Four Miles to Freedom

by Faith Johnston

  Life has been gradually improving especially since the ceasefire. For Xmas we were all allowed to meet each other for the first time. The two Christian officers got a priest and we all shared two lovely cakes. New Year’s was also brought in with plenty of singsong, some streamers for decorations and extra good food. Since Xmas we spend all the daylight hours together out in the sun. It is wonderful in this cold Pindi winter. At dusk we return to my room, get a lovely fire going and chat away until dinner. As expectations of a POW camp go, the life is much better than we thought it would be …

  Tolerable as life is one is very anxious to go home. The twin curses of this place are boredom and lack of news. The first we combat with chess, carrom, and occasionally a rubber of bridge. The latter has no solution, and we really have no idea of the postwar situation in either country.

  We even get paid for this confinement at the very handsome rate of Rs 57 per month. This money goes a long way towards tea and supplementing the meals … Our Pakistani captors are very reasonable. We seem to have established a very decent relationship based on humane qualities.

  Once again I do wish very hard that you have emerged thru this entire skirmish unscathed …

  Y. affly

  Dilip

  It was a carefully written letter that managed to avoid any blackouts from the Pakistani censors. And though there was a great deal left out, what Dilip chose to say, and worded so judiciously, was substantially true. In late December he had been moved from his single cell to a larger room next to the interrogation room. It had been Jafa’s cell originally but after Jafa was moved to the hospital the POWs began to call it Dilip’s cell or ‘the Indian tea club’. It was the fifth in a line of cells that began at the guardhouse by the gate, but its construction was much older than the first four cells and it was separated from them and the toilet by a narrow alley.

  Every day at five o’clock, the eight POWs left the courtyard and assembled in Cell 5 for tea. The room had a fireplace that was lit occasionally for a few hours, and it was furnished with a table and chairs as well as the two charpoys. Soon it became the room where the prisoners ate all their meals. They even acquired a pet—a half-grown calico cat, very skinny. It was happy with any scrap of food they threw on the floor for it. They paid little attention to the cat but still it stuck around. ‘You could say she adopted us,’ remembers Dilip, ‘and we were grateful.’

  Cell 5 was by far the most desirable cell in the complex. It had not only a fireplace and a ceiling fan, but also a window, high up in one wall. At some point Dilip began to share the cell with Chati who was one of the walking wounded. He might have had to share it with Pethia too, but Pethia was suspected of having TB. For several weeks he was put on a course of antibiotics and quarantined in his cell.

  Dilip was still determined to escape, but for the moment his plans were not settled. He had had second thoughts about the hostage-taking idea. He realized that a scheme that had worked in the western world, where there seemed to be greater respect for human life, might not work for him in the present situation. He could run into someone along the way who was willing to shoot the hostage, and make short work of him as well. It didn’t seem to be a plan destined for success.

  In the meantime he had noticed that the wooden frame of the window in his cell was rotting and the mortar that held the frame was deteriorating as well. From what he could tell, the bars were set into the frame alone and didn’t extend into the bricks above or below. He figured with a little work he might be able to dislodge the whole frame.

  However, even if the window frame gave way and he made it over the wall and onto Mall Road, he would have to be miles away before his escape was discovered. All this would take time to prepare. And he would need a plan not only to escape detection as he broke out of the prison, but a route to reach the border. For that he would need a map.

  Peshawar

  (13 August 1972)

  They reached Peshawar at about six, just as the sun was rising. So far, so good. They got off the bus soon after entering the city, before reaching the interstate bus station, and headed for another dhaba where they again ordered tea. The tea was served in a most remarkable porcelain pot. It had obviously been broken, possibly more than once, and then put together again with glue and brass strips. There it sat, like a relic in a museum, but still in use, and without a leak. All three of them were fascinated. If they had really been on a holiday, as they were pretending to be, the pot would have made the perfect souvenir.

