The Bright Flash of Vengeance

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The British nurses, accustomed as they were to peculiar patients among the native troops, couldn’t quite get used to Sar Bahadur. Even among the Gurkhas, who are a small, stocky race, Sar Bahadur was small He stood five feet tall and weighed, at the most, eight stone, before he lost his arm.

Only a handful of patients were left in the little hospital beside the Bailu River in Burma. They were the seriously wounded, who had received their wounds during the mopping up after the Japanese surrender. Sar Bahadur had been expected to die. In the manner of his being wounded he had assured for himself immortality in the legends of his native village in the Nepalese Hills. For generations the wild and frenzied feat of Sar Bahadur would be told in hushed voices. He had sprung out of the brush at a Japanese officer, a tall and heavy man. The flashing swing of the kukhri had been blocked by the officer. They had grappled in the middle of a jungle trail, rolling and straining in the mud. Slowly the officer had begun to exert his superior weight and strength. Somehow, Sar Bahadur had snatched a grenade from the officer’s belt, pulled the pin, and held the grenade tightly against the small of the officer’s back until it had exploded. Sar Bahadur’s right arm was gone below the elbow. The pure ferocity of his deed and the pride on his face as he was carried for long miles back to the forward aid station, attested to the proud heritage of the Gurkhas. It was a foolish and glorious fragment of warfare.

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