The Brave: Param Vir Chakra Stories (23 page)

Right to left, left to right. Then again. And again. The bodies of the shocked Pakistanis, terror written in their eyes, fall in a bloody pile. They could have never imagined that someone would walk in through the deadly fire. Had he been watching, the young officer’s regimental centre khukri ustad would be proud of his student as he lets the blood drip off his khukri and looks up to find his next target.

Sprinting across to the second bunker, the men fiercely pounce upon the enemy and a bloody hand-to-hand combatfollows, ‘Jai Mahakali, Aayo Gorkhali’ piercing the cold morning. Return shots ring out. Some of the enemy soldiers are charging with their bayonets, but most find they are no match for the gutsy Gorkhas with their lethal khukris that are splashing blood on the wet rocks. Suddenly Manoj winces. He has been hit in the shoulder by a bullet. Unconcerned, and feeling no pain in the heat of the moment, he takes out his gun and moves on to the next bunker, spraying the ones hiding there with a shower of bullets.

Another bullet comes and hits him in the leg, making him stagger unsteadily. ‘Naa chodnu,’ (Don’t leave them) he cries out in Gorkhali, telling his men to carry on the carnage, and drags his injured leg forward. Reaching out for a grenade, he lobs it at the fourth bunker from where mortar fire is coming at them. Even as an explosion rents the sky, throwing up a dull grey cloud of stone and debris, a fatal shot bursts through the air and hits the officer in the forehead. There is a flash of yellow and he is engulfed by the smell of burning cordite and a warmth in the freezing cold. His whole body is wracked by a terrible pain; his brain is on fire, his lungs gasping for breath, his heart seems to want to force itself out of his chest and his tongue is dry and swollen with thirst. He wants to go on and shoot the Pakistani soldier he can see leaping out of the burning bunker and race down the slope, but his disobedient body had stopped listening to his commands. He can only watch as his arms let go of the rifle he has been holding, his fingers lose their grip on the trigger, his knees buckle under him and his neck slumps forward on his heaving chest. Blood courses down his face, blurring his vision. There is a spurt of light in his head, then stark darkness and silence. Finally, he has to close his eyes.

Manoj Kumar Pandey of 1/11 Gorkha Rifles is dead; his blood-stained body tilts in an arch and falls gently to the ground in front of the fourth bunker of Khalubar. He is 24 years and seven days old.

On a warm, sultry summer afternoon, a thin boy with a side parting in his hair and shiny new leather shoes walked down for his service selection board interview for NDA. He was trying to keep his mind off the bite in his toes, the sting of the cheap elastic in his socks and the guilt he had felt asking his poor father for money to buy them. He reminded himself that he was the best NCC cadet in his state and desperately hoped that his basic knowledge of English would not desert him during the interview.

‘Why do you want to join the Army?’ the interviewing officer was stern and abrupt, and looking straight into his eyes.

‘I want to win the Param Vir Chakra,’ he replied returning the stare, hoping the sentence was grammatically correct. The interviewing officer looked at the others on the board and exchanged a smile.

Sometimes, they say, there is magic in the air and we must be careful about what we say because it will come true. Not only did young Manoj Kumar Pandey from Sitapur district in Uttar Pradesh get into NDA, he also won the Param Vir Chakra, the Armed Forces’ highest gallantry award. Unfortunately, he hadn’t said he wanted to wear it live.

Grenadier Yogender Singh Yadav was lying in a pile of bodies. Around him lay his comrades, all six of them, brutally killed. Their fingers had been ripped off, limbs torn out of their bodies, legs twisted grotesquely under their torsos, heads smashed beyond recognition.

War is terrible. It reduces breathing, living, brave, young men into lumps of bloody flesh and bone. It reduces friends, colleagues, brothers, fathers and husbands into scarred, broken, ragdolls that were indistinguishable from each other, their vacant dead eyes mute witness to the pain they had undergone. It also reduces soldiers, trained emotionless killing machines, to emotional wrecks.

When Yogender Singh tried to stand up his leg just collapsed under him and he lay there and wept, the sound of his loud wailing echoing in the cold, desolate heights of Tiger Hill. He wept till his eyes ran dry and his throat didn’t have the strength for another cry. He didn’t know then, but there were fourteen bullets lodged in his body. Six of them had cut into his arm, rendering it useless as it hung from the shoulder, the bones exposed and rubbing painfully against each other each time he shifted his weight. A grenade had burst at his foot, making him feel as if his leg had been cut off—he could not feel it anymore. Another had smashed across his face, slicing into his forehead leaving a gaping gash from where blood was dripping into his eyes.

