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No. 2 company of the 69th Rifles approached to see the confusion and said:
    â€˜Get away, don’t crowd round the mem sahib! Get away!’
    â€˜Come, leave the skirt, let us go,’ Subah said.
    â€˜You are getting too bumptious,’ shouted Suchet Singh to Subah. ‘You try to be familiar with her again, and I shall have you courtmartialed. Never mind whose son you are!’
    After this warning the crowd of sepoys began to slink away.
    â€˜Come on, my heart-squanderer, she is beyond your reach,’said Lalu, dragging Subah away. ‘And get ready to face your father because I am sure Suchet Singh will report you!…’
    â€˜Look out, son, I am to become a Jemadar soon,’ Subah said to Lalu, as they hurried towards the main road. ‘The Subedar Sahib told me today, so you behave if you value your life.’
    â€˜ Ohe, ja, ja , don’t try to impress me!’ said Lalu.
    â€˜Oh, come, raper of your sister, we shall celebrate,’ Subah said. ‘You will be my friend, even when I am an officer.’
    â€˜Build the house before you make the door.’
    â€˜All right, wisdom, come, and run lest we be seen.’
    â€˜Where are we going?’ Lalu asked. ‘We have to get permission if we are going out of bounds.’
    â€˜You come with me,’ said Subah, ‘there is a stall at the end of that road. I saw it when we were marching down to camp; it seemed a wineshop, because there were people with glasses full of red, pale and green wine before them. Come, we will walk through the camp as though we are not really going out, and then try and evade the sentry at the end of the road, or I shall tell him that I am the son of the Subedar Major Arbel Singh. Come, we shall be happy… You can live without fear of Lok Nath now, because now that I have got promotion he will remain where he is, in the mire…’
    â€˜It would be strange if the lion’s offspring hasn’t any claws,’ said Lalu. ‘It seems to me that all of us will be in the mire if you become a Jemadar, not only Lok Nath!’
    â€˜You know that my father has been invited to the officers’ mess tonight where the French officers, English Sahibs, Rajahs, Maharajas and some chosen Indian officers have been invited,’ Subah informed him, puffed up with pride. ‘And, it is said, that Sir James Willcocks, the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Corps is to arrive here soon, accompanied by Risaldar Khwaja Muhammad Khan, who is aide-decamp to this general, and a friend of my father. He is a Pathan from the Yussuf Zai: he was aide-de-camp to Lord Kitchener at one time… I should like to become aide-de-camp one day…’
    â€˜You wait, son, you will become that, and more,’ said Lalu with a faint mockery in his voice.
    â€˜Really, do you think?’ Subah said unconscious of his friend’s irony. ‘Then I shall make you a Jemadar.’
    â€˜The dog eats a bellyful of food if he can get it, otherwise he just licks the saucer,’ said Lalu to cut short his friend.
    â€˜Oh come, why are you always stricken even when happy?’ said Subah. And, catching Lalu’s hand he began to caper like a horse.
    Some Sikh sepoys dressed in shorts were washing their clothes while a group of French children stood around them. One of the Sikhs brought out a flute, and began to play it to amuse them. At this some French soldiers gathered round, imagining that the flute player was going to bring out a cobra. The sepoy pretended there was a snake on the ground before him, and played around its imaginary head, deliberately swelling his cheeks with his breath till they were like two rounded balls. At this the children scattered out of fear, but came back reassured when the sepoy smiled.
    One of them offered the mimicking juggler a sweet which the sepoy gulped down, rolling his eyes, and twisting his face as if he were swallowing some poison. And then there was an