Episode 3 In the Highest Tradition

The history of the British army

is embroided on its colours, rich gazetteers of campaigns,

actions, sieges, sometimes obscure villages where it stood to fight.

One such is Sobraon where in 1846

the forebears of what is now the Queen's Regiment, the 31st Foot,

engaged a massive Sikh army

bent on driving the East India Company out of business.

When their officers were killed a sergeant, Bernard McCabe,

snatched up the fallen colour and ran it to the highest enemy rampart.

McCabe's inspiration that bloody day,

for the fierce hand-to-hand battle was won two hours later,

is commemorated each year

by an escort of sergeants marching determinedly to the officers' mess.

As the battalion assembles they exercise their traditional right

to claim the colour for the day.

In the name of Bernard McCabe they bear the colour

to the sergeants' mess where it is theirs to gaze upon until midnight.

SOLDIER: He did show great gallantry in picking up the colours because

anybody carrying the colours was an immediate target,

so to actually get up there, place it on the Sikh ramparts,

he did rally the men, and it has been said

he was a turning point in the Battle of Sobraon.

'If the music, A Life on the Ocean Waves, sounds incongruous

'it's because they once served as Royal Marines.'

The colour is our way of celebrating all our former battles.

Well, I say all the battle honours, we've only got 40 on it,

but it's our way of celebrating and remembering our dead, of course.

Who died for those battle honours

is of great significance to us.

I think we have to

considering in the days of yore they put in a great deal of effort.

It's not like today where we've got mechanised transport.

Bernard McCabe was marching up to 30 miles a day on sand tracks

and they put up with an awful lot of hardship and sweat and toil.

So if we don't celebrate them who will? Nobody.

We've got to recognise them somehow.

It's a great feeling of honour.

You know, as you're walking up there you've got the battle honours

in front of you, it brings it all to you,

the actual importance of the day.

It's a great feeling.

At the battle of Sobraon they also served alongside

what their general described as

soldiers of small stature but indomitable courage.

Men armed with the short weapons of their country.

The Gurkhas.

A century and a half later in the new territories above Hong Kong

the Gurkhas still served the British Crown.

Many as their fathers, grandfathers,

even great grandfathers did before them.

The Union Jack will come down here in 1997

but in the meantime they continue to maintain vigilant surveillance

against any footloose Chinese attempting to pre-empt treaties.

China's yearning to get here is obvious.

Their half of the bridge into Hong Kong is already built.

From these Red China sky-scrapers across the wire

the would-be infiltrators constantly make a break for it,

to reach a British-dependent territory

already teaming with the Orient's refugees.

The Gurkhas patrol their side of the wire

on a silent, stealthy form of transport.

But coming from Nepal, high up in the Himalayas,

there is occasional evidence

that cycling may not exactly be a coming sport.

The general's reference to the short weapon of their country,

worn on the hip, was to the legendary kukri.

It's used for everything from chopping vegetables to shaving

but it's primary function is to inspire the fear of God.

In fact I think the last time our regiment used a kukri in anger

was in 1967 on the Hong Kong border

at an incident at a place called Taikoo Lane where a Gurkha officer,

a British officer and a Gurkha officer's orderly

were surrounded by a crowd of about 50 people

who weren't being very friendly at the time and none of our men

were carrying arms because they'd been ordered not to,

and one of the soldiers had a kukri secreted in his shirt

and took off the hand of one of the people attacking him

with a pick helve.

- Clean off? - Yes.

MILITARY FANFARE

ORDERS SHOUTED

TROOP RESPONDS

These are the Second King Edward VII's own Gurkha Rifles,

direct descendents of the Gurkhas at Sobraon.

What saves these new recruits from being labelled mercenaries,

troops merely hired to fight for some foreign power,

is that they swear their oath of allegiance

direct to the Queen of England.

Gurkha loyalty has never been in question

since they stormed Delhi during the Indian mutiny.

Henceforth they were to be known now as sepoys but riflemen,

which required them to march precisely at 140 paces to the minute.

Queen Victoria presented them not with colours

but a ceremonial truncheon.

No man is a Gurkha soldier

until he has formally touched the Queen's truncheon.

MAN SPEAKS NEPALI

He says that "Yes, when we were given the Queen's Truncheon,

"originally after the Siege of Delhi it was given to us by a queen,

"and at the stage to Gurkhas of Nepal and elsewhere,

"kings and queens were almost like gods,"

so it obviously has

an almost religious significance to it for that reason.

