INTO THE FIRE
Eleven
"What are they waiting for?" Gami asked angrily. "They keep probing. Why do they not just come at us again?"
"Because they have learned from their mistakes," Bane said, squinting into the sun of an early June morning. "They will come again once they are ready, which should be any day now."
"Good," Gami said, anxiously plucking at his patchy facial hair. "I have had enough of waiting."
Bane did not like the look of the young man. Six weeks atop this mountain had taken a physical as well as mental toll on Gami. It was true of all of them, but some showed it more than others. Enough to concern Bane. The Indians had delayed their offensive for more reasons than simply to prepare and reinforce their own troops. No, there would be officers among their high command—mountaineers—who knew the rigors of high altitude deployment and how it would wear down the Pakistani forces. They, like Bane, would also be cognizant of the tactics employed by the German Army in the Rhodope Mountains of Greece during World War II and those of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division in the Apennines of Italy. Fire and maneuver. Artillery and small, well-trained infantry units carried the day. No, there would be no more foolish frontal assaults. The Indians had grown stronger and become more educated, while their foes on the mountains grew weaker and more desperate. Bane had already lost five men to wounds inflicted by artillery fire. They had been carried off the mountain and would never return.
To Barsad alone did Bane voice his concerns. When Barsad was on watch in one of the sangars, Bane would occasionally share the uncomfortable rat's den with him for nearly half an hour when things on their front were quiet.
"It's no longer just a military operation," Bane had said during the first week in June. "It has now become a political one."
"What do you mean?" Barsad peered for a long moment down the rocky slope before allowing himself to relax and sit next to Bane, their backs against the sangar's fortifications.
"Just received a dispatch. The Indians have released documents they claim they took off three Pak soldiers that prove Pakistan's involvement."
"Well, shit. That'll put holes in the Pak smokescreen about mujahideen being the source of the incursion."
"Yes. It's out in the open now. No matter how the Paks spin it, the international community won't buy into any justification for crossing the LOC, especially when both countries involved have nukes. There will be universal condemnation. Then political pressure against the Pakistani government will prove as effective as military advances."
"So maybe this'll all be over, and we'll be off this mountain in a few days."
Bane grunted skeptically. "I think not. The Indians will want to prove their ability to defend their borders so this doesn't happen again, and the Paks won't simply slink back across the LOC unless someone lights a match between their toes. No, we are not out of this yet. Our friends down below will be coming at us again soon."
"Well," Barsad said with a grin, patting his rifle, "we'll be ready."
###
The attack came the next day, preceded by the most intense artillery barrage yet. Though Pakistani batteries miles to the rear sought to silence the Indian Bofors, they seemed to have little effect as round after round rained down upon Bane and his small force. While most of his men hugged the ground on the reverse slope, protected by the impact craters of earlier shellings, Bane moved all around the perimeter, checking on the handful of men in the forward positions and those on the flanks. He knew his fearlessness and unconcern for his own safety would serve to inspire his men, and they would need all the inspiration they could get as daylight waned.
This time when the infantry advance came at sunset, the Indian artillery continued to fire, serving to initially suppress the firepower of Bane's forces now deployed forward and along the flanks. Cloud cover brought night all the more quickly. Tracers and muzzle flashes provided the only light as the Indian forces climbed. Though these men were far more prepared for the task than before, Bane knew even the best mountaineers would need hours to scale the heights, their progress hampered by bullets, grenades, and mortars. He also knew the Indians would not attack the center of his line as in the past. With this in mind, Bane had strengthened his flanks, especially on the right where Barsad was deployed. The left flank was elevated, so Bane was confident the Indians would not spearhead the attack there, for such a strategy would subject them enfilade and interlocking fire should they gain the mountaintop. No, the main attack would hit the right flank where the mountain fell away in the form of two nullahs—dry streambeds which provided cover for those ascending. Barsad and his men protected the upper reaches of the nullahs and their corresponding ridgelines. Anti-personnel mines had been buried along these approaches as well, but they were widely dispersed; the initial supply covered the main approach up the eastern slope, deployed there before Bane had taken command. Bane would have been more judicious with their placement, and unfortunately he had been unable to requisition more to make up for his predecessor's shortsightedness. The Indians had discovered the minefield the hard way during their last assault and thus had another reason to avoid a direct assault on the bunker.
