Gurkhas, bravery, and the rules of modern warfare.

A Gurkha soldier from 1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles has been "sent back to England to face disciplinary action" because he removed

... the head off (sic) a dead Taliban commander with his ceremonial knife to prove the dead man’s identity

The soldier faces disciplinary action because ...

He is understood to have removed the man’s head from the area, leaving the rest of his body on the battlefield.

This is considered a gross insult to the Muslims of Afghanistan, who bury the entire body of their dead even if parts have to be retrieved.

British soldiers often return missing body parts once a battle has ended so the dead can be buried in one piece.

The dead man's head was removed because ...

[The Gurkha's] unit had been told that they were seeking a ‘high value target,’ a Taliban commander, and that they must prove they had killed the right man.

The Gurkhas had intended to remove the Taliban leader’s body from the battlefield for identification purposes.

But they came under heavy fire as their tried to do so. Military sources said that in the heat of battle, the Gurkha [unsheathed his kukri ... after running out of ammunition] and beheaded the dead insurgent.

It's an 'academic question' but, if the soldier had - because he'd run out of ammunition - used his knife to kill the Afghan this would probably be a story of great bravery and medals would be awarded.

But no, let's try to demoralise the soldiers even more by being 'politically correct' and culturally aware during enemy action, and conveniently forget the Gurkha's culture, and forget that the Taliban will happily behead hostages and record their actions to show the world what they did. The Taliban likes trying to frighten 'their enemy' into submission by doing things they know we westerners consider to be barbaric. Is it possible they will be amused to learn that one of our soldiers is being disciplined for beheading a corpse?

Mrs Rigby thinks it's important to remember that only three days ago we were mourning the loss of three soldiers of the 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles. (pictures Mail)



Major James Bowman was shot dead whilst sleeping in his tent. Lieutenant Turkington and Corporal Arjun Purja Pun were killed when the murderer fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the shipping container used as the base's operations room. We have not been told of non-fatal injuries suffered by other soldiers.

And who did this? It was a 'rogue' traitorous soldier of the Afghan National Army - who has since been in contact with the BBC giving his excuses and attempting to justify his actions.

That 'soldier' is, apparently

... now the subject of a massive manhunt led by elite SAS troops.

Who will, Mrs R guesses, give him either a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates when they find him, and maybe even offer him counselling to ease his trauma.

Ambush Predator has written about this. Mrs Rigby is only doing so because she spotted a link on All Seeing Eye to a poem. The poem offers an insight, showing the stark contrast in military 'ethics', and enemy action, between now and when Rudyard Kipling was earning his Nobel Prize for Literature. Kipling knew of the fierce loyalty of the Gurkhas, and how they might be expected to react to the death of one of their Officers - although this fictional poem is referring to the Indian Army of the time.

The Grave of the Hundred Head
by Rudyard Kipling

There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun;
And there's Subadar* Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.

A Snider* squibbed in the jungle,
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris*
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Jemadar* Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
As the day was beginning to fall.

They buried the boy by the river,
A blanket over his face -
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
The men of an alien race -
They made a samadh* in his honour,
A mark for his resting-place.

For they swore by the Holy Water,
They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
Should go to his God in state,
With fifty file of Burmans
To open him Heaven's gate.

The men of the First Shikaris
Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
The village of Pabengmay -
A jingal* covered the clearing,
Calthrops hampered the way.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
Under the village wall;
Sent out a flanking-party
With Jemadar Hira Lal.

The men of the First Shikaris
Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning jingal
On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar's flanking-party
Butchered the folk who flew.

Long was the morn of slaughter,
Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back to their grave again,

Each man bearing a basket
Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village -
The village of Pabengmay,
And the "drip-drip-drip" from the baskets
Reddened the grass by the way.

They made a pile of their trophies
High as a tall man's chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

Subadar Prag Tewarri
Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
The head of his son below -
With the sword and the peacock-banner
That the world might behold and know.

Thus the samadh was perfect,
Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris -
The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back into camp again.

Then a silence came to the river,
A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
And Sniders squibbed no more;
For the Burmans said
That a white man's head
Must be paid for with heads five-score.

There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun;
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.

Snider = British military rifle.

jingal = "... an 1880s enlarged copy of the Remington Lee Bolt action rifle (original calibre 45/70 or 43 Spanish)which were made in .60 calibre by Tientsin Arsenal, which also made the ammo ..."

samadh = can be directly traslated (sic) as shrine or death shrine

Subadar = An Indian Army mid-rank infantry officer equal to a Captain.

Jemadar = An Indian Army cavalry or infantry junior officer equal to a Lieutenant.

Shikaris = game hunter. Quote from e-book "Under ten viceroys; the reminiscences of a Gurkha" by Nigel Gresley Woodyatt.

"Every Gurkha is supposed to be a shikari. It would be much more correct to say ALL are shikar lovers, but only a very small minority has any real knowledge of game.
When you do get a shikari he is good, as good as they make them, and quite fearless. ..."

