The Avatari (9 page)

Ashton saw Duggy emerge from the third hut and motion him to enter. He stepped in. A foxhole had been dug in the ground. Its bamboo lid, covered earlier with hurriedly piled earth, lay to one side. The foxhole was crammed with women and children, mute with terror. The only sound came from a baby wailing disconsolately. Ashton looked up and smiled at his sergeant, who nodded back. The loose cordon around the houses was still in place. Suddenly, he heard one of his men shout a warning. Ashton rushed out to investigate. In the distance, he could make out a young woman, a baby strapped to her back, making a dash for the jungle. He heard shots even as he began screaming to his men, ‘Hold your fire, everyone! Hold your fire, dammit!’

Ashton felt Duggy’s presence behind him.

‘We need to get her,
huzoor
.’

The men had stopped firing and Ashton saw the woman disappear into the jungle

‘Don’t worry, its okay,’ he heard himself pant, ‘she’s just a frightened girl.’

He got on the radio. The battalion knew something was on, but Ashton hadn’t told them everything and they didn’t press the point. The adjutant got the commanding officer on the radio; he seemed quite happy.

They left a strong stay-behind party, which would wait to be linked up with the column they had radioed for from their company base. The long, arduous process of evacuating the prisoners and the wounded would take two days and Ashton didn’t want to get involved just yet. There was also something else he wanted to check out.

Ashton found the young boy, their ‘source’, grinning from ear to ear and clapped him approvingly on the back. The boy shouted something incomprehensible at him, but he nodded affirmatively, anyway, as if he had understood. One of Ashton’s soldiers had given the boy a khukri and he was wielding it with flamboyance, slashing the air in mock violence. An insurgent whose arm had been blown off below the elbow by a mortar splinter watched the boy impassively.

Ashton looked at his watch; it was 6 a.m. Their ‘source’ had given them information about two locations. Initially, Ashton had decided they would hit only one, going for the other only if the first turned out to be a dud. But this one had got over faster than he had anticipated and he decided to check out the other location given by the boy. He got hold of Duggy, explained his plan and stood back, watching with satisfaction as the sergeant expertly organized its execution with the barest minimum of barked commands.

‘We are ready,’ Duggy came up to tell his company commander.

Ashton looked at the group; there were six men, apart from the boy and Kamal Bahadur.

‘How long will it take?’ he asked.

‘Maybe an hour to get there,’ Duggy replied. ‘We should be back by midday.’

‘Is there much chance of finding anything?’

‘After this?’ Duggy’s eyes travelled over the camp’s blasted remains. ‘They would have scattered – if they were there at all.’

‘Still, we should check out the information,’ Ashton persisted.

He waited for the other sergeant, Tara Bahadur, to come up and give him a report.

‘Thirteen killed, eight wounded,’ the sergeant told him.

‘Any women or children?’

‘They are all safe.’

‘And ours?’

‘All okay.’ Then in an undertone, almost as an afterthought, Tara Bahadur added, ‘Nogen Chettri cut his head when he fell down while crossing the river.’

Major Ashton had seen the boy and knew it was a shrapnel wound; the soldier had been a stop in their cordon and probably been too close. ‘Evacuate him immediately to HQ,’ he said.

‘But it is just a cut and he says he is fine.’

‘Evacuate him,’ Ashton said evenly, without raising his voice, but the sergeant caught on.

‘Yes,
huzoor
.’

Not bad, Ashton thought, allowing elation and relief to wash over him. A few had probably got away, but then, no cordon was ever watertight.

They started off for the other location in single file, following a trail. By 9 a.m., they were at another isolated thatched house. Everything of value had been taken, but signs of the occupants leaving in a hurry were still there.

‘Must have been five or six of them,’ Duggy observed, standing over the remains of a fire that had been kicked out.

‘Well, at least we know the boy’s information was correct,’ Ashton said, mussing the boy’s hair.

The boy smiled back delightedly.

