by Vivek Ahuja
“Looks like our friends have been busy,” Ravi noted to Pathanya.
“Well,” Pathanya said as he pulled out his SATCOM radio speaker from his backpack, “we did the same back in Thimpu over the last day and a half. Didn’t expect them to sit around twiddling their thumbs, did you?”
“God knows what else they brought in,” Ravi said and moved out to check on the rest of the men.
Pathanya took the speaker and pushed it through his woolen cap under the boonie hat and pressed it his ears:
“Warlord-central, this is Spear-One. Over”
“Spear-One, we just lost an aerial drone near your location. Can you confirm?”
“Roger. Spear has eyeballs on the crash site,” Pathanya said, turning around to glance at the rising smoke down the valley. “We also confirm presence of what appears to be an enemy SHORAD battery deployed two clicks north of us. Over”
There was silence for several seconds on the other line.
“Spear-One, can you engage and eliminate enemy anti-air threat at this time?”
“Negative, Warlord,” Pathanya said with a surprised note. “We are two clicks away and do not have recon on enemy defenses. Suggest we move closer.”
There was some confusion on the other side until he heard Potgam’s voice ordering the others and then taking the speaker from whoever was speaking before.
“Spear-One, this is warlord. The Paras will launch their offensive on schedule regardless of R-P-V cover. I will not deploy any more R-P-Vs to the valley until that anti-air battery is dead! Hotel-Six is currently supporting Dotanang operations and is not available. You are authorized to advance and eliminate the commie anti-air battery immediately. Get it done, son. Warlord out!”
Potgam’s voice was like a breath of fresh air for Pathanya and his men. The General may have been sending them all into combat and possibly to their deaths but he was unhesitant about it when required. It gave his men the jolt of electricity they needed that they were doing something worth doing…
Pathanya stowed the long-range comms and keyed his team:
“Vik, get us a good fix on the red anti-air vehicles. The rest of you, form up on me and let’s figure out how we are going to do this.”
AKSU-WENSU AIRBASE
WESTERN CHINA
DAY 9 + 0930 HRS
It was bitterly cold when the three Mi-17s flared above the tarmac and touched down in front of the hangers on the southern side of the airfield.
As the Mi-17 engine turbines spooled down, Feng and Chen stepped out of the helicopter and saw the drifting snow falling all around. The PLAAF base commander was there to meet them and a detachment of honor guard soldiers snapped to attention. Feng looked around and saw the doors of the hanger revealing the clear lines of two J-11s inside, protected from the bad weather.
Chen walked over to the base commander who shook his hands and handed Chen a paper with a message from Wencang at the Junwei-Kongjun. Feng saw Chen shake his head.
“What is it?” Feng said as he took the note from Chen.
“Marching orders,” Chen replied. “Looks like General Jinping has been relieved of his command on account of poor health and you and I are to report to Beijing immediately as well.”
Poor health indeed…Feng thought.
General Jinping was the PLAAF commander-in-chief. They could not very well report that he had been dismissed for failing to lead his air-forces to success against the Indians. Feng wondered if they were about to see deterioration in their health as well…
The base commander pointed Chen towards a waiting Tu-154 VIP transport aircraft parked at the end of the tarmac waiting for them. There was little to be done. As the staff cars pulled up, the three senior officers got in. Within fifteen minutes the Tupolev aircraft began spooling up its engines to begin a flight that would take Feng and Chen back to Beijing.
NORTH OF DOTANANG
NORTHERN BHUTAN
DAY 9 + 1330 HRS
The village was abuzz with activity as the Indian paratroopers moved to advance north into the Chinese forces deployed to hold them at bay. The three BMP-II engines roared to life and spewed out bursts of engine smoke. Their auto-cannon turrets moved left and right as the gunners checked their optics and targeting systems.
Soon the Paras moved out of the northern outskirts of the village, advancing along the eastern edge of the river and headed north. The three BMP-IIs splashed on the mud-snow slush and began advancing up the road behind them.
