Gurkhas
Revisited
During long mosquito-infested nights in the Malayan ulu doing National
Service with 6GR, I developed the belief that I could only really claim
that I had served with the Gurkhas if I had been to Nepal and attempted to
understand what drives these indomitable men. As the years went by and I followed a career which took me
to many different countries, but none near Nepal, the dream began to
fade. But a millennium reunion of commercial
friends with whom I had worked in Kuala Lumpur in the early 70’s suddenly
opened up an unplanned opportunity.
Nine
of us aged between 59 and 66, six English and three Australian, hatched a
plot to go trekking. Hardly
original but, if you have never done it before, it seemed and was in the
event both exciting and satisfying.
Our
leader had been a subaltern in the gunners in Malaya in 1956, but was the
British Airways manager in KL when I first met him in 1972. Of the same KL vintage we comprised
myself a career executive with Commonwealth Development Corporation, the
Hilton Hotel general manager, Sime Darby’s finance director, two engineers,
an accountant, a chartered surveyor and a diamond buyer.
This
unlikely group of men well past their sell-by date successfully navigated
the historic trade route which crosses the Himalayan range from the arid
north to the fertile south. We
began at Jomsum(8,900ft), trekked north to Kagbeni and returned to Jomsom via
Muktinath(12,400ft), thence proceeding south via Tukuche, Tatopani, Shika
(Magar village), Ghorepani, Poon Hill (named after Gurkha Major Poon),
Tadapani, Ghandrung (Gurung village), Landrung, Tolka and Dhampus to
Pokhara.
We
stayed in tea houses thus minimising the number of porters needed. If I were to repeat the trip I would
wish to camp thus gaining some control over sanitation, an observation that
will be well understood by experienced hands.
We carried a hand-held GPS that worked
elegantly except in the shadow of mountains when a reading of say 9,000ft
was retained until we emerged in an open area where satellite connection
was restored and a new reading of say 8,000ft and a new location was
suddenly shown. Oh for a GPS in
the Cameron Highlands in 1958! We
also carried a satellite phone as a precaution against possible exigencies
of war, the attack on Afghanistan and the revolt of Nepalese Maoists both
coinciding with our epic expedition.
The satellite phone was used, but only once when one of our team
received a call from his wife asking for instructions on placing a very
substantial sum of money he had succeeded in extracting from Equitable
Life!
I
will not attempt to describe the splendour of the Himalayas in
October. Those of you who know
will understand, and those of you who don’t really should visit before it
is too late, every year over 60 making a trek at altitude increasingly
tough.
I
will recount however a chance meeting with a 1/6th Sergeant,
Harkasing Gurung (now aged 67) in his village of Tolka. My formerly fluent barrack room
gurkhali was exposed for what it had become in the intervening 42
years---zero. But he spoke fairly
good English and we talked about old times in Malaya and his quarterly trek
to Pokhara to collect his pension.
I
should also recount a splendid evening with Gurkha Major Dal Bahadur Gurung
MVO at his house in Kathmandu.
Dal had helped me get maps before UK departure and was generous
enough to offer me and two pals dinner with his family including Capt. Til
Bahadur Gurung, recently retired.
I took along a gunner and an airman; Dal, though ever the gentleman, left them in no doubt that
they had not served with the bravest of the brave. And hereby hangs my tale.
In
the course of dinner, Dal regaled us with tales of derring do during
confrontation in Borneo when he and his men accounted for a dozen or more
of the Indonesian enemy.
Blood-thirsty stuff, and the sort of thing I associated with death
on the parade square at the climax of Dashera, the Gurkha festival at the
heart of every regimental year.
Imagine my surprise, therefore, on leaving Dal’s household when his
wife presented each of us with a Buddhist scarf! Yes, Dal is a Buddhist and in retirement would not hurt a
fly. I was left with the
impression that just as British recruits joining the army tend to declare
themselves CofE, Gurkhas joining the Regiment make a Hindu
declaration. No complications!
Before our return to UK we saw Dal once again, training hard on the golf
course in preparation for Jack Furtado’s visit, but Jack will doubtless
tell his own tale of a journey to the Tibetan border.
Richard Beacham
6.12.2001