Death, Episode 1: In the Mountains of Ladakh, October 1962

 

Death. 

This is intended to be a series on the most preventable deaths of all - those of bright young people at war. Since millennia, the power-lust of emperors and kings, presidents and prime ministers, have caused millions of the youth to be sacrificed at the unholy altar of territorial ambition.

This series is intended to be a salute to those young people, who in times of crisis, the causes of which they have no control over, don a uniform, or take the patriot partisan's oath, and fight, kill, and die for .......... who or what?

All the episodes will be based on historical wars and battles, but the details will be from my imagination and extensive reading of military history. The names and descriptions of weapons and other equipment used will be as accurate as internet research can inform me. The episodes will comprise of small battles or individuals involved in larger battles. Ordinary soldiers, the fictionalised version of a Jawan, GI, Tommy, or grunt fighting the wars he or she never intended to. These episodes are highly likely to have happened. Who knows, maybe they have happened!

Disclaimer: any derogatory remarks on political leadership are fully intended.

The 1962 Indo-China conflict. 

The 1962 war had many episodes where small units of Indian Soldiers fought to the proverbial last bullet and the last drop of blood. Most of them are unknown, suppressed in a country eager to cover the shame of its only military defeat. The Indian Army was hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. And out-generaled, too. They were armed with the obsolete bolt-action .303 rifle, manufactured in Indian Ordnance Factories, based on an 1896 design of Lee-Enfield. Their light machine guns were Second World War vintage Brens, taking the same calibre of bullet as the rifles. And they had grenades.

The Chinese, on the other hand, were armed with mostly Soviet rifles, supplied during the Korean War, ass well as their latest weapon, the 7.62 mm calibre Type 56 assault rifle, reverse-engineered from the famous AK-47. Their machine guns were also Soviet, and they had light mortars. And many, many more men to wield these weapons.

But the Indians had the spirit of well-trained troops. Veteran officers and men had fought in the Second World War (the Chinese, under Mao, had mostly eliminated these veterans), and in 1948. And of course, the conscripts in the Chinese PLA had experience only of fighting an even worse-equipped, far worse-led Tibetan Army in 1959, and Tibetan monks and freedom fighters afterwards.

Here, then, is a story of one young man caught up in this war. One young man who "for our tomorrow, gave his today". 

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Episode 1: The Mountains of Ladakh, October 1962

A gasp of suppressed pain escaped the gritted teeth as the young Soldier tightened the bandage around his shattered leg. Sweat filmed the young, haggard face, the faint moonlight outlining the tired eyes, the stubble, the rictus of gritted teeth. Fluently, he cursed the luck of the Chinese soldier who had fired the round. The bandages reddened almost as soon as they were wrapped, but the pressure and the cold would help stay the bleeding. And the three syringes of morphine he had in his pack would help with the pain. All three went in, around the wound. 

He looked around, at the broken bodies which was what remained of his unit. Two sections they had been, the previous evening when they had come to take over the forward post. Twenty-four men, now 23 of them lying in the strange, rigid attitudes of the dead. The young Second Lieutenant, his chest blasted away by machine-gun bullets. A heap what had been the senior Subedar, the victim of a mortar bomb, vaguely seen behind the line of sandbags where the explosion had thrown him. 

There were twenty-four. And now there was one. 

The Chinese had been in hundreds, at least 3 full companies. Their dead decorated the slopes up which they had attacked, been stopped, and lay where they had fallen, or in heaps where they had rolled down the slope. His small paltan had, for the time being, beaten back the Chinese. 

The sweat dried on his face, the breathing slowed, as the morphine took effect. He shivered suddenly, trying to wrap the inadequate jacket more tightly. It was too thin. It had been so warm when they had been issued, way back in the depot at Jammu. The Soldier cursed, the way all Soldiers do. The weather, the thin jackets and sweaters, the enemy, the terrain. And his eyes fell on the body next to him. The oldest man in the regiment, a Burma veteran, finally sped on his way to the Happy Hunting Grounds by a blast of machine gun bullets. But the important thing - the veteran knew enough to keep a small metal flask of rum in his pockets. The Soldier leaned across, fumbling for the buttons on the older man's side pocket with numb fingers. The bottle was less than half full, and miraculously, unhit! His hands shaking, he unscrewed the cap, swallowed a mouthful of the raw, harsh, Army-issue rum, coughed raspingly as the hard liquor hit the unaccustomed throat. The warmth spread through his body. He swallowed some more. Whispered a heartfelt thanks to the old man they had called Uncle Sahib.

He carefully stowed the almost empty quarter bottle in his trouser pocket. Flipped over on his stomach, the motion causing an involuntary groan to escape the gritted teeth. "Bloody morphine! Useless stuff!" Somehow, he managed to drag himself towards the sole Bren LMG of the squad. Sweat was pouring freely again, harsh gasps and wheezes escaped his compressed lips. He cursed and prayed constantly, cursing the morphine, the rum, the bullet, the shattered shin-bone, praying for a few more minutes of strength to do what he had to.

