1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [42]
It seldom did, and provisioning the Indians was a headache. Beef was not acceptable to many and, since pork was absolutely taboo, all France as far afield as the island of Corsica was scoured for goats, as old and tough as possible, to supply the Indians’ needs. Such was their horror of anything connected with pork that exhausted Sikhs newly out of the line even refused to enter the pigsties they were allocated as temporary billets. The officers who had served with the Indian Army in peacetime understood these shibboleths but as casualties mounted and they were replaced by others with no experience of Indian troops, difficulties and misunderstandings increased.
But in Britain the Indian soldiers were hugely popular. Public imagination had been caught by the munificence of the maharajas who had offered troops, money, even lakhs of rubies, to assist the war effort, and also by the loyalty of these soldiers of the Empire who had obeyed the Empire’s call to come and fight. Everyone approved when the Royal Pavilion in Brighton was turned into a hospital for Indian wounded, for what could be more appropriate and more likely to make them feel at home than its sparkling minarets and oriental decor? Money poured into the Indian Soldiers’ Fund. Speakers of Indian languages – many of them retired from the Indian Civil Service – visited them in hospital. There were outings, even sight-seeing trips to London for the convalescents (including a visit to Lord Roberts’ grave in the crypt of St Paul’s). Everything Indian was fashionable and an oriental matinee at the Shaftesbury Theatre raised a large sum of money for the benefit of Indian troops. It featured oriental dances, songs, recitations, and tableaux, including ‘an Indian Garden scene with characters represented by Indian ladies and gentlemen’. The performance was attended by several royal ladies, including the Queen Mother, Queen Alexandra, and it was voted a resounding success.
The sturdy little Gurkhas from the hill country of Nepal were just as popular. They were tough fighters, proud of their prowess and their skill with their kukris, those lethal weapons whose curved blades were honed razor sharp and which, in the opinion of the Gurkhas, were miles better than any rifle. They had been mobbed at Marseilles by girls demanding to have their fingers scratched ‘for luck’, and the Gurkhas had obliged, grinning with delight. It was the first time they had drawn blood, although so little had they known about the war that they had spent the last two hours of the train journey to Calcutta sharpening kukris in the belief that they would be meeting the enemy the instant they arrived.
When they finally did meet the enemy in the alien land of Flanders they had quickly adapted and shown their mettle. Killing Germans was what they were there for, and killing Germans was what they intended to do. The Gurkhas were particularly adept at scouting and patrolling, and delighted in creeping undetected to a German outpost and dispatching some unsuspecting enemy with a silent swipe of the deadly kukri.
Lt. Col. D. H. Drake-Brockman, 2nd Bn., Garhwal Rifles, Garhwal Brig., Meerut Div.
We organised a raid on the German trenches opposite our right flank where it ran into what we called ‘the gap’. This was a portion of ditch which ran along our front at this place. Our right and the 1st Battalion’s left ran into it.
Fifty men from each battalion were lined up in the ditch on the right flank and