Gurkha: Better to Die than Live a Coward: My Life in the Gurkhas

by Kailash Limbu

  I distrusted him at once.

  ‘And so did our torjeman,’ I said. ‘I could tell he was really scared to meet the general. Very proud to, but also very afraid. I suppose he knew that if it wasn’t for us being there, things would have been very different. He told us afterwards that if the general didn’t like a person, he would hit them. It didn’t matter who they were. He told us that Dostum had killed a lot of people in fights.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Gaaz. ‘I wish I could have met him!’

  From talking to our interpreter later, I gathered that the general had two wives, an older one and a younger one. In Afghanistan, there seems to be nothing to stop a man taking even a young girl as his wife, no matter how old he is.

  Over the course of several weeks, I met the general quite a few times in different places. It was always the same. There would be a huge house, with a big sitting room and lots of good food.

  Apart from his looks and his manner, one thing that really impressed me about Dostum was the fact that he had risen to such a position despite being not very well educated, so far as I could tell, and despite not even being Afghan. Surprisingly enough, he was actually an Uzbek from Tajikistan.

  The other surprising thing about the general was that although he had no formal military background, he had managed to acquire so much equipment – a huge armoury in fact. There were tanks, artillery, small arms and even, I heard, a helicopter for his own personal use. The Russians had left behind a vast amount of kit when they pulled out in 1989, and I suppose it must have been easy for the local leaders to take it over. Mind you, by the time we got there, the Americans had already destroyed a lot of the ammunition. Maybe that’s why the general was so cooperative. All that equipment was no good to him if he didn’t have the ammo for it. I wonder if he calculated that by making an alliance with the Americans he could get stuff from them.

  I also heard that some of the warlords, whenever they went to one of their houses would call all the local girls to come and dance for them. Then they would choose one and keep her for as long as they were there.

  By the time we got to Now Zad in 2006, however, General Dostum was completely out of the picture. I heard he had gone into exile in Turkey, though at the time of writing he is back in Afghanistan as Vice President. Meanwhile the Taliban had made a big comeback as an insurgency movement determined to expel the British and their allies from the country. So after hearing about my adventures on that first tour, the bhais and gurujis wanted to hear everything I knew about them. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much.

  ‘Did you actually see any Taliban, guruji?’

  ‘None at all. But don’t forget, we were right up in the north. They never got that far. Besides, you’d never know if you did see one. They look just like everyone else. They don’t wear uniform or anything.’

  That was what made looking at the local Now Zad people so disconcerting. You had no idea whose side they might be on. As a result, we spent a lot of time up in the sangars speculating who the bad guys could be.

  ‘Is that what you think, guruji? Do you reckon those jatha who hit us could be right outside in the street? Don’t you reckon they’ve gone somewhere else?’ Gaaz wanted to know.

  ‘No idea. All I can tell you is that they’re out there somewhere. And sooner or later, they’ll be back.’

  ‘What about their weapons, guruji? Do we know what weapons they’ve got?’

  ‘Well, according to all the reports I’ve heard, it’s still mainly Russian small arms.’

  ‘So you didn’t manage to get them all when you were here back in ’03!’

  ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘But even so, you might have thought they’d all be broken by now. They don’t exactly look after their weapons, do they?’

  ‘That’s true. But don’t forget, these guys are getting stuff in from other places all the time, places like Iran and Syria.’

  It wasn’t until day four or five that we came under attack again. It’s hard to be sure of the exact timings of the smaller contacts, as I didn’t keep a diary and I don’t know of anyone who did, though the OC kept a log of the most serious actions later on. I am also sure my memory of some things is a bit confused, as we were under such pressure at the time, and people will remember the same events differently. But as I recall, that first attack came sometime around mid-morning. I was off duty when the sound of automatic small-arms fire made us all look up.

  ‘WOW! What was that?’

  ‘Where’s it coming from?’

  ‘Did you hear that?’

  Everybody spoke at once, instantly alert.

  A moment later, Corporal Santos’s voice rang out round the compound.

