THE GARUD STRIKES (15 page)

‘I can never forget that sight. The whole skyline was orange and the countryside seemed to roll away from me endlessly,’ Raj breathed in awe. ‘It was one of those nights when both sides were engaged in yet another artillery duel. The deep rolling boom of artillery guns filled the air. I could actually see flashes of light in the distance as the shells landed,’ he tapped his forehead with a rigid forefinger. ‘I can see it so clearly even now.’

So vividly had he described it that, so could I.

‘Is that where you met 4 Guards?’

‘No. That happened a bit later. When I was ordered to move from Malanchabas Palace Grounds to the Litchi Bagan-Shal Bagan area, that is where they were also located,’ added Raj.

The Commandant Lieutenant Colonel Himmeth Singh was the first officer Raj encountered when he drove into the 4 Guards location.

‘Himmeth was Himmeth,’ Raj smiled at the memory. ‘And there can never be another like him. The guy was unique. He and that Sikh Light Infantry officer who was attached as their mortar officer, Captain Maneck. I can never forget the two of them,’ he added.

The young cavalry Lieutenant had been with 4 Guards for some time and must have made a fabulous impression on Himmeth. Towards the end of November 1971, just as they stood poised on the brink of war, Raj was ordered by his Squadron Commander Major Shamsher Mehta (who eventually retired as a Lieutnant General) to report to HQ 59 Brigade at Kailasher, bordering Sylhet, about fifty kilometres away, where he was to operate as part of an adhoc squadron.

Himmeth came to know about Raj’s departure just after the youngster had driven away. By then he had become so used to having him around and impressed by him that Himmeth refused to contemplate going to war without him. And he communicated the same to Major Shamsher Mehta, apparently with enough conviction to have him do something about it. Shamsher Mehta by now knew Himmeth well enough to know that once he made up his mind, it was hard to convince him otherwise. Mehta did not even try.

‘I reached Kailasher at about 0200 hours and was walking out to stretch my legs after reporting to the Brigade Major (BM), Major Pandit, also a cavalry officer, when this huge, tall NCO from 4 Guards came up to me and told me that Colonel Himmeth and Major Mehta wanted him back immediately.’ Raj elaborated.

As is the norm in armies across the world, the order was phrased as a request, but delivered as an order. Raj took note of the stress laid by the guardsman on the last word, now. Without another word, he headed back to the BM and informed him that he was returning to Litchi Bagan.

The BM suggested that instead of driving back again the whole night, Raj could catch the early morning Kailasher-Khowai-Agartala flight operated by Indian Airlines, if he moved fast, considering it was early morning already.

Grabbing his bags, Raj rushed. When he drove up to the airport, he could see the Indian Airlines Avro aircraft taxi-ing down the runaway. The cavalryman raced his one-tonner vehicle down the runaway, catching up and hurtling parallel to the aircraft, trying to catch the pilot’s eye. That obviously did not take much effort, since one-tonner Army vehicles racing with aircrafts is not something one encounters often!

‘The pilot actually stopped the aircraft and when I explained the urgency of my situation, he was sweet enough to take me on board, that too without a ticket,’ explained Raj.

I could easily see the resource and intiative that Himmeth must have seen in him back then.

‘When I got off the aircraft, the first person I saw was Himmeth. He was getting out of a MI4 helicopter,’ he said. There were a couple of other officers with him. They had just returned from an aerial recon, during which they had been fired upon several times and quite effectively, as was evident from the number of bullet holes that Raj spotted strewn across the chopper.

‘The unit was in uproar when I got back. Orders had been received and last minute preparations were in full swing,’ said Raj.

Now that it was certain the unit would be going to war very soon, the next evening Himmeth threw a lavish dinner party.‘Can you imagine?’ Raj gave one of those looks. ‘We were right in the front line, barely five clicks from the border. There was hell breaking loose all around us and Himmeth was giving dinner parties. And not just any odd party,’ Raj waved grandiously. ‘It was better than any five-star dinner I have ever attended,’ he added, laughing. ‘Even the Pakistanis must have been surprised to hear the 4 Guards bagpipers, since each one of us was piped into the mess, as per their battalion’s tradition.’

And it did not just end there. The next morning, Himmeth even took Mehta for a farewell round of golf. One for the road, as it were!

‘A few hours later, we went to war,’ Raj paused, as though now surprised by the sudden contrast. ‘Almost immediately, we ran into miles and miles of slush and marsh.’

