JUNGLE DIARY OF A SOLDIER: Part 4

 JUNGLE DIARY OF A SOLDIER 

Part 4 

4. Bad news and enemy counter 

After the dawn, unexpectedly crew of new men reached to our camp. But to our astonishment there were only ten soldiers. To our anxious curiosity we got to know that they encountered enemy on their route wherein our two more soldiers were injured who were carried by three back to base camp. No sad conversation ever brought as much disappointment to me as this one did. It was like we wanted lunch but have to adjust on breakfast during starvation but that breakfast is also valuable in such circumstances. We knew it deep in our hearts that whenever there occurred battle in history there occurred casualties on both the sides. And it is not possible to end such war without prior devastation. With every hard blow on opponent’s face opponent gets angry and try to hit back. But in an attempt to hit back, however weak he may be, he surely does cause some damage to stronger opponent. Damages occur on collateral sides and that is unpreventable. There is a small difference in our case we don’t have authority here to stop fight. We follow orders from our higher officers who we know are doing everything in nation’s welfare. Whether we want or not we were ought to fight to guard our nation and our brothers and sisters. That is the oath we took at the end of our training before getting into army and we will always stay truthful to it. For keeping this promise to our motherland we are ever ready to put our life at stake and we won’t hesitate if situation demand us to do so.

Upon receiving help our captain redistributed work and accorded that we were to form a camp near river so that we could have closer observation upon intruder’s movement. We spent two months in that camp. No encounter with enemy was confronted during that period. The days of going home were coming near as new batch of soldiers were scheduled to replace us. I still remember the last day of my existence in that forest. I can never forget that day in my life. As we were busy in erecting tents and bringing stuff we noticed a group of twenty to twenty five members crossing the river. They were not too far from us. They were armed and were walking right into the forest area that belonged to us. Now, it was our duty to stop them as they had already entered our territory. On a single command of captain we all got ready for the fight. We were outnumbered my enemy. We were twelve and they were about twenty five. Our captain’s words, I can still recollect as it is,

 “We get Life only once but chance to keep it at stake for nation is earned only by a soldier. I want you all to promise me that you won’t meet death until enemy is finished. Today is our day of going home. But I want to assign this final task before leaving this forest. I know we are outnumbered but if each of us fight equally to that of two soldier then we can destroy our enemy.”

Those words filled us with such amount of enthusiasm and energy that we had already won battle in our brains. We promised captain and to ourselves that we would go home and before that would destroy this enemy leaving a clean territory for next batch.

We quickly moved our feet and started hunt for the enemy. Not far we silently marched towards then and we started hearing footsteps. We quickly posed ourselves behind natural curtains of that forest. Few hid behind the bark of tree and others behind the bushes. As their frontier men came near us we started firing on them. Our starting gained ourselves advantage against unalert enemy as their five men were down already. Now the fight was of twelve against twenty one.

As we were aware of enemy’s position by virtue of their path one of us fired blind bullets through the lush bushes and there scream of a victim glorified our correct guessing and this way one more enemy was down. In past two months we had gained proper knowledge of the surrounding. Using that knowledge three of us were sent all around the firing place silently but quickly to attack enemy from their back. And it was possible to go unnoticed owing to the noise produced by regular firing shots. We called them Team Beta. Our captain assigned two important functions to them. One, to report about enemies position and two, to destroy enemy without giving them any idea about their position. When our soldiers reached their destined position they confirmed the same through walkie talkie. It was their estimation that there were twenty enemies. They told us about their position as they were able to see everything from a higher place located just behind our enemies. This added to our advantage. Then Team Beta started their second job. They started using everything they had learnt during training onto the battleground. Beta team consisted on one sniper, two sharp shooters and one grenade expert. That was the best combination for mass destruction. As the sniper took his secret position and started count down of enemy Grenade expert was ready to blow enemy in case they plan to run and come back the way they had planned to. At the same time our two sharp shooter were ready to bombard bullets into enemy’s body on their very sight. Adding to this Team Alpha on the other side was waiting for enemy to lose their cover after getting surprise attack. The plan was perfect and it was working in that direction. I was on alpha team, a sharp shooter, that’s what I was trained in. We cleared the battlefield successfully. Upon finishing battle we saw that twenty five enemy were down with no casualty on our side. That was something, a proud feeling for us. Because in the history of jungle it happened for the first time that in a counter with intruders all batch members were alive and uninjured while vanquishing all the enemies, adding to that when proportion of our team to their team was half.

We patrolled that area for next half of the day to look for any enemy left. Then we returned to our camp. Tired we sat there waiting for next batch to replace us and guide them for their future inevitable encounter with the enemy, which is of course never stop in this provincial part of the country. After the arrival of new batch we packed our backpacks. After thorough guidance to new team we departed from the camp and started way back to main camp. Our hearts were filled by the joy as we were making successful departure from the jungle and were going to meet our families soon. Constant thought stucked my mind on way back that memories of those lost fellow soldiers and officers would be haunting me daily for the rest of my life. Those were soldiers who were not more than twenty six, those were soldiers who hadn’t seen fully what life is, those were soldiers who didn’t know that they would end up their life so drastically, those were soldiers who didn’t know that life is cheap here, those were soldiers who didn’t know what would happen to their families after they are gone. Or if I am wrong and that they knew everything of these and yet they came here risking everything for their nation then I would say I haven’t seen strongest youth anywhere in the country than at the border. Our border is filled with such Valier who are always ready to sacrifice their life for the nation. Marching further I promised myself that I would never return to this jungle where I have seen my brothers shed their blood.

Link for Part 5: 

https://dilkikalambykhushal.blogspot.com/2020/11/jungle-diary-of-soldier-part-5.html

Link for Part 1: 

https://dilkikalambykhushal.blogspot.com/2020/11/jungle-diary-of-soldier-part-1.html