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

by Kailash Limbu

  The letter was signed by the Colonel in Chief of the regiment, Prince Charles himself.

  Yet the strange thing is that, although now I can see that what I did was quite risky, actually at the time, it didn’t seem such a special thing. Anyone else would have done the same in that situation. At least, any Gurkha would.

  But all this lay in the future. Shortly after the OC’s visit we were stood down and, after talking to some of the bhais in my section, I managed to get a few hours of proper sleep.

  When I next went on duty, I found the riflemen in high spirits.

  ‘Everything OK, bhai haru?’ I said, climbing back onto the position.

  ‘Well we haven’t been having as good a time as you have, guruji,’ said Gaaz.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I swear we could hear you earlier.’

  ‘But I’ve been asleep.’

  ‘Exactly, guruji. We could hear you sleeping.’

  ‘You’d better mind what you’re saying, Rifleman Gaaz,’ I replied when I’d caught his meaning. He was implying they could hear me snoring. ‘Or you might just find yourself doing an extra duty!’

  I said this good-humouredly, as I don’t mind a bit of joking around from the bhais. You want them to respect you, but not to be so frightened of their seniors that they can’t have a laugh at your expense from time to time. That said, there were a few occasions when extra duties did get handed out. Once, one of the bhais was caught singing a song over the PRR – though that was early on, before the action started.

  ‘So have you seen anything?’

  ‘We saw some vehicles in the distance, that was all.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘About forty minutes back, guruji.’

  ‘And did you report it to the CT?’

  ‘Yes, guruji, of course.’

  ‘Where were they heading?’

  ‘Out of town, guruji.’

  ‘I see. Anything else?’

  ‘Nothing else.’

  ‘OK, good.’

  ‘Nothing except he thought he saw a ghost,’ said Gaaz, nodding towards the rifleman next to him.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I demanded.

  ‘It was nothing, guruji. It’s just that we were talking about the jungle and Gaaz said he didn’t believe all that stuff about Training Area C being haunted.’

  Training Area C is one of the jungle warfare training areas in Brunei. Some of the riflemen say it’s haunted by evil spirits.

  ‘But you do,’ said Gaaz.

  ‘I said I did because one time I was out there the guy right next to me woke up screaming. He said he was being strangled.’

  ‘And as you said it, you thought you saw someone trying to get into the sangar position from outside the compound. Except there was no one there.’

  ‘It was just for one second, guruji.’

  ‘Well, so long as you’re both certain there really wasn’t anything,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry, guruji. We had a good look.’

  After this, and after I had carefully scanned the area with my nightsight, we carried on the conversation.

  ‘So what about you, guruji? What do you think? Do you believe in ghosts?’ Gaaz wanted to know.

  ‘Well I can’t say I’ve ever seen one. On the other hand, I don’t rule them out completely,’ I replied.

  ‘Seriously, guruji? You think there could be something?’

  ‘Well I don’t see why not. I mean, it could be like that. The world could be a world where there are ghosts.’

  ‘Well I don’t think so,’ said Gaaz. ‘I think it’s just people hallucinating.’

  ‘It could be that some people are hallucinating. But maybe one time in a hundred, or even one time in a thousand, they’re not.’

  ‘Well I suppose so …’ His voice trailed off.

  Gaaz was very practical. Unlike me, he didn’t go in for religion at all, and he thought anything supernatural could be explained by science. At least, that was what he wanted to think. But I think a part of him did secretly believe.

  The fact is, even today, belief in the supernatural is still very strong in the rural parts of Nepal. Most Gurkhas are brought up on stories about witches and ghosts and snakes with special powers. My mother, for example, is a great believer in ghosts and other mysterious beings. When I was young, she used to tell me stories of various things she’d heard about. I’d listen half excited and half scared. I remember her once talking about a particular kind of ghost called a churel.