Further south, near a clearing being used as a FARP by the helicopters of Delta flight, two Rudra attack helicopters remained parked on the snow-covered grass, their engines switched off and their flight crews standing around the open cockpits. There was no way in hell they would be given the go ahead to advance up the valley in support of the Paras until the PLA Yitian SHORAD battery remained active. As the army-aviation major commanding these two helicopters stood around with frustration, the skies above rippled with rocket fire as Hotel-Six battery went into action. The valley erupted into a cacophony of explosions, rifle and grenade fire. The Paras had run into the PLA defenses north of the village…
While the Paras grabbed the full attention of the Chinese defenses north of the village, Spear went into play behind enemy lines further north.
Pathanya slithered down the slope and went through the bushes with deliberate, slow movements. He pushed aside branches of trees that got in his way with one hand while holding the rifle in the other.
He and six of his men were moving down the slope and towards the road at the base of the valley. They had sneaked up close enough to the Chinese soldiers moving supplies along that road that they could hear their officers shouting orders in mandarin. Pathanya and the others could also see the squad-sized PLA patrols on either side of him climbing up the same slope that they were descending on. They ensured that they bypassed these Chinese soldiers by a good margin. Surprise was the key here, especially when there were hundreds of Chinese soldiers in this valley and only nine men in Spear team…
Of course, there was a danger of being spotted by Chinese infrared optics. The Highland Brigade forces had deployed several observation posts with tripod-mounted high-frequency radars and advanced infrared scopes.
Vikram had spent time locating these positions in the past hour and Pathanya had come up with an ingress path that would allow them to move within the expected blind-spots between these posts.
There was only one such position that they could not bypass. So Vikram and Ravi had branched off during the descent and had headed around the back of the three man position. Then Chinese soldiers at the post were far too occupied by the battle raging further south that they failed to see the two Indians sneaking up behind them, crushing the fresh snow under their boots.
Vikram unsheathed his combat knife and nodded to Ravi, who lowered his rifle and pulled out his knife as well. As he handled it into position, it glistened in the sunlight above.
Ravi smiled cruelly…
By the time the PLA Lieutenant commanding the small post heard the slight rustle of branches in the snow behind them, Vikram leapt over and grabbed the man by his head, covered his mouth with his gloved hand and shoved the large knife into his back and twisted it.
The Chinese officer’s eyes grew large with blinding pain and shock. Vikram pushed the knife in again, this time draining the life out of the man. It happened in two seconds, during which time Ravi had done the same with the NCO attempting to set up a tripod stand for a communications antennae nearby. The third soldier at the post had been looking through a binoculars at the battle near Dotanang and by the time he heard the muffled thuds around him and turned to look, he saw the body of his commanding officer being pushed aside by a dark faced Indian soldier wielding a blood soaked combat knife.
The Chinese soldier panicked at the sight and fell back on his hands, struggling to find his weapon and his face a mask of pure horror. Vikram gathered his strength and dove into his opponent, stabbing him in the gut w
hile reaching for his mouth to prevent the man from shouting out. He got there just a split-second later than he had planned, allowed a half-muttered shriek to go out into the valley…
The PLA soldiers and the Yitian vehicle crew standing around on the road below jerked at the distant shriek. The battery commander, a PLA Lieutenant-Colonel, came running out from around the Yitian vehicle. He pulled out his binoculars and spotted the two Indians as they finished off the unfortunate Chinese soldier. The PLA officer lowered his binoculars and turned to shout orders to the gathered soldiers...
A three round burst of Tavor rifle fire ripped through his chest.
He fell back on the muddy road with a thump, still clasping the binoculars. His orders died in his dying breath.
The suddenness of it all seemed to halt the passage of time as all of the stunned PLA soldiers looked at the body of their battery commander laying on the road over an expanding pool of blood…
There was a series of rifle fire bursts from the nearby bushes and boulders up the hillside. Several Chinese soldiers fell to the ground as bullets ripped through their winter uniforms.
