“Grab it”
Commanding a Rifle Company of the 250-year-old Punjab Regiment, is an exciting challenge for a teenager. Leading and managing it on the Kashmir Line of Control (LOC) between the deployed Indian and Pakistani armies is exhilarating. On a twenty-four-hour lock and load, hereditary warriors from clans coldheartedly divided by an English civil servant’s pencil into India and Pakistan, have been committing fratricide for seventy-five years. Both countries have a Punjab Regiment, its rank and file recruited from the same warrior clans, pitting cousin against cousin to uphold their long-term contracts. Just as they had cheerfully slaughtered Japanese, Italians and Germans for their British salaries in Indian rupees.
Indians and Pakistanis fight each other with determined ferocity, but do uphold their kshatriya warrior code — after all, the Muslim warrior clans of the Pakistan army are mainly converted Hindu Kshatriyas. Between skirmishes, when routine patrols are within visual recognition, junior ranks salute seniors and address them as sir, saab, major ji (for three-stripers) or ustad ji (for two-stripers). On their feast-days, they exchange sweets. Minutes before, or later, they could be killing each other. When divided regiments are deployed on opposite sides, they go out of their way to be respectful and friendly between ceasefire violations and aggressive patrolling.
In 1973, two years after Pakistan’s humiliation in the Bangladesh war, in the Himalayan foothills of the Chamb sector, 180 kilometres southeast of Islamabad and 530 kilometres northwest of New Delhi, the closest Indian and Pakistani machine gun posts were at a mere 50 meters, the farthest 300 metres, ready to open fire on orders.
Trench warfare at its ugliest in today’s world, adding to the statistics of widows and orphans while air conditioners hum in Islamabad and New Delhi, where tea for the paper-pushers is brewed to perfection in porcelain teapots ensconced in Kashmiri tea cosies.
Both armies have observation towers manned by armed soldiers equipped with binoculars and clipboards to spot and report enemy movement in a Daily Situation Report (SitRep).
Over one thousand cease-fire violations per year stain a thirsty earth with blood from infantry skirmishes and shelling.
This was where, in my late teens, I was prematurely force-fed into manhood — a Lieutenant of the Pakistan Army who, due to two school double promotions, got his BA at seventeen, passed the highly selective test to enter the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) as one of the two Christians selected for the President’s Commission among five hundred gentlemen cadets, picked from ten thousand applicants.
On the Kashmir LOC, the biggest challenge to an officer’s man management success came from boredom over the risk of being under fire. It risked stagnation and threatened performance levels.
So, one to two-thirds of a company withdrew a few hundred meters to the rear for training, education and firing. The routine was three days a week, Friday being Adm Day reserved for weapons and equipment maintenance. The Indian army did the same.
Under these conditions, Pakistani junior officers were the hardest hit.
I would run and do Battle PT with my men, supervise and take part in tactical training and then walk two miles to the battalion headquarters, sten submachine gun over my shoulder, magazines in their pouches, grenades and a bayonet in my belt. After finishing my rifle company’s routine paper work, I’d have lunch in the makeshift officer’s mess in Chamb’s bombed out Indian Police headquarters and then walk back to my own bunker. I’d check over the observation towers and either do afternoon sport with my company or walk two miles back to battalion headquarters for collective sport, then walk back again to my company for a bucket shower under a thorny kikar tree. After ensuring that the troops’ dinner was up to standard, I had to walk back to the mess for dinner, then walk back. There were minefields everywhere and barbed wire was no guarantee against a mine sliding onto a cleared track after rainfall. Returning to my earthen bunker at night, I had to be alert against an ambush by an Indian patrol.
And every night, I got up at odd hours to check that the sentries were alert.
Life was hard for all of us.
Like there were no water points in Chamb. A towed water trailer brought potable water, rationed for personal hygiene.
Which is why the Pakistan Army (just like the Indian army across the LOC) maintained the British habit of holding regular platoon, company and battalion durbars. Without having to seek his company commander’s interview through the chain of command, a soldier can just stand up in a durbar, state his name, rank and number and announce his problem, which has to be summarily dealt with — a challenge at any age or rank but more so to a nineteen-year-old. I was supposed to be mother-father to nearly a hundred and fifty warriors, Muslim to a man and, if I did it right, they would ignore the fact that I was a heathen Christian and follow me into hell instead of sending me there.
I was determined not to fail my men.