  ‘If you see one,’ she said, wagging her finger at me, ‘something bad is going to happen in your life. It might be that you are going to get ill or even die yourself soon after, or that someone in our family will. So you watch out.’

  ‘But who are these churel?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘They are people who have died in bad circumstances. Murder and things like that.’

  ‘And how will I know if I see one? What do they look like?’

  ‘Just like ordinary people except for one thing,’ she said, fixing me with her eye. ‘The special thing about them is that they have a front, but no back. That is how you can tell. They will never turn round.’

  I was really scared when I heard that, and I spent a lot of time wondering what a person with a front but no back could be like.

  ‘And you should be careful of witches, too,’ my mother would say. ‘There are some, even near here,’ and she mentioned the names of several women in the neighbourhood to avoid.

  ‘It’s not their fault,’ she went on. ‘It’s something the gods bring about. But if a witch sees a child, that child will become ill. And that includes you. What’s more, if you try to argue with such a person, something bad is going to happen, so you be very careful.’

  As to whether I still believe these things, I am not too sure. On the one hand there is science, but on the other you have to ask yourself whether such a thing is even possible. If it is, then it would be surprising if absolutely everything you hear about them is a lie. Some things could be true. So while I have never seen a ghost, I must admit that if ever I go past a place that is said to be haunted, I do feel a bit uneasy, and I cannot say that I completely disbelieve those soldiers who say they have experienced things in the Brunei jungle warfare training area, down by the river.

  There is also a story I heard some time back which I think could be true. There was a Gurkha soldier in Hong Kong, when the regiment was stationed there before the colony was returned to China, who for no reason became weaker and weaker. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with him and couldn’t offer any explanation. It was only when it had been going on a long time and he was in a really bad way that he finally told his guruji how he was being visited every night by a churel who made love to him, taking his strength bit by bit. It turned out she was a Chinese woman who had died in tragic circumstances and had selected him as her victim.

  I have even heard some stories about officer sahibs who have had mysterious experiences. One young officer who went trekking in Nepal just a year or two back started having repeated, disturbing dreams about a girl he had known when he was younger. She had died very young. As he arrived in a remote village after several days’ walking, a local holy man asked him about the girl following this young officer along the track.

  ‘What girl?’ the officer replied. ‘There are no females travelling with us.’

  The holy man then described very precisely the girl he had seen. It was the girl the officer had been dreaming about. The holy man subsequently conducted a ceremony to set her spirit free, after which the dreams stopped.

  The sun was beginning to light the horizon now, and one important question we had was whether we were going to be seeing anyone appear on the usual morning disha patrol.

  ‘Looks like they’ve taken their business elsewhere, guruji,’ said Gaaz after some time. ‘But is that a good thing?’

  ‘Good in one way definitely,’ I replied. ‘But you’re right – maybe not in another.’

 
; As the sun rose and the muezzin’s call came and went, it gradually became even more apparent that the town was more or less completely deserted. That meant the civilian population must be expecting more trouble. And if they were, so must we. That was one thing. The other was that, in the absence of any civilians, the enemy would have complete freedom of movement. There’d be nothing to stop him occupying any building at all. Another consideration was that having people and traffic in the street was a welcome distraction, even if it meant that you were always on your guard in case someone produced a weapon at close range. There was even less to look at now.

  Still, we had enough to do to keep us occupied. As I mentioned, a big thing in desert conditions is cleanliness of the ammunition. Sand and dust get everywhere. Although the weapons can tolerate a certain amount of dirt, you need to make sure there isn’t a build-up. It only takes one stoppage at a critical moment to make the difference between life and death. For this reason, we spent a lot of time brushing down the rounds, especially the belted rounds of the Minimi and the GPMG. First we would lay it out carefully on the ground, then we went over it with a soft brush, then we lightly oiled it with a cloth. This was harder to do up in the sangar positions, but still we made sure that we went over it at least twice a day. Ditto the firing mechanisms of our grenades. In fact in the sangar positions it was even more important to do this, because every time you moved, you couldn’t help kicking up small clouds of dust.

