And the next morning, the Burmese Army did attack the NSCN’s headquarters—and we fled to the jungle and took refuge in the hut by the poppy field [above pp. 1-6]. But it was only when we reached Donyu village the night we had heard the reinforcements cutting their way through the jungle we learnt what had happened at Oking on December 20. As we walked into Donyu before sunrise, I came across a face in the crowd, a junior officer from headquarters.
“Ah, so you’re here,” he said.
“What’s been going on?”
“Angam’s here. You’d better see him straight away. I’ll take you to his hut.”
Angam was one of the “ministers” in the NSCN’s “government”. As the young officer and I entered a hut in the village, he was sitting cross-legged on the floor sipping tea. He told me briefly about the fighting but seemed deliberately vague. The battle for the NSCN’s headquarters and Kesan Chanlam had lasted two days. At 5 pm on the 21st—exactly at the time we at the poppy field had heard unusually heavy shooting from the direction of Kesan Chanlam—the headquarters had fallen.
NSCN soldiers with their flag: “Nagaland for Christ.”
“The Kachins fought with us also,” Angam said. I asked him about casualties.
“Yes. Three of our men died and three Kachins. I’ve bad news for you. Your friend Yaw Htung was among them.”
I was stunned. Yaw Htung, who had been so concerned over our security had fallen in a battle he would not even have needed to fight, had the NSCN had not been so preoccupied with their Christmas celebrations. Numbly, I accepted a proffered cigarette. Angam smiled sheepishly.
“Of course, he was in a bunker together with us. A bullet hit him from very far away.”
I was puzzled. The first thing I had noticed at Oking was the total absence of trenches or bunkers. According to the Iphai oracles, the crucifix would provide all the protection the camp might need. I asked who the other Kachins were.
“Maru Tanggun, the Sergeant-Major.”
Another shock. The tough, sturdy Sergeant-Major.
“And a Lance Corporal called Tangbau Zaungdau.”
I tried hard to remember the Lance Corporal, but I could not place him as we had known the Kachin platoon for such a brief time. In any case, I felt all three of them had died for us. Later, when I was taken to the hut where Hseng Noung was with the baby, I told her the news. She wept bitterly.
“The bloody NSCN. We warned them. Bunkers? There weren’t any. They always said that silly Iphai business was all they needed.”
We had been told that immediately after sunrise, we were to leave for an old, abandoned camp which was considered safe. Considering the circumstances, we were astonished when the Nagas held a roll call in the middle of Donyu before leaving. The soldiers were in tattered uniforms and carried rusty, ageing weapons. Some of the girls in the company were wearing brightly coloured longyis. It was a rag-tag army exposed, stripped of its false pride and bravado.
Looking at them, I could only feel a mixture of pity and anger. Yaw Htung and two of his men had had to die because of their leaders’ crass stupidity and rank superstition. “Iphai, Holy Place” had been painted on a sign by the big crucifix; the Burmese troops had doubtless enjoyed a good laugh over that.
When eventually we left, there were patches of frost on the ground along the track. Frozen leaves crunched under foot as we moved through the forest on a winter’s morning chill beneath leaden skies. Some of the soldiers wore no shoes but appeared as indifferent to that as they seemed apathetic about the war and their role in it.
After a few hours’ walk, we halted to rest on a denuded ridge. The soldiers sat down in the grass, oblivious of the fact they could be seen from kilometres around in every direction. Suddenly, one of them stood up and pointed in the direction of Kesan Chanlam. Everybody looked to where pillars of thick, brown smoke were wreathing skywards. The Burmese troops were burning the village, but they would most probably leave the barracks in the headquarters area until they left. I felt deeply sorry for the villagers of Kesan Chanlam whose homes were being destroyed, but who had committed no crime but that of living close to an insurgent camp.
It took us almost all day to reach the old base in the jungle. It was an ideal location: perched on a hilltop, hidden under the dense tree-cover, and commanding an excellent view of the surrounding hills. It had earlier served as headquarters between 1981 and 1983, before the rebels’ guiding spirit had told them to move down to the ridge near Kesan Chanlam.
