The moonlight glistened off the shiny new paint job. Major Kulkarni admired the speed with which the new camouflage had been applied. The green camouflage had been painted over with white and the light brown areas had been painted over with shades of disruptive patterns of brown. The paint was still not dry yet. Fact was that they only reason they had halted at all was because a medevac convoy was making its way west from Leh back to Srinagar carrying wounded soldiers and civilians to safety. The snake like mountain roads did not allow much room for two way motion along the road.
Kulkarni looked around. Everywhere they had passed along the way, the story had been the same: civilians heading west, military convoys heading east. Helicopters occasionally flew overhead and sometimes they could see black pillars of smoke from some supply base that had received a hit from Chinese cruise-missile. But the change in emotions on the way here from Rajasthan had been powerful.
They were also having a different type of effect on those they passed on the road. Everybody stopped in awe as the Major’s unit thundered by. It never failed to inspire Kulkarni.
It was still a long drive to Leh and just as long a drive from there to the actual ground combat zone.
He shook his head and turned his attention to the road. As the last truck passed by, he was waved on by the MPs guiding the traffic on the road. He climbed on top of the turret and put his helmet on. The others in his convoy did the same. He then lowered his R/T mouthpiece and depressed the send button, instantly activating voice comms between himself and the other eleven vehicles in his unit:
“Rhino-One to all Rhino elements! Looks like the road is clear. We are rolling again! Move out!”
His driver took the cue and a second later the vehicle lurched forward. Eleven other similar vehicles did the same. The thunder of twelve Arjun tank engines reverberated through the valley for kilometres as Rhino Squadron of the 43RD Armoured Regiment began rolling towards Ladakh.
“Get it rolling, son. We don’t have all night.”
Lieutenant-Colonel Fernandez shouted as he walked by the young lieutenant fixing up the last supporting harnesses around the Pinaka Launcher. Its canisters were empty and the platform lowered and locked for transport. He stopped and looked around to see crews preparing the other vehicles as well. He moved the cigar in his mouth from one side to the other.
“Let’s go, men! Move!”
He loved his cigar. Always had. But he had begun to love it even more in the winter of Sikkim. And he definitely loved the victory smoke. His battery had hammered the divisional artillery units of the Chinese 55TH Division in the Chumbi valley for the past day. That division was being heavily mauled by the Indian divisions under XXXIII Corps as part of operation Chimera.
But he and his Pinaka warriors had now been transferred to Bhutan.
“Sir, J-F-B command on the line!” Fernandez’s comms officer said as he ran up to him.
“All right son, let’s go.”
Fernandez walked up into the command trailer parked under camo netting and skip-jumped the climbing-steps and walked in.
“Hit it, son!” he said as he grabbed the radio speaker.
“This is Hotel-six-actual, send traffic, over!”
“Hotel-six-actual, this is Warlord. Give me an update!” General Potgam’s grizzly voice came through.
“Hotel-Six is on the move, sir. Group of three Launchers, one C-Three vehicle and support elements are awaiting a hitch to the deployment area just as soon as the flyboys get their act together. Other elements will follow later,” Fernandez said. He could faintly hear the sounds of helicopters outside.
“Keep pushing hard. I want you guys to hit the ground running. We are time-critical on this. We are getting some eyes in the sky soon. Get your asses over here in the meantime. Warlord out!” Potgam signed off.
Fernandez handed the speaker back to his comms officer. He stepped two feet to the side and opened the door. The immediate gust of freezing air entered the trailer, causing everybody to shiver and reach for their jacket zippers. Two Mi-26 helicopters were hovering outside and the strapped and packed Pinaka vehicles were being hooked up underneath them. Further away, Mi-17V5s were doing the same with the lighter utility vehicles…
The crumbling frontline in northern Bhutan and the threat to Thimpu had created a lot of uncertainty. While the golf-course at IMTRAT headquarters in Haa-Dzong had been converted into a temporary helipad for the heavy reinforcements heading into Bhutan, the threat to Haa-Dzong was still far from clear. Hotel-Six was the only rocket artillery moving into Bhutan for now and represented the only artillery units directly under Potgam and Joint-Force-Bhutan.
