The glade, a miniature vale, had waited to welcome an ascetic’s meditational solitude.
The tributary of the River Tawi running south-east, originated from a trickle in the blood-drenched Siachen glacier at 6000 metres in the Karakoram mountains. Crossing the clearing, its sparkling flecks gurgled in the rays of the mid-morning sun. The overflow from the rock-lined banks swirled and fed scattered pools twinkling among vetiver reeds, daisies, bluebells and wild poppy. Their heady scents mingled in the pure air. A peacock was taking its habitual morning stroll. Multi-hued birds hopped and pecked on the banks. Swarms of contented butterflies playfully hovered, and bees sucked on the wild flowers under the timeless gaze of two large hives — each hanging over opposing territory claimed by Pakistan and India. The soldiers on opposing sides savoured the glade by sight, smell and hearing, even though they were denied entry by the machinegun posts at either end.
A private in the Pakistan and Indian armies is a Jawan, which was young Mansha’s rank. His battalion of the Pakistan Army’s Punjab Regiment was deployed in Chamb Sector on the Kashmir Line of Control (LOC), 170 km southeast of the capital, Islamabad.
Mansha’s battalion was deployed on a thousand-metre frontage, two rifle companies up. Facing a two-up battalion of the Indian Army. The multimillennial tranquility of the two hundred or so metres of no-man’s land between the two armies also served as the joint killing ground for the opposing soldiers’ weapons, each with its neat, hand-drawn aiming card. Hereditary professional warriors faced each other, in a fratricidal war of attrition over property inheritance. They lived rough, fingers on trigger guards, mindsets focused on killing and dying. Determined to uphold the thumbprints or signatures on their long-term contracts, up to their eyeballs in hell, to uphold old men’s lies.
Mansha was in his forward earthen bunker, ensuring the tenuous possession of the sylvan glade for his employers. Shelves cut from the earthen walls of the bunkers held mess tins, enamel mugs and webbing, all neatly laid out by size. Just like on parade. No family pictures were shared, not even with brothers-in-arms. There was no running water, just a few jerry-cans and a field latrine to the rear. And certainly, no personal phone calls. Mail arrived once a week for those who could read.
The bunker was cool in the Easter heat, especially due to the thick branches of the lop-sided ta’ali hardwood tree with roots and trunk in Pakistan but branches crossing the LOC to the Indian side. The only relief came from music programmes caught on cheap transistor receivers. Mansha’s radio was tuned in to Radio Ceylon at very low volume, playing ‘Aap Jaisa koi, zindagi mein ayae’ — sung by Pakistani Nazia Hassan for the 1980 Bollywood movie Qurbani, and enacted by Zeenat Aman, India’s first Bollywood Babe, who kindled rather unmentionable fantasies in Mansha’s mind. He gritted his teeth and discreetly gyrated his loins while his eyes never stopped scanning his killing ground.
He spotted the movement, reflexively turned the radio off and calmly whispered “Ustad jee,” using the customary ‘teacher-sir’ form of address for a two-striper Naik. “Five green uniforms entering my ma’ar ka ilaqa.” Naik Sain put his chipped enamel tea mug on the ground, confirmed his jawan’s alert through his binoculars, and wound the lever of the field telephone.
Jawan Mansha sighted down the barrel of his 7.62 millimetre MG 1A3 machinegun. Index finger outside the trigger guard: breathe in, breathe out, wait for Naik Sain’s order, then finger inside the trigger-guard, take up the slack of the first pull-off, block respiration and lemon-squeeze on the second pull-off to release 7.62mm rounds with a muzzle velocity of 2700 feet per second at 1300 cyclic rounds per minute. Controlled, small, three to five-round bursts.
The battalion Adjutant of jawan Mansha’s battalion, Captain Eric Peter, was appreciating his midmorning tea and samosas in one of the bombed-out rooms of Chamb Police Station that served as the battalion headquarters. He was going over the morning’s Situation Reports — SITREPS — submitted by spotters in observation towers along the LOC. As was his Indian counterpart on the other side of the LOC, enjoying his crisp pakordha fritters and masala tea. Captain Eric Peter’s field telephone rattled.
