The Avatari (8 page)

As soon as Temur had left the room, the Great Khan turned to the young woman in the blue cloak and asked, ‘Are you pleased with my choice,
shine utga urmullah
?’ These were the Mongol words for ‘mother’.

She nodded demurely, not raising her eyes to meet his gaze.

The robed man in the room, whose head was covered in a cowl, nodded to himself. Few people at the court knew that he was Markos the Ongud.

CHAPTER 5

Malaya

A
PRIL 1956

‘Huzoor?’

The tone was low, but he recognized his batman’s voice as the canvas flaps which served as doors for the bamboo hut parted. The hut had served as a classroom before the villagers fled. He had been awake for some time, quietly smoking a cigarette while he waited for the boy. He drew on his cigarette to make the end glow so that he could see the dial on his wristwatch. It wasn’t yet four, but soon enough it was going to be time. The air was heavy with moisture and the rain, which had just let up, was still dripping off the roof in a steady trickle. His batman, a wiry young boy with a brutal regulation haircut, wore a khukri on his belt which, to his private embarrassment, had not yet been blooded.

‘Yes, Kamal Bahadur,’ Ashton said, acknowledging the boy’s presence and sitting up.

His bronzed body was covered in a sheen of sweat. He drew the panels of the cotton mosquito net aside and felt the cooler breeze on his skin. It was a welcome relief.

‘Chai,
huzoor
,’ the batman announced, setting the enamel mug of tea down on the wooden stool which served as the only item of coir mat in the hut, other than the chair and the torn coir mat. ‘
Maile tato pani rakhechu.
I have kept hot water for you.’

‘Thank you,’ Ashton responded in English. Though he was fluent in Gorkhali, his sergeant had asked him to stick to English, especially with the fresh recruits, so that they could pick up the language.

The Malayan Emergency, as it was called, was now in its eighth year. It had begun with the murder of three white settlers in 1948 and had spread insidiously through the entire country. There was talk of it soon being over; the communists had apparently had enough. But then, that had been said before. With an insurgency, Henry Ashton mused, you never knew. There were no victories, there were few contacts with an elusive enemy and success was usually measured in terms of the number of incidents – or lack thereof – depending on which side you were on. Anyway, there had been none in the three months they had spent in their fort inside the jungles of Kasek Baru, a two-day trek – in dry weather, that is – from the road to Kuala Lumpur, where the battalion headquarters was located.

Ashton finished his tea and inhaled deeply, savouring his cigarette, well aware that it would be a long time before he smoked one again. When you were out in the jungle, smoke, even from a cigarette, was a dead giveaway. He ducked into the forty-pounder tent just outside his shed which served as a toilet, careful not to hit his head or knock the pole down. He used the hole and quickly washed from the water in the tin. He got back to his shed, where the batman was waiting with a towel, his foldable mirror and an enamel mug of hot water. Ashton shaved, donned his fatigues, slung on his carbine and was out of the shed. Squinting in the dark, he headed in the direction of the tree that stood in the middle of a clearing, where a hazy impression of movement told him the men had quietly fallen in line.

Major Ashton had patiently worked towards this day. He had abided by what, in counter-insurgency warfare, was loosely termed the ‘fishpond’ theory. The designated target area was the ‘fishpond’ and he had ensured that his company gave it a wide berth while patrolling and operating all around it. Moreover, he had let it be known to the locals that their area of operations did not extend to the ‘fishpond’. Not wanting the ‘fishpond’ to be disturbed, he had also kept his intelligence sources there to the barest minimum. If his intelligence was reliable, the area should now be teeming with ‘fish’ and the time to harvest had come.

As Ashton approached the assembled men, there was a quiet murmur. He saw them quickly come to order, chivvied by the ferocious whispers of the non-commissioned officers.