Gami remained in the bunker with the radio and the men manning a heavy machine gun while Bane continued to move about, keeping in close contact with each sector throughout the long, deafening night. He reminded his men to aim low, for firing downhill often made soldiers pull their shots high.
As expected, close to dawn Barsad reported Indian forces in the nullahs, but the rising sun halted their progress. The Indians went to ground, finding protection in impact craters, behind rocks, and in any sort of depression that could be found. And there they stayed throughout the day, just a couple of hundred meters from Bane's lines, trading mortar fire and small arms fire with the defenders while artillery from both armies tried to dislodge and demoralize.
Bane listened keenly to the reports over the radio, telling of Indian assaults against the various outposts along the LOC. He knew that this was all simply a matter of time now. The Pakistanis had allowed their foes too much time to prepare and improve their forces, from supply lines to increased artillery batteries to infantry better trained for high altitude fighting. Who could fault him if he ordered a withdrawal? Yet Bane had no such immediate plans. He refused to be the first to tuck tail and run back over the LOC. He would not willingly countenance such failure; he knew his men were determined to hold this position for as long as possible.
Artillery continued to take its toll on Bane's forces. By nightfall three of his men were dead, and four others were lying in the bunker, suffering from grievous wounds. And though his men had spent the day picking off every jawan foolish enough to show himself, Bane knew they were easily outnumbered ten to one.
Once night had settled in, the Indian advance resumed with fresh ferocity. They pressed on all three fronts, demonstrating against the left flank and the center in order to keep Bane's men from reinforcing the critical right flank. The forces in the nullahs crept ever upward regardless of the withering fire laid down by Barsad and the others. Where one jawan fell, three others took his place.
"I don't know how much longer we can hold out," Barsad's strained voice crackled over Gami's radio in the bunker. "They seem to be shifting some of their men farther to our right."
"They're trying to turn our flank," Bane replied with a knowing nod to himself.
"They get behind us, this is all over. Can you reinforce us—?"
The rest of Barsad's question ended in noise and static, so loud that it pained Bane's ear.
"Barsad." No response, just the rattle of gunfire, but not close gunfire, not Barsad's gun. Bane's pulse quickened. "Barsad, do you copy?" He listened intently, trying to delve through the chaotic cacophony hammering through the radio. He felt Gami's worried gaze from next to him. "Barsad, do you copy?"
Faint groans, curses, a scratching noise, then finally Barsad's voice, hoarse and filled with pain, "Motherfuckers nearly took me apart with a mortar."
"You're injured?"
Barsad spat, a grimace plain in his reply: "My leg."
"How bad?"
"It's broken. Son of a bitch…" Bane could hear Barsad dragging himself across the ground, then another oath as he tumbled back into his protective hole. "Blew my sangar to shit, but I'm still in this fight. Motherfuckers; I'll make 'em pay."
Bane grinned at the sound of Barsad's renewed gunfire, then said, "I'll try to send you a couple more men, but we're stretched thin."
But even with Gami sent to the right flank, rifle in hand, radio left behind, Bane's forces began to slowly unravel as others fell wounded or killed. He pulled more men from the center to reinforce the flanks, but their increased firepower was no match against such overwhelming odds. If they could hold out until morning, they might live to fight another day, but Bane knew such hopes were futile, and so he burned whatever intelligence there was in the bunker.
The bunker's heavy machine gun rattled off round after round, but targets on their front were scarce compared to the flanks. Bane gave his gunners a final pat on their shoulders and a stiff nod to bolster them before taking his own rifle into his hands and heading outside.
Reaching the left flank, he found Nehru, wounded in the head, his face bathed in drying blood, still at his post, firing coolly and with precision from behind his rock cover. But his men were too few, stretched far apart, leaving gaps that would soon be exploited. Bane knew that many of them, like Nehru, had been wounded. As on the opposite flank, here the Indians kept shifting men farther and farther to Nehru's left, hoping to get behind Bane's lines.