More about Kipling from Wikipedia

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Old Families

February half term comes at a doldrums time of year - Christmas is over and Easter is yet to come. Shrove Tuesday manages to make a bit of a culinary impact, but isn't often a much-planned-for 'event and social gathering'. The days are lengthening but there's rarely enough daylight to feel guilty about leaving the garden to slumber for another week or so, and for many people Spring cleaning either doesn't happen any more because either they don't have dirty open fires, it isn't necessary because their place is always immaculate, Spring  hasn't  started yet, or they can't see well enough to notice the dust.

The break from school comes at a time when no exams are imminent, so younger members of the family can be coaxed away from their computers and out of their rooms long enough to be told how much they've grown 'since last time' - which is always excruciatingly embarrassing, but dealing with it politely is an essential part of growing up.

Yes, that's right, we Rigbys have been doing the rounds of the far-flung parts of Britain catching up on all the family gossip - at a time when there aren't easy reasons to avoid being sociable. It's good to meet new arrivals and see little ones growing into adults and run a quick check of who's got what 'family trait', but it's also sad to see older relatives becoming increasingly frail at a rather alarming speed.

All of these people 'did their bit' during WW2, either on the battlefield, at sea, in the air or, even if they were still yet-to-be-invented teenagers, were 'keeping the home fires burning' - which is something few of them can afford to do any more.

Each of the grand or great-Rigbys (and/or their spouses) is fiercely independent, they all live in their own homes, of varying size and quality, refusing to either move in with their immediate family or into a more formal residential setting. Not one of them wants to even consider claiming what 'benefits' might be 'theirs by right', and not only because of the myriad of complicatedly intrusive forms they think they would have to fill in - it's because they don't think 'claiming benefit' is something they should do. It's pride.

Their generation, they say, don't take from the state unless the situation is dire, and none of them would admit to feeling desperate, none are willing to put their hands out for help and risk the humiliation of being turned away because once they were foolish enough to have carefully saved up enough money to put down a deposit on their, now deteriorating, home and make sure there was enough money to pay a mortgage for 25+ years - and the taxes, and the insurances, and the local taxes/rates.

These people recall snow drifts as high as a man and Jack Frost's patterns inside bedroom windows. They remember power cuts and petrol rationing, they have read and seen reports of the dire state of our electricity generating system caused solely by this government's refusal to acknowledge the need for forward planning.

They remember the time before the Berlin Wall was built, and some have pieces of that wall on their mantelpieces.

Quite a few older Rigbys were staunch Labour supporters, but not now, and it's quite odd to know why - it's because they've learned we get gas from Russia - the old Communist  and Cold War enemy that will, to quote one individual, "... do anything to get a toe hold in Europe" and "... will cut off the gas if they want to invade". Their fear is almost palpable, and disconcerting too, because they almost speak in whispers to say what they need to say and then, very quickly, change the subject.

They don't understand what's happened in the last few years because they as children they were raised to, "Be seen and not heard" and were taught to "respect their elders". They're unhappy with the way they can be pushed to the back of the queue and ignored at a time when they're most in need, and the men don't understand why all of their sex is branded a potential child molester when nothing would be further from their mind.

These people had to leave school whilst still in short trousers or because, well, because their school wasn't there any more because a bomb landed on it, and by the time it was rebuilt they were too old to go back. They remember food rationing, and how their parents did without to make food go further and they know very well that it's the elderly who suffer most when it's cold - because they remember what happened to their own grandparents - so they're more than a little scared for their future, although won't openly admit it, not in so many words.

Even though there was a welcoming cake or plate of biscuits and the necessary cup of tea in a cup with a saucer, almost each one of the senior Rigbys has, this winter, been forced to make the economic decision to either keep their home at a comfortable temperature or maintain a decent diet of cooked meals. There's no happy medium because they're all on small incomes, and have increasingly high bills to pay, and what little savings they managed to put by during their working life are vanishing rapidly because interest rates are so low and they themselves are incapable of keeping pace with new, better, accounts the banks and building societies might decide to  organise. When they try to discuss their difficulties at the premises of either building societies or banks they are either given leaflets written so small they're impossible to read, are told to go online, or are advised to pick up a telephone and navigate a lengthy user-unfriendly press-button process. Nobody wants to help them face to face, especially not the elderly men.

It's sad to realise that many of those in either power or authority have forgotten the older generation in the rush to modernise or change, and now these older people  have even more worries because they have learned of plans meaning that, if they leave assets of more than £23k, their 'estate' will be taxed to pay for their 'elderly care' - when they already have to pay proper wage rates for any home support they might need.

I wonder what they do in Scotland?

The current elderly generation have been sold short. They've lived through terrible times and have worked and been taxed all their lives. They are frightened to think that, in order to reduce a luxurious 'estate' to less than £23k, it's necessary to dispose of your home and any valuables at least 7 years before death.

Few have the advantage of knowing their death date in advance, which is why such a disgusting tax will hurt young and old alike, and more especially the old who only want to make sure there's a bit of cash and a few trinkets to pass onto the next generation - their final gift to their family.

So much for 'Labour' being the political party of the working (wo)man!

....