Most of the soldiers who had come with us—about 50 of them—left the same day. Only two boys stayed to provide security for us along with Angam and two Naga girls who were helping taking care of Ee Ying. Predictably enough, the guards promptly found comfortable spots under the trees and were soon asleep. We did not move much; tense and alert, we waited for any signs of action in the vicinity. Still no message from the Kachins or the NSCN’s leaders had reached us.
Kesan Chanlam was only a few hours away at a lower elevation than the old camp. Every night the sound of gunfire carried up to us. Angam’s guess was that Naga soldiers had slipped down to the upper morung in the village under cover of the darkness and were firing on the occupied headquarters buildings. The pattern was always the same: a rapid rattle of rifle fire lasting a minute or so; then silence again. Listening to the gunfire, I doubted the Nagas were inflicting any substantial casualties on the Burmese soldiers. But, it might serve to tie them down in their captured positions and discourage patrols. Or so, at least, I hoped.
After years of disuse, most of the bamboo buildings in our temporary hideout were falling apart. The dry bamboo from nearby huts was an excellent source of firewood. Even in the daytime, it was freezing and we kept a small fire burning inside our hut day and night. The thatched roof not only concealed the flames but also helped disperse the smoke.
On the second day there a curious incident occurred. I was sitting outside the hut, keeping watch over the ravine below when a hornbill landed on the top of a tree only a few metres away from me. As hornbills are generally timid and tend to fly in pairs, the proximity of the bird surprised me. I watched it for a while and then went into the hut to get Hseng Noung. The hornbill remained on his branch and we sat down and observed him together. He stared back at us without fear and then turned to look towards Kesan Chanlam.
After the experience with the NSCN oracles, neither of us was in any frame of mind to countenance manifestations of anything hinting at the supernatural. But the lone hornbill brought Yaw Htung vividly to both our minds. It was as if he had come back to let us know he had done his duty to the end. The thought brought serenity and we watched the hornbill wordlessly for an hour until eventually he spread his wings and sailed away towards the distant mountains.
Battle Map A: The attack on Kesan Chanlam
Christmas came and went uncelebrated: we made do with a packet of biscuits and some tea the Assamese had given us. Apart from the nightly firefights, we had no indication of what was happening in the mountains around us. A few days later, however, a messenger arrived with word that our Kachin escort was now staying in a village only an hour’s walk away. Knowledge of their proximity was comforting. But I had the distinct impression that the NSCN, for reasons of its own, was deliberately keeping us separated. That the Nagas should be humiliated over the debacle at Kesan Chanlam was understandable. But that hardly justified isolating us from a trustworthy security force.
Hseng Noung and I discussed our dilemma and agreed we would have to resort to indirection to achieve a diplomatic solution. We could hardly afford to upset the NSCN, since theoretically we were still under their protection. Ee Ying had a slight bout of diarrhoea and she sometimes cried at night. It was less than serious but served as a useful pretext for writing a letter to Muivah, insisting on help from the only available medic—the Kachin NCO.
The ploy worked. That evening, we spotted Zau Shan accompanied by a Naga soldier approaching the camp. He carried his medical “cartridge belt”, his Sten
gun and sleeping gear.
“How’s the baby,” Zau Shan asked as he sat down inside the hut.
“Not too bad. But what happened at Kesan Chanlam?”
Zau Shan smiled. He had obviously understood the real purpose of our message. And we were so excited to see him that we paid no attention to Angam who had come over to listen in.
“You see, I was very close to Yaw Htung. He was an old friend,” Zau Shan began and pointed at his belt. He now wore the army pistol which had belonged to Yaw Htung. We shook our heads in sorrow and despair.
“But didn’t they warn you? Didn’t they tell you the Burmese Army was coming?” My grief turned into anger.
