Gurkha's Khukuri
In the mid-seventies I was
ordering B Company o 1/2 GR on an outskirt visit in the New Territories
pursuing Illega Immigrants from China looking for asylum in Hong Kong. We were
positioned on the separated shoreline of Starling Inlet over the narrows from the
partitioned town of Sha Tau Kok. I had my modestTac HQ set up in an old and
forsook angler's house. Over the fringe duck homesteads and paddy fields
extended once again into obscure China to the extent the eye could see.
Administrator Mao's terrible Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution kept on
attacking the nation. The standard unlawful outsiders, or IIs as they were
known, were, much of the time, unskilled, uncovered footed Cantonese laborers
recent day Dick Whittington's - looking for the gold off Hong Kong asphalts -
and a superior life than that offered in the cultivating towns of Guangdong
Province. On the off chance that they figured out how to achieve the outskirt,
scale the fringe wall, maintain a strategic distance from our watches and make
it to the place of refuge of Kowloon they were then permitted to stay – if
caught they confronted the shamefulness of the every day 4 pm return over the
Man Kam To Bridge, under the control of the Chinese powers and back to a
questionable future. A number of them were in the hands of the infamous
"snake heads" offering ridiculous assurances of safe section over the
fringe consequently at high costs. In my general vicinity the dominant part of
IIs were swimmers trying the hazardous waters during the evening to escape from
the Chinese state army watches north of the fringe and the avoidance of our
watches toward the south. Suffocated and mangled bodies sometimes appeared on
the shore were demonstration of the threats and difficulties of this course.
Our initial day break leeway watches checked the shoreline for those that may
have effectively made the intersection overnight. One morning I got a radio
message that a Gurkha watch had gotten a swimmer and were taking him back to
Tac HQ. I advised my signaller to summon a Police Patrol vessel to come and
lift him up for entry to the territory and the Immigration Handling Center and
anticipated his landing.
Before long I saw Corporal Ganga
strolling up the shoreline towards me joined by a Chinese man who instantly looked
not the same as the normal II. He was moderately aged, silver haired and thin
yet with refined elements and he strolled with a slight stoop. He wore just
blurred blue shorts. What astounded me was that he and Ganga were plainly
occupied with profound discussion. I realized that the Gurkha's learning of
Cantonese was nonexistent and I could just envision they were talking English.
Be that as it may, an II who communicated in English was an uncommon item. They
entered my little base camp and the II talked instantly to me: "Have you
perused Thackeray's Vanity Fair - what a superb character is Becky Sharp."
Somewhat shocked said that I was acquainted with the book. "My name is
Wang - I am a Professor of English Literature at the Sun Yat Sen University."
Gently I started to test his experience and the excursion he had made to
achieve the shoreline. It was clear that as a scholarly he had endured under
the Cultural Revolution. "A long time back I attempted to come to Hong
Kong. I was caught by the local army and sentenced to five years on a National
Farm. I discovered cultivating uncongenial, Major." Other individuals from
my organization accumulated round us captivated as the Professor proceeded with
his story. He sobbed as he related the fiasco of the Tangshan quake which had
recently executed an expected quarter of a million Chinese. News of this
calamity had scarcely come to the outside world. He had watched trainloads of
setbacks falling off trains in Beijing's railroad station. He let us know of
his initial childhood in Canton, of his steady conflicts with the powers which
had driven him to right on time internment in the wide open and how everybody
was tired of the "condemned upset". He described his undertakings in
coming to the Chinese shoreline; of brushes and pursues with the Militia; of
his night swim over the Inlet; that he had accompanied an understudy companion
yet when the elastic ring they used to bolster them had floated away he had put
some distance between his buddy. On coming to the shore he chose to stow away
amongst a few brambles with the aim of holding up to check whether his
companion arrived so they could proceed with their voyage together. It arrived
that the watch had discovered him. Ganga let me know that when he spotted Wang
the Professor had received a threatening Kung Fu stance as though to strike
him. Ganga had brought his bamboo twirly doo down on the Professor's raised and
undermining hand. I could see that it was wounded and swollen. We had all
warmed to this fascinating man who was giving us a knowledge into a China about
which we knew little. He represented an hour with appeal and qualification.
Down on the shoreline I could see the Police dispatch surrounding our little
quay. Some portion of me needed to advise the Professor to get off up the slope
at the back of the old angling town and travel south to the haven of Kowloon.
In any case, that was plainly unthinkable. The talk was attracting to its
nearby. "I am planning to join my sibling - he is a shipper on the Queen's
Road. When I contact him you must come and eat with me
