we had no work to do except keeping the cells etc. clean. We asked the Superintendent for work, and he replied: ‘I am sorry I cannot give you work, as, if I did, I should be held to have committed an offence. But you can devote as much time as you please to keeping the place clean.’ We asked for some such exercise as drill, as we had observed even the Negro prisoners with hard labour being drilled in addition to their usual work. The Superintendent replied, ‘If your warder has time and if he gives you drill, I will not object to it; nor will I require him to do it, as he is hard worked as it is, and your arrival in unexpectedly large numbers has made his work harder still.’ The warder was a good man and this qualified permission was quite enough for him. He began to drill us every morning with great interest. This drill must be performed in the small yard before our cells and was therefore in the nature of a merry-go-round. When the warder finished the drill and went away, it was continued by a Pathan compatriot of ours named Nawabkhan, who made us all laugh with his quaint pronunciation of English words of command. He rendered ‘Stand at ease’ as ‘sundlies.’ We could not for the life of us understand what Hindustani word it was, but afterwards it dawned upon us that it was no Hindustani but only Nawabkhani English.
