"We should perish on the way," said he.

"What of it?" we answered, I with the rest. "Better that than this
vulture's death in a graveyard!"

But he shook his head and ordered us to try to think like men. "The
life of a Sikh," said he, "and the oath of a Sikh are one. We swore
to serve our friends. To try to cut our way back would be but to die
for our own comfort."

"You should have led us back that first night, when the attack was
spent," said Gooja Singh.

"I was not in command that first night," Ranjoor Singh answered him,
and who could gainsay that?

At irregular intervals British shells began bursting near us, and we
all knew what they were. The batteries were feeling for the range.
They would begin a new bombardment. Now, therefore, is the end, said
we. But Ranjoor Singh stood up with his head above the trench and
began shouting to the Germans. They answered him. Then, to our utter
astonishment, he tore the shirt from a dead man, tied it to a rifle,
and held it up.

The Germans cheered and laughed, but we made never a sound. We were
bewildered--sick from the stink and weariness and thirst and lack of
food. Yet I swear to you, sahib, on my honor that it had not entered
into the heart of one of us to surrender. That we who had been first
of the Indian contingent to board a ship, first to land in France,