  The main event planned for today was the evacuation of the ANP casualty so that he could get his leg properly treated. As before, the OC did not give out specific details, other than to put those of us on the detail on fifteen minutes’ notice to move. There would also be some supplies coming from Bastion, and this time we would be taking some stores up to ANP Hill as well.

  It was quite a nerve-racking prospect. If the enemy had any idea of our plans, he’d shown himself capable of causing us real difficulties. An RPG strike on one of the WMIKs would be all it took. Follow this up with some accurate small-arms fire and we would be needing to airlift more than one casualty for sure. Realising this, I paid extra-close attention to Mathers sahib’s briefing.

  ‘If we get hit less than halfway to the HLS, we’ll fight our way back to the DC. If we get hit in the HLS, we’ll have to call on air support as well as the section on ANP Hill,’ he announced.

  ‘So there will be other aircraft?’

  ‘Yes, Apache will provide top cover.’

  That was reassuring. Even so, when the moment came and we were mounted up, engines running, with the gates opening, it felt a bit like we were about to go out on a live firing range with ourselves as targets. We were all quite tense. Nani guruji had one hand on the steering wheel and his rifle in the other hand, safety catch off. Gaaz too had the safety catch of the .50 already off, and I did the same with my SA80. But although we had our rifles at the ready, we did not select automatic fire. Single shots are more accurate, even if the rate of fire is a lot lower.

  As we set off, I glanced back at the DC and wondered whether I’d ever be seeing it again.

  I don’t recall the exact time of the casevac, nor anything much about the casualty actually getting onto the Chinook. But I well remember going up to the position on ANP Hill with Mathers sahib afterwards. It was a hard climb up to the top – about ten minutes of steady work completely exposed to the enemy. Although it wasn’t much more than 100 metres high, it was too steep to get a vehicle up there, other than a tank, so all the resupps of the position had to be done on foot. With full body armour, ammo, water of my own, plus several belts and bottles for the men on the position, it was quite tough going, not to mention the heat. It made me very grateful to have had the experience of the hardship of Gurkha selection and to know something about how to keep going in difficult circumstances.

  The men on the position were all in good spirits, as was the ANP contingent. Before I even had a chance to speak to the others, their leader came up to me.

  ‘HEY!’ he said. ‘It’s the danger man! Verrry good! Verrry good!’

  Somehow he must have heard that it was me who had fired the ILAW the day before. He seemed genuinely impressed and patted me warmly on the back.

  ‘Thank you,’ I replied, but he kept on and on.

  ‘Yes, you are the rrreal danger man!’ he exclaimed, rolling his r’s.

  I laughed and told him if ever he found himself in trouble he should just call me. Only then did he let me go so that I could hand out the rations we’d brought and speak to the others. Since our arrival, a half section of reinforcements from my own platoon, 12 Platoon, had been flown in to support the ANP on the position, along with a two-man mortar detachment from the RRF (the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers). They were under command of Captain Bedlabh sahib, our company ops (operations) officer and a senior QGO. It was great to see them all and to have the opportunity for a catch-up. As usual, I began with the serious stuff.

  ‘OK, bhai haru, you listen to what Bedlabh sahib says. You’re very vulnerable up here. The enemy’s going to try and creep up on you one of these days for sure,’ I told them. ‘It’s a good position, so they’re going to want to take it off you. All it’s going to take is a sniper getting close and your life is going to be really difficult.’

  ‘Yes, guruji. We see that.’

  ‘Or a few well-placed RPGs. And watch out for mortar too. You haven’t got any overhead cover so you’re really vulnerable.’

  They all nodded in agreement. The trouble was, the ground up there was so hard it was impossible to dig a very deep trench and, although there were now plenty of sandbags around them, they had nothing at all in the way of overhead protection.