It was only minutes, but to him, it seemed eons later, that he was close to the LMG. To the crumpled heap that had been the ammo carrier. Slowly, he removed the four remaining magazines in the ammo belt. Another eternity of gritted teeth, curses and prayers gasped out with every dragging breath. His best friend and buddy, lying half across the Bren. Sweat and tears flowing down his stubbled cheeks, he pushed himself to kneeling position. Dragging and pulling, futilely at times, crying freely now, he got his friend off the gun. Straightened the gun back on the bipod, pointed down the slope. He looked back at the shapeless, broken mass that had been his friend.  "Sleep, Bhai, close your eyes", he muttered as the hand brushed down the sightless, staring eyes. But they wouldn't stay closed. "Dekh main tera badla kaise leta hoon, Bhai", he gasped, hoarsely. "Keep your eyes open and see how I avenge you, Brother".

The Soldier knelt behind the Bren, suddenly grinning. There were a couple of full mags lying next to the gun, 60 more bullets. He could hear sounds of movement below. The Chinese must be preparing for another attack. They were trying to be more silent than their previous attacks. His teeth flashed, white in the darkness as he recalled the slaughter they had done. They had been told that the enemy were atheists. He wondered to what God they must be praying, those Communists down the slope. They were cautious. Obviously they didn't realise that only one man stood between them and victory. One man, an old LMG, 180-odd bullets, and a few grenades the tired mind and tired hands had pulled out of the kits of his comrades whose bodies he had passed in the gasping Odyssey to the LMG. And the man could not even stand. 

His dead friend, still bound by the age-old ties, supplied the last proof of friendship in the form of four syringes of morphine. He jabbed down all four, pushed and pulled the flopping leg into a slightly less painful position. And settled down to wait. The worst part of Army life. 

He could hear the veteran Subedar speaking across the gulf which separates the noble dead from the living, speaking of the izzat of the Paltan. The young Second Lieutenant's Tamil-accented Hindi, telling them - his first independent command - that they could turn back if they wanted, he wouldn't report them to the Colonel (none had taken the offer). The broken, wide-eyed body next to him and he, overstaying their leave, coming back to barracks, roaring drunk on one bottle of beer each, and the Subedar lecturing them on a lot of evils, the chief of which was lowering the izzat of the Paltan. His father, a veteran of Egypt and Libya, Sicily and Monte Cassino, sitting on his chair with his crutches at his side, talking to the boys of the village about Montgomery and Patton. His mother, her kindness to one and all, living with a husband crippled in the Empire's war, the very taste of the food she cooked. The village, nestled in the great wheat fields of Northern India, his childhood playmates, the first crush, the strict schoolmasters. the academy, his friends, his comrades. 

No, the Lone Soldier was not alone as he waited for his last battle.

He pulled the Uncle Sahib's bottle out, downing the small amount left in one convulsive swallow that made him cough again.

Just in time! He winced as the blast of whistles sounded suddenly from down the slope, the signal to attack they had used again and gain in the long night.. His Regiment went on the attack with bugles playing, not these cheap tin whistles!

Throwing aside the empty bottle, the young Soldier turned his head for one last look at the Tricolour, still flying proudly over the wreck of the post. Tattered herself, but holding within her indomitable heart all the spirit of the great country.

One last salute to the Flag and his dead comrades. And then his eyes screwed up by themselves as the night was turned into daylight by Chinese flares. "Bloody idiots" he thought. "Now I can see who I shoot."

He peeped over the sandbags. There they were! At least a hundred of them. Charging straight up the hill, just like the atheist, Communist, conscript soldiers the Colonel had spoken about. 

They started firing well before they were in range. But the Soldier waited, his training firm in him. His breathing was steady now, the morphine drowning the pain. Waited, till he was sure of killing them, waited, crouched behind the old Bren, right hand gripping the firing handle, finger on the trigger, left hand gripping the stock to steady the gun.

Two hundred meters, a hundred and fifty, one hundred, seventy, fifty.......... "Bharat Mata ki Jai", he breathed, as the finger tightened on the trigger, tightened and released, firing in controlled bursts as they had been trained to do. The leading Chinese dropped, their bodies rolling down the slope. The charge stopped in confusion. The Soldier picked up a grenade, pulled the pin with his teeth , flicked open the safety, and lobbed it, straight in the middle of a group of stopped Chinese.

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The stony mountains tell the story. Of how a badly injured young man, an old LMG, 180-odd bullets, and eight hand grenades kept the enemy at bay for more than an hour. They tell of a young man in his early twenties, sweating and crying, cursing and praying, but firing, always firing, in the disciplined manner he was taught. They tell of how at every short burst, enemy soldiers dropped, such was his accuracy. Of how the charges were stopped again and again. They tell of bullets and shrapnel hitting him. The curses which greeted every hit. The gasped-out "Bharat Mata ki Jai" as another burst erupted from the muzzle of the Bren. 

And they tell of the final crash of mortar bombs, of the death grip which sent the last few bullets ripping out in a salute to the last stand of a brave, very brave young boy and his equally brave comrades.