  But they couldn’t linger long, not even long enough to finish the pot of tea. Soon their comrades in Rawalpindi would wake up and their absence would be noticed. They needed to find the road to Jamrud, and then a place to hide out for the rest of the day. From Peshawar to the Afghan border was over forty kilometres. They estimated it would take them at least two or three nights of walking. But first they would have to find their way out of Peshawar.

  By the time they left the dhaba the city was on the move. Harry Sinhji remembers their shock at how many men toted guns. ‘We walked along the road and noticed we were among the Pathans,’ he recounts. ‘More than half the adults we saw were carrying arms. There was an auto-rickshaw driver with a gun resting against his windshield. All these people wore a kind of cross-belt or bandolier for ammunition or cartridges. We were on the fringes of the wild Northwest Frontier Province, an area where the only law was tribal law—tribal Jirga as the locals call it—and one which even the British could not tame.’

  They soon came upon an empty tonga and Grewal established a price for a ride to Jamrud Road. He remembers negotiating with the tongawala, a young man dressed in the white salwar kameez typical of the region, with a cloth wrapped around his neck because of the early morning air. Grewal sweated through the entire transaction. ‘The tongawala turned out to be very inquisitive and while I sat with him in front he bombarded me with questions that I had a hard time answering.’

  First of all, even before they boarded, the fellow wanted to know where on Jamrud Road they wanted to go, so Grewal told him they were looking for a particular newspaper office, but anywhere on the road would do—they had plenty of time. But the questions didn’t stop there. They continued right through the ten-minute ride.

  ‘Where have you come from,’ the tongawala asked. (‘Lahore,’ said Grewal, as planned.)

  ‘What time did you catch the bus there,’ he asked next, and then, ‘Why are you going to a newspaper office?’ (‘Looking for work,’ said Grewal.)

  ‘But it’s a Sunday,’ said the fellow, ‘won’t the office be closed?’

  On and on it went. It was a great relief when they came to an intersection and the tongawala pointed to Jamrud Road.

  At that point, the three climbed out, and Harry Sinjhi handed the fellow a five-rupee note. ‘He looked at me and shocked us by saying in English, “No change,” says Sinjhi. I smiled and, forgetting that we were job-hunting paupers, said, “Keep the change.” Considering our looks and the short ride, this was a mistake.’

  ‘The tongawala stood up. There was a big question mark writ large on his face. It was evident that he felt there was something fishy here. He asked us to put our gear back and climb in. He would take us wherever we wanted to go. We said it wasn’t necessary, but he insisted. So we just walked away, while he stood there looking very puzzled.’

  The Map

  For over a month, the POWs’ wives and parents awaited news. All they had received were telegrams sent from air headquarters that read ‘deeply regret to inform you that your husband/son … is reported missing in operations.’ Then, a few days after the telegrams, came letters signed by Air Chief Marshall P.C. Lal: ‘I am very sorry to learn that your husband/son … was reported missing … I can well imagine how anxious you must be about him … I shall of course keep you informed of any news we may get about him. In the meantime please accept my deepest sympathies.’ Then the weeks passed and they heard nothing at all.

  For Dilip’s parents the first news of their so
n came from an unexpected source. About the middle of January his father’s sister phoned from Beirut. ‘I’ve just been told by a diplomat here that a Parulkar is a POW in Pakistan,’ she said. ‘That must be Dilip.’ At that point his parents lit an oil lamp. They kept it going until Dilip was released.

  A few days later the families of POWs received telegrams from the IAF saying: ‘glad to inform you that the Indian Red Cross Society has now reported that your husband/son … is prisoner in Pakistan stop letter giving details in post.’

  On 4 February the names of 576 Indian prisoners of war were published in the Times of India. When he read the lists, Dilip’s old commanding officer, M.S. Bawa, turned to his wife and said, ‘I know Parulkar is going to try to escape. I hope he doesn’t get himself killed.’