The survivors scrambled in all directions to find cover and return fire. The Yitian crew began clambering on top of their vehicle and into the hatches so that they could move the vehicle out of danger. Pathanya spotted the gunner and the driver attempting to get inside their vehicle, turned his rifle slightly and fired a continuous burst. Bullets ricocheted off the metallic hull of the vehicle with distinct pings and sparks flew in all directions. The gunner screamed in agony and his lifeless body fell on top of the vehicle, just a few inches away from the turret hatch.
The driver managed to get inside and close the hatch above him before Pathanya could slap another magazine into his rifle…
Damn! Damn! Damn!
Pathanya dropped the empty magazine from his rifle and slapped a new one in there. The rocks and boulders around him began to get hit with Chinese rifle fire. His team was returning fire and dropping Chinese soldiers quickly, but there were a lot more of them to the north and south and it wouldn’t take them long to get here and overwhelm the handful of Indians.
This had to be taken care of quickly.
Pathanya looked over the top of the boulder he was hiding behind and keyed his comms:
“Vik, Ravi: driver of armor vehicle is inside! Take it out!”
“Roger! Engaging!” Vikram shouted over the gunfire noise.
Further up the slope, Vikram and Ravi had finished disabling all of the Chinese optics on the observation post and had sheathed their knives. Ravi had taken out his rifle and had taken cover behind the rocks. He began taking aim from above.
Vikram grabbed Ravi’s backpack and grabbed the RPG-22 shoulder fired anti-armor weapon. He flipped the safety and extended the telescopic tube to full length, locked it and set it up on his shoulder. From this range, he could aim manually and hardly miss. He took a couple of seconds to aim during which he noted that the Yitian driver had started the diesel engines and the vehicle was spewing out engine smoke.
As the vehicle lurched forward, the Chinese soldiers fell behind it to take cover. The vehicle turned towards Pathanya’s men just as the rocket fired by Vikram flew down the slope trailing smoke, slammed into its frontal armor and exploded amidst a fireball that quickly vanished, leaving large licks of flame rising from the vehicle…
Vikram keyed his comms: “Target destroyed!”
Ravi opened fire from the outpost just as Vikram threw away the disposable launcher and grabbed his own rifle lying on the snow nearby. Both men opened up with short bursts of fire that caught the exposed Chinese soldiers in a cross-fire from an elevated position. They retreated behind the cover of two 4x4 trucks while one of the remaining crews clambered on top of the 35mm gun turrets behind one of those vehicles. Pathanya noted the elevation of that gun turret and keyed his comms instantly:
“Vik! Ravi! Get out now! Incoming fire!”
The Chinese gunner opened up a moment later and the large-caliber cannon rounds ripped through the trees and branches and slammed into rocks near the two Indians. The explosions were powerful enough to shred the rocky cover, filling the air with flying rocks and gravel as Vikram and Ravi scrambled out there and dived into snow on either side.
The 35mm cannon rounds decimated what remained of the position in seconds. But the large muzzle flashes of the guns prevented the gunner from observing the effect of his fire and so he treated it as an area weapon. He shredded trees all over that slope causing a lot of the branches and snow to come crashing down. The thunderous noise of the gunfire removed all coherence from both the Indian and Chinese sides…
Pathanya crouched back behind the boulder and removed a grenade from his belt-holster and hoisted it inside the tube of his rifle’s barrel-mounted grenade-launcher. He nodded to Sarvanan and both men raised their heads over the rocks with their weapons. Sarvanan put the tripod of his INSAS LMG on the rocks and let loose a full barrage of covering fire that sent the Chinese soldiers diving for cover.
Pathanya elevated his rifle upwards and pulled the trigger of his rifle and fired the grenade on a depressed trajectory to its target. The grenade hit the base of the 35mm gun turret and exploded in a metal-on-metal explosion that sent shrapnel flying in all directions and left the gunner lying on his seat riddled with chest wounds.
The anti-air gun turret was thoroughly disabled.
