1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [43]
I don’t suppose men were ever scared so much as these Germans were, for they bolted down every handy communication trench as if all the demons in Asia were after them. I think it must have been this incident that gave rise to the yarns and pictures which one saw in the illustrated papers of men dressed like Gurkhas with drawn kukris in their mouths crawling up to the German trenches. We took six live prisoners, one of whom was wounded, and we know that two were killed. But the great thing was the moral effect which it must have produced on the enemy.
Stories of the Gurkhas abounded. One favourite told of a German soldier looking over the parapet just as a Gurkha crawled up. The kukri swished and the German sneered and shook his head. ‘You missed, Gurkha!’ The Gurkha replied, ‘You wait, German, wait until you try to nod head.’ Apocryphal though it was, it precisely summed up the spirit and character of the tough little hillmen. Outlandish rumours of blood-chilling deeds spread like wildfire among the Germans who soon developed a healthy respect for Asian soldiers. In some cases it amounted to outright fear and one unfortunate German who had been captured by a patrol and brought into the British line was so overcome by terror on being patted and stroked by a smiling Indian soldier that he actually fainted. The Indian was extremely put out. His intention had been to reassure the prisoner by demonstrating sympathy and friendship. But the German’s imagination had been fired by lurid rumours of cannibalism and he assumed that his captor was exploring his person with a view to identifying the plumpest, juiciest cuts.
On the night of 21 February detachments of the 3rd Londons went into the trenches for the first time with the front-line battalions of the Meerut Division. Some were attached to the Gurkhas who gave them a friendly welcome. It was only possible to communicate in sign language but in quiet spells there was much displaying of kukris, which the British men were anxious to examine, and the Gurkhas were equally anxious to show off, as well as the trophies and souvenirs that were proof of the number of Germans they had bagged. Among the caps and helmets and tunic-buttons were a number of desiccated objects which on closer examination were shown to be human ears, and grinning dumbshows of throat-cutting gestures left no doubt in the mind as to how the Gurkhas had come by them.
They were treated occasionally to a short unpleasant fusillade of pip-squeaks, which the Gurkhas called ‘Swee-thak’s’ and appeared to shrug off with a certain derision that was heartening to men coming under fire for the first time. But for once it was a bright day and the blue sky buzzed with aeroplanes, wheeling and climbing and dodging the shell-bursts as the guns sought to bring them down. It was fascinating to watch the white puff of an explosion appearing as if by magic against the blue of the sky, followed a moment later by the crack of the explosion and the whirr of the shell travelling through the air. They were British aeroplanes, and it was fortunate that the German shells failed to hit them because they were engaged on an important task. The first air cameras had just been delivered and the planes were taking advantage of the clear fog-free weather to photograph the German trenches and the fortifications behind their front line. These