Another half hour later, Raj and his tanks were being hammered by Pakistani artillery fire.

Before long, they had sailed into the hailstorm of bombs and bullets that had engulfed Akhaura. And all that stood between him and the enemy was a flimsy piece of pagri tied around his waist, masking the gap hole in the seat of his trousers.

The fourteen PT 76 tanks that could have proved invaluable in keeping the Pakistanis at bay were firmly stuck in the slush. A curtain of darkness kept them safe. But come morning, they would be sitting ducks for the Pakistani Air Force, the tanks and the two RCL guns of 4 Guards, which Himmeth so desperately needed upfront, with his rifle companies.

DAY THREE

03 DECEMBER 1971

‘B
oth our RCL guns were still stuck at the
nullah
with the tanks when Captain Sahni found us. He told us what was happening up ahead, and how desperately we needed to get the RCL guns up to the rifle companies. He ordered us to get one detachment ready to move forward with 18 Rajput and join the battalion. We all knew how tough it was going to be to man-pack the RCL, but there was no choice; our boys needed us to hold the Pakistani tanks at bay.’

Mukund said this simply, without any embellishments. However, I could well imagine the mammoth task they had undertaken. I did not have to close my eyes to visualize them getting the guns off the tanks and carrying them through the slush. Dragging them through it would have been impossible, so they would have to be physically carried; no mean task considering the barrel alone weighs one hundred and fourteen kilograms and the gun mount another ninety-seven kilograms. Mukund must have been doing some mind reading since his next words vocalized what I was thinking.

‘We knew we would n
ot be able to carry the gun through the slush so we cut some bamboos and made stretchers to man-pack the gun, the mount and the ammunition on three separate stretchers,’ he said.

I have handled the RCL during my days in uniform, and knew even that would have not made the task much easier.

How much worse had the Pakistani artillery and Air Force pounding at them made it? I could only imagine. For a moment my mind wandered away, gripped by a random thought—what is it about war and adversity that brings out such determination and resilience in men?

Mukund’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts as he resumed the narrative.

‘Somehow we managed to get that RCL across the railway line along which Bravo Company was deployed. The Rajputs crossed from the left of Bravo and we were right behind them. I would never have imagined it could get worse, but it did. The mud and slush across the railway line was terrible; neck deep at times. Despite all our precautions the barrel slipped and landed in the mud. Everything was so slippery that we were unable to get it out of the slush. That is when I hurt my back, while we were trying to pick up the barrel again.’ Returning to the present he gave me a long look: ‘It hurts even now.’

There was nothing for me to say. I didn’t. He continued.

‘You know, every time I think about that day, all I can remember is that there was no clear thought in my head. It was as though we were swimming through a sea of uncertainty and confusion, and lots of slush!’

I have been in battle. I knew that feeling. Perhaps that is why I had to ask: ‘So tell me, what kept you guys going forward?’

‘Only the knowledge that our boys needed us to get the RCL guns up. Otherwise they would have been totally at the mercy of the Pakistani tanks. We all knew they were banking on us to get there as fast as possible. So we somehow got the barrel out of the mud and then washed it clean in the river. Then about five hundred metres from the railway line, we hit a small bamboo cluster and halted there. By now, most of us had even run out of drinking water. The funny thing was that despite the cold, we were sweating like crazy. And, of course, by now all of us were totally covered in mud. I was so desperate for a drink of water that I finally requested one of the Rajput NCOs passing by for a drink. He gave me his water bottle. One sip and I almost gagged. It was filled with rum!’

All of us in the room joined in when he laughed.

‘You don’t drink?’ I asked.

‘I used to, but not so much, and in any case rum hardly quenches your thirst. When you need water, you need water!’ Mukund gave me that when-you-gotta-go-you gotta-go look and a sheepish smile.

‘Captain Saini told me that the
paltan
was close by, so we should get in touch right away. We established radio contact with the
paltan
and then leaving the gun in the bamboo grove with some of the boys, we went forward to link up. It was very tough finding anyone since enemy artillery was continuously going hammer and tongs at us. Finally, we spotted Lieutenant K.S. Yadav, the IO.’

Yadav must have noticed that the RCL detachment were at the end of their tether. He ordered some men from the admin group to carry the guns ahead and they finally reached the battalion HQ on the morning of 03 December 1971. Himmeth immediately ordered them to take up position in Alpha Company location since he knew they were the ones under maximum pressure.

