Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

Now for something completely different …

A few years ago, for L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise, I wrote a series of articles (five of them, as I recall) generally titled “I Like Big Knives”. I admit to being extremely disappointed when nobody seemed to give a rusty fuck about them, and I moved on.

I have always regarded the crafting of big offensive and defensive slabs of steel as a cross between weaponeering and sculpture. The Iron Mistress, an Alan Ladd movie about James Bowie’s famous knife, is one of my favorite films, and the duelling scenes in H. Beam Piper’s wonderful novella “Last Enemy” is among my favorites, too. Both deal delightfully with certain technical aspects of bladecraft.

I don’t agree with everything in the classic Cold Steel, but it’s a good read, and I freely admit to having learned more about knife design from the late lamented Bill Bagwell than anybody else. I regard Gil Hibben with the same awe and respect that most people reserve for Auguste Rodin (look him up).

This article concerns one of the nicest big knives I’ve ever owned. I was in the hospital with the Chinese Plague on my 75th birthday (I will have my revenge). After I got out, my lovely and talented wife Cathy presented me with the United States Marine Corps “Belleau Wood Kukri”. What can I say? I like Marine Corps knives and have several, from the common standard-issue 7 1/2-inch M1942 combat knife, through the “Big Brother”, a scaled-up 9 1/2-inch model, to a 16 inch blade I call “the Sword of Jethro”. I even have a tiny 1-inch version I can wear on my neck on a bead-chain.

Collecting knives is way to connect ourselves more personally to things like history and metallurgy. I once bought my wife, who has archaeological leanings, a beautiful napped stone knife. For a couple of thousand years, humanity fashioned its tools and weapons from bronze, an alloy of copper and tin. I had always wondered what that was like, so I bought a bronze dagger from Russia. It’s very interesting and maybe I’ll write about it later.

There are historical anomalies, of course. Several centuries before iron began to be mined, smelted, and refined, we run across items like the iron dagger found with King Tut in his coffin, with its inexplicable iron blade (I’ve been meaning to write to my supplier—I’d love to have a replica of King Tut’s “futuristic” knife.). Further analysis has determined that it’s made of meteoric iron, which I find interesting because Jim Bowie’s famous fighting-blade was also, legendarily, of meteoric iron.

My new kukri bears Marine Corps markings on its scabbard and elsewhere and comes with a brief explanation of a contractual relationship that the maker has with the Corps. But here’s the thing: it’s a genuine, real-live kukri, the native fighting-knife and everyday housewife’s utility tool of Nepal. I love these knives, and own a great many, which I believe evolved from the short swords carried by the troops of Alexander the Great. They range in length from two feet to ten inches long, and are traditionally made from truck suspension leaf springs. Some have cross-guards (this one does) and some do not. I’d cheerfully go in harm’s way with any one of them.

My most recent novel, Ares, if I ever get it edited, is built around a romantic duel between a kukri and a Bowie knife.

The kukri is designed to cut. When its curved blade encounters a limb (that of a tree or an adversary) the curve will catch on it and lop it right off. I’ve done some of my best yard-work with a modern rubber-handled kukri with a blackened blade. The new blade is 10 1/2 inches long, made by Windlass steel, the famous Indian knife-maker, and sold by BUDK (pronounced “bud-kay”). They’re really nice people; get a catalog from them and you will enjoy it for a month.

If you like sharp, pointy things.