The Brown Men
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.
The great bravery of the English officers of the Indian Army, and the enormous casualties among them—Captain Paris, Lieutenant Hayes-Saddler, Major Graham White, good English names innumerable—is part of the story of the Indian Army. It is said that their white skins among the dark faces of their men rendered them an easy mark to the German gunners. And their loss was graver for their troops than that of most officers, for each Englishman in command is obliged to know several of the innumerable dialects of India, and as there remained fewer and fewer men in command who could speak both English and the native tongues, the Indian troops became at times almost isolated.
And there were men from tribes less well known: the Gurhwals, a comparatively new regiment, who proved their mettle at “the Indian Neuve Chapelle.” This was an engagement in November, not to be confused with the later battle of Neuve Chapelle, where the Indian troops actually gained the town, but were obliged to fall back, because of the lack of adequate support. Then there were the Pathans, who shoot like the Leatherstockings, and look, it is said, not unlike him, with their blue eyes and brown hair and their muscular frames. They are the fairest of the native Indians. Then there were the Rajputs, who have been the great gentlemen of the hills for many hundreds of years. Some of them were not subjects of the King of England at all, but citizens of the Feudatory States of India, who came down from their mud huts and mountain fastnesses to make the grand tour, as it were, and fight with the cunning implements of the white man.