“2280224 Jawan Pir Bakhsh Saab!” — a Bakhar Jat from Pind Dadan Khan, he was a good wrestler and known for his outspokenness.
“Yes?”
“Saab, not washing after a wet dream is a sin. And there’s no water for a shower. What are we supposed to do in the middle of the night?”
Over a hundred pairs of eyes were locked on to me.
I thought on my feet. “How do you perform your ablutions before nimaaz prayers in the desert?”
“We are allowed to make the motions of washing, saab.”
I smiled in the silence, and then suddenly my men started smiling and clapping.
“2198651 Kudrutullah Saab!” — a two striper Khattar Rajput from Attock, he was a boxer known for his ready wit.
“Yes, Ustaad!” I used a corporal’s customary form of address, which means teacher, since corporals dispense basic training in the Pakistan Army.
“Saab, many of our minefields and those of the Indians between our lines have been washed away. Cattle wander through them safely. If they cross over to our side, what do we do?”
I was buoyed by my success at the preceding reply and completely unaware of the consequences it would unleash.
“Grab them!
And that is exactly what they did.
Return it!
That fateful and decisive morning, leaving, as usual, one third of my company to man the trenches, I had taken my men for firing practice. The results were good and we were in high spirits when we passed the company cookhouse.
But there was something different that day.
A handful of Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) and men were standing outside the cookhouse where the cook and his side-kicks usually lounged. They looked sullen. The “hoshyar” bringing them to shun was a hostile battle cry. Their eyes smoldered at the salute.
“What’s up?” I snapped.
“Saab, following your orders, we captured a buffalo that had wandered into our territory. The Indians did a noisy lock and load and so did we. Then they got through on the Generals’ hot line and now the Captaan Saab from Brigade Headquarters is here. Said as soon as you got back, the buffalo would be returned. He’s waiting at the front line for you. We obeyed your orders, saab.”
“Good!”
I strode off to the front line, only three hundred meters away and into an unforgettable scene.
The river Tawi flowed all of nearly a hundred meters wide over a pebble bed. The sand and pebble beaches and flood channels rose to an escarpment on the Pakistani side, giving them the high ground.
Opposite, the Indians benefited from the concealment of high reeds and dips in the sandy flood channels. Within this natural camouflage, they had spent a fortune in building crescent shaped concrete bunkers, like tiaras, sloping down from the middle to either end. Standing on top, a sentry could see over the reeds, but otherwise the field of fire had limited range. On the other hand, the intensity of fire at short range is devastating. In addition to the odd sentry sky-lining himself, the Indians relied on patrols and the bluff of minefields, even when partially defunct.
On the beach below our positions on the escarpment facing the Indians, two of my men held a buffalo on a leash. All my men were on lock and load, itching for a fight. On the opposite bank, an Indian major and a muscular Gurkha two-striper naik coolly stood facing us, unperturbed by our muzzles trained on them.
I reached Captain Khalid Mujeeb standing on the escarpment like Thomas Hardy’s two handled mug. He was a General Staff Officer Grade III (GSO or G-3) which made him the Brigade headquarters de facto factotum. I gave him an angry salute.
He licked his lips. “Sorry, Gill badshah, Brigade Commander’s orders. Indians got on the hot line.”
“Sir!” I didn’t trust myself to say more.
“Brigade Commander desires that you be the one to return.”
I fought down my annoyance at his challenged English.
“Right sir.”
“Get receipt and leave weapon here,” he sniffed.
“Am I under open arrest? Do you want my belt too?”
“No, Gill Badshah, I mean what if fight started.”
“In that case,” I said pityingly. “They’ll be unarmed and I’ll have nothing.”
“Okay, but stay cool, partner.”
Thinking it best not to reply, I walked down to the beach.
I was only about fifty meters from the two Indians.
I came to shun and saluted the Indian officer.
He returned the compliment with a smile.
“If the receipt’s ready, sir, we can meet midway.”
The Salute
The powerfully muscled Gurkha two-striper naik nimbly took a signed receipt from his officer, saluted him smartly, about-turned and, unruffled by Pakistani gun muzzles trained on him, walked unhesitatingly across the pebble beach to enter the shallow but fast-flowing river Tawi.
At the same time, I lithely walked down the stony path under the sights of the camouflaged Indian rifle company’s weapons. I could feel Indian and Pakistani warriors’ eyes boring into me as I, too, stepped into the ice-cold current of the Tawi. Total focus and sheer pride maintained my balance over the treacherous pebbles of the river bed. I could feel the current grabbing at my numb ankles.