  ‘STAND-TO! STAND-TO!’

  I grabbed my weapon and my helmet. From listening on the PRR I understood that Sangar 6 was being engaged by medium machine-gun fire. At that moment, they were looking for clues as to where it was coming from.

  ‘Possible fire position in treeline five to six hundred metres west.’

  ‘Roger. Observe and return fire as soon as you get a PID.’

  Pressing the Transmit button, I called the bhais and gurujis in sangars 1 and 3.

  ‘Everything OK, guruji bhai haru? Can you see anything?’

  ‘All OK,’ came the reply. ‘Observing. Baren saw some smoke, but it turned out it was just some people cooking.’

  ‘Roger. I’m coming up anyway.’

  The sound of Sangar 6 followed by the CT both opening fire with GPMG filled the air as I climbed up into Sangar 1. They’d spotted muzzle flash in the treeline. There followed an exchange of fire that lasted about five or ten minutes. In the meantime, I told my guys they mustn’t make the mistake of focusing only on the woodline.

  ‘This could be the start of something big, you just don’t know,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to keep an eye out all round. Don’t get drawn into just looking at the one position. There could be raiders moving in nearby.’

  ‘There’s still quite a lot of traffic, guruji,’ observed Baren. ‘Do you think the enemy would want to risk getting mixed up in it?’

  ‘They could be using it as cover,’ I replied.

  Just then a motorcycle drove slowly past. I could have sworn that the jatha on the back wasn’t just looking up at us out of innocent curiosity. I pointed my weapon at him, pinning the cross-hairs to his head.

  ‘That one’s a spy for sure,’ I said as the bike rode off. ‘They’re looking to see how we are reacting, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Yes, and I’m sure he had a weapon hidden under his clothes. Did you see the way he was sitting on the bike, guruji?’

  ‘That’s just what I was thinking. Could have been an AK, could even have been an RPG.’

  I picked up the field telephone.

  ‘Zero, this is Sangar One. Motorcyclist heading in southerly direction along main road. Possibly armed. Looks like he was gathering intelligence.’

  ‘Zero, roger. Can you still see him?’

  ‘No, he’s disappeared in the crowd.’

  ‘Roger. Any sign of the shops opening yet?’

  I looked up and down the street. Some were, some were not. ‘A few. But not all,’ I replied.

  ‘Roger. Keep observing and let me know if you see anything else that looks suspicious.’

  ‘Roger out.’

  Even though it was possible the enemy was using the traffic as cover, one thing that made a quick attack unlikely was the fact that life in the centre of town seemed to be going on just as normal. Although some of the shops were still shut, there were a lot of people around, buying and selling. I moved to the other side of the sangar and scanned with my binoculars. Somehow it didn’t feel like there was a big attack coming, not today anyway. The enemy was just checking us out. They wanted to know how good our reactions were and what we knew about their fire positions.

  We were stood down about two hours after the initial contact. By then it was late morning and the sun was beating down on us. I’d never been so hot in my lif
e. It was just as well we were expecting a resupply soon, as our water stocks were going down at an alarming rate. We were each drinking at least ten litres a day.

  For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, everyone was on edge. Even so, we went on with our normal routine. This meant, among other things, carrying on with the various board games and football that had been going on round the compound.

  I’d been playing Gaaz at bagh chal when the contact started, and we went back to it that evening.

  ‘You’re a good player, Gaaz,’ I said, as I got him into a losing position. ‘But not quite good enough!’

  He smiled.

  ‘I’ll get you next time, guruji. You wait. I’ll play goats and then you’ll see.’

  But I have to admit, despite the humour, I was starting to feel very nervous. That contact reminded me just how vulnerable we were.

  After the game, I went up to check on the men in the sangars and gave them a good pep talk.

  ‘OK, guruji haru, bhai haru? So now we know for sure they’re still out there. They could be back any time. And when they do come back, it could be a full-scale attack. So you’re gonna have to stay alert at all times, all right?’

  ‘Yes, guruji.’

