[Hira Singh by Talbot Mundy]@TWC D-Link bookHira Singh CHAPTER V 41/71
He picked the sixty with great wisdom, choosing for the most part men who had given no trouble, but he included ten or twelve grumblers, although for a day or two I did not understand why.
There was forethought in everything he did. The sheep that could not be crowded into the carts he ordered butchered there and then, and the meat distributed among the men; and all the plunder that he decided not to take he ordered heaped in one place where it would not be visible unless deliberately looked for.
The plundered money that he found in the Turk's tent he hid under the corn in the foremost cart, and we found it very useful later on.
The few of our men who had not fallen asleep were for burning the piled-up plunder, but he threatened to shoot whoever dared set match to it. "Shall we light a beacon to warn the countryside ?" said he. A little after midnight there began to be attempts by Turkish soldiers to break through and run for Angora.
But I had kept my twenty guards awake with threats of being made to carry ammunition--even letting the butt of my rifle do work not set down in the regulations.
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