“No, they didn’t. They told us the Burmese Army was miles away. We were woken that morning by gunfire. A surprise attack on a headquarters. Can you believe it? In Kachin State, we always know days before a major camp is going to be attacked. But here, mortars were suddenly exploding all around us!”
Angam lowered his head. His embarrassment was all the greater when Zau Shan related how the Nagas had fled pell-mell when the attack began. A senior officer, Lieut.-Col. Thanmi, had been hit by mortar shrapnel as he ran. The other Naga casualties had been inflicted in the same manner.
“But did no Nagas stay behind with you to resist the attack?” I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
“Just a few. Yaw Htung immediately ordered two sections of our platoon to take up positions around the camp and a third, led by Maru Tanggun, was sent to search for you.”
Zau Shan paused for a while. It was clear he missed another friend, the Sergeant-Major. Hseng Noung began heating water over the fire for tea.
“The worst thing was that we couldn’t find a single bunker or trench in the whole damned camp! We had to spread out and hide in the grass or take cover behind mounds before we could return fire!”
The section that was off looking for us apparently had run into even more serious difficulties. Since they had arrived only two days before they had no idea where we were staying, and the panicking Nagas were in no position to tell them. It was thus some time before they found the house—only to discover we had already left.
“As they were running back towards the camp to join us, they almost ran into a large group of Burmese troops who were advancing from the east, towards the village church.”
Maru Tanggun instantly understood what they were up to. The assault had been launched to capture us. So one column of Burmese troops had opened fire on the headquarters area to force the people there to flee towards the village, the only escape route. The second column would block the retreat from the higher ground at the village church—and from there try to capture us alive or, more likely, to kill us.
Listening to Zau Shan’s story, it became increasingly apparent that the Burmese officers who had planned the attack had made two basic miscalculations. First, they had taken it for granted we were staying in the headquarters area rather than in the village. But secondly and far more seriously, they had no intelligence that a full platoon of KIA soldiers had arrived.
Maru Tanggun’s section effectively blocked the advance of the second column with a barrage of automatic fire and hand grenades. After a few attempts to reach the church had been beaten back, the Burmese retreated. The sergeant-major’s section then rejoined Yaw Htung’s main force and took up positions along the eastern ridge of the Oking plateau.
Down in the camp, the Kachins mowed down more than 30 government soldiers during the opening moments of the battle. Expecting to find only NSCN troops there, the Burmese had advanced shooting from the hip, supported by mortar fire over their heads aimed at driving the Nagas ahead of them out of the camp. The Nagas fled as expected—but the assault stalled amid casualties and confusion as the Burmese found themselves under a hail of sustained, accurate fire from the Kachins.
“That was when we started shouting in Burmese: ‘We’re the KIA unit that occupied Singkaling Hkamti last year! You wouldn’t face us then! Let’s see if you’ve got the guts for it now!’ Within seconds, I think, they were flat on their faces in the grass. You see, they were actually from the 52nd Battalion which is based at Singkaling Hkamti.”
The battle continued all day. The first Kachin casualty was Lance Cpl. Tangbau Zaungdau. He cautiously raised his head above the grass to get a better view and was killed instantly by a bullet that ploughed straight across the top of his skull.
“Did he have a family?” I asked Zau Shan. He looked up and sighed wearily.
“Yes. He got married only a few months ago. His wife back home is expecting their first child. But that’s a soldier’s life.”
Maru Tanggun was shot that afternoon. At one part of the line, the Burmese troops had pulled out, leaving many dead behind. Tanggun ran down under covering fire to capture their arms which lay scattered about the hillside. A sniper’s bullet hit him in his chest.
At nightfall, the fighting died down. The KIA soldiers could take a rest at last. The Nagas, who had been hiding in Kesan Chanlam village, cooked a meal for them and sent banana-leaf wrapped food packages down to the Kachins in the camp.
“There was no enemy fire that night. We slept wherever we could and some Nagas came down. Yaw Htung ordered them to shoot every now and then to show the camp had not been abandoned. We weren’t sure whether the enemy was still there or not.”
