INTERNATIONAL

News from other countries; translations and selections from homofile magazines abroad.

THE GURKAHS by Harry Otis

22.

It was shortly after we had sailed clear of the Hong Kong harbor that I discovered there were thirty bronze-skinned, steelmuscled Gurkah soldiers aboard destined for Singapore. Their captain was a young Englishman named Marshall. After listening to the wild and weird cries of a chant they performed at sunset, I asked Marshall about them. He told me they came from the lower slopes of the Himalayas and had never worn clothes until they joined the British army. They suffered whenever they were unable to bathe once a day and they hated the sweaty odor of the whites and wouldn't mix with them. Usually they were quite amiable, but if one should be harmed the others instantly flared into savage vengeance. Marshall smiled when I asked their ages. A Gurkah never counted his years; he considered himself old only when the calves of his legs softened.

This was their first ocean voyage. They had refused to board the ship without first performing a ceremony in which one of them severed the head of a bull with a single powerful slash. Had he failed, they would have taken

it as a bad omen and Marshall would have had to find another way to transport them. "A bull," he explained, "symbolizes masculine virility to them and its blood means power and strength. They rub it on their knives and guns. Whenever they eat flesh, it must be male."

They chanted again at sunrise. It began as a soft and gentle melody, then swelled to a shout as the great red disk rose clear of the sea.

Their meals and drinking water were handled separately. Two large wooden water tanks stood below on the after deck, with a board balanced across the center ridge where they joined. Day and night a coolie stood atop the board, rocking it like a see-saw to keep the water splashing and oxygenized. Whenever the men were hungry, Marshall notified the kitchen and large pots of boiled rice were put out on deck. Then the Gurkahs would throw out their nets and fish. When one caught a fish, he bit off the head, spit it into the sea, then devoured the body in a slow, bone-grinding process which was supplemented occasionally with a mouthful of

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