Their ‘source’ was a thin boy of Malay and Chinese parentage. He spoke pidgin in an excited, high-pitched squeak, making up for his lack of vocabulary with sweeping hand gestures. A slow and well-meaning lad, he appeared to be without a family or, at least, one that bothered about him. The boy was standing to one side, looking curiously at the goings-on. He had come to the camp two days ago. It was a strange thing, the major thought, that while others of his age were playing rugby in England, this scruffy young boy was risking his life for half a bag of rice. They had kept him with them so that he could serve as a guide for the operation. Ashton’s sergeant, Durga Bahadur, or Duggy as he liked to call him, had his misgivings about the plan, one of the reasons being his conviction that their ‘source’ was a halfwit. But being the good sergeant that he was, he had gone along with the company commander’s orders. He had not, however, let the boy out of his sight for the two days that went into the planning and preparation of their mission for fear that the operation might be compromised. It was not unlikely either that the other side had got to him as well. Loyalty and reliability were luxuries one did not take for granted when dealing with ‘sources’ who held information.

They left the camp, following the trail which skirted the village and led to the village of Khemsa. The neighbouring village was ‘white’, which meant its people were loyal to them, but then again, you never really knew. For the past week, Ashton had led his men along this track at the same time every alternate day, the purpose being to form a cordon around the villages further down and follow it up with a search at daybreak. To anyone observing them, the manoeuvres would have looked routine. Even the local dogs had got used to the movement of soldiers and didn’t bark as they passed the village. It was after they crossed the first village that their party had broken up into two groups, one heading along the trail for Khemsa and the other, smaller one, consisting of about twenty men, moving into the jungle. Ashton had been amused at the bickering that had broken out among the men as they were divided into the two groups – one assigned to cover the target area, the other entrusted with carrying out their deception plan; everyone wanted to be a part of the action. He felt the indescribable pride of leading good soldiers. There was, he knew, no greater feeling in the world.

Ashton’s party was light; they carried just a platoon mortar and three light automatics as they moved swiftly, their khukris out, dodging branches that blocked their way and slicing their way through the undergrowth. Knowing that he had a good scout, Ashton was confident of the way and did not feel the need to look at his compass.

They covered about six miles before they began climbing. They chose a difficult route through a re-entrant, so they could be shielded from view. With daybreak, they could clearly see where the sun’s rays penetrated the thick canopy of trees. They reached the top of the hill, which was shaped like an elongated sausage, and worked their way along its spine, fifty metres below the crest. At around 3 p.m., they reached the edge of the feature and halted, the men fanning out and the scouts moving cautiously ahead. The scouts came back after some time.

‘The camp is visible below,’ Ashton’s corporal reported. ‘There seem to be fifteen or twenty of them. Not a very disciplined group; they have a fire going, with much smoke rising from it. And clothes have been hung out to dry.’

‘Any lookouts?’ his company commander asked.

‘Not that we can tell. There was one on this hill – we could make out from the cinders – but not for two weeks, at least.’ The corporal paused, looking at the sergeant. ‘And sahib… ’

‘Yes?’

‘There are some women and children too,’ he said, hastily adding, ‘not many.’

Major Ashton made no comment. Instead, he quickly called out the names of the men he wanted with him. They followed the scouts, crawling through the rocks and dirt till they reached the edge of the hill, from where they could see the insurgent camp. It lay almost 150 metres directly below them across a small rivulet which skirted it. The camp had at one time been a cluster of storehouses for a rubber plantation, which now lay abandoned because of the insurgency. It consisted of three long, barrack-like structures with thatched roofs; stakes driven into the ground marked its perimeter. Ashton allowed the men to take a good look. Then they all drew back and made a quick plan.

The men prepared their beds after washing down a pre-cooked meal with the bitter, plastic-tasting sterilized water from their bottles. Ashton lay with his head on his rucksack and dozed, waking up in the middle of the night and longing for a cigarette; his eyes stung where the sweat from his brow had washed down some insect repellant. There was a movement. Ashton made out the restless form of Duggy next to him. So the sergeant too had trouble sleeping, he thought.

‘
Huzoor
…’

‘Yes?’

‘There is no other way; it has to be this or nothing.’

Ashton thought about Yorkshire and the smiling, windblown pink cheeks of the children cycling over the cobblestones.

‘Yes, I understand,’ he said ‘Thank you, Sergeant. Now I think you had better get some sleep.’