On the morning of the 21st, all was quiet. Yaw Htung thought the Burmese had retreated and went down on reconnaissance with a section of his soldiers. Suddenly, they found themselves under fire. The Burmese had not withdrawn; they had simply been lying low while waiting for reinforcements which had apparently arrived during the night. So the second day of fighting was even fiercer. The shooting continued until late that afternoon, when Yaw Htung was slain.
“Is it true he was in a bunker and killed by a stray round from far away?” I suddenly asked, glancing at Angam.
“Bunker? Hell, no! There weren’t any! And he was shot by a sniper at very close range, right in his left eye. He died instantly. It was a very well-aimed shot.”
Angam smiled awkwardly in the background but said nothing. Zau Shan, upset by a memory still painfully raw, needed to calm himself before he could continue. When he had collected his thoughts again, we learnt Yaw Htung had been killed around 5 pm on the 21st. When the Burmese realised they had killed the Kachin commander, they unleashed a massive barrage of fire—which we had heard from the hut in the poppy field.
With Yaw Htung’s and Maru Tanggun’s deaths one of the corporals took over command and decided to evacuate the camp. Carrying their dead with them, they retreated together with the Nagas to a village called Rokho. After leaving Kesan Chanlam, the Kachins quickly made bamboo-stretchers on which to carry their fallen comrades. A funeral service was held in Rokho village church on Christmas Day and graves were dug in the frosty ground in the nearby forest. At the close of the service, a volley of rifle fire rang out in their honour over the burial ground.
“How many Burmese are there now at Kesan Chanlam?” I asked.
“About 240, I guess. About 80 reinforcements arrived a few nights ago. But we still don’t know where they came from.”
Hseng Noung and I exchanged rapid glances. The reinforcements were obviously the troops we had heard that night we left the poppy field below Donyu.
Zau Shan was not permitted to spend the night at our place; he left to return to Rokho after giving us some medicines for Ee Ying’s diarrhoea. We were alone again in our hut on the mountain with a few Naga soldiers who seemed uninterested in anything beyond eating, sleeping, keeping themselves warm and teasing the girls by the fire at night. But it was hard to blame them. They were all recruits from the villages in the eastern hills and it was obvious they had received no military training worth the name.
We spent another two nervous days at the hilltop camp. Each night was punctuated by short bursts of rifle fire as the Nagas staged hit-and-run attacks on Kesan Chanlam. But on the morning of the 26th, a runner came panting
through the forest with a note from Muivah. He was coming to say goodbye—and to bring the Kachin platoon to us. They marched into the old headquarters in the evening. That night, all of us gathered for a meeting to draw up plans. Since the Kachins had expended nearly all their ammunition during the battle at Oking, the Nagas had scraped together whatever they could spare for the KIA. The Kachins now had 50 bullets each.
“We’ll send one section of our troops with you to show the way down to the Chindwin River,” Muivah said, looking in my direction. He had pointedly refrained from commenting on the battle and I did not bring the matter up again. But we understood the Naga section was going to come with us up to the KIA’s 2nd Brigade headquarters to ask for ammunition. Their stocks too were almost exhausted after the nightly attacks on Kesan Chanlam.
I tried to emphasise that we should avoid villages as much as possible, at least during the first few days of our march east, and not use villagers as porters since our movements then could be detected easily. The Burmese troops were now licking their wounds at Kesan Chanlam. But we had no way of knowing when they would decide to move again—or if more reinforcements were on their way.
When the meeting was over and people had disappeared to bivouacs in the jungle around the camp, Muivah and Angam summoned Hseng Noung and me for a private talk. They apologised for what had happened and then said they had some Christmas presents to give us. They presented us with a small box containing torchlight batteries, candles and Indian beedis, or small cheroots, for which we thanked them warmly. Then Muivah pulled out a wad of banknotes.
Land of Jade Page 17