It was all over, he thought.

When the Kargil War started, Yogender Singh Yadav had been on leave. It had barely been a fortnight since he had married Reena, and her pretty, smiling face was still on his mind when he joined his battalion in Dras on 22 May. That very day they had their first casualty. The reality of war dawned on Yogender Singh during his initial deployment as a fighting porter when, in 22 days, he witnessed the loss of two officers, two JCOs (junior commissioned officers) and 21 soldiers.

After the capture of Tololing by 2 Raj. Rif. (Rajputana Rifles) and 13 JAK Rif. (Jammu and Kashmir Rifles), Yogender’s battalion was withdrawn to Ghumri where they spent a few days recouping and repairing equipment. Within four days, they got orders to attack Tiger Hill, which was the highest peak of the Dras area. The Pakistanis had set up bunkers there. Colonel Kushal Chand Thakur, commanding officer of the battalion, had a darbar and briefed the men about the task at hand. He told them that they were fortunate to be getting an opportunity to take revenge for the deaths of the men they had lost. Standing in the cold, he pointed out to them the post they had to attack.

Ghatak Platoon, the commando section of the battalion, would be the first to attack. Yogender Singh Yadav was not in the Ghatak Platoon, but since men were needed to fill up for those who had died in Tololing, he was one of the chosen few. ‘There were 23 of us,’ he says, ‘one officer, one JCO and 21 jawans. I looked up to where CO Saab was pointing and I could see a straight rock-face rising into the sky. It would be a difficult climb, I thought, but we would do it.’ The men would soon discover that not only was the route difficult, it also had enemy posts on either side. And not only would they have to dodge enemy fire, the precarious height would cause breathing problems, the lack of proper winter clothing would be a major deterrent and the cold would seep right into their bones.

It was a dark night. Led by Captain Sachin Nimbalkar and Lieutenant Balwan, the men climbed in silence. No one seemed to want to break the quiet, particularly because they didn’t know how long it would last. Using hands and feet and ropes to pull each other up, they climbed higher and higher on Tiger Hill, shadowy figures that appeared like ghosts of the night. It was becoming colder with each step and the men were badly missing the winter clothing that hadn’t reached them yet. Most of them were in combat gear with sweaters and jackets; they had their own gloves and boots, but these could not compare with the comfort of snow shoes and gloves. The reinforcements would arrive only after 18 Grenadiers had captured Tiger Hill, but for these men of Ghatak Platoon and Delta Company who were tasked with attack and support that would be too late.

It was only when morning broke that the men realized that they had been climbing through the night. Taking cover behind rocks, they waited to assess the situation. In their backpacks were rations for 72 hours—dry puris, cashew nuts, raisins, almonds, tea leaves and milk powder. Some men had bought biscuits from the last village they had crossed, so they were richer than others.

Just ahead rose a crest that Capt. Nimbalkar felt was Tiger Hill. The men decided to keep walking and were disappointed to reach there at 5. 30 a. m. only to find that it was a false crest. They climbed down and kept walking. The entire day passed and hunger pangs began to hit them, but the men did not stop.

At around 6 p. m., they had almost reached the top. Capt. Nimbalkar asked the Ghatak Platoon to take a break and make tea while he and a few other soldiers would go and reconnoitre the area. It appeared calm and silent and Nimbalkar and his boys had just moved about 100 metres ahead when they were suddenly hit by a volley of fire. They had walked right on to a ridge that had enemy bunkers on both sides.

Taking shelter behind rocks they called for help. The men opened fire, but it was completely ineffective since they could only see the fire coming, but not where the Pakistanis were. The tea break was quickly given up and the CO informed about the setback over the wireless set. They were told to stay behind the rocks and keep their heads down—the Army would give them artillery support. The guns started firing from Dras and finally by midnight the men were rescued. They were miraculously unhurt except for one soldier who had injured his hand.

Now that their cover had broken and the Pakistanis knew that Indian soldiers were already on Tiger Hill, CO Kushal Thakur directed the men to attack before the enemy could react. When it came to choosing between life and food, food again took a backseat and all plans for a meal were dropped again. The men got on their feet and, with Yogender Singh Yadav and his namesake Yogendra Yadav leading as scout number one and two, they started climbing again. At 5. 30 a. m. when they were in a nala, climbing up via a narrow bridge with water trickling under their feet, they were suddenly hit by gunfire. It was coming from enemy bunkers lined up on both sides of the ridge.

