... and of the CBI

from The Burma Road, Donovan Webster

During one battlefield cleanup along the Tiddum Road, ever since Japanese chose to fake death and one by one ambushed a detachment of Gurkhas collecting corpses for burial, the Gurkhas started to take their own precautionary steps. Pulling out their long and razor-sharp knives, called kurkis, which hung on their belts, the Gurkhas ensured all subsequent enemy troops were dead by slashing their throats before grabbing up a supposed casualty. When a passing British officer saw a Gurkha about to cut the throat of a still-living Japanese soldier who—until that moment—had feigned death, the officer stopped the killing with an off-the cuff order: “You mustn’t do that, Jim,” he said.

Hearing the command the Gurkha turned to the officer somewhat disappointedly, held his blade, and—with a pained expression draped across his face—responded, “But, sahib, we can’t bury him alive?”