“Yes; you go Indee, sergeant?”
“No, I've never been.”
“No go Indee?”
“Not yet.”
“Indee very good—English very good—Turk, finish!”
With a sudden jerk and a rattle of chains our water-cart mules pulled out on the trail again and the ghostly figure with its well-folded turban and gleaming white teeth was left behind.
A beautifully calm race, the Hindus. They did wonderful work at Suvla Bay. Up and down, up and down, hour after hour they worked steadily on; taking up biscuits, bully-beef and ammunition to the firing-line, and returning for more and still more. Day and night these splendidly built Easterns kept up the supply.
I remember one man who had had his left leg blown off by shrapnel sitting on a rock smoking a cigarette and great tears rolling down his cheeks. But he said no word. Not a groan or a cry of pain.
They ate little, and said little. But they were always extraordinarily polite and courteous to each other. They never neglected their prayers, even under heavy shell fire.
Once, when we were moving from the Salt Lake to “C” Beach, Lala Baba, the Indians moved all our equipment in their little two-wheeled carts.