  *

  When at last I had the opportunity to actually talk to Captain Bedlabh, after his usual friendly greeting he told me how the enemy had recently fired an RPG at them which failed to explode. Immediately, he had begun to conduct the ‘4 C’s’ (Confirm, Clear, Cordon, Control), which is the SOP for dealing with unexploded munitions. But then, all of a sudden, one of the ANP men spotted where it lay, ran over and picked it up in his bare hands and threw it off the position.

  ‘Well at least you can’t say they’re aren’t brave, these people,’ I said.

  ‘Brave, or just ignorant?’ he observed.

  That was a good point. I think the truth was they just didn’t really have a clue.

  Captain Bedlabh is one of the Brigade’s few Gurkha Christians – although whether he was raised as a Christian or became one subsequently, I don’t know. But I have to say that, as well as being a very fine soldier, he is a very good man – very kind and completely straightforward – qualities that make him one of the most highly respected officers in the regiment. I would add that he was a very good advertisement for his religion, which he always enjoyed talking about, especially all the miracles Jesus performed.

  ‘Kailash,’ he would begin. ‘Did I ever tell you the story about the loaves and the fishes?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Oh well, it happened like this …’ and off he would go. Sometimes I realised I was hearing the story for the second or third time, but I didn’t like to say so. They were very nice stories and I genuinely did enjoy hearing them. He would tell me that it was a good idea for me to become a Christian too.

  ‘It’s going to make your life so much better,’ he said.

  I didn’t mind that at all, though I do remember one particular occasion at Bastion when I didn’t so much want to know. I was just back off duty and really tired. Captain Bedlabh was there, and after exchanging a few friendly words, he began.

  ‘Kailash, did I ever tell the story about Jesus and the feeding of the five thousand?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Well it goes like this …’ And he told me about how Jesus had fed five thousand people using just five loaves of bread and two fishes. Or maybe it was two loaves of bread and twelve fishes. I really liked the story, but I don’t remember the details. When he had finished, h
e wanted to tell me a lot of other stories too. Of course I couldn’t object as he is my guruji. But the truth was that at that moment what I most wanted was not to get to heaven but just to get some sleep!

  On this occasion, as we shared a bottle or two of water I noticed that although I offered my bottle to the ANP men, they all refused. It turned out that the Afghans would only ever accept drinks from us if the bottles were unopened. In fact I almost think they would rather have died from thirst than share with us. Also, they would only accept rations – biscuits for example – after checking first to make sure they didn’t contain pork. We Gurkhas also have some dietary rules, so I could sympathise to some extent about checking for pork. For us, it is wrong to eat beef, but nobody would have a problem if nothing else was available. But we had the impression the Afghans would rather starve to death than eat pig.

  When we got back to the DC after the casevac and resupp of ANP Hill, the OC called an O-group. As well as telling us that we needed to be extra vigilant that night on account of the clear skies and good moon forecast, he updated us on 3 PARA’s progress. It seemed they had again been held up by unexpectedly heavy resistance. For this reason, there would be a further delay. We should not expect to be relieved for at least another week, possibly longer.

  ‘So how long do you think we’re really going to be here, guruji?’ the bhais all wanted to know when I went back to brief them.

  I had no idea. I could only tell them as much as I knew.

  ‘Looks like our leave in Cyprus is going to have to be postponed at this rate,’ said Gaaz later. ‘So what about your family? Your memsahib is going to kill you, isn’t she?’

  I hardly needed reminding. Sumitra was going to be very disappointed if I didn’t come and get her soon.

  ‘True. But we’ve got a war to win. She understands that. So come on, let’s get our weapons cleaned.’

  ‘We’re ahead of you there, guruji,’ said Gaaz triumphantly. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I ever had to remind the bhais about weapon cleaning. They did it as a matter of course.

  After I’d inspected their weapons, the riflemen started speculating about what was holding 3 PARA up. We knew that they were leading a full battlegroup.