Copyright
Published by Little, Brown
ISBN: 978-1-4087-0537-7
Copyright © 2015 A.R. Norman
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Maps © John Gilkes 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
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Dedicated to the memory of Lance Corporal
Gajbahadur Guring, born 16 April 1985,
died Afghanistan, 27 January 2012, and
to all my comrades at Now Zad
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Introduction
1 Death at a Hundred and Twenty Metres per Second
2 Limbuwan
3 Into Now Zad
4 The DC
5 Establishing the Routine
6 Goat Curry and a Contact
7 A Traitor in the Compound
8 A Change of Atmosphere
9 The Brigade of Gurkhas
10 Ambushed
11 Target!
12 All the Fires of Hell
13 Man Down
14 A Moment of Madness
15 Night Attack
16 Extraction
Epilogue: After Now Zad
Illustrations
Glossary
Index
Introduction
This is one man’s story, the story of a Gurkha soldier serving in the British Army. Probably, it could have been written by almost any of my comrades, except that some have had more distinguished careers than me. Although I have been mentioned in despatches, I have won no major gallantry awards, nor am I one of those heroes who fought, kukri in hand, after all their ammunition ran out. I have never been last man standing. My story is just that of an ordinary hill boy from Nepal whose ambition was to be a Gurkha from as far back as I can remember. I therefore feel very privileged to have been chosen as the first serving Gurkha soldier to tell his life story in his own words.
The idea for writing this book as part of the celebration of two hundred years’ unbroken service to the British crown came from Brigadier Ian Rigden OBE, former Colonel Brigade of Gurkhas, and I am very grateful to him for supporting me throughout the project.
This, then, is the story of a Gurkha soldier who was lucky enough to serve alongside the allied forces during the recent war in Afghanistan and to have survived, as many did not. It is also, in part, the story of an action which has not much been written about – the siege of Now Zad.
Now I am quite sure that everyone present in Now Zad during July 2006 could write their own book, and it could easily be that theirs is more accurate and better written than mine. What I have tried to do is to give a sense of what it was like to be a soldier on the ground in the situation we faced. Above all, I have tried to the best of my ability to give a straightforward and truthful account of my experiences. As such, this is a personal record of how a few dozen men of the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles held out against the combined forces of the Taliban insurgency at a time when Helmand province was largely under their control. What we went through was something like an old-fashioned siege – a bit like the siege that brought the British Army and Nepal’s Gurkhas together for the first time. On that occasion, the Gurkhas drove off the British and their attempted invasion of Nepal failed.
But the story goes that, during this first encounter, a small band of Gurkhas captured a British officer who had been deserted by the force of Indian soldiers he was leading. They were so afraid of the Gurkhas they dared not stay and fight. But their commander, Lieutenant Frederick Young, stood his ground. When the Gurkhas took him prisoner, they were astonished with the reply he gave when they asked him why he had not also fled:
‘I didn’t come this far just to run away.’
‘We could serve under an officer like you!’ they said in return.
And that, according to legend, is how the Gurkhas and the British came together. It was – as it remains – a relationship based on mutual respect, a relationship that has endured through many wars and countless actions since Gurkhas first fought as members of the British Army in 1815, a relationship that I for one hope will last another two hundred years and more.
There are some others I would also like to thank for their help. First, Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rex MVO for making available his chronology of major Troops in Contact during the siege. In some places, my recollection of events has not quite been the same as this log, but I have chosen to record my memories and I hope he and others will forgive any differences between my account of what happened in Now Zad and what they remember of it. Any mistakes I have made are of course my responsibility.
I must also say a word of thanks to all members of the team who I had the privilege to fight alongside in Now Zad. Without them, without their courage and their determination, it is doubtful I would have survived to tell my story. Some I have mentioned by name, many more I have not. Where I have not mentioned names, this is no reflection on the role those soldiers played but only of the fact that we were not always on the ground together.
For the part of my story where I speak about my childhood and growing up in Nepal, I wish to thank my parents, Duryodhan and Mina Kumari, my sister Gudiya, also my teachers at school and all my family and friends in Khebang village.
Finally, I would like to express my sincere devotion to my wife Sumitra and to my children Alisa and Anish.
Kailash Khebang Limbu
Sir John Moore Barracks, Shorncliffe, Kent
March 2015
1
Death at a Hundred and Twenty Metres per Second
We were already under attack when I saw something that really frightened me.
In a split second I registered a smoke trail and a loud pshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh as it approached.
What was it? It was death hurtling towards me at a hundred and twenty metres per second.
Aare! RPG!
Flinging myself back, I watched as the fireball flashed over the top of the sangar.
‘Bloody hell, that was close … Baren, did you see that?’ I shouted. For Gurkhas, this is really bad language, but I was seriously alarmed. Not for myself, you understand. It doesn’t feel like that. You don’t think about yourself. You are frightened for your men. You are concerned for them, and for their families. If they get hurt, it will be on your watch – even if it isn’t your fault.
