The roads to Mandalay had never seen such strange companies of men: long-bearded Sikhs, tall, blond Britons, swart Gurkhas. Their companions were as strange. On almost every truck and tank perched a sad-faced monkey. A sheep marched beside an Indian Army officer, took cover with him in battle, lay down beside him at night. Fierce Gurkha warriors walked beside their mules, talked affectionately to them, brushed them devotedly (a Gurkha looks upon a mule as infallible, and weeps like a child when one is killed).
Perhaps the loneliness of the jungle explained it,...
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