In less than sixty seconds all three carts were neatly interlocked, and their respective drivers were engaged in a war of words that beggared Babel.
The advance-guard halted and added words to the torrent. Colonel Kirby caught up the advance-guard and halted, too.
"Does he look like a man who commands a loyal regiment?" asked Ranjoor Singh; and the German studied the bowed head and thoughtful angle of a man who at that minute was regretting his good friend the risaldar-major.
"You will note that he looks chastened!"
The German nodded.
In his own good time Ranjoor Singh ran out and helped with that long stick of his to straighten out the mess; then in thirty seconds the wheels were unlocked again and the carts moving in a hurry to the roadside. The advance-guard moved on, and Kirby followed. Then, troop by troop, the whole of Outram's Own rode by, and the German began to wonder. It seemed to him that the rest of the officers were not demure enough, although he admitted to himself that the enigmatic Eastern faces in the ranks might mean anything at all. He noted that there was almost no talking, and he took that for a good sign for Germany.
D Squadron came last of all, and convinced him. They rode regretfully, as men who missed their squadron leader, and who, in spite of a message from him, would have better loved to see him riding on their flank.
But Ranjoor Singh stepped out into the road, and the right-end man of the front four recognized him. Not a word was said that the German could hear, but he could see the recognition run from rank to rank and troop to troop, until the squadron knew to a man; he saw them glance at Ranjoor Singh, and from him to one another, and ride on with a new stiffening and a new air of "now we'll see what comes of it!"
It was as evident, to his practised eye, that they were glad to have seen Ranjoor Singh, and looked forward to seeing him again very shortly, as that they were in a mood for trouble, and he decided to believe the whole of what the Sikh had said on the strength of the obvious truth of part of it.
"Watch now the supply train!" growled Ranjoor Singh, as the wagons began to rumble by.
The German had no means of knowing that the greater part of the regiment's war provisions had gone away by train from a Delhi station. The wagons that followed the regiment on the march were a generous allowance for a regiment going into camp, but not more than that. The spies whose duty it was to watch the railway sidings reported to somebody else and not to him.
