Of quality it is difficult to speak. He is a bold man who would
generalise upon the Indian Army, more especially upon the Punjab
fighting stocks. The truth is that, if you pick the best of them and
give them the same officers, there is nothing to choose between Sikh,
Jat, and Punjabi Mussalman. Only you must be careful to choose your men
from districts where they inherit the land and are not alien and
browbeaten, but carry their heads high.
Why, then, if the P. M. is as good as the best, has he not been
discovered by the man in the street? One reason I have suggested. You
can shut your eyes in the Haymarket and conjure up an image of Gurkha,
Sikh, or Pathan, but you cannot thus airily summon the P. M.--because he
is Everyman, the type of all. Another source of his obscurity is the
illogical nomenclature of the Indian Army. A class designation does not
mean a class regiment. How many Baluchis proper are there in the
so-called Baluchi regiments? Who gives a thought to the Dogras, P. Ms.
and Pathans in the 51st, 52nd, 53rd, and 54th Sikhs, the Dekkani
Mussalman in the Maharatta regiments, or the Dogras and P. Ms. in the
40th Pathans? Now the P. M. only exists in the composite battalions. He
has no class regiment of his own. You may look in vain in the Army List
for the 49th Gakkars, 50th Awans, or the 69th Punjabi Mussalmans. Hence
it is that the P. M. swells the honour of others, while his own name is
not increased.
Every boy in the street heard of the 40th Pathans at Ypres, but few knew
that there were two companies of P. Ms. in the crowd--"as good as any of
them," the Major said, "men who would stiffen any regiment in the Indian
Army."
And when it is generally known that the ---- Sikhs were first into the
Turkish trenches on the right bank at Sheikh Saad and captured the two
mountain guns, nobody is likely to hear anything of the P. M. company
who was with them, a composite part of the battalion.
The Major's men had been complimented for every action they had been in,
and this was the scene of their most desperate struggle. But there was
little to recall the Sannaiyat of April--only an occasional bullet
whistling overhead, or cracking against the sandbags. Instead of mud a
thin dust was flying and the peaceful birds stood by the edge of the
lake.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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