• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1732 0

the second wave. The first lot had gone on and they’d already consolidated on the far side of the village, and we could hear the guns firing on either side of us, but there was nothing in the village, just the odd burst of small-arms fire. The infantry were clearing the houses and I never saw anyone so pleased as these little Gurkhas! They looked as if they were having the time of their lives. There was one that caught my eye, and it was a really ghoulish sight, but being a boy and full of bravado I wasn’t a bit squeamish. I was a cold-blooded little blighter at that time, but I’ve never forgotten it, because he was carrying the face of a German – not his head, just his face, clean sliced off. And he was grinning like mad, this little Gurkha, which was more than you could say for the German prisoners who were being marched back. It must have given them a very nasty turn.

We were standing there waiting, because my officer wanted to get into these houses to bag a position to observe from – we thought we’d be moving the guns forward any minute – but we had to hang about until we were told it was safe to go in. All of a sudden a cheer went up, and coming down the street was another little Gurkha driving a bunch of Germans in front of him at bayonet point. There must have been half a dozen of them and they were twice his size! They all had their hands up, and he looked as pleased as punch. It was marvellous! Even the Major laughed to see them. We were exhilarated, all of us.

The Gurkha soldier’s name was Gane Gurung and no one was more exhilarated than he, for the Germans had still been firing from one house and he had gone into it alone and captured eight burly prisoners single-handed. It was the 2nd Rifle Brigade who had called for three cheers when he marched them out and, as the Indian Corps Commander later proudly pointed out, there was ‘probably no other instance of an individual Indian soldier being cheered for his bravery by a British Battalion in the midst of a battle’. It was Gane Gurung’s moment of glory. Another came a few weeks later when the whole brigade paraded and in front of them all Sir James Willcocks pinned the Indian Order of Merit on his chest. But that was only the icing on the cake.

Another Gurkha was just as anxious to show off his German prisoner, and he was so delighted with him that, by the time he had made his way over open ground and was crossing the old front line near Agius’s emplacement, he had shouldered his rifle and was walking chummily by the German’s side. Now that the advance had gone far ahead the machine-gunners had ceased firing and, as they waited for orders, they had time to look around. This was the first time any of them had clapped eyes on a German and, seeing them stare, the Gurkha stopped and ostentatiously offered his prisoner a cigarette. It was gratefully accepted, and as the German soldier pulled on it he stared back at the machine-gunners. ‘Offizier?’ he asked, pointing to Arthur Agius. His captor guessed his meaning and nodded, but the German was shaking his head. ‘Junge. Junge,’ he remarked. Agius, all of twenty-one and recently promoted to the rank of captain, was not greatly flattered by this uncalled-for comment on his boyish looks. He gave the German a frosty glare, indicated to his escort that he should get a move on and was rather pleased that, after only two weeks with the Meerut Division, the two words of dialect he had picked up now came in useful. ‘Jaldi Jow,’ he ordered. He had no idea which Indian language they belonged to – and they happened to be Urdu – but they worked, and the small Gurkha fell in smartly behind his prisoner and obediently started to hurry him along. Shells were beginning to fall dangerously close and the German showed no sign of being loath to go.

The victors of Neuve Chapelle were not having things all their own way and the Germans were beginning to answer back.

L/cpl. W. L. Andrews.

We thought the German guns must have been swept out of existence, but they soon opened up and we got the benefit of the counter-fire. Nicholson shouted,