  ‘Main thing is, don’t get fixated on what’s right in front of you. You’ve got to keep a full three-sixty lookout. Look ahead, yes, but also to the side. Even behind. You just don’t know, they could sneak a man inside and come up when you’re least expecting.’

  ‘Do you really think so, guruji?’

  ‘Definitely. Could be one of those local police guys.’ The bhais looked at each other and nodded.

  ‘I don’t trust any of those jatha,’ said Baren.

  ‘So you need to keep switched on at all times,’ I continued. ‘You’ve got to check, check, check. Could be they’ll try and get a ladder up against the side when you’re not looking. Could be they’ll do something to distract you and then climb up and post a grenade inside.’

  It wasn’t hard to convince the riflemen of the need to be vigilant, but still it was worth reminding them. You can’t repeat yourself too often, especially about basic SOPs.

  ‘You’re gonna be tired,’ I added. ‘Could be the attacks are going to last all night. So that’s when you need to be able to do things without even thinking. That’s why they’re called Standard Operating Procedures. You should be able to do them automatically.’

  ‘Yes, guruji.’

  ‘All right, so you know where I am. If you have even a small suspicion about anything you see, just call me, OK? And don’t forget to check your comms. Every five minutes, no longer.’

  ‘Hasur, guruji.’

  After briefing my section like this, I went back down into the compound to get some rest. I slept even less than usual, but there were no further incidents and we had a quiet night.

  In the morning I was back on duty in Sangar 3, with Gaaz and Nagen as usual.

  ‘Seen anything?’

  ‘No, guruji.’

  ‘What about anyone else? Have you been listening out on the PRR?’

  ‘Nothing out of the ordinary, guruji.’

  It was the same this morning as it had been every morning. Quiet except for the occasional bark of a dog, and yet I had this strange feeling that something was different. Maybe I was just imagining it, but I had the feeling that things were about to get a lot more serious.

  For the first half-hour of my duty, I spent the whole time checking everything over and over, and I made sure that everything was stowed exactly where I wanted it. The field telephone out of the way, but within reach. A good supply of grenades out of their boxes and ready to throw. Belts of ammo laid out neatly. Map, binos, chinagraph close at hand. Field dressings – where were the field dressings? You never knew when you were going to need them.

  ‘Over here, guruji.’

  ‘OK, fine.’

  What about water? Yes, there was plenty of water too. ‘Anyone want a biscuit?’ I always used to take up a packet or two of biscuits with me. Good for morale.

  ‘Looks like another day at the office, guruji,’ said Gaaz after some time.

  It did feel a bit like that in a way. Here we were, back doing the same thing as the day before and the day before and the day before that. Except that in most offices you don’t expect to be blown up at any moment.

  There was the usual checking of comms between the CT and the other sangars, and I spoke regularly to the bhais and gurujis in Sangar 1, just to make sure they were fully alert too. Eventually, though, as the morning wore on, the talk in the sangar turned to thoughts of home. It’s something we Gurkhas never tire of talking about. Wherever we are in the world, we never forget where we come from and it’s never long before the subject comes up. Gaaz in particular was always asking me about my place, as we were from opposite ends of the country and he wanted to know what life was like where I came from. I think it was partly that, and also partly the fact that he was trying to work out what made me tick. He wanted to know every detail of my early life, and then all about my time in basic training. Although I was only six or seven years older than him, he really looked up to me. Gurkhas have a very high regard for people in authority, so this wasn’t as much a personal thing as him wanting to understand what it took to start climbing through the ranks. It was almost like he was doing a reconnaissance, so that when the time came, he would know the lie of the land.

  ‘So, guruji,’ he would always begin. ‘Tell us some stories. When did you first hear about the Gurkhas?’

  ‘From my grandfather. He was a Gurkha in India,’ I replied.

  As well as serving in the British Army, we have a long tradition of serving in the Indian Army. Of course, it’s the British Gurkha regiments that people really want to join, but in my grandfather’s day it made no difference, as the Indian Gurkha regiments were all part of the British system. India was still part of the British Empire until 1947.