"We will fight to the last," Nehru promised, his breathing labored.
"There is no sense in that," Bane said. "I would rather you live to fight another day, my friend. But I fear that will not be upon this mountain. They will be in our rear before morning."
Nehru's lips pressed together in a long, thin line, and he squeezed off several more rounds at the darting shapes.
"In fifteen minutes, begin to withdraw your men," Bane said. "One by one. We'll do the same all along the line. Rendezvous in Karkit."
Nehru gave him a regretful nod. Regretful, yes, but not resentful. Bane knew he understood the futility of the situation, though that did not make accepting defeat any easier, but he was a soldier, and soldiers follow orders. They had done the best they could with the limited resources they had been given. No forty men ever made could hold this mountain now.
Bane moved down the line, relaying his orders personally, not chancing the enemy intercepting his orders over their com frequencies. But before he could make it to the right, a deafening flurry of gunfire and explosions lit up the night sky out on the farthest reaches of Nehru's flank, and he knew the time for an orderly withdrawal had passed.
Nehru's voice crackled over his com: "Enemy in our rear. Repeat, enemy in—"
Nothing more.
Bane cursed, breaking into a run toward Barsad's position. Heavy gunfire in that direction. No doubt the Indians had pressed the attack here at the same time as the other flank. He had no choice but to order an immediate withdrawal. If not, they would be cut off, if they were not already.
As he reached the right, he saw his men begin to give ground firing, no panic, no rush. Disciplined, begrudging. Melting away, low and surly. He found Barsad still blazing away from his crumbled sangar. When Bane dropped next to him, Barsad flashed a knife at him, eyes blazing, teeth bared. Bane caught his wrist just in time.
"It's me, brother."
Barsad's gaze cleared. "What the hell are you doing here? You gave the order to withdraw."
"I did."
"Then get the hell outta here!"
Barsad seamlessly went back to discharging his weapon at the closing shadows, men's shouts now ringing through the gunfire, triumphant, incited by their enemy's fading shapes.
"You're coming with us."
"Not with this leg I'm not." Blood blackened Barsad's right leg, a makeshift tourniquet around his thigh, his pant leg shredded. "Now clear the fuck outta here. I'll cover you."
But Bane had not come here to debate. He knew that the Indians climbing up this mountain were as aware as he of the five jawans who had been captured and tortured to death last month by Pakistanis stationed north of here. Bane feared that if any of his men were taken, they would suffer retribution for those atrocities.
His large hands grabbed Barsad like two indomitable cranes, lifting him onto his shoulders.
Barsad, clinging to his rifle, still firing, shouted, "What the fuck are you doing? You're gonna get us both killed!"
Thankfully Barsad lost his hold on the Barrett, lightening Bane's load considerably. With only his pistol now, Barsad continued to fire back at their ever-closing foe, swearing at Bane the whole time, demanding that he be left behind. Bane's keen eyes searched the terrain ahead, looking for any dip or impact crater to help them avoid the rounds singing past his ears. His other men had slipped away down the reverse slope. Rapid muzzle flashes and tracer all along the summit told him that all of their defenses, from one end to the other, had been breached.
A bullet slammed into the back of his thick support belt, slowed by his flak jacket. The blow caused him to pitch forward and stumble, nearly dropping Barsad. He staggered up from one knee, pushed on, his breath raspy and labored through the mask, the cursed mask… Barsad emptied his clip. Without thinking, Bane yanked one of his own free and passed it to his friend who resumed his frantic fire.
Two more strides, and the world exploded. Night became day as Bane went airborne, deafened by the RPG. Barsad's weight lifted from him. Without knowing it, Bane's hands clawed the air in search of his friend, an instinct, nothing more. The light vanished as abruptly as it had come, and he fell through blackness, silent, grave blackness like that of the pit, falling, falling without end as he had twice fallen from the walls of the prison shaft so long ago…