They were in their positions by 5 a.m., moving silently from the loose outer-cordon positions to the fire positions they had selected for their final cordon. The insurgents had a two-man observation post overlooking the track beyond the rickety old suspension bridge over the rivulet. Two men had been posted on their side of the bridge. Both had been withdrawn, as Ashton and his men had guessed they would be, at 4 a.m., without being replaced. Ashton received a whispered netting call on the radio from all the stops and the fire base. They were waiting for his signal.

His own position overlooked the rivulet at the point where it was shallow – the direction in which he expected the insurgents to make their escape. Unlike the previous day, the sun was partially obscured by clouds. Ashton would have preferred a little more light to accurately pick up the fall of shot, but he couldn’t afford to wait; it was late enough and the camp would soon begin to stir. He whispered his signal into the receiver which Kamal Bahadur, who was also his radio operator, held up to his mouth.

There was a muffled thump from the hill feature they had been on, where he had sited the mortar position. The bomb arced, invisible in the sky, and landed plumb in the centre of the camp, throwing up a small black cloud of smoke; the sharp crack followed a fraction later. Ashton muttered a silent prayer of thanks. They didn’t have the luxury of ranging; the insurgents would be out and away if they weren’t on target. More worrying was the fact that his stops were too close. He had sited them at the minimum safety distance, but could make out they had moved in much too close, each stop trying to improve their chances of killing. The bombs came crashing down in rapid succession and he was glad to see that the fourth round was white phosphorus; the pungent white smoke, mixed with high explosive, would add to the confusion.
The mortar NCO had remembered his orders
.

It must have been a few seconds before they got a reaction, but it seemed an eternity. A bomb crashed into one of the buildings, lifting the thatched roof off its moorings; the sight bore an uncanny resemblance to a shot in slow motion of a similar scene in a film. Ashton could see the insurgents rushing out.

‘Get down!’ he screamed to his men, ‘you bloody buggers, get down!’

He felt Duggy pushing him down and realized that in his anxiety, he had sprung to his feet.

On cue, the mortar position began firing airburst bombs that blasted in midair above the camp. Ashton was sweating and his knuckles were white as he clutched his weapon.
My men are
much too close
, he thought. Duggy leaned across him and took the transceiver of his radio, which had fallen in front of him, and whispered a command. Ashton realized that in his charged state, he had missed signalling the automatics. Trained on the camp, the automatics opened up in a belt of fire which drove the insurgents, now in total disarray, towards the rivulet. The camp, like the position he was now on, stood on slightly higher ground. Leaping off a ledge on to the rivulet’s sandy bank, the insurgents tried seeking refuge in the water ten yards away. Caught unawares, some of them hadn’t even had the time to pick up their weapons and were half-naked. Ashton felt it was like shooting ducks in a barrel. He could see his men coolly taking aim and picking off their targets unhurriedly, the insurgents crumpling awkwardly under fire. He raised his own weapon to take aim. Through the rifle’s backsight, he picked out the figure of a young man who, having jumped off the ledge, was frantically trying to scramble up the loose sand and grass in his effort to get out of the line of fire. His lower cloth had come off, revealing thin, bony legs. The man was scampering and twisting like a deer. A drop of sweat trembled on Ashton’s eyelid. He doubted he would get a good shot. But he pulled the trigger, nevertheless, feeling the oily lurch of the recoil, and saw his target fall.

After some time, Ashton called off the mortars and the automatics. Apart from a few sporadic rounds fired into the bodies of the fallen insurgents who still appeared to be moving, the rifle fire had also ceased. The silence was eerie, unnerving, and he could hear his blood throb at his temples. Duggy was getting the search party ready. Covered by fire from the automatics, they were moving with utmost caution towards the camp. Ashton looked at his watch. Just five minutes had gone by since the first bomb had landed. He moved out from his position and followed the search team. There wasn’t much at the camp that was worth a scrutiny; just the wounded and the dead, a few bags of rice and some blackened aluminium pots. Evidently, the comrades didn’t believe in luxuries like vegetables, meat or kerosene. A few insurgents, apparently unhurt, stood around, looking dazed. There was no fight left in them, at least for now.