  ‘And what made you want to join, guruji?’

  ‘My grandfather again. He said it was the way to prove you were a real man.’

  ‘My dad said the same,’ said Gaaz, and Nagen nodded in agreement.

  ‘But in my own case, I think the thing that really inspired me more than anything else was my grandfather’s gun.’

  ‘Your grandfather’s gun? How come? Tell us about it, guruji.’

  That old rifle is one of my earliest memories. It was stuck through a hole in the wall of the house, pointing outwards so it could be fired at an intruder. Of course it never was, but as a kid I was completely fascinated by that gun and longed to play with it. But my grandfather was very strict and I was never allowed to even touch it. It wasn’t until I was eight or nine years old that he finally let me have a proper look while he explained how it worked.

  One memorable day not long after that, my grandfather took the gun down off the wall and announced we would go out and fire it. I was beside myself with excitement. My grandfather was an excellent shot, and he brought down a bird at the first attempt. I remember that when it went off, the noise was incredible. After that, I was always asking him to take me shooting, and in fact several times he did take me for shikar – that is to say, hunting.

  Shikar became my favourite pastime. But because there was no question of my grandfather actually giving me his gun, when I was about eleven years old I decided to build one of my own.

  ‘No way, guruji,’ said Gaaz, not quite believing me.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Wow, guruji. That’s insane.’

  Actually, Gaaz was right. It was a very risky thing to do. I started off by talking to as many people as I could about what made guns work. I learned all about the charge and how you needed to have a seal between the shot and the barrel so the explosion would force the shot along it. And I learned about how the trigger worked – how it made a spark that ignited the charge which in turn propelled the round up the barrel. Then I looked very carefully at my grandfather’s gun to see how all these things fit
ted together.

  I could see that the big difficulty would be to obtain a suitable barrel, but then I hit on the idea of using an old umbrella. Its hollow metal shaft would be ideal. So, having got hold of one, I closed up one end by banging it with a hammer and then I began to drill a small hole for the charge. I remember some of my cousins gathering round as I worked.

  ‘What are you doing, Kailash?’

  ‘I’m making a gun, of course.’

  ‘A gun?’

  ‘Yes, a gun.’

  I could tell that none of them believed I could possibly succeed but, after making the hole for the charge, I took a long nail and fashioned it into a striker by bending it. This I attached to the shaft with several plastic bands. I was determined to prove them wrong.

  Making the stock was the easiest part. I got hold of a piece of wood and shaped it with my kukri. I then tied the barrel to the stock using some wire I had.

  For ammunition, I used the remains of an old metal pot that had been thrown away. Smashing it with a hammer, I used the fragments as pellets, hitting them until they were round. These I wrapped in paper so they wouldn’t be loose in the barrel. From talking to various adults, I’d learned that there should be as little gas escaping round the ammunition as possible.

  The next thing I needed was a charge. It would be difficult and expensive to get hold of gunpowder, but I had the thought of using the phosphorus on the tips of a box of matches. Six boxes cost one rupee, and I reckoned I needed at least two per shot. My biggest problem was how to get hold of some money. I knew from experience my mother wouldn’t give me any, as I had often asked her in the past and she invariably refused. Luckily for me, I knew where she kept it, all rolled up very tightly and tied with a bit of cotton. One day, when no one was in the house – by this time we had moved into our own home, so fortunately there were times when it was empty – I stole two rupees. In those days, there were around seventy rupees to the pound, so this was the equivalent of about three pence – enough to buy thirty juicy oranges in the bazaar. I was absolutely determined to have a gun of my own and, feeling very guilty, I took the stolen loot and bought twelve boxes of matches. Luckily my mum hardly ever counted her money, so she couldn’t be certain whether any had gone missing. There were a few times when she asked me if I had taken anything, but I’m sorry to say I denied all knowledge. In fact it was only very recently that I confessed the crime. My dear mother was really surprised, and she laughed and laughed when I told her.