  Meanwhile, in Rawalpindi, the prisoners began their second month of days spent in the courtyard, strolling, chatting, and playing chess and bridge and carrom (crokinole). Mulla-Feroze had returned from hospital but Jafa and Singh and Kamat were still away and no one knew how they were doing or when they would return. It had been over a month since Mr B—’s visit but no letters had come, no news of the outside world at all. They had no idea if the Indian government was negotiating their release, or even an exchange of the sick and wounded, which they knew should come first.

  On 26 January the POWs had celebrated India’s Republic Day. It was the first break in their daily routine since the party on New Year’s Eve. They used their pooled funds to order a good lunch and some sweets and fruit to distribute to the camp staff. Before lunch they sang the national anthem and observed two minutes of silence for their fallen comrades. Usman Hamid was invited to the function but he sent MWO Rizvi in his place. When they sang the national anthem, they were pleased to see that Rizvi stood respectfully at attention.

  By February Pethia was out of quarantine though his condition had not improved. It was good to have him back. He enjoyed a game of bridge above all else and served as the resident expert on the game. Four men would play while the others offered advice and cheered them on. The exchanges sometimes became very hot and some thought that the debriefings went on for far too long.

  It was difficult to please everyone and even harder to remember the courtesies due to Coelho who was ten years older than the rest of them and had to spend all day long in the company of men of lower rank. For years it had been his job to train young pilots and teach them discipline and respect, but now circumstances were far from normal. The younger men should have addressed him as ‘Sir’; they should have said: ‘Please pass the salt, Sir,’ or ‘Goodnight, Sir,’ but some of them dispensed with such courtesies or simply forgot them. When that happened, or if the banter became rough, Coelho would never say a word, but occasionally he would ask to be taken back to his cell and the younger officers would all know that he was displeased.

  Boosting morale, maintaining physical and spiritual and mental fitness, were the challenges and they all knew it. Every morning they bathed in cold water. On a day that promised sun a man might wash his shirt, pants and underwear at the same time, wringing them as dry as possible before he wore the same damp garments for the day. Every morning before breakfast Kuru did push ups in his cell and Coelho read his Bible. Coelho also folded his trousers and placed them under his bottom blanket at night to preserve the crease.

  Dilip and Grewal organized competitive games to help themselves and everyone else keep fit and in good spirits. The first game they proposed was seven tiles, a game they had all learned in childhood. It required little equipment, simply a stack of pottery shards or flat stones—whatever they could find—and a ball which they had a lascar buy from the market. They would form two teams of two or three men each and go at it hard. The first aim was to topple the stack by throwing the ball from a distance of about ten feet (they drew a line in the dirt), the second was to rebuild the stack while the opposing team fired the ball at you. It was a wild game, so wild and crazy that they couldn’t play it for long, but it gave them many laughs. Pethia and Bhargava usually formed the cheering section. Bhargava still had to be careful or his back would spasm, and Pethia was not well enough to play. Later they acquired a cricket bat and began to play French cricket, a hybrid game designed for small spaces, and since their courtyard was too small even for that, they made further modifications.

  There was lots of talk and joking while they sat around catching their breath or playing chess or bridge or carrom. At first it was all a novelty. They heard about Grewal’s trip to Europe a year before the war. He had taken a long leave, flown to Athens, and backpacked around for three months. ‘I tied my hair in a ponytail,’ he told Dilip, ‘and everyone thought I was a hippie.’ Everyone had a few good stories, well rehearsed, but as the weeks passed there was really nothing new to say.

  One afternoon while they were passing time in the courtyard, some young men peeped over the outer wall and initiated a conversation. ‘How is life?’ they asked. ‘How do you pass your time?’ The young men said they were members of the Rawalpindi Club, whose grounds were nearby. They returned the next day and tossed several packs of high-quality playing cards over the wall. They explained that at the club a pack of cards was discarded after every ten hands. The POWs never saw the young men again and wondered if the camp staff had put a stop to their visits.

