by J. Thorn
Sitting at my desk in the evening, I’m struck by the