And it was the same for the Gurkha naik.
We came face to face in the exact middle of the Tawi, and stopped.
The Gurkha raised his knee, bringing his thigh parallel with the water. Then he stamped his foot down as though he was standing on a level parade ground in Dharamsala. A spray of water shot up in an inverted triangle, masking us from each other and glistening like a supernatural omen. His right hand slapped the 9mm Sterling sten gun over his shoulder in a sharp crack that broke the deadly silence.
Totally focused, I replied with a parade ground full stamp and return salute worthy of Subedar Major Asfar Khan’s approval at the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul.
“Namaskar, Saab!” he welcomed me in his gravelly voice through the second shot of spray in his face, slitted veteran’s eyes drilling into mine.
“Salaam aleikum, Ustaad!”
He smiled at my use of the customary Indo-Pakistani form of address for a two-striper naik.
His grip was neutral. I was outmatched in musculature. He had the strength to crush my hand and the skill and experience to gently disbalance me. My troops were watching. He let it go. He was a gentleman and I owe him one.
“How’s it going, saab?”
“Very well. And you — are you happy in the Indian army?”
He chuckled. “Yes, saab.”
“You’re a Nepali citizen. Why don’t you come fight for us?”
“No problem, saab. When I finish my contract with India and if you pay me more!”
I laughed. “What’s your salary?”
“Twelve hundred rupees, saab.”
He was lying and we both knew it. That was the salary of a second lieutenant, if at all!
“That’s great. You should have a lot of fun with that!”
He grinned cheekily and then in a pounding of hoofs and a screen of gravel Jawan (private) Allah Ditta skittered down the embankment with the snorting buffalo. I swapped it for a signed receipt. Another exchange of salutes from behind water jets and the unnamed Gurkha and I returned to our bitterly opposed worlds.
I walked back up the embankment through a wedding cake of total silence.
First Rustling Patrol
In the years following the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, the officer’s mess of the Pakistani Punjab Regiment battalion was established in the bombed out police station of Chamb town, captured and retained by the Pakistanis in the 1971 war. Blown out doors and windows in shell-pocked walls survived under partial roofs covered by tarpaulin.
I had spent dinner in silence.
“It’s okay, Gill. Soldiers are meant to follow orders,” the Colonel said, which only made it worse.
“Young man,” Major Waraich lisped. “Your men followed your orders. Then you followed the orders of the Brigade Commander.”
“Have another meat boti, Gill badshah,” the Quartermaster urged, his close-set eyes glowing with malice.
“Thank you, sir, no problem, sir!” I replied equally to condolences, seething inwardly over having to return the Indian buffalo I had unthinkingly ordered my men to retrieve.
Then, one by one they all yawned their way off the steel folding chairs and left.
I sat there for a while in silence, then looked at my watch and lit a cigarette, waiting.
The three-striper havaldar who ran the mess stamped his foot at the salute and broke into my thoughts.
“Havaldar Mehram just rang, sahib. He says they’re ready and waiting.”
“Okay.”
His hand rose in the salute. “Good luck, and be careful, Saab!” he said.
I smiled and nodded — no secrets in a bloody infantry unit!
In shorts and a tee shirt, I was at the crossing point thirty minutes later, a surplus M-1 bayonet, two grenades and a small pouch in my belt, and a tent picket in my hand.
Three shadows emerged from the saroot reeds. They took shape in a moonless night under sporadic clouds. The water in the Tawi shimmered dully.
Havaldar Mehram, one-striper Lance Naik Sudagar and Jawan Allah Ditta, in shorts, dark tee shirts, ropes across their chests, bayonets and grenades in their belts and tent pickets in their hands. Their eyes shone.
“Make sure you walk behind me, stepping into my footsteps,” I cautioned.
We would be entering a minefield.
“Yes Saab.”
It was 02H00. The silence wrapped sentries on both sides. They were awake and alert, muzzles pointed at each other. Especially my company, which knew what was going down. At the slightest suspicion, safety catches would slide to the off position, and on orders, deadly 7.62mm rounds and 60mm mortar bombs would rake and explode the saroot cane stalks.
I sank into the lying loading position behind the saroot reeds.
My men followed.
