Folly being the substance of that idea, and most men being right-handed, such self-inflicted wounds were practically always in the hand or foot and always on the left side.

The ambulance men knew them, on the instant.
Those two fools of my squadron wounded themselves with bullets in the left hand, forgetting that their palms would be burned by the discharge.

I was sent to the rear to give evidence against them (for I saw them commit the foolishness).

The cross-examination we all three underwent was clever--at the hands of a young British captain, who, I dare swear, was suckled by a Sikh nurse in the Punjab.

In less than thirty minutes he had the whole story out of us; and the two troopers were shot that evening for an example.
That young captain was greatly impressed with the story we had told about Ranjoor Singh, and he called me back afterward and asked me a hundred questions more--until he must have known the very color of my entrails and I knew not which way I faced.