirby, looking none too pleased, came trotting back to us,
and we rode on. And we entrained. Later on we boarded a great ship
in Bombay harbor and put to sea, most of us thinking by that time of
families and children, and some no doubt of money-lenders who might
foreclose on property in our absence, none yet suspecting that the
government will take steps to prevent that. It is not only the
British officer, sahib, who borrows money at high interest lest his
shabbiness shame the regiment.

We were at sea almost before the horses were stalled properly, and
presently there were officers and men and horses all sick together
in the belly of the ship, with chests and bales and barrels broken
loose among us. The this-and-that-way motion of the ship caused
horses to fall down, and men were too sick to help them up again. I
myself lay amid dung like a dead man--yet vomiting as no dead man
ever did--and saw British officers as sick as I laboring like
troopers. There are more reasons than one why we Sikhs respect our
British officers.