We do treat it a bit like a god.

For instance, when a man goes on leave,

before he goes there he goes into the guard room and salutes it

as if to say, goodbye, I'm off, I'll be back in six months' time.

Every soldier does actually pay respects to it by them going up to it

and in some cases putting garlands on.

Before Queen's Truncheon I think I am not

proper soldier

and when I touched the truncheon

I think I am a very good and strong soldier.

What would happen if someone tried to steal it?

Well, he lost his head then.

Where did the Gurkha alliance actually begin?

You have to go back to 1815 where the British East India Company

were expanding within India

and at the same time in Nepal the whole kingdom had been united

in one kingdom and they were expanding into India

and they met head on and there was a war between 1814-1816

where the British and the Gurkhas fought each other.

Now, it was a war nobody won

and it was a war in which the Gurkha soldiers said,

the British soldiers are very good soldiers,

in fact they're nearly as good as us.

'That attitude, the self-assurance that they are among the elite

'of the world's combat troops

'makes these men what they are, born fighters.'

It's a very difficult thing to define, this relationship between us,

but affection is something all soldiers feel for each other.

Respect, really, I suppose, but affection also comes into it.

I think in the brigade of Gurkhas it's a little stronger than that.

If you want to be trite, and I don't mean it to sound trite,

it's a matter of love in that

we know each other so well as individuals

that we have a great deal of respect between each other,

and that we've got so many shared experiences because

we've served together continuously for a long time.

I think this is where the relationship starts really different

from that of a British battalion in that we will also spend

a lot of time in each others' hands.

For example, when I go up to Nepal

I will be spending the night in riflemen's houses

and corporal's houses and junior NCO's houses

and I will accord them a great deal of respect

because it is their country,

their house and the Gurkhas are, above all, very proud people.

The same way as if I'm in England the regiment isn't here

and the a corporal is coming through on a course

he will have no compunction in phoning me up and saying,

"I'm in England on a course,

"can I come round and spend the weekend?"

And if I say yes, which I probably will if I can,

he'll say, "Well great, are the kids at home?

"I'd like to see Luke, he must have grown since a last saw him."

We don't talk about the latest weapons come into the army

but we'll sit round and talk about families and children

because Gurkhas are people who have a great deal of feeling for children

and they get very homesick.

ORDER SHOUTED

Guard. For inspection draw a kukri.

Kukri. Draw!

Kukri!

With so many uses what are the common notions

that a Gurkha never draws his kukri without also drawing blood?

Yes, it is a myth in fact that a lot of people do believe that.

But it isn't so to put you, put everyone right.

If they start doing that

there would be lots of nicks around Gurkha bodies and in the hand.

In fact we don't do that any more, we don't do that at all actually.

The only kukri that touch blood is during Dussehra,

that is the big sacrifice of the kukri that is brought out during Ma

and that is the one brought out for chopping buffalo and goat.

That is the only kukri that is in fact touch blood,

otherwise, normally, no.

Guard will return kukri!

Return!

'Given the chance would they have used the kukri in the Falklands?'

We would have used kukri, yes.

It is a very handy weapon.

It is for hand-to-hand combat.

It is very useful indeed.

Although we do bayonet drill as well in training

but I think when we are face to face with enemy and in close quarter

I think kukri would be more handy.

Here if I may describe, you see a little pattern there

which some people say that it has got some religious significance

but I doubt very much, in fact.

That is just so that when you have blood on the kukri

is just sort of naturally drips there,

it doesn't get onto your hand and starts clogging up

and that is what it is for, that little nick there.

'When the 7th Gurkhas set off for the Falklands

'they took their bayonets but their very fame and fighting reputation,

would it frustrate them?

Were they disappointed as they approached Mount William

that the Argentineans had already fled?

I think, yes, it is natural

because we should have had contact with the Argentineans

because I think they were very afraid of the Gurkhas

and instead, well prior contacting with the Gurkhas

I think they were very, um,

I think they judged to run off.

It was just possibly Argentina's wisest decision of the war.

For all their ferocity in action the Gurkhas remain

uncomplicated men from the hills,

to which they return the moment their fighting days are over.

No corner newsagent shop for them in Britain.

They are farmers who even turn their lawns here into allotments.

