It was in August that the brown men first took ship at Calcutta
and Bombay, and, leaving the sound of temple bell and muezzin, and
commending themselves, no doubt, to Ava Ardu Sur Jasan, the angel
presiding over the sea and great voyages, sailed away under the British
Jack to fight for the Empire in a land they had never seen. They
reached the Western front in September, and after a scant two weeks’
rest, were thrown in beside the almost exhausted British in the flat
mud-country between Givenchy and Neuve Chapelle. The force consisted of
about 50,000 British and 65,000 native Indians, led by white officers,
and with native officers to act as go-betweens. It was the first time,
since the Moors had conquered Spain, long before Columbus sailed for
America, that brown men and white had engaged in a death-grapple on
European soil. But these brown men were from a continent, not a single
nation.
There were little Gurkhas from around Nepal, stout and muscular, with
high topknotted and slant eyes like Chinamen, grinning like terriers
from behind British steel. Their great friends, the Scotch, say they
can see objects and detect sounds which are imperceptible to other
people. And though they trot along contentedly enough with their rifles
in trenches that are sometimes too high for them, their favorite
weapon is their own sickle-shaped knife, the _khukri_. This they can
either hurl or use at close range, in which latter case, we are told,
it makes a sound like the cutting of fresh lettuce. Their friendship
with the huge Scotchmen seems to come from a certain like-mindedness
on the battlefield. It was a regiment of Gurkhas (the 4th) that on the
terrible night of the nineteenth of December supported the Highland
Light Infantry in gaining the foremost trench along the Bethune-La
Bassée Road. But the little brown men held the trench, while the
gallant Lieutenant Anderson, not content with this, rushed on with his
Highlanders, shouting, “We are going to take Chapelle St. Roch!” He and
his men passed on into the darkness—and were never seen again.
There were long, athletic Sikhs from the land of the Five Rivers. The
Sikhs’ knives are straight, for they are tall, brave men who let their
hair grow, and who usually pray before fighting. Their knives are
two-edged, and they carry on their other side a comb, as is likewise
enjoined by their religion. Under Ranjut Singh, the Lion of the Punjab,
they once carved for themselves an empire from the Sutlej to the Kabul
River, and their greatest ambition even now is for one of them to be
known as “Singh” (“Lion”) among his countrymen. This high honor one of
them attained, together with the Indian Order of Merit, in the spring
drive around Ypres. It happened that a young English lieutenant, J.
Smyth, was ordered to supply ammunition to a company farther forward.
In the course of the fighting, he found himself in an unconnected
trench. Therefore, selecting fifteen Sikhs, he started forward with
bombs in boxes, which they carried among them. Only three Sikhs were
left unwounded, when finally, still under heavy direct fire, they
conceived the idea of breaking up the boxes and carrying the bombs the
rest of the way in their arms. One more Sikh fell dead before they
reached their objective and delivered the bombs to their hard-pressed
companions.
[Illustration:
_Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._