Unknown to the guardsmen embroiled in battle with the Pakistanis at Akhaura, strange events had started unfolding in Jaipur.

‘We only learnt much later,’ Tuffy explained, ‘that the Pakistanis had recovered our operational orders and the artillery fire plan from the body of MP Singh’s radio operator.’

A little later, Pakistani radio announced that 4 Guards had been decimated and many of them also captured. No one could really confirm how this news mutated, but picking up on it, BBC shortly announced that Himmeth had been killed during this operation.

Several people the world over heard the BBC telecast. Amongst them were Major Durga Das and Colonel Govind Singh, both retired Armoured Corps officers living in Jaipur, which was also where Himmeth’s home was.

Shocked, both officers went to Himmeth’s house to pay their respects and offer their condolences. They were even more shocked when they found Himmeth’s wife happily spending family time with his brother and sister-in-law. Not sure what to make of it, both of them left after a while without saying a word to her about Himmeth’s demise.

‘It was only much later, when it became clear that Himmeth was still alive,’ Paunchy said with a laugh, ‘that they mentioned this to Himmeth’s wife. They told her that when they’d seen her so happy and cheerful, they did not have the heart to break the horrid news to her.’

Meanwhile, back on the battlefield, the RCL detachment had yet to reach Kodda when, on 03 December, at about 1100 hours, the Pakistanis launched a full-scale attack, with two companies drawn from 33 Baluch, 12 Azad Kashmir (AK) and 12 Frontier Force. The enemy attacked with full
josh
, and no matter how the battle ended, one cannot go on without a mention of the valour shown by the Pakistani soldiers.

The Pakistani Battalion Commander chose to launch two companies in a full frontal assault in broad daylight. Perhaps he had believed that Alpha Company would be jittered out of position just by seeing the mass effect of this Greek type of formation. However, when that did not happen, he decided to go ahead with the attack.

‘We were lucky the Pakistanis did not use the north-south axis for their attack, although there was a clear gap they could have exploited,’ Paunchy explained. ‘They did not do that for the strangest possible reason. You see, earlier that morning, the Pakistanis sent a cow into the gap between the water tanks, the one where we had planted the few mines. They must have wanted to probe the gap for landmines.’

The cow did no damage. However, the Pakistanis did not relent. They now sent in a local, a Bengali villager.

The Alpha Company men saw the villager approaching the mined area and tried to scare him away by shouting at him. However, that did not deter him; he must obviously have been ordered by the Pakistani soldiers not to stop, and would have been mindful of their guns trained on him.

‘I even took a shot at him to scare him away,’ Paunchy did not look very happy about that. ‘It was at a very extreme range for a carbine, but I think I grazed him by mistake because he shouted and clutched his wrist.’

Just then the cow stumbled back into the gap and stepped on one of the M-14 mines. The mine leaped out and exploded with a roar and a dirty black cloud. It killed both the cow and the hapless Bengali who’d been pushed forward by the Pakistanis.

That must have convinced the Pakistanis that the Indians had mined this gap, and they decided to stay away from it.

‘They could not have known that we had barely used five or six mines,’ Paunchy grinned, ‘luckily for us, because an attack along that axis would have split our defences and we would have been in trouble.’

Due to this, the Pakistani attack came across open paddy fields and was subject to brutally effective enfilade fire from the Indian machine guns. Also, having utilized the night gainfully, by now Alpha Company was dug in and much more firmly deployed. Seeing the attack developing, Paunchy now called for artillery and mortar support.

By now, all the artillery resources available to the brigade had been pooled in and made available to Mahipal Singh to support Alpha Company. Though under constant enemy fire, and unmindful of his personal safety, Singh used them skillfully. He wreaked havoc on the Pakistani attackers.

‘We kept calling for artillery fire even when the Pakistanis were as close as thirty metres to our trenches,’ Paunchy clarified. ‘Mahipal had warned me that we were too close, and friendly fire could cause our own causalties, but the attack was so massive that my choices were limited.’

As it turned out, both Paunchy and Mahipal were right. The Indian 5.5 inch medium battery shells did help break up the Pakistani assault. And they did cause a couple of Indian casualties also. One of the unfortunates was Lieutnant Karmakar, the Alpha Company officer.

‘Even today, the poor guy lives with about twenty shell splinters in his back,’ Paunchy shook his head ruefully.