They looked around, but found no tracks, at least none that might have been useful. Ashton wanted to get back. The weather was turning ominous. The sky was now blanketed in grey and the air was heavy with moisture. The heat beat down on them relentlessly, causing the sweat to pour down their faces and backs. It was going to rain and it was building up to quite a downpour. They started back. The soldier who was point looked back when they reached the trail they had used on their way out. Ashton motioned for them to go ahead; the major was in a hurry and taking a different route would be tedious.

They reached the défilé – a water channel flanked by steep banks on either side – which looked innocuous enough. They had halted and checked out the shoulders while passing through on their way out and just three hours had gone by since. Ashton’s relaxed body language had got through to the scouts and made them sloppy. They were all within the défilé when the first burst of Kalashnikov fire swept through them, targeting the column enfilade. Ashton felt a hard, cracking blow to his leg and crumpled to the ground.
I’ve taken
a hit
, he thought, surprised.

‘The sahib!’ he heard Duggy shout, but realized the words were not addressed to him, but to Kamal Bahadur, who immediately threw himself on his company commander.

Half-dazed, Ashton saw Duggy and three others charge uphill in the direction of their hidden ambushers. They had been some yards behind him, where the tree cover was thicker and, therefore, temporarily shielded from the fire upslope. But the sergeant knew it was just a matter of time before the insurgents rolled their grenades down from their vantage position. The only safety for Ashton’s men lay in charging out of the killing box. Ashton saw one of them go down, but the others reached the top, their khukris glinting in the dull light. Then they were lost to view. He angrily tried pushing Kamal Bahadur off him and found the man’s body a dead weight. He was drenched in blood. Ashton’s batman had taken a bullet in the face.

From the corner of his eye, Ashton noticed something to the left, at the very mouth of the défilé; it was a white face peering through the foliage. It was the lookout, the insurgent who had seen the soldiers enter the défilé and allowed them to walk into the ambush, while giving the signal to his comrades lying in wait. Ashton wiped the sweat from his face with the heel of his palm and brought up his rifle. The white face was still peering at them.
Bad field craft,
Ashton thought, almost in a daze, as he squeezed the trigger.
You never bring
your face close to a bush to look through
.
It stands out in stark contrast to
the surroundings.
You should always keep the face in shadow.
He heard a click and realized he had emptied the magazine. At any rate, the face had disappeared from sight.

Ashton looked up from his rifle and saw the ‘source’ crouched next to him, bewildered anguish on his face, repeatedly slapping his head with both hands in a frenzy of emotion.

After a while, the shooting stopped. Ashton’s men came down to fetch him, dragging him uphill, quickly and roughly, since the défilé could still be in the sights of a surviving insurgent who had not yet opened up. When he reached the top, Ashton saw the people who had ambushed them. Among them were three men – or boys; it didn’t matter now, for they were all dead, their bodies riddled with bullets. One man’s head had been sliced open with a khukri blade. One of his soldiers was dragging a fourth dead body by the leg. It was the insurgent whose pale face he had seen through the foliage and shot.
‘Don’t look!’
a voice in his head screamed, but he was unable to take his eyes off the sight in front of him. It was the girl they had seen running off into the jungle at the previous camp. Ashton looked down at her emaciated body; she was probably in her teens. The bullets had hit her low, slicing through her chest and stomach and almost cutting the body in half. The cloth in which the baby had been strapped to her back was wet with blood so dark, it almost looked black.

Henry Ashton held on to a tree for support, his legs weak, experiencing a despair and grief beyond anything he had ever felt in his life. He threw his head back and let out a cry that was almost feral in its anguish, a cry that echoed deep and long in the jungle. His men took up position around him. The radio operator called base for a helicopter.

Ashton spent two weeks at the hospital in Kuala Lumpur. The bullet had grazed the bone. It wasn’t too serious an injury, but it was enough for him to be downgraded medically. Meanwhile, in the NCOs’ ward, Duggy was recuperating from a bullet which had shattered his kneecap. In a month’s time, he would be fitted with a prosthetic. Having been given a month of sick leave, Ashton flew down to Nepal.

