obsessed every single man but me: To get to Gallipoli, and escape to
the British trenches during some dark night, or perish in the
effort.

As for me, I kept open mind and watched. It is the non-commissioned
officer's affair to herd the men for his officer to lead. To have
argued with them or have suggested alternative possibilities would
have been only to enrage them and make them deaf to wise counsels
when the proper time should come. And, besides, I knew no more what
Ranjoor Singh had in mind than a dead man knows of the weather. We
marched through the streets, and marched, stared at silently,
neither cheered nor mocked by the inhabitants; and Ranjoor Singh
arrived at his own conclusions. Five several times during that one
day he halted us in the mud at a certain place along the water-
front, although there was a better place near by; and while we
rested he asked peculiar questions, and the Turk boasted to him,
explaining many things.

We were exhausted when it fell dark and we climbed up the hill again
to barracks. Yet as we entered the barrack gate I heard Ranjoor
Singh tell a German officer in English that we had all greatly
enjoyed our view of the city and the exercise. I repeated what I had
heard while the men were at supper, and they began to wonder
greatly.

"Such a lie!" said they.

"That surely was a lie?" I asked, and they answered that the man who
truly had enjoyed such tramping to and fro was no soldier but a mud-
fish.