Soundlessly, we crawled slowly down the embankment. Since we carried no firearms, there was no point leapfrogging for a fire and move sequence. But movement was very slow. Inch by inch, with pauses to listen. However soundless your own move for another, you may be overwhelmed by your own imperceptible sounds. Respiration, heartbeat or a breath of air stirred by a moving limb can overwhelm your own hearing.
To the trained eye, the flat ground hid undulations of serial dead ground providing concealment and cover. Tiny waves licked the pebble beach. At the water line we paused, listening, observing and studying in a single, silent line, silhouettes too low to be made out by the Indians. I turned back and got a thumbs-up from Mehram. Sliding into the icy cold water with my head just above the surface I had to start fighting the current and the numbing cold of the Himalayan stream. But there was no ripple, no rustle and no skyline break.
We crawled out of the ice-cold water on to the opposite bank, clothes wet. The breeze rustling through the high saroot reeds and over our wet clothing was numbing, but welcome. It would also mask any sound we might make. In absolute terms, the silent approach is only possible in fiction. Otherwise, it is silent only in relation to the adversary’s ability to pick it up.
We lay like crocodiles in ambush. We were now in Indian Territory, without passport or visas and, on my personal initiative. On their soil, violating their sovereignty. Shooting us dead would be justifiable homicide, at the least, though my men would have replied in force.
This was the flood bank. The sandy channels between the reeds were our allies, and the Indian sentries sky-lined on top of their crescent shaped concrete bunkers were hereditary, professional warriors. Like us. Yet, between the undulating channels and high saroot reeds there was dead ground to be exploited with patience and skill.
But before that, we had to cross the minefield.
Even a fake minefield can delay, disorganize and hinder the enemy from using an area or route. It also has the advantage that the side laying a fake minefield can always go through it. This one was different. Just after the 1971 war, some cattle and careless or unlucky soldiers had been injured. For the past few months, the freely grazing cattle within it had not caused a single mine to explode. Over time, persistently inclement weather causes even the best-laid mines to drift or become inoperative. But the possibility had to be taken into account unless a marked minefield passage had been cleared.
Fifty meters ahead of us, the minefield brooded behind its rusty barbed wire strung on tired wooden posts. Just short of it, the reedy saroot clumps rose above head height. There was no sound alien to the environment. I started crawling forward while the others waited on the beach.
Inch by inch, I covered the fifty meters. From the lying-loading position I probed the posts. They were suitably wobbly. I signaled and, then Havaldar Mehram crawled to my side. We both knew what to do. We raised two fence-posts about ten inches and rolled them aside to form a meter and a half gap. Then we crawled forward into one of the sandy undulations until we reached the saroots. Being higher than us, we would be able to walk upright on the soft sand. I stood up and signaled.
Then Lance Naik Sudagar and Jawan Allah Ditta joined us, teeth flashing in the dark. I gave each one his share of alfalfa from the pouch in my belt. We crushed it in our hands and rubbed it over our palms. Hoping to catch the sound of buffalos breathing, we cocked our ears. Then Allah Ditta sniffed. His nostrils had caught the smell. I signaled, and Sudagar and Allah Ditta moved to the flanks while Mehram and I went ahead. Two turns and the buffalo stumbled up, snorting.
Before the animal could come to full wakefulness, Ditta and Sudagar had secured their nooses around its horns from either side. Mehram and I went up and stroked the buffalo and let it smell the fodder on our palms. It followed us meekly until the edge of the saroot line. A patrol being most vulnerable during exfiltration, we were doubly careful. The buffalo being untrained in fieldcraft, there was no real stealth option. Allah Ditta and Sudagar walked the buffalo across, hunched next to it, molded to its rounded silhouette. Once they were across, Mehram and I folded the fence back in place, crawled to the beach, went back into the water and crawled back up the embankment.
Subedar (warrant officer) Khizar Hayat stood stone-faced behind the first bend in the escarpment, blanket held out to wrap around me. Three other soldiers did the same for Ditta, Sudagar and Mehram and, another two took charge of the buffalo. The track back to my bunker ran parallel with the front-line posts. I could feel my men’s fierce looks. I felt no fear, no cold, no pride, no arrogance. Just the relief of a job well done.
Subedar Hayat led us to the company cookhouse a few hundred meters farther. This time, the salutes from the men were different although there was anxiety behind their eyes. I understood.
“Saab?” I addressed Hayat — even the Presidents of Pakistan and India address Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs) as saab.