Baren was busy firing an extended burst from the Browning.
‘I saw him! I saw who fired it!’ he yelled excitedly, pausing for a second before releasing another salvo.
TAKTAKTAK TAKTAKTAK TAKTAKTAK
With my heart raging in my chest, I followed the tracer with my eye. Baren on the .50-cal machine gun was engaging a doorway about halfway along the alleyway directly in front of our position, no more than 150 metres away. I quickly added to the weight of fire with my rifle. We needed to tell the jatha we were onto him.
‘OK, keep at it
!’ I yelled as, scrambling off the platform and back into our sangar position – our 3 metre by 2 metre outpost overlooking the town – I lunged for the field telephone.
‘Zero, this is Sangar Three. CONTACT! RPG. Enemy seen in alleyway directly in front. One hundred and fifty metres. Doorway on left.’
‘Roger. Looking.’
I slammed the receiver down and, grabbing a UGL (underslung grenade launcher), threw myself out onto the platform in front of the position.
‘KEEP ME COVERED!’ I yelled as I took aim at the enemy fire position. Not a difficult target so long as I remembered my basic principles of marksmanship.
Taking several deep breaths, I squeezed the trigger. The downside of deploying a UGL was that I had to fire it kneeling and therefore expose the upper part of my body, but it was a risk worth taking. If they were this close, it wouldn’t be long before they got lucky. They needed stopping.
An instant later, the target building was enveloped in white smoke. Of course, there was no way of telling whether I actually hit anyone, but if they were in there, their ears would definitely be bleeding.
Half crawling, half running, I threw myself back inside the sangar and picked up the field telephone again.
‘Zero, this is Sangar Three. Possible enemy FP engaged with UGL. Continuing to observe.’
‘Zero, roger. Well done, Kailash. Good work.’
It was just after 3.15 in the afternoon of 16 July 2006. The first indication of trouble we’d had was when an Afghan National Police patrol got attacked. This was the first patrol to leave the district centre for several days. They’d taken a vehicle and got as far as the old cemetery on the other side of town.
The sound of gunfire in the distance had put us all on maximum alert.
‘Looks like the patrol has been ambushed!’ exclaimed Rifleman Lal.
‘Or it could be them firing,’ said Baren.
‘Yeah, ANP firing!’ agreed Lal. This was an in-joke. It referred to our Afghan allies’ tendency to let off rounds randomly, often just for fun as it seemed to us.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘My guess is they’ve been hit.’
A moment later, we came under attack ourselves. As soon as we realised what was happening, we’d opened up with the .50-cal and the GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun, or ‘jimpy’) on our preselected targets – places we’d been contacted from before. With heavy small-arms fire still striking the sangar, Baren on the .50-cal and Lal supporting, and me using both my assault rifle and the jimpy, we fought back, desperate not to let the enemy gain the initiative.
‘Anybody see anything?’ I demanded.
‘Nothing, guruji.’
‘No, nothing.’
‘OK keep it up. Short bursts onto all identified firing positions.’
I took out my binos and began looking and looking. It was the same old story. You’re the target of a serious attack and yet you can’t see a thing.
The rounds continued to strike the sangar and little puffs of sand filled the air as sandbags were holed, but it was impossible to work out exactly where it was coming from.
It was scary, for sure. But we’d been there long enough and under attack often enough not to seize up like the first time we came under fire this heavy. It was more about your nerves being stretched taut, almost to breaking point, and your main focus is just to stay on top of things. It’s hotter than hell itself: you are dripping with sweat as fast as you can replace it with snatches from your water bottle between bursts. The sound is intense and the air is filled with the smell of propellant and burning oil from your ammunition.
Occasionally there’d be a flash of the enemy’s tracer, but this wasn’t enough to give a definite target indication. So while I scanned and scanned, the bhais continued firing in short bursts at their targets, all of us getting more and more frustrated by the second.
It was at that moment that I’d spotted the RPG – our biggest fear. Fired from a shoulder-mounted launcher, the rocket-propelled grenade was one of the most effective weapons in the enemy’s arsenal. For a start, at ranges of less than two hundred metres it is almost impossible to miss your target – so we’d just been very, very lucky. The other thing about an RPG is that all it would take would be for them to land a round on one of our roof supports and that would be end-ex: all our ammunition would go off. Twenty grenades at least, not to mention the two anti-tank weapons we had.
After discharging the grenade launcher, there was no let-up in the weight of fire coming in at us, but for the next several minutes we had no further indication of the enemy on the ground. Suddenly, Lal let out a shout.
‘Guruji! I can see smoke! Take a look over there!’
He pointed in the direction of Sniper’s House.
‘Sniper’s House!’ This small building built on top of a nearby compound about 200 metres away, or a bit less, was an AOI – an Area of Interest – we’d identified in the past few days as a definite enemy-fire position.
