From PORTRAITS 1989
ASIAN VOICES 1993-4
by Dominic Rai

SOLDIER

From India, 2 ¼ million Indian soldiers fought for Britain in the 1st World War. Britain saved on its own war expenditure by increasing the tax-burden on the ordinary Indian; and encouraged the development of the cotton and iron and steel industries to help in supplying materials. In addition to soldiers, skilled doctors and nurses were also sent from India to the British war effort. By March 1917, an Indian Munitions Board had been set up to “regulate, co-ordinate and promote the production and distribution of war-related supplies.”

It is estimated that India supplied Britain materials to the value of £250 million. In addition, 2 war loans were raised in India in 1917 and 1918, railing a total of £100 million in cash.

India therefore proved during the war to be literally a jewel in the British crown.

INDIAN SOLDIER:

I bet it’s 11.30. (Looks at watch and laughs gently). I needn’t have looked. I just know. Listen (touches his ear and takes a deep breath, tip toes around and then stops)

When it’s quiet and misty it usually means the Germans are going to gas or bomb us. But we haven’t got gas masks. So we quickly dive into the nearest ditch, and cover our faces with handkerchiefs soaked in piss.

We curse the wind that blows gas in our direction, and we try to cover the heads of the frightened horses, their bladders dry. We want to fight as cavalry. It’s always easy to piss before a cavalry charge.

Our feet are frozen, our hair wet from the rain. But we don’t let it get us down. We fight like braves on a ration of jam sandwiches. Now, there is such a shortage of arms that we are making hand grenades out of jam jars and firing petrol cans into enemy trenches with catapaults.

We stuff bits of steel pipes with dynamite to blow up the barbed wire. The Angrez soldiers call it the Bangalore torpedo. Thanks to jam! That’s how we fought at Ypres. Imagine the newspaper headline. “The Sixth Indian Cavalry Wins Major Battle in France – Thanks to Jam!”

In this god-forsaken land, there is no sun. It’s like 11.30 in the day, in the evening, and at night it’s the same, only darker and colder.

I remember when we docked at Liverpool. It was 25th November 1914. The streets were packed with Angrez cheering the arrival of the Indian troops. Women rushed to put flowers in the turbans of the Sikhs, and the horses pranced about showing off for the crowds.

We got to London on the 10th of December. We visited the hospital for wounded Indian soldiers on Victoria Street. The Baluch regiment lost 500 men out of 560; the Brahmin regiment lost even more! Sir Pratap told us.

“The British are finally thinking of awarding the Victoria Cross to Indian soldiers.” What a pity so many of our men have to die before the Angrez recognise our valour.

Today Somnath died. We sat in that trench. He was on a lump of earth, frozen, blown the night before, and me on an unexploded shell.

We sat and talked like exiles, of how pleasant our village was, its houses, trees, fields and our people, and how that when we left they came to wish our safe return.

Then we sat awhile and talked some more. A machine gun swept the parapet. The bullet hit him in the throat and he fell in a heap. You know even dead bodies have their humour. An eyeless sardonic mockery. I stroked his hair, wiped the bloody saliva from his cheeks and kissed him. I will never forget him.

Slow fade.