“Jee Saab?”
“Slaughter the buffalo now. Cut it up, distribute the meat to all the company cookhouses. Send the liver and kidneys to the officer’s mess.”
There was a second of silence. Then grizzled smiles split the night. They understood. You can’t return a dead buffalo and once the officers had smacked their lips over a spicy, liver and kidney balti, cooked in garam masala spice mixture and a tomato-ginger-garlic-capsicum base, they would be in no position to complain.
“And the skin, saab?” Havaldar Shahnawaz wanted to know.
“You’re in charge. Clean it, salt it, take it to Sialkot and sell it. The money goes into the company fund.”
“Jee Saab!”
There was a general smartening up and we got down to the serious business of consuming semolina makhadi halwa made with ghee and dried fruit, washed down with hot cardamom tea.
It was a fine night.
Last Patrol
This was the fifth cattle rustling sortie through Indian Army lines almost right under their guns and, I was more careful. Plus, there was still the risk from stray mines. The Indians, too, were all hereditary professionals, with the warrior clans divided between the two armies, ready for serial fratricide.
Yet, the bigger risk came from ourselves.
In the last four sorties we had rustled nine buffaloes. My men were getting smug but Subedar Hayat, a seasoned veteran of two wars, countless patrols and skirmishes, looked worried. Surprisingly, not about me, a nineteen-year-old lieutenant, but the more experienced men. He gritted his teeth, cursed and at this sortie had even given Ditta a paternal smack on the back of his head.
“No worries, Subedar saab,” he had reacted cockily. “Gill saab’s leading us. He’s charmed!”
“Shut up and make sure you’re back for the makhaddi halwa! With Gill Saab!”
The starry, but moonless night favored sky-lining. From a kneeling or lying-loading position, any vertical object against a low horizon was easy to spot. So, we stayed below our immediate skylines and snaked into the concealing saroot reeds. The sand made our movement noiseless.
We could hear the buffalo breathing and swishing the saroots. Mehram and I crouched to scan the skyline. The cattle were to our left. Ditta and Sudagar were also to our left. The top curve of a crescent shaped Indian army bunker faintly outlined itself at fifty meters. An Indian sentry was silhouetted on it, and his body language signaled that he was straining to observe to his right, which made it our left.
We suddenly realized Ditta and Sudagar were no longer there.
My blood ran cold.
The Indians had obviously heard or sensed something, otherwise no Indian army sentry would skyline himself. Their disciplined fieldcraft would never allow it.
There was a loud rustling in the saroots, strong animal grunts, the pawing of a powerful animal and then hooves pounded. A snorting buffalo emerged from the saroots to our left and darted across our vision towards the Indian bunker. Oblivious to all else, Allah Ditta was sprinting at the buffalo’s heels, intent on his prey, completely unaware that he was heading straight for the Indian bunker. Armed only with our tent pegs, ropes, bayonets and grenades, Mehram and I also started running on the soft track between the saroots in the direction of the bunker.
We broke into the clearing which was the bunker’s field of fire, to witness single-minded raw courage.
Ditta, an ace kabbadi player, the millennial Punjabi contact sport, gave a loud bardhak battle-cry, sprinted in a burst and jumped on to the buffalo’s back when it was a few metres from the bunker. At about the same time, the buffalo stopped short of the bunker’s crescent, lowered its head and sent Ditta fliying head over heels at the foot of the bunker. Before the surprised Indian sentry could react, Ditta rose, seized him by the ankles and hurled him to the ground. The sentry gave a loud shout of surprise just as the buffalo wheeled and ran back, Ditta at its heels.
Mehram and I sank into the sand. A machine gun burst raked the saroots over our heads. Had we been kneeling, a firing position derided in our combat training, we would have been ripped to shreds by 7.62mm rounds.
“Stop firing — it’s me, Chandu Ram!” The Indian sentry screamed in the Jalandhar dialect of Punjabi.
He rose, gathered his wits about him and recovered his 7.62 mm SLR assault rifle.
“What the hell was all that, Chandu Ram Khattar?” an authoritative voice asked from the bunker.
Havaldar Mehram was a Khattar Rajput from Attock district.
“Pakistani commando, Ustad jee,” Chandu Ram Khattar reported to his two-striper naik. “I’ll check it out.”
“Good! Be careful and don’t hesitate.”
“I won’t, Ustad Jee!” he said with relish as he clicked his bayonet to his rifle.
