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Updated: June 9, 2025
As in a dream, too, he remembered seeing his men, when he turned to cheer them on, go down like nine-pins throwing up their arms and staggering, or twisting themselves up like convulsive cats. It was grotesque rather than horrible; he felt himself grinning inwardly, as at something hellishly comic, when he reached the group of Ghurkas huddled under the cavernous shelter of the cliff.
They were on their way up country, and had halted there that night, anchored in the stream. They were close by, but could not fire, for there was no telling friend from foe. Before the relief party of Ghurkas could come swarming down the hill, only two hundred yards, before the boats could land the eager troops from the steamers, the rebels were gone.
His was a short shrift. He was tried on the spot, tied to the pump of his own farm and shot. I remained in this spot with the guns until March, when the costly victory of Neuve Chapelle was fought. My battery was playing on their northern flank. The objective of the British Tommies was the city, which they took, but at a terrible toll; 6,000 Indian troops, mostly Ghurkas, were slain.
It is in the name of that race heresy, in the name of Germanism and Pan-Germanism, of Slavism and Pan-Slavism, of Saxonism and Pan-Saxonism, the war is being waged. What a tremendous figure! What can Latins, Slavs, Celts, Japs, Negroes, Hindus, Ghurkas, Turcos, and whatever they are called, do against such strapping giants of the true Germanic type?
But there is another answer that everywhere along the British front one sees the Ghurkas, slant-eyed and Mongolian, with their broad-brimmed, khaki-coloured hats, filling posts of responsibility. They are little men, smaller than the Sikhs, rather reminiscent of the Japanese in build and alertness. When I was at the English front some of the Sikhs had been retired to rest.
A few miles down the mountain we stopped half an hour to see a Thibetan dramatic performance. It was in the open air on the hillside. The audience was composed of Thibetans, Ghurkas, and other unusual people. The costumes of the actors were in the last degree outlandish, and the performance was in keeping with the clothes.
You'll see a great Highlander in his kilt and feather bonnet arm in arm with one of these little chaps, hobnobbing as if they had known each other all their lives. And the Ghurkas won't have anything to say to the other Indian regiments; they despise them all except the Sikhs they get on with them all right."
One day I went down the line to where a body of Ghurkas were lying to our left. I walked along about a mile through the muddy ditches and at last came up with one of the men. I stopped and spoke, then offered him a fag. After this interchange of courtesies we fell into conversation.
The Mongols stood boldly, and, taking to the rocks, kept up a very rapid fire, while the Ghurkas repeatedly charged home with the bayonet, using their terrible knives with great effect, and finally putting them to flight, three of the 5th being killed and 13 wounded. Farther up the defile the Mongols made another rush upon the train, but were here more easily beaten back.
Sikhs and Ghurkas and Rajputs and Pathans and Gharwalis, the brown-skinned tribesmen in India, have been on a strange Odyssey, bringing picturesqueness to the khaki tone of modern war. Aeroplanes interested them less than a trotting dog in a wheel for drawing water. They would watch that for hours.
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