Three years in France with the Guns: Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery — John Shaqi
Three years in France with the Guns: Being Episodes in the life of a Field BatteryRose, C. A.
History
Three years in France with the Guns: Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery
Rose, C. A.
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
There we were welcomed, with smiling faces, by men of a Ghurka
battalion, their white teeth and flashing eyes showing up their brown
skins. Now and then they would stop sharpening their deadly-looking
kukris, their dearest possession, to allow us to pass along the trench.
Nothing delighted these brave little men more than to be permitted to
go on a silent raid at night, when they wormed themselves through the
wire in “No Man’s Land,” and did as much damage on the other side as
possible. They have been known to enter the enemy trenches without a
sound, killing everyone within reach, and to return radiant, quite
unscathed. When questioned as to why they had not brought in any
prisoners for identification purposes, they would merely roll their
eyes, shrug their shoulders, and say, “Enemy all quiet, he asleep,” and
calmly remove the still warm gore from their knives! Continuing on our
way, we next struck a Highland regiment, the necessary complement of
the one of stout little men just left behind. It was most interesting,
as one had heard so much about the traditional good comradeship
existing, in India, between Ghurka and Highlander, and here they were
still side by side in France. Their mutual admiration is boundless and
unconcealed, and it was most amusing to watch the little men aping the
ways of the big Highlanders, who look huge in comparison with them. The
Ghurka regiments have their own pipe bands, and play them as if they,
too, had been born and bred in the mountains and glens of Scotland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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