Pathanya dived behind the rocks once again and pulled out his long-range radio speaker:
“Spear-One to warlord! Anti-air threat destroyed! I say again: red anti-air guns are dead! My team is taking heavy fire from multiple directions! I need help over here! Send in the cavalry on my location right fucking now!”
“Roger that! Hang in there! Cavalry is on the way! Warlord out!”
South of Dotanang, the army-aviation Major nodded as heard the radio call from Colonel Misra and then waved at the three other pilots standing by their helicopters. All of them ran over to their cockpits and started climbing in. A few moments later the turbine engines spooled up and the main rotor blades began rotating…
Bullets smacked into the rocks and Sarvanan dived back behind them where Pathanya was slapping in another full magazine for his rifle. Pathanya chambered the round and then looked at Sarvanan:
“Okay, our job is done! We need to get out of here right away. We can’t go up the slope under this murderous fire or we will be ripped…,” both men ducked as a close burst of bullets ricocheted from the rocks with distinctive snags and whistles. Pathanya continued: “Command is sending in the cavalry. We definitely don’t want to be here when they arrive. So that gives us a few minutes. Ideas?”
“Few,” Sarvanan noted and looked around.
He and Pathanya shared a look and smiled before getting up and standing behind the boulder. He got his LMG tripod placed and got back into action, releasing bursts of fire in quick succession. Pathanya rolled around the side of the rocks and in prone position began picking off Chinese soldiers coming down the road from Barshong.
He saw three soldiers take hits and drop under his well-aimed bursts before a utility vehicle pulled up and the Chinese soldiers jumped out and took up positions behind it. Within seconds they started returning fire, churning up the ground near Pathanya and Sarvanan. Both men were soon pinned down…
And then they heard a new sound as a line of tracers whipped overhead and slammed into the Chinese utility vehicle, shredding its chassis into pieces and raising a dust cloud all around as the tracers bounced off the road into arbitrary directions.
The gunfire pinning Pathanya down instantly stopped. He jerked back to crouched position, poked his head above the rocks and saw a wrecked vehicle, spewing black smoke. Chinese soldiers were taking cover behind the trees and rocks and returning fire into the sky.
One of the Rudra helicopters suddenly flew overhead as it fired its chin-mounted 20mm cannon and released a quartet of fin-stabilized rockets before pulling up aggressively over the to
p of the hills. The rockets smashed into the rocks and trees on either side of the road and several tree trunks collapsed, throwing snow and dust into the air.
Pathanya had just enough time to mutter an “Oh shit!” before the other helicopter riddled the now-impotent vehicles of the Yitian SHORAD battery with a barrage of rockets.
Then the trees above the road on the other side of the valley opened up with over a hundred rifle flashes as a Chinese infantry company reinforcing the battered PLA Battalion to the south came over the ridge. The air filled with rifle bullets and the second Rudra helicopter took multiple hits with Pathanya hearing the definitive thumps and whumps on the fuselage of that helicopter…
“This is Sierra-Two, taking heavy enemy small arms fire east of Barshong! We are hit and I have a dead co-pilot in here. I am bringing this bird out of the fight. Sorry Spear, but I am R-T-B on emergency! Good luck down there!”
Pathanya grabbed his speaker as quickly as he could:
“Roger! Thanks for the assist! We will take it from here! Spear out!”
He saw the helicopter fly over the top of the peaks behind him at high speed trailing smoke. He then turned to Sarvanan who had his binoculars out and observing the ridge on the other side of the river.
“What do you see?” Pathanya asked as he stowed the speaker into his chest attachment and adjusted his boonie hat.
“Reinforced company-sized force making its way down to the road. Guess they must be from the PLA reserve battalion at Barshong,” Sarvanan said as he put the binoculars into his backpack.
“We cannot stay here,” Pathanya said just as the radio squawked:
“Warlord-central to Spear, do you copy?”
“Roger! Spear-One here reading you five-by-five! Over!”
“Spear-One, Para commander at Dotanang confirms a break in the enemy defenses. They are retreating north towards your position. You will be bumping into these forces imminently. Get out of there now!”