AFVOA Newsletter 03 of 2020

Section 4 – War Diary CV 2 No. 03 / 2020 Page 43 of 167 from where we were. CO 69 AR, who briefed me, was in such a hurry that he had no time to give me a map reference of my destination or put me through to the stranded troop on radio. Besides, he said, a guide from the stranded troop would be waiting on the road within a kilometer. Hesitant to sound too fastidious, I set off on the mission none too concerned, with the EME mechanics mounted on our tanks along with a platoon of the Maratha Light Infantry for protection while the repair went on. Our tanks forded across the river easily enough and sped along the road, which indeed existed as I was briefed. I called a halt when we found no guide even after covering more than a kilometer. Dismissing it as a communication gap, I stepped off the tank to see whether I could locate some track marks where the tanks might have driven off the road, with two NCOs, one from the tank crew and one from the infantry, in tow. The sequence of events that followed is too elaborate to recount here. Just to outline it, I ran smack into an enemy soldier, whom I mistook for the guide we were expecting, as much as he mistook me for one of his officers. There was that hilarious moment when I rebuked him for being a bloody fool by keeping off the road where he was not visible, and he remained in attention murmuring his apologies, before realization struck both. He swung his rifle up, while I was still fumbling to draw my pistol from under my coat purka. I was a dead man for sure, but for Mohinder Singh, my NCO, who snatched away the rifle in a swift leap. The infantry NCO, quick on the draw, brought the enemy soldier down with a burst from his carbine. And with that burst of automatic fire, all hell broke loose. Our entire front erupted in small arms fire, even as para flares lit up the night. All three of us dashed back to my tank for our dear lives. The infantry NCO and I made it; Mohinder didn’t. I could see him fallen some distance away in the light of the para flares. I was able to get to him sprinting and crawling across. He was motionless and profusely bleeding, the blood splattering my arms as I struggled desperately to raise him off the ground, hoping to move him to the tank somehow. It turned a hopeless struggle as I began dragging him foot by foot. He was a heavy man and lifting him under such intense fire was well-nigh impossible. Mercifully, after a while, the second lieutenant commanding the MLI platoon came to my assistance. Together, dragging and lifting, we managed to get Mohinder across to my tank. My instinct told me that he was dead, but I refused to believe it. I was almost weeping with despair at having lost a man on the very first day of the war and furious that I was sent on a wild goose chase and made to bump into an enemy position.