Many bring their families and faiths can be Hindu, Buddhist

or an amalgam or both.

There's not much call for a dog-collared army chaplain

at the naming ceremony for the daughter of Corporal Argen Ryan.

It requires a Hindu pundit acquainted with the mystical configurations

of the zodiac

that actually determine the child's name exactly 11 days after birth.

PUNDIT CHANTS MANTRA

The curious thing is that morning prayers for the Gurkha children

remind you of what it used to be like at some British schools,

and yet there's been no missionary attempt to evangelise.

CHILDREN REPEAT PRAYER IN UNISON

'Perhaps the instinct of obedience

'owes a little to the military environment.'

School, stand at ease.

ORDERS SHOUTED

One of the customs that we have inherited from the Indian army

is that when a man is brought in front of an officer,

either his company commander or CO, his escort carries the accused man's

belt, his hat and his sidearms, which in our case is a kukri.

When I first was faced with this I rather thought the kukri was carried

in case the man tried to attack me, which never happened.

And it's really signifying that he's not fit to at that time until

the case is dismissed to carry sidearms in the regiment.

21172098,

Rifleman Limbu, you are charged with the conduct in prejudice

of good order and military discipline.

'The charge was a minor one, trivial even if you baulk at

'standards that demand that your bed space is a masterpiece of symmetry.'

Pin ups, the aide memoir of lonely soldiers the world over,

are conspicuous by their absence.

Well, almost.

One Gurkha has an honoured place for a former colonel of the regiment,

Field Marshal The Lord Bramall.

He simply liked him.

Everybody's covering up are they?

'Today's head of the British Army,

'General Sir John Chappell, is himself a Gurkha

'with a lifelong appreciation of the Gurkha's attributes.'

I am sure that the Nepali citizen, the Gurkha soldier,

because he comes from a proud and independent country,

brings with him a certain feeling of independence.

He's his own man. There's something in that but I think

more than that he is a highlander, of course,

from a pretty tough background environment where it's

quite difficult to make a living, indeed, it's pretty hard to survive

and he brings with him therefore,

if he survives all the rigours of infancy and upbringing there,

a fairly tough individual.

And like a lot of highland people he is independent of mine.

He is not in the least going to be subservient to anyone.

On the other hand he is going to acknowledge readily and openly

and freely the qualities that other people might display.

'Some of those qualities, it must be said, are more apparent that others.'

No-one outside the Gurkhas questions too deeply the ingredients of khaini.

Nominally a blend of coarse tobacco and lime,

it has the kick of a dry martini.

The most of Gurkha they are chewing the Khaini instead of cigarette

and it is because it is much cheaper than a cigarette.

It doesn't damage the health as well as a cigarette.

If we are on patrol, either ambush or something like that, because you know

if we smoke it is smelt 100 metres around the area

but if we are chewing the khaini

it is better than the other cigarettes. Tactical cigarette.

You gather it

like this and put in here.

This is the khaini.

The Gurkhas, too, are the only remaining soldiers of the Queen

who get a daily ration of rum.

They justify this with a ingenuity

that would put lawyers and magistrates courts out of business.

If you would not have this rum here in Malaya

you would have bite of mosquito,

a sort of insect that will infect your body

and you would have wet because this Malaya is what is called

tropical country here,

rainforest, so day by day you will get wet

so you will not keep your body in good health

so I think that is the way

it has become tradition to have rum.

And before you say "Ah!" at the site of a field of gambolling goats

you should understand their function.

The Gurkhas march on curry.

They've been weaned to accept bacon and eggs for breakfast

but otherwise their existence

is one long takeaway to tables that could

well teach British service stations a thing or two.

It may be hard to relate all this,

the hills, the bells, the temples, to the small men who from time to time

stand guard at Buckingham Palace.

Their loyalty is unquestioned,

their particular needs are catered for,

their priest is from the fifth generation of his family

to serve the regiment.

I think spiritualism plays a very strong part

in most Eastern ways of life

and for us it plays a strong part and it's part of a bond

between us and the soldiers,

between the Europeans and the Gurkha soldiers in that obviously we accept

the strictures religion places on us

and have to learn to understand them and appreciate how they fit in.

There's no question of us ever questioning anything like that,

that's part of life.

Apart from their orthodox priests they have their lamas.

Not to put too fine a point on it, witch doctors.

