So they went northward, ever northward, past droves and droves of camels, armies of camp followers, and legions of laden mules, the throng thickening day by day, till with a shriek the train pulled up at a hopelessly congested junction where six lines of temporary track accommodated six forty-wagon trains; where whistles blew, Babus sweated and Commissariat officers swore from dawn till far into the night amid the wind-driven chaff of the fodder-bales and the lowing of a thousand steers. "Hurry up--you're badly wanted at the Front," was the message that greeted the Fore and Aft, and the occupants of the Red Cross carriages told the same tale. "Tisn't so much the bloomin' fighting," gasped a headbound trooper of Hussars to a knot of admiring Fore and Afts. "Tisn't so much the bloomin' fightin', though there's enough o' that. It's the bloomin' food an' the bloomin' climate. Frost all night 'cept when it hails, and biling sun all day, and the water stinks fit to knock you down. I got my 'ead chipped like a egg; I've got pneumonia too, an' my guts is all out o' order. Tain't no bloomin' picnic in those parts, I can tell you." "Wot are the niggers like?" demanded a private. "There's some prisoners in that train yonder. Go an' look at 'em. They're the aristocracy o' the country. The common folk are a dashed sight uglier. If you want to know what they fight with, reach under my seat an' pull out the long knife that's there." They dragged out and beheld for the first time the grim, bone-handled, triangular Afghan knife. It was almost as long as Lew. "That's the thing to jint ye," said the trooper, feebly. "It can take off a man's arm at the shoulder as easy as slicing butter. I halved the beggar that used that 'un, but there's more of his likes up above. They don't understand thrustin', but they're devils to slice." The men strolled across the tracks to inspect the Afghan prisoners. They were unlike any "niggers" that the Fore and Aft had ever met--these huge, black-haired, scowling sons of the Beni-Israel. As the men stared the Afghans spat freely and muttered one to another with lowered eyes. "My eyes! Wot awful swine!" said Jakin, who was in the rear of the procession. "Say, old man, how you got _puckrowed_, eh? _Kiswasti_ you wasn't hanged for your ugly face, hey?" The tallest of the company turned, his leg-irons, clanking at the movement, and stared at the boy. "See!" he cried to his fellows in Pushto. "They send children against us. What a people, and what fools!" "_Hya!_" said Jakin, nodding his head cheerily. "You go down-country. _Khana_ get, _peenikapanee_ get--live like a bloomin' Raja _ke marfik_. That's a better _bandobust_ than baynit get it in your innards. Good-bye, ole man. Take care o' your beautiful figure-'ed, an' try to look _kushy_."