Word: gurkha
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...month for a private). As a result, the nation still relies, as it did in the heyday of Empire, on British-officered native troops to help man its overseas outposts. Last week the best of the overseas hirelings appeared in Britain itself; a contingent of 1,200 Gurkha troops filed off a troopship at Southampton, to become the first foreign mercenaries ever stationed on English soil...
...begin with, the Gurkhas served as part of the British army in India. After independence, the Indians took over six of the ten regiments while the British got the other four. By special treaty, the British are still allowed to recruit Gurkhas in Nepal. The soldiers' paychecks (a Gurkha private in Britain today averages $56 monthly) and pensions continue to be a mainstay of the Nepalese economy...
Expensive Laurels. Many of Britain's 10,500 Gurkha soldiers belong to the fourth consecutive generation that has fought for the Crown. Even the crack Guards regiments are no more highly rated than the brown, merry-faced Gurkhas, who seldom measure more than a few inches above the minimum 5 ft. required by the British army. They are renowned for their gentleness off the battlefield, but on it unflinchingly uphold their slogan: Kafar Hone Bhanda Morne Ramro, meaning, Better to die than live a coward. They believe that war is heaven-or at least the best way of getting...
...time was making overtures to Red China. Already the Chinese have agreed to build a road between Nepal's capital city of Katmandu and Lhasa in Tibet. Backbone of the Nepalese economy is the employment in the British and Indian armies of the 20,000 tough little Nepalese Gurkha soldiers; from their annual pay they send home $5,000,000-equal to a fourth or more of Nepal's yearly budget...
...sovereign state, India has continued the practice of the British raj in trying to exercise control over the mountain kingdom. Nehru's government poured $56 million in economic aid into Nepal and supplied it with arms; in return, Nepal exports to India rice, timber, and the tough little Gurkha soldiers who make up India's crack regiments...