There are some soldiers who if they are from the right cast

and have the right training

have special powers and occasionally you will get a soldier

who will be diagnosed by the doctor as having a psychological problem

whereas we know damn well we can hand him over to the lama,

who could be a young rifleman or corporal serving the battalion,

and essentially the soldier is possessed.

Now that lama will take him aside and exorcise the spirit

and the soldier will be as right as rain afterwards.

Now, I accept that because I've seen it working.

Psychiatrists may not.

I do remember when, Chindig can probably add to this,

but when I joined the battalion and it had just come back from Borneo

there was a soldier in C Company who was renowned for his ability to,

if he was terrified and at night,

when he was frightened, the story was he could turn himself into a tiger.

Everybody in the company believed it, there was nobody who questioned it.

So much so that in fact, in Borneo, when they were on operations

he was put on sentry duty by himself because people were quite confident

he would turn into an animal and cope with that.

I have not seen him turn into a tiger but I have seen this man who usually

walked about and when he saw the snakes,

really poisonous snakes like cobras,

used to pick them up with his hand

and the snake bit him many times

and we saw it and nothing effected him. The venoms.

Therefore I had to believe that this man was something

which other human beings cannot perform, you see?

I mean no-one said "Oh, don't be stupid, don't talk rubbish,"

because there's an awful lot of strange things that go on

that people don't profess to understand.

I mean, we wouldn't disagree until it's proved otherwise.

'The whole concept of the garrison is to make it home from home

'for the men from the mountains and their mostly British officers.'

Our mess, in common with many messes in the army, houses a lot of property

that record and represent the history of the regiment.

Regimental property is not only in the mess

but also in the guard room and other messes

and one piece of particular interest

is this statuette which is the centrefold of Playboy Magazine

which ties in with two pictures

in the mess and a bit of our history that we're very proud of

when one of lance corporals won a VC.

Battalion had had four very successful actions in late '65,

one of them being the VC action,

and the company commander of the company that actually resulted,

the battle that resulted in the VC,

sent over to the Indonesian company commander of the other side

a Playboy, a volleyball net and a volleyball

with a message that he hoped it raised their morale

and, indeed, their fitness.

- But why did you want to give succour and comfort to the enemy?

Probably because we'd given them quite a hammering

and we didn't really, we wanted to keep things going.

Anyhow I think it was more of a joke.

But it was sent over by a trader and three days later this statuette

turned up with the varnish still wet on it and initially everyone

wondered what on earth it was

but then suddenly realised it was indeed a replica of the centrefold.

But no message.

'Probably in no other regiment in the British Army

'is the relationship between officer and soldier quite so paternal.'

Well, it's tradition that when a man ever leaves the battalion

or returns that he is always

interviewed by the CO because they all have the right

to bring any point forward to the CO.

It also gives me a chance

to make sure that I'm in touch with anything going up in Nepal,

they can let me know of any problems and so it's tradition,

certainly in the 10th, that any man going or coming back from leave

will always be interviewed by the commanding officer.

- Are you married? - No, Sir.

Are you going to get married this time?

- Yes, Sir. - All right.

You got family permission when you come back?

- Yes, Sir. - Have you?

Don't smuggle, don't disobey the rules, all right?

Or I'll throw you out. Don't do any of that. Good luck to you.

I won't see you again unless I come up to the hills.

Good luck to you.

HE SPEAKS NEPALESE

All right?

Yes, Sir.

OK, Rambata, nice to see you back.

'In vivid contrast to the rolling hills of the Far East

'the Gurkhas base in Britain is at Chruch Crookham in Hampshire,

'an unlikely village for the celebration of Dussehra,

'the symbolic triumph of good over evil.'

If you really want to know, Dussehra commemorates the tussle during which

the goddess Durga destroyed a demon with the head of a buffalo.

So one way and another

it's not exactly an every-day story of Hampshire country folk.

There is much placing of leaves on foreheads and much warming of hands,

and there are other matters which are strictly Gurkha.

CHANTING

'Everything is blessed, weapons included. The idea is to...'

To make them powerful and make successful any.

fighting whenever we need those weapons

we think it is blessed by our goddess so we will have success, we will win.

'One English vegetable marrow, one Gurkha sacrificial kukri.'

TRUMPETING

Obviously the most solemn ceremony of Dussehra

doesn't always end like that

but who needs 1,000 telephone calls in the next ten minutes?