He made the tortuous road journey from Kathmandu to Kamal Bahadur’s home in a village in the hills, having to undertake the final daylong trek on foot. Once there, he was met outside the house by the village elders, almost all of them in military regalia of some kind. They wore tunics over tight pyjama bottoms and a side cap. Tucked into their belts was the mandatory silver khukri. Ashton counted a DSO, three Military Crosses and a legion of campaign medals from legendary battlefields of the Raj. Sitting in the weak sunshine of the hills, with the golden crest of Mount Everest or Chomo Lungma, ‘the Mother Goddess’, standing out against the sky, Ashton chose his words carefully, describing the young soldier’s life and death and his gallantry in saving his company commander’s life. The old men sitting in front of him listened attentively and nodded. A crowd of younger men, standing further back in respectful silence, was enthralled by what the Englishman had to say. Ashton then handed over the urn carrying his batman’s ashes and unblooded khukri to the young man’s grandfather, a wizened yet tough old man wearing a star from Kut al-Amra.

Another old man with a tonsured head, garbed in the yellow robes of a monk, had been standing quietly in the background. He spoke up now.

‘It was his duty to save you,’ he declared. ‘You are an
avatari
.’

The others nodded solemnly, repeating the word he had used to describe the major. Unsure as to what he should say, Ashton remained silent.

The grandfather glanced over his shoulder. Two young boys, not yet sixteen, approached.

‘His brothers,’ the grandfather said with a wave of his hand.

‘I understand,’ Ashton responded.

His next stop was Duggy’s village which, thankfully, was only a day’s walk away. His sergeant had asked for some money to be handed over to his family. He and his siblings – a younger brother and two younger sisters – had lost their parents to typhoid at a tender age and had been brought up by their grandmother. Duggy, as was common in such cases, had chosen to remain single, joining the army when he was quite young, so he could support the family. His sisters were now married and their grandmother lived with his younger brother.

Ashton was met at the village by Duggy’s brother, a teacher in the village school, who led him to a small, neat house outside which the family was waiting. His wife, a young woman with two small boys tugging at her dress, stood silently next to Duggy’s grandmother who sat on a wooden chair. Ashton was requested to sit on a chair which the brother placed opposite the old woman. Ashton handed over the letters and the envelope containing the money and gratefully accepted the mug of tea that was offered. He told them all that Duggy was fine, but kept his eyes on the grandmother who was staring intently at him. The old woman leaned forward and took Ashton’s face in her hands, caressing it as if he were a child.

‘Is his military service over?’ the old woman asked.

‘Yes,’ Ashton replied after a moment’s hesitation, ‘but he will receive full pay throughout his life.’

‘Can he remain in your service, any service?’ The old lady leaned forward and touched Ashton’s feet, startling him. ‘He is a good boy and will look after you.’ Her voice was pleading.

Ashton glanced around and noticed the brother’s expression reflecting the embarrassment he himself felt. The young man said something softly to the grandmother who rebuked him sharply, never taking her eyes off Ashton.

‘Let me see what I can do,’ Ashton said lamely in response to her request.

‘Mero parivaar huzoor ko aabhari hunechan.
You will do my family a great honour,’ she said simply with joined palms.

Back in Kathmandu, Ashton spoke to the assistant military attaché at the Embassy – a position to which a Gurkha officer was always appointed – and handed over Kamal Bahadur’s two younger brothers for recruitment. They were starry-eyed and eager. It was the first time they had left their village and Kathmandu seemed a metropolis to them.

Then Ashton made his way home. He learnt on his arrival that his uncle had died, bequeathing Stiles to him in his will. With time on his hands, Ashton went to take a look at the place. It was in a mess, but he thought he could make something of it. At the end of his sick leave, he was back at the hospital in Kuala Lumpur for his review medical board.

Duggy was recovering well, but as he had guessed, they were boarding him out.

‘I have an offer, Sergeant, which I would like you to consider,’ Ashton said, when he went to meet him.

After hearing him out, the sergeant said with a smile, ‘My brother wrote to me about your meeting with our grandmother. I hope this offer has nothing to do with that? My grandmother is old and sees and says many things.’

‘It’s not that,’ Ashton told him.

‘And I hope,’ Duggy persisted, ‘that your offer does not stem from a sense of obligation, because there is none whatsoever.’

‘I understand,’ Ashton replied, repeating after the sergeant, ‘there is no obligation.’