GURKHAS

 My other strongest memory of Pyawbwe is of getting to know the Gurkhas, whose pits were close to ours, and to whom I made regular visits to trade rations. As Grandarse said, they would have sold their souls for tinned herrings in tomato sauce, or for sardines, and I only had to stroll across to their positions with a couple of the oval tins in my hand to be greeted with huge smiles and squeals of “Hey, Jock—chappatti, dood, cheeny! Shabash!” And out would come the sugar and condensed milk, or the big flat chappattis which they baked on their company fire, by way of exchange, the deal being cemented by the offer of cigarettes on my part and the acceptance of a huge mug of their sickly sweet tea, to be drunk sitting in the middle of a grinning chattering group of those wonderful little men. There is nothing like tea in the afternoon, whether it is in snug comfort at home on a winter’s day, or on the terrace of Reid’s or in the cool white peace of the old Raffles in Singapore, or the Hong Kong Peninsula (even if they did put onion with the salmon sandwiches), or in an English tea-shop—but having tea with the Gurkhas is something special, for they radiate a cheer and good fellowship that has to be experienced, and once you have, you understand why British soldiers have always held them in an affection that is pretty close to love.

    Exuberance is a poor word for their social behaviour. Except for a few exchanges in broken Urdu we could not converse, but having heard me addressed as Jock they knew I was Scotch, which sent them into peals of delight, with half a dozen of them scurrying away to bring their company piper, who regaled me with “Scotland the Brave” and “Cock o’ the North” while sundry of his comrades marched up and down, scowling horribly in what I took to be Caledonian imitation. One of them got so carried away that he suddenly leaped in front of me, grimacing and yelling: “Hey, Jock—Japanni mat karo!” (which very loosely translates as “Death to the Japanese!”) and went into a violent pantomime in which he clove the air with his kukri, to enthusiastic applause, and then enacted the dying enemy, writhing on the ground screaming “Banzai bus! Banzai bus!” and feigning death while his friends sat round and hurled abuse at his corpse. After which they all collapsed in laughter, and we had some more tea.

    A Gurkha subaltern whom I met later told me that commanding a platoon of them was like leading a group of perfectly-disciplined ten-year-olds, and I believe him. Watching them play football, for example, was like watching very small children, for they had not the least idea of playing the game; they had no interest in teams or goals or anything of the sort. Their one idea was to chase the ball in a screaming, laughing mob, booting it as far as possible and running after it with their little skulls gleaming and pigtails bobbing, to boot it again. Unless chance directed the ball back to where they started, they were liable to vanish into the distance, yelling: “Futtbal! Futtbal!”—and the extraordinary thing was that they did it properly dressed, with their puttees on and shirts buttoned at the wrists.

    Their only other recreation that I saw was the catapult—the Y-and-elastic toy which the Americans call a slingshot. Many Gurkhas carried them in their hip-pockets, and if you were suddenly stung a tergo and heard a smothered giggle from behind a tree, it was worth stopping and shouting: “Idderao, Johnny! Ham dekko, you little bugger!” just for the pleasure of seeing the small face come peeping cautiously out, followed by the marksman himself, wearing a sheepish grin and holding up his catapult by way of explanation, as if you didn’t know. So far as I could see they confined themselves to British targets (there seemed to be no great love lost between them and the Indian regiments, especially the Sikhs), and we took it as a compliment. No one would have dreamed of taking offence; it would have been downright cruel, for the Gurkha was as eager to please as a playful grandchild. The thought of quarrelling with one of them never even occurred—for one thing, you’d be better picking a fight with a king cobra.

    That was a thing that was often hard to remember: that this delightful little man, with his ungainly walk and protruding backside and impish grin, who barely came up to your shoulder and was one of nature’s born comedians, was also probably the most fatal fighting man on earth.


George MacDonald Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here
London: Harper Collins, 1995, 130-132