‘You sure?’
‘Yes, guruji. Definitely.’
Without bothering to confirm for myself, I grabbed the field telephone again, shouting to Baren at the same time.
‘Leave the .50-cal. Get over the other side! … Zero, this is Sangar Three. Enemy firing position identified in Sniper’s House. Engaging with GPMG and rifles.’
‘Zero, roger.’
Unfortunately, Sniper’s House was out of arc to the .50-cal. There were sandbags in the way. In fact, our use of the .50-cal in Sangar 3 was severely restricted. Because of the bracket the heavy machine gun was mounted on, you couldn’t point it down either. But the reality of our situation was that we really needed to be able to bring it to bear on the alleyway directly below.
On the other hand, Sniper’s House was an ideal target for the anti-tank weapon, the ILAW.
Using the radio this time, I called the control tower.
‘Zero, this is Sangar Three. Suggest deploy ILAW.’
‘Roger. Are you sure?’ demanded Mathers sahib, the 2 i/c (second-in-command).
‘Yes sure.’
‘OK, but be careful. Make sure you get maximum covering fire. Also, be advised that Sunray has called for air support.’
‘Roger out.’
That was good news, but in the meantime we had to fight back. We mustn’t let the enemy gain the initiative.
‘Come on, bhai haru! We need to keep going! I’m going to fire the ILAW,’ I shouted, lifting it out of its box. ‘Lal, I need you over here too now. Cover me while I go forward, OK?’
The key thing in all these engagements was not to let the enemy get on top. If we could put Sniper’s House out of action, even just for a short time, that would be a big plus. Of course, in doing so I’d have to expose myself again and take the risk. But that’s just the way it goes. At least this time I had ear-defenders and knew what to expect, unlike the first time I’d fired it. It was a straightforward target too – just about on the same level as we were.
Lal and Baren both opened up as I scrambled out with the ILAW to where I could get a good shot. As I took aim, I could clearly see a barrel-end poking out of a small hole in the wall of the building I was targeting. That was the jatha who was trying to kill me.
BLAM!
There was a huge flash and a cloud of white smoke engulfed the building, giving me a few seconds to scramble back inside the sangar and get out my binos to inspect the damage as it cleared.
YES! Target! The round had left a gaping hole exactly where I’d seen the barrel.
‘Zero, this is Sangar Three. TARGET! Sniper’s House successfully engaged!’
‘Roger. Well done, Kailash.’ It was the Officer Commanding’s voice this time. ‘And by the way, air support in approx fifteen minutes.’
‘Roger, out.’
I turned to the two riflemen.
‘OK, bhai haru, it isn’t over yet. We need to concentrate. Baren, you get back onto the .50-cal. Lal, you stay this side with me. Engage all known fire positions but remember
your discipline.’
‘Hasur, guruji.’
Not many minutes later, I was just in the process of fitting a new magazine to my rifle when Baren fell back with a loud cry.
2
Limbuwan
My full name is Kailash Khebang and I am a Limbu. Limbu is my caste, Khebang is my village and Kailash is what people call me. Kailash is also the name of a holy mountain in Tibet. When I was just a few days old, my mother’s father measured me with his hand and said I was going to be tall and strong as a mountain.
I was born in 1981 on my family’s small farm in Taplejung district in the far east of Nepal. Taplejung lies among the foothills of Mount Kanchenjunga, on the border with India still further east and Tibet to the north. At more than 28,000 feet, Kanchenjunga is the third-highest peak in the world, and from where we lived on the steep slopes of the valley you could see the snows of the Himalayas in the near distance.
We Nepalese are made up of many different castes, or tribes. Apart from Limbus, there are Chetris, Gurungs, Magars, Rais, Sunwars and Thakurs, plus a few other smaller groups. Broadly you can divide us into highlanders and lowlanders – the Limbus, of course, are highlanders. And it is from the hill-dwelling castes that traditionally the Gurkhas have been recruited – although this rule is no longer hard and fast.
The Limbus live not just in the eastern part of Nepal but also in Sikkim, and the Darjeeling area of West Bengal (both part of India) and Bhutan, which is autonomous. Collectively, this is known as Limbuwan, and there are thought to be around three quarters of a million of us; so, though not as numerous as the Gurungs, we are still quite a large group.
Just like each of the other castes, we have our own language, and within this several distinct dialects, although almost everyone nowadays speaks Gorkhali as well. Gorkhali, also known as Nepali, is the main language of the whole country. English is quite widely spoken too – even in Khebang village, it is taught from year 5 onwards – but during my earliest years I spoke only in dialect, and it wasn’t until I began school that I learned Nepali. Today I don’t get much opportunity to speak yakthungba bahsa, as we call our language, and I am a bit rusty. But when I leave the Army and return to my village, as I fully intend, I look forward to taking it up again properly.
Gurkha: Better to Die than Live a Coward: My Life in the Gurkhas Page 1