Current Events

Order Of Service:
Gallipoli & The Sikhs -
National Memorial Service
Part III

1914 SIKHS

The following are excerpts from
THE ORDER OF SERVICE
As referred to in an earlier article

Continued …

PART III






Lieutenant General Andrew Graham CB CBE reads:


This is the Fourth of June.
Think not I never dream
The noise of that infernal noon,
The stretchers’ endless stream,
The tales of triumphs won,
The night that found them lies,
The wounded wailing in the sun,
The dead, the dust, the flies.
The flies! Oh God, the flies
That soiled the sacred dead,
To see them swarm from dead men’s eyes
And share the soldiers’ bread.
Nor think I now forget
The filth and stench of war,
The corpses on the parapet,
The maggots on the floor.

A.P. Herbert (1890–1971)





Oliver Chamberlain reads:

It is difficult when one reviews the deeds of the Indian Forces in this War to select for illustration any particular instance, but the House will not forget, and the country will not forget, such episodes as in France the recapture of Neuve Chapelle in October, 1914, by the 47th Sikhs and the 20th and 21st Companies of Sappers and Miners. The 47th Sikhs lost in that attack 178 out of 289 engaged; and the Sappers and Miners lost 119 out of 300. They will not forget the attack of the Garhwal Brigade at Neuve Chapelle on 10th March, and I am sure the House will forgive me, on this occasion in particular, for referring to the actions -- the glorious-actions -- of the Indian regiments in Gallipoli. Who is there who can read without emotion of the action of the 14th Sikhs at Cape Helles, when the supporting troops on the other side, unable to get to them, fought their way, and held on to the last, with the loss of nearly all their British and nearly all their Indian officers, and with a loss of 430 men out of 550 engaged? When a day or two afterwards the same ground was traversed again in a successful advance of our troops, the General who was in command has told me every Sikh had fallen facing his enemy, and most of them had one of their enemies under him.

Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain, Secretary of State for India, (1915–1917), from a speech to the House of Commons, 1915





Oliver Nelson, violin solo

ADAGIO & FUGUE IN G MINOR

Johann Sebastian Bach






THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

By

Lord Singh of Wimbledon CBE






All remain seated, and cover their heads.
Mandeep Kaur, Sikh Chaplain to the British Armed Forces
introduces the second Shabad, sung by Acapella Jatha:


HE ALONE IS CALLED A WARRIOR

Verse in Raag Dhanasri by 5th Guru (Guru Arjan Dev Ji)

HE alone is called a warrior, in this world,
who is coloured in the Lord’s Love.
Through the Perfect True Guru, he conquers his own
mind, and then all else comes under his control.
Sing the Praises of the Lord, with the love of your heart.
Those who seek His Sanctuary, and meditate on
his qualities attain the peace of union with Him
and live in His presence.
At the feet of such (in their company) with them
abiding in my heart my body is made pure.
Grant me the dust of their feet oh gracious one,
Nanak craves only this peace.







Ian Henderson CBE reads:


THE DEAD

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

Rupert Brooke (1887–1915)






The Choir sing:

 
GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN

Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can the floods drown it. Love is strong as death.
Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree,
That we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.
Ye are washed, ye are sanctified,
ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation;
That ye should show forth the praises of him who hath
call’d you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
I beseech you brethren, by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto to God, which is your reasonable service.

John Ireland (1879–1962)






Major General Peter Currie CB CBE reads:


from BIRDSONG

I don’t know how the days pass. The anger and the blood have gone. We sit and read. There is always someone sleeping, someone strolling. There are others unaccounted for or absent.

Men come out from England like emissaries from an unknown land. I cannot picture what it means to be at peace. I do not know how people there can lead a life. The only things that sometimes jolt us back from this trance are memories of men. In the set of the eyes of some conscripted boy I see a look of Douglas or Weir. I find myself rigid with imagining. I can see that man’s skull open up as he bent down to his friend that summer morning.

We are not contemptuous of gunfire, but we have lost the power to be afraid. Shells will fall on the reserve lines and we will not stop talking. A boy lay without legs where the men took their tea from the cooker. They stepped over him.

I have tried to resist the slide into this unreal world, but I lack the strength. I am tired. Now I am tired in my soul.

Many times I have lain down and I have longed for death. I feel unworthy. Death will not come and I am cast adrift in a perpetual present.

I do not know what I have done to live in this existence. I do not know what any of us did to tilt the world into this unnatural orbit. We came here only for a few months.

No child or future generation will ever know what this was like. They will never understand.

When it is over we will go quietly among the living and we will not tell them.

We will talk and sleep and go about our business like human beings.

We will seal what we have seen in the silence of our hearts and no words will reach us.

Sebastian Faulks
from ‘Stephen Wrayford’s Diary’, January 1918






Mr David Lelliot OBE,
Her Majesty’s Deputy High Commissioner,
Chandigarh, India, reads:


THE MESSAGES

I quite remember...There were five
Dropt dead beside me in the trench -- and three
Whispered their dying messages to me ...’
Back from the trenches, more dead than alive,
Stone-deaf and dazed, and with a broken knee,
He hobbled slowly, muttering vacantly:
‘I cannot quite remember ... There were five
Dropt dead beside me in the trench, and three
Whispered their dying messages to me...
‘Their friends are waiting, wondering how they thrive --
Waiting a word in silence patiently ...

But what they said, or who their friends may be
‘I cannot quite remember ... There were five
Dropt dead beside me in the trench -- and three
Whispered their dying messages to me ...’


Wilfrid Wilson Gibson (1878–1962)







The Choir sings:


To what God
Shall we chant
Our songs of Battle?
Oh, to whom shall a song of battle be chanted?
Not to our lord of the hosts on his ancient throne,
Drowsing the ages out in Heaven alone.
The celestial choirs are mute, the angels have fled:
Word is gone forth abroad that our lord is dead.
Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Behold and see
if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.
To what God
Shall we chant
Our songs of Battle?
Oh, to whom shall a song of battle be chanted?
If you had only recognised on this day the things that make
for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
Oh, to whom shall a song of battle be chanted?

David Matthews (b 1943)






SIKHISM AND THE CONCEPT OF A JUST WAR

By

Dr Gurnam Singh

*   *   *   *   *

[Continued tomorrow …]
June 19, 2015
 

read other articles in Current Events