Like us, they were in a hurry; but unlike us, they had no Ranjoor Singh to force the pace and do the scouting, so that for all their long lead we were overtaking them.
Like us, they seemed wary of the public eye, for they followed lonely routes among the wooded foothills; but their Kurdish horsemen left a track no blind man could have missed, and although they plundered a little as they went, they spent gold, too, like water, so that the villagers were in a strange mood.

Most of the plundering was done by their Kurdish escort who, it seemed, kept returning to steal the money paid by the Germans for provisions.

Sometimes when we offered gold we would be mocked.

But on the whole, we began to have an easy time of it--all but the wounded, who suffered tortures from the pace we held.

We secured some carts at one village and put our wounded in them, but the carts were springless, and there were no roads at all, so that it was better in those days to be a dead man than a sick or wounded one! There was no malingering! After a few days (I forget how many, for who can remember all the days and distances of that long march ?) Abraham got word of a great Christian mission station where thousands of Christians had sought safety under the American flag.