  Most days either Rizvi or Usman Hamid popped in to see how they were doing. Rizvi tended to linger if a game of chess was in progress. He obviously loved the game. He would stand there watching and they could tell he was itching to play. Usman Hamid was more inclined to tell a funny story to cheer them up. One day he told them how he had gone to England for training at Staff College. He remembered being given little notice of his trip and regretting that he would miss the very popular Indian movie, Mughal-e-Azam. It had just opened in Pakistan at the time. Don’t worry, his father had told him. It will still be playing when you come back. And sure enough, when he returned almost a year later, the film was still playing at the same movie hall.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to travel overland to Europe,’ said Usman another day.

  ‘So have I!’ Dilip said quickly, sensing a chink of opportunity. ‘Grewal and I were thinking of a trip to the Olympics in Munich this coming summer. I have an aunt in Lebanon and he has an uncle in Egypt. We want to stop in both places along the way.’

  And that was Dilip’s excuse for asking Usman Hamid for a map, a school atlas, to be precise. If he and Grewal had a school atlas, they could plan their trip to the Munich Olympics. Surely they would be repatriated before the summer. And planning their trip would give them something to do in the meantime. That was the story he told Usman Hamid, but in fact it was not an overland trip to Europe he had in mind.

  On one of those sunny winter afternoons, while strolling in the courtyard, Dilip whispered to the others that he intended to escape. He told them about the state of the window frame and said that he intended to work on it.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ said Mulla-Feroze. In the military hospital he had encountered some civilians who attacked him as soon as they realized he was an Indian POW. A guard was stationed at his door, not to keep Mulla-Feroze in, but to keep others out. Pethia had had a similar experience on one of his visits to the hospital. To escape would be madness. Even if you could avoid the police and military, there were hundreds—thousands—of angry civilians out there.

  When Dilip told his friends he intended to get a map from Usman Hamid, he got the same reaction.

  ‘You’ve got to be crazy,’ they said. ‘He’ll never give you an atlas. He’s the camp commandant, for heaven’s sake! He’s not a bloody idiot!’ Getting a map from Usman Hamid became Dilip’s first challenge. He was determined to get the map from Hamid and no one else.

  ‘He just wants to plan an escape so he can boast about it later,’ Mulla-Feroze told the others, and he wasn’t the only doubter. ‘No one took him seriously,’ remembers Sinhji.

  In fact there was one person who did take him seriously and th
at was his batchmate Brother Bhargava. Soft-hearted Bhargava, who knew Dilip better than anyone, was very worried that his daredevil friend would carry through his plans.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ he begged Dilip. ‘You’ll get yourself killed!’

  Usman didn’t refuse to give Dilip a map (in fact he said he would, at the time), but he didn’t produce one either. Each time he popped into the courtyard or the Indian tea club for a visit, Dilip would remind him in a jocular way, ‘Ah, I see you’ve forgotten our atlas again. How will we ever be able to plan our trip?’

  Sometime in February Dilip began work on the window in Cell 5. The window was located on a side wall and looked onto a narrow alley between two of the buildings on the compound. Across from the window were the toilet and the shower used by the POWs so it was easy to check the state of the mortar around the window on both sides of the wall. Dilip found that the mortar on the outside wall was in an even greater state of deterioration than on the inside.

  At the end of the alley, just a few feet beyond the window, were several strands of barbed wire that separated the prison compound from the grounds of the recruiting office next door. During the day a number of airmen and civilian staff worked at the recruiting office and some parked their bicycles along the barbed wire fence, but after five the recruiting office compound was deserted. Dilip planned to head that way once he climbed out the window. He knew his timing would have to be perfect. In the prison compound there were always four armed guards on duty, one stationed in the guardhouse and three patrolling. He would have to scramble out the window and through the fence at a moment when all three patrolling guards’ view of the alley was blocked. He was hoping to take advantage of a sandstorm. They were common enough in the dry months before the beginning of the monsoon rains.