There was complete chaos and only the seven soldiers who were right in front managed to climb up, the rest cut off by the fire and forced to step back. Yogender Singh Yadav, his buddy Yogendra Yadav, and five other soldiers had managed to cross the enemy fire. However, they had been cut off from the rest of their comrades. They had no option, but to go ahead on their own.

A terrible adventure was in store for them.

There were just seven of us now and we could not even turn back since the enemy had cut off our route. We decided to go on. Right ahead we could see a post. It was a rough sangar (a small, temporary fortified position originally made up of stone, now built of sandbags and similar materials) made of rocks piled up together. We had no idea how many of them were inside it, but since we had seen them before they saw us, we just opened fire on them.

Four of their men were killed instantly. When they stopped firing, we knew they had all died. By then, alerted by the exchange of gunfire, the Pakistani soldiers in another bunker above us had started shooting at us as well. It was a Catch-22 situation. Bullets were flying through the air and we could neither go back nor forward.

Just then, Havaldar Madan, who was our team leader, shouted, ‘Get inside their sangar. That is the only safe place.’ Someone shouted back that the area could be mined but Hav. Madan said there was no choice. ‘Pehle goliyon se bacho phir mines ke baare mein sochna,’ (First, take cover from the bullets, then think of mines) he said curtly and we made a dash for the sangar. They had not had the time to mine it. Once inside, we took up firing positions and with the bodies of the dead Pakistanis lying around us, opened fire on the bunker above us.

The shootout went on for five long hours. There were no casualties, but the constant fire did not allow us to advance an inch. We realized that with all reinforcements cut off from below, our ammunition would not last very long. The ammunition left behind by the dead Pakistanis was also being used up fast. It was just a matter of time before we ran out of bullets. We thought we would die and decided we would kill as many as we could before getting killed. So, we decided to stop firing and let them get closer.

Around 11. 30 a. m., 12 enemy soldiers came down to check if we were dead or alive. We still had 45 rounds each in our rifles and were just lying low. They came really close. I still remember them clearly, they were in cream-coloured Pathani suits with yellow pagris and had flowing beards. They were wearing white coats with hoods. Some of them were really tall while others were of medium height.

We kept quiet till they came really close. Then suddenly all seven of us opened fire at them. Except for two enemy soldiers, who managed to escape, all the others were killed. The survivors ran up to their other post and within half an hour, more than 35 Pakistani jawans had surrounded us. The sound of gunfire echoed through the peaks as they directed the fire of their heavy weapons at us. We were facing HMG (heavy machine gun), UMG (uber machine gun) and RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) rounds that were flying at the sangar from the top. They also started rolling large boulders down at us.

Since there was very limited ammunition with us, we did not want to waste any and stopped firing. They spotted our light machine gun and directed RPG fire at it, blasting its barrel off. A young soldier was manning it and he ran to Hav. Madan in panic. Hav. Madan asked me to throw the LMG in his direction. Just as I went to pick it up, I looked up and found seven men in Pathani suits standing right above the sangar. ‘Ustad, woh aa gaye hain,’ (they are here) I shouted to Hav. Madan. Ustad told me and Grenadier Ananth Ram to go and support our sniper Lance Naik Naresh. The moment I ran to do that, they flung a grenade at me. It hit me in the knee; it felt as if my leg had been blasted off. I felt it with my hand and was relieved to find it still there. Just then, another grenade caught me on the forehead. I collapsed, blinded by pain and the blood that was dripping into my eyes from the deep gash. It was flowing like water from an open tap. I couldn’t see a thing.

By then, both Grenadier Ananth and I had reached Lance Naik Naresh, the sniper we had been told to help. I asked Naresh to bandage my head since the blood was flowing into my eyes but he told me to start firing first. I kept wiping the blood off my face with an old sleeping bag that was lying there. Seeing my plight, Naresh opened his roll of bandage. As he was trying to put it on my wound, a shell hit him. He closed his eyes, leaned back and fell down. He was dead with the bandage still in his hand.

I turned to Ananth and had only just started telling him this when a UMG burst hit him too. His head was blown off. After that there was complete pandemonium. One after the other, the Pakistanis jumped down on us with cries of ‘Allah hu Akbar’. There must have been around 35 of them with weapons in their hands. Out of the seven of us, two were dead, two were injured (including me and the other Yogendra whose finger had been cut off). So there were just three functional men facing 35 heavily armed enemy soldiers.