“Peter!” he barked into the mouthpiece, then listened attentively. Known for quick, bold decisions, he took one now.
“Well done, Ustad Sain. If they start trying to cut the branches, give them a verbal warning. If they ignore it or insult you, fire a five-round warning burst over their heads. I’ll put the battalion on stand-to and inform the Colonel Sahib and Brigade Headquarters ... yes, if they return fire, cut them down!”
The CO’s office was in the next room and the connecting door had been a casualty of the 1971 war. Captain Peter stepped through the gap, saluted and gave his report, including his decision.
“Well done,” the CO said.
Back in his own office, Captain Peter cranked the field telephone and started giving instructions to the forward company commanders.
Very quietly and without any fuss, the Pakistani Punjab Regiment battalion went through its stand-to drills along its entire frontage. Fields of fire, killing grounds and aiming cards were double checked by NCOs. The supervision of sharp-eyed NCOs ensured the buddy system double-check for every man and his weapon. Ammunition belts lay in the feeding trays of MG 1A3 machineguns, assault rifles were on lock and load, razor sharp bayonets ready, and last prayers said.
The Indian Punjab Regiment battalion had gone through exactly the same stand-to drills as their Pakistani counterparts before sending out their wood-cutting patrol. Moreover, their stand-to was so smooth, it had escaped the notice of the Pakistani spotters. The CO’s orders were ensured by his Adjutant, Captain Diljeet Hooda, a Haryanvi Jat. The relief-in-line of the Pakistani Punjab Regiment battalion had not gone unnoticed two weeks earlier. Many patrolling paths on the LOC either intersect or pass by within speaking distance. Seniors of the opposing army are saluted with respect and pride. And when there are Punjabis on both sides, they will often stop for a chat and exchange cigarettes or snacks. A change of unit was confirmed from different sources. The CO felt it was time to make his move. The Promotion Board was due to meet soon.
A spate of cease-fire violations had broken out just after the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan played with diplomatese to suggest that a rapprochement over Kashmir, claimed by both countries, might be in the works. It was a recurring pattern. Each country blamed the other for the skirmishes and for insurgency, which had led to artillery duels and civilian deaths. Each side claims Killed in Action and collateral deaths as shaheed, or martyr, denying the other, any part of the truth and, ensuring the stillbirth of negotiations in good faith. Most of the violations had been further north, but the reverberations spread across the entire seven hundred kilometres of the LOC and all the way to the general headquarters of both armies. The orders that came down from Islamabad and New Delhi were on the same lines: be firm, test the enemy resolve, confirm their deployment positions, reply promptly and with force to any attempted ingress.
Now both sides waited in that nerve-jangling silence known only to front-line warriors. The peacock disdainfully strolled out of the sylvan glade. The bees and butterflies disappeared and the birds soared skywards. Each beehive, though, maintained its vigil in solitary splendour — roots in one country, branches in another, yet honey hanging over each.
The five soldiers of the Indian Punjab Regiment fanned out at the last line of trees, standing loosely, barrels of their 7.62mm Self Loading Rifles pointed obliquely skywards at the high port. Two of them carried axes in their belts. Sarfaraz Ali, their three-striper Havildar, held his Sterling 9mm Sten gun in his left hand. His right, palm downward, extended in the Pakistani Punjab Regiment’s direction. The Indian Punjabis fluidly went into the lying-loading position, each behind a pre-selected boulder.
On the opposite side, Naik Sain gave an appreciative nod.
The glade had become deadly. Even the birds and crickets seemed to know that it was time to hold their peace, and the water in the stream seemed to have surreally stilled.
At Sarfaraz Ali’s quietly whispered command, jawan Mela Ram and one-striper Lance Naik Joginder Singh rose, slung their SLR rifles over their shoulders, drew the axes from their belts and started walking towards the contentious ta’ali tree.
Mansha coolly lined them up in his sights and queried in a low voice, “Ustad Jee?”
“Not yet. Peter Sahib’s order — warning first, then five round brust over their heads. If they fire back, waste them.”
“And if we get wasted, Ustad Jee?”
“Then we go straight to paradise!”
“And if they’re Muslims too?”
“Then we all meet up there! Now shut up and concentrate.”
