"My thought, of going to the mines and being troublesome, was best!"
said I. "Ye overruled me. Now ye would condemn me for not preventing
you! Ye are wind blowing this way and that!"

They were so busy defending themselves to themselves against that
charge that they said no more until sleep fell on them; and at dawn
Ranjoor Singh took hold of us again and made us drill until our feet
burned on the gravel and our ears were full of the tramp--tramp--
tramp, and the ek--do--tin of manual exercise.

"Listen!" said he to me, when he had dismissed us for dinner, and I
lingered on parade. "Caution the men that any breach of discipline
would be treated under German military law by drum-head court
martial and sentence of death by shooting. Advise them to avoid
indiscretions of any kind," said he.

So I passed among them, pretending the suggestion was my own, and
they resented it, as I knew they would. But I observed from about
that time they began to look on Ranjoor Singh as their only possible
protector against the Germans, so that their animosity against him
was offset by self-interest.

The next day came a staff officer who marched us to the station,
where a train was waiting. Impossible though it may seem, sahib, to
you who listen, I felt sad when I looked back at the huts that had
been our prison, and I think we all did. We had loathed them with
all our hearts all summer long, but now they represented what we
knew and we were marching away from them to what we knew not, with
autumn and winter brooding on our prospects.