Mehram and I stayed stock still. The slightest movement or sound would betray us to Chandu Ram Khattar, Merham’s clansman. Indistinct sounds from inside the bunker told us he wouldn’t be alone for long. Slightly crouched, Chandu Ram Khattar started clearing the saroots by poking them with his bayonet, in a rightwards trajectory to where we were concealed.
Our ears also picked up the faint sounds of weapons being cocked on our side of the LOC, on average 300 meters by crows’ flight. This could turn into a major cease-fire violation but this was no time to manage career challenges while our lives hung by a thread.
Chandu Ram Khattar was getting nearer.
He was below-right to us by about three meters, at our 4 o’clock, making bayonet thrusts into the saroots, lusting for a kill. Mehram was to my right. He looked at me. I nodded. We had trained together and needed no words.
Mehram rushed Chandu Ram Khattar’s knees in a tackle from his 10 o’clock flank. As he fell, I wrested Chandu Ram’s SLR from him, reversed it and smashed the butt in his face. He gave a loud grunt, there was no blood but he was knocked out cold. Must have got him in the forehead. Following my Infantry School training, I reversed the weapon for a killing bayonet stab in the throat but Mehram’s hand on my arm stayed me. His experienced eyes screamed negative saab! and I understood. He had not wanted to compound our violation by humiliating the Indians with a kill or the loss of a weapon and risk an escalated local reprisal. I dropped the rifle near Mehram’s Khattar cousin and we sprinted out of the trap towards the clearing into which Ditta had disappeared.
It was empty.
Our eyes darted in all directions, ears cocked for any sign of Ditta or Sudagar.
There was a knot in my stomach and for once in my life I was almost at a loss to decide.
Then the saroots swayed and Ditta and Sudagar strolled through, each leading a buffalo by a rope as though they were English colonels’ wives taking their dogs out for a stroll.
It was too late for total silence.
The imperative now was to cross back to our lines as quickly as we could. I raised my arm, biceps parallel to the ground, fore-arm vertical, fist clenched, and pumped my forearm up and down in the field signal for double up. We started running for the river on soft sand, eyes and ears alert. Behind us, the torches were out, there were shouts and curses in choice Punjabi by infuriated Indian Jats and Rajputs. If they started firing, my men could only return fire if they could pinpoint our location, for fear of hitting us. That was why they hadn’t replied to the machine gun burst.
Two Verey light flare guns blasted and the sky above our heads lightened. We were at the river and plunged in, Ditta and Sudagar leading.
The Indians stayed their hand.
They obviously had a wise experienced and courageous commander.
This time Subedar Hayat’s face was grim, his eyes reproving. “I think we’ve made our point, Saab, from Islamabad to Delhi. Halwa time now,” he growled as he wrapped the blanket around me.
My men were at their weapons, squinting over their gun barrels at the local alert opposite, grinning with anticipation at a scrap.
The makhaddi halwa, oozing desi ghee, was particularly good.
Another fine night on the Line of Control.
Blowback
The Indian General Officer Commanding (GOC) had got onto the hotline with my GOC, commanding the 23rd Division of World War II fame, covered with battle honors such as Imphal, Operation Zipper, and those of the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pakistan wars. Within the hour, we were on stand-down while I waited for the inevitable rocket to be fired up my skinny backside. Nothing happened for a week — not a word from my Regimental Commanding Officer (CO). My men were proud, but worried for me. It was evident in their eyes. I braved it out until I was called to the CO’s office.
“Gill, I have to convey the GOC’s extreme displeasure.”
“Sir!”
“Although understandable, your decision was reckless and foolhardy!”
“Sir — but I would like to express my disagreement with this judgment.”
“I put my ass on the line to save your Commission. Now shut up and don’t offer your opinion.” He growled with a gleam in his eyes. “You are being sent to the Army School of Physical Training for an Officer’s PT Course.”
“Sir!”
The Army School of Physical Training (ASPT) was a career-enhancing opportunity for a noncommissioned officer (NCO). After completing his contract, he could find a job as a fitness coach in a school. It was a dead end for commissioned officers. They were sent there when career-friendly courses were considered to be too challenging, or they were in disfavor with their superiors.
My men didn’t know that and thought it was a big deal.
And they were pleased as pie.
They had been gorging on buffalo meat for weeks. The company fund had swelled from the sale of the skins and I had already spent it on something they’d been hankering after — smart new Pakpur crockery and matching cutlery for their langar mess-hall to rival that of the older units.
