Hira Singh | Page 9

the Ridge at
Delhi when the British cause seemed lost. The British have long
memories for such things.
Later there came an officer from the battle-ship and there was hot
argument on our upper bridge. The captain of our ship grew very angry,
but the officer from the battle-ship remained polite, and presently he
took away with him certain of our stokers. The captain of our ship
shouted after him that there were only weaklings and devil's leavings
left, but later we discovered that was not true.
We fretted at delay at Suez. Ships may only enter the canal one by one,
and while we waited some Arabs found their way on board from a
small boat, pretending to sell fruit and trinkets. They assured us that the

French and British were already badly beaten, and that Belgium had
ceased to be. To test them, we asked where Belgium was, and they did
not know; but they swore it had ceased to be. They advised us to
mutiny and refuse to go on to our destruction.
They ought to have been arrested, but we were enraged and drove them
from the ship with blows. We upset their little boat by hauling at the
rope with which they had made it fast, and they were forced to swim
for shore. One of them was taken by a shark, which we considered an
excellent omen, and the others were captured as they swam and taken
ashore in custody.
I think others must have visited the other ships with similar tales to tell,
because after that, sahib, there was something such as I think the world
never saw before that day. In that great fleet of ships we were men of
many creeds and tongues--Sikh, Muhammadan, Dorga, Gurkha (the
Dogra and Gurkha be both Hindu, though of different kinds), Jat,
Punjabi, Rajput, Guzerati, Pathan, Mahratta-- who can recall how many!
No one language could have sufficed to explain one thought to all of
us--no, nor yet ten languages! No word passed that my ear caught. Yet,
ship after ship became aware of closer unity.
All on our knees on all the ships together we prayed thereafter thrice a
day, our British officers standing bareheaded beneath the upper
awnings, the chin-strap marks showing very plainly on their cheeks as
the way of the British is when they feel emotion. We prayed, sahib, lest
the war be over before we could come and do our share. I think there
was no fear in all that fleet except the fear lest we come too late. A man
might say with truth that we prayed to more gods than one, but our
prayer was one. And we received one answer.
One morning our ship got up anchor unexpectedly and began to enter
the canal ahead of all the ships bearing Indian troops. The men on the
other ships bayed to us like packs of wolves, in part to give
encouragement but principally jealous. We began to expect to see
France now at any minute--I, who can draw a map of the world and set
the chief cities in the proper place, being as foolish as the rest. There
lay work as well as distance between us and France.

We began to pass men laboring to make the canal banks ready against
attack, but mostly they had no news to give us. Yet at one place, where
we tied to the bank because of delay ahead, a man shouted from a
sand-dune that the kaiser of Germany has turned Muhammadan and
now summons all Islam to destroy the French and British. Doubtless he
mistook us for Muhammadans, being neither the first nor the last to
make that mistake.
So we answered him we were on our way to Berlin to teach the kaiser
his new creed. One man threw a lump of coal at him and he
disappeared, but presently we heard him shouting to the men on the
ship behind. They truly were Muhammadans, but they jeered at him as
loud as we.
After that our officers set us to leading horses up and down the deck in
relays, partly, no doubt, to keep us from talking with other men on
shore, but also for the horses' sake. I remember how flies came on
board and troubled the horses very much. At sea we had forgotten there
were such things as flies, and they left us again when we left the canal.
At Port Said, which looks like a mean place, we stopped again for coal.
Naked Egyptians--big black men, as tall as I and as straight-- carried it
up an inclined plank from a float and cast it by basketfuls through
openings in the ship's side. We made up a purse of money for them,
both officers and