The string running out through the back of the bunker tautened and shook the empty tin can. Twice. Once to attract attention, the second time to tell them that Lance Naik Siddique, the third squad member and a designated marksman, positioned in his perch in the leafy peepul tree behind the bunker, had spotted his Indian counterpart in his perch. Which meant that he, too, had been spotted.
Jawan Mela Ram and Lance Naik Joginder Singh of the Indian Punjab Regiment were now right under the overhanging branches. They were at a range of 50metres from Mansha’s MG 1A3. The glade was deathly quiet.
The Indian Punjabis drew the axes from their belts.
At that second the graveyard silence was violated by Sain’s commanding voice.
“That’s a Pakistani tree. Don’t touch it or we’ll open fire!”
The Indians stood stock still.
“The branches are Indian!” Havildar Sarfaraz Ali’s battle-hardened voice countered. “We need them for firewood. Cut them!”
Mela Ram and Joginder Singh raised their axes.
“Five round brust FIRE!” Sain roared.
Mansha had already taken the first pull-off on the trigger. He now blocked his respiration and very gently lemon-squeezed the sherni — lioness — as the MG 1A3 was known by its operators.
DTrrrrr! Five rounds in a perfectly controlled burst ripped through the branches above the Indians. Neither target showed naked fear, but it was there — contained, but present.
The designated marksmen in the trees held their fire. Then there was a single shot, and the thud of a body hitting the ground from a height, but no cry.
“Fire!” almost simultaneously from Havildars Sain and Sarfaraz Ali.
Both parties opened up.
The fragile integrity of the sylvan glade disintegrated under the onslaught of 7.62mm rounds. Muzzle flashes, dust spirals, shouted curses in Pothohari Punjabi and Haryanvi. The sacrilegious odor of cordite started profaning the glade’s freshness.
The first burst sliced through Jawans Mela Ram and Joginder Singh. Rounds went right through them and they fell, their blood gushing on the arid earth. The remaining Indians were steadily firing back from behind their boulders, their 7.62 rounds hammering into the Pakistani earthen bunker, seeking the shooting slit. One came straight through the shooting slit and went cleanly through Mansha’s left shoulder. He grunted but held his aim, sweeping the barrel gently to cover the remaining three Indians. Out-gunned, the Indians withdrew in disciplined leapfrogging fire-and-move drills, eliciting the Pakistanis’ respect.
“Cease-fire!” and then Sain cranked the field telephone again. Only after his report did he take the medical kit, bind Mansha’s flesh wound and go outside to check.
Puffing his rosy cheeks with an explosive release of air, Brigadier General Shireen Kakar, Pakistan Army, put down the red phone of the hot-line with his Indian counterpart. His immediate staff of Brigade Major (BM) and General Staff Officer Grade III ( GSO-III) looked expectant.
“Well, gentlemen, this is what’s going to happen.
“The Indians will come for their bodies and, as always, we’ll return them under an honor guard — as they do too — wrapped in new blankets drenched in perfume. The bodies on both sides will be classed as border accidents ….”
“So that’s done,” Brigadier General Musarrat Hussein of the Indian Army was concluding to Major Rajnath Kakar, his BM and Captain Sandeep Jamwal, the GSO-III.
“At 11H00, after we recover our bodies, the woodcutting parties of each side will move forward. They will work as one to cut the tree down, chop it up and burn it to the last twig. Chicken and lamb tikkas will be grilled on the embers, and we’ll all have lunch. In respect for the shaheed martyrs, nothing sweet except for tea. Mess staff in full livery of turbans and sashes!”
The staff officers nodded their approval.
“Day after tomorrow is our Diwali festival of lights, and two weeks later, the Muslim Eid. We’ll exchange sweets as we have been doing.”
Bio
Azam Gill is a novelist, analyst and retired Lecturer from Toulouse University, France. He has authored eight books, including three thrillers — Blood Money, Flight to Pakistan and Blasphemy. He also writes for The Express Tribune, a New York Times affiliate, blogs on his website and is a Contributing Editor for The Big Thrill, webzine of the International Association of Thriller Writers. He served in the French Foreign Legion, French Navy and the Punjab Regiment.