Indian Antiquary Vol 51

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 49

MAROH, 1922)
FURTHER SPECIMENS OF NEPALI
FURTHER SPECIMENS OF NEPALf.
BY R. L. TURNER. Of the following passages the first three continue the story begun in the Specimens of Nepali ' which have already appeared, ante., Vol. Lpp. 84-92. It is the story of the first phase of the British advance in Palestine which, beginning with the capture of Gaza in November of 1917, ended with the seizing of the pass leading from the plains to Jerusalem and the capture of the commanding height of Nebi Samwil. In these operations one Indian and two Gurkha battalions played a not unimportant part. They were the 58th Vaughan's Rifles F.F and the 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles. There were at that time only four regular Indian Infantry battalions in the attacking army; and, when on the 10th of November the 21st Corps was swung round into the Judæan Hills, these battalions found themselves in the familiar environment of hill-fighting. Entirely without artillery support, in the face of powerful enemy artillery, as advance guard to the 75th Division, they drove the Turk from ridge to ridge, until a panting charge through dense mist and rain and the gathering darkness of the evening of the 20th won them the village of Kuryet-el-Enab (the ancient Kirjath Jearim), at the very summit of the pass.
Afterwards on the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd the two Gurkha battalions and the 123rd Outram's Rifles played a leading part in the attempt of the 21st Corps, reduced by more than a fortnight's continuous fighting, to cut off Jerusalem from the north. The attempt failed, and Jerusalem did not fall for another month ; but the many graves beneath the terraces of El Jib (Gibeon) and on the slopes of Nebi Samwil (Mizpah) give witness to the gallantry of the attempt. Nebi Samwil itself was seized and held ; and though attack after attack surged up its slopes, while Turkish guns west and north of Jerusalem pounded its summit and destroyed the mosque (for it was the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting of the campaign), it never left our hands. Englishmen and Scots, Gurkhas and Indians fought over its blood-stained stones. At one time all that we held was the courtyard of the old Crusaders' Church, into which the remnants of the 3/3rd Gurkhas closed, to hold it to the last. But the Scots of the 52nd Division came to their aid ; and the hill was held, to the doom of all Turkish hopes of retaining Jerusalem.
The fourth passage is a song composed and sung by men of the 2/3rd Gurkhas on the day on which the conclusion of the armistice with Turkey was announced. The English reader will recognise the language of the chorus. The effect is curiously pathetic. This battalion was mobilised with the Meerut Division for France in August 1914, and landed again in India on the 31st March 1919, only almost at once to supply drafts for the fighting in Afghanistan.
The last passage is written in standard spelling, since it was copied by a Gurkha, not by myself. Often have I heard these and similar songs sung, now, it may be, by a solitary little figure sitting on the bank of the Suez Canal or under a fig-tree on the Plain of Sharon, now to an admiring audience of his fellows sheltered in some Cave of Adullam from the rainstorms drivirg over the bleak stony hills of Judæa or Galilee. They may not be great poetry, but they are real; and a line such as this:
Dasai ra târikh unis sau pandra marca ka mainå må
OT
Pacisai târikh unis sau pandra Sitambar mainå mã cannot be denied the having a certain Homeric flavour. The English looks and sounds so much more prosaic.
10th March 1915'