"حكاية جد: مذكرات معنية في أغلبها بالخدمة في الجيش الهندي والخدمة السياسية الهندية في الهند والخليج الفارسي في الفترة ١٩٣٢-١٩٤٧" [ظ‎‎٢‎٨] (١١٨/٥٦)

- 48 -
I finally left Hazmak on March 11th and reached Delhi on the evening
of March 13th just in time to meet Jane who had come from the opposite
direction. We spent that night and the next day in Delhi and I took the
opportunity of calling on the Foreign and Political Department in New Delhi.
Although leave to England had been re-opened, no one wanted to take it, so
there were at that time too many Politicals for the number of jobs available.
Should more be needed my batch would be the one to be recalled from
the Army, but when that would be was anyone’s guess. In my case it was, in
fact, to be three years later.
On arrival at Dehra Dun I found I was to be attached to the Shere
Regiment of the Nepalese Brigade. Each Regiment had three British officers
attached to it, one Senior Supervising Officer and two Junior Supervising
Officers. My 2.2.0. was Theo Owens of the 7th Gurkhas, formerly of the
4th Gurkhas, and I had met him six years before on leave in Kashmir. He
was a nice man, but very small and rather fussy, and much given to discussing
the intimate details of his children's insides. He was a Major, made up to
local Lieutenant Colonel. The Second J.S.O., a year or so junior to me, was
John Peacock of the 9th Gurkhas, who was newly married to a very nice girl
called Dizzie, short for Desiderata. Happily we all got on very well
together. Georgie Rogers, my old Company Commander in the 2nd/1st Gurkhas,
was the 3.S.O. in another Nepalese Regiment. It was nice to meet him again
but on the whole I was glad that we were not with the same unit.
The Nepalese troops were fine physical specimens but quite untrained
and we even had to teach them how to put on their uniforms. Many of the
junior officers, Lieutenants and Captains, had served as riflemen in the
1914-18 war Nepalese Contingent. They were good, but old, and had very little
education. They were very like the Viceroy's commissioned officers in our
Regular Gurkha Regiments but not of the same standard of training. The
senior officers, from Major upwards, were better educated but had acquired
their commissions and rank solely because of their family connections with
the Maharajah (Hereditary Prime Minister) of Nepal. The commanding officer
of the Shere Regiment was married to a cousin of the Maharajah and knew little
of soldiering but was keen to learn and we became good friends.
With them all, officers and men, we had to start right at the
beginning, drill,weapon training, tactics, map-reading, the lot. As in theory
we had no powers of command, being only "supervising" officers, extreme tact
was required, particularly in the beginning before we had got to know each
other. After some weeks some regular Gurkha N.C.O's came to join us and this
helped enormously as it left us British Officers freer to concentrate on
training the Nepalese Officers. Few of them spoke English and found map
reading, for instance, extremely difficult. In fact many had never seen a
map before in their lives, let alone one with English names and measurements
of distance and height. All instruction, except actual words of command on
parade, was given in Gurkhali.
On our arrival in Dehra Dun we had to spend ten days in the Mulberry
^Sotel be
ise uere
jjjj! to aco
,: 3 jTefi oot t
s if their b
jack until
iei. ?bis
; :i$ ten u
^ly case
isilj Mvin
cijike ne,
has feel a
Birpu
iff a probl
a Dun. Ho
aa, and we
iiiand the n
: si gave a
ii and went
i:tte most p
a 5th Gurkha
as and rod
:iach side o
di not see
Doree
:®e in Sep
-and I wer
4 ring a;
ti or early ’
In adi
Mich hai
•^rdu. Hii
r ' 5 F at 6,15
4 break
%ese 0
; ■ office mt
hi, and ■
: > e fc
h*' Unlf
^rlist*
Quite!
;^ed if,
'■ ier ^ hot!
Athena]
^Mfic j
lane';
^reint;