Jawan Siddique, my batman orderly was worried.
“Saab, at the PT School, while the officers are training, their batmen are put on fatigue duties.”
I grunted. “I’ll think of something.”
He brightened up. He had faith in me.
Soldiers of all ranks require a movement order to go from one unit to another. I asked the head clerk for two blank copies of Siddique’s movement order. His eyebrows went up imperceptibly but he complied. Usually, it was filled out for an officer’s signature. On the office copy, Siddique’s rank was jawan, or private. On the outgoing copy, I filled in his rank as Lance Naik, or Lance Corporal. The Head Clerk’s eyes twinkled as he stamped both copies.
“Gill Saab!” he sighed with heavy emphasis.
Siddique was delighted, bought himself a Lance Naik’s stripe and had his picture taken.
A hundred and ten kilometers north of Islamabad, the ASPT, Kakul, is nestled amidst the Sarban hills of Abbotabad, next to the officer’s Pakistan Military Academy. The officer instructors at the ASPT teach theory and supervise the physical training dispensed by NCOs and Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs) on the PT ground. It is a very tough course. Before we saw a single officer, we were made to fall in by the grim-faced senior JCO Instructor backed by his full complement of NCOs.
They all eyed us like hungry sharks.
“I am Subedar Sharbat Khan,” the JCO roared in his Haryanvi Raanghardh accent — the Muslims of his warrior clan had migrated to Pakistan in 1947, leaving their Hindu cousins. “Your Chief JCO instructor. My instructors and I have respect but no pity, no sympathy. We do not run a hospital or a Recuperative Care Center.
“We will not salute you, but come to shun. You will not salute us, but come to shun. Clear?”
“Yes Saab!” we roared back.
“You will address NCO instructors as staff and JCO instructors as Saab. They will address you as Sir or Saab.
“We know the human body better than any doctor. We know where to give you pain. We are paid to give you pain. There are two chains over the squat toilets — one for flushing. The other one to help you stand up in the first week. If any Saab can stand up in the first week without using this chain, report it to us so we can put our belts on the CO Saab’s table!” Putting the belt on the CO’s table is an NCO’s or JCO’s way of offering his resignation.
Needless to say, that didn’t happen in the first week, after which I decided that there was no point getting jittery over a career-dead course and started taking it easy. I took no notes in class and was laid-back on the PT ground. Siddique, as a Lance Naik, was enjoying commanding fatigue parties all day long.
Captain Zaidi bhai had a little motorbike but at the end of the day just dropped off to sleep. He was generous.
So, most evenings my buddy Captain Manzar and I would borrow Zaidi bhai’s 75cc bike and putt-putt to the Abbottabad Officer’s Club to sip a few vodkas in a picturesque colonial setting —polished wood, glistening marble, trophy-hung walls, turbaned and liveried waiters. Alcohol consumption, though officially banned, was benignly tolerated in army officers’ clubs and some messes.
It was still Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan, a connoisseur of scotch whisky, while General Zia, his future hangman, was just another prayerful major-general, tap-dancing under the hovering dark cloud of the 1970 Palestinian Black September massacres in Jordan. On deputation with the Jordanian Army, Zia had, at King Hussein’s request, personally commanded and led the Jordanian division responsible for decimating the Palestinian Black September, his fellow Muslims whose plight he would later espouse as the self-appointed President.
So, after tossing down a few vodkas, we would toddle over to Abbottabad High Street for bespoke lamb balti and sing Punjabi mahyaas, while puttering all the way back to the ASPT.
My punishment for cattle rustling was a pleasant time of much tiredness, sweat, fresh mountain air, vodka and stir-fried lamb in the company of carefree professional warriors in search of excellence
Bio
Azam Gill has authored three thrillers — Blood Money, Flight to Pakistan and Blasphemy —six non-fiction publications and, numerous articles. His doctoral dissertation on William Faulkner, delivered summa cum laude by Stendhal University, is also carried by the University of Michigan. After a tour of duty in Africa with the French Foreign Legion, he obtained his Ph.D., subsequently obtaining a tenured Lectureship in English at IUT Figeac, Toulouse University, France.
Prior to that, he had served on the Indo Pakistan Kashmir Line of Control as a Rifle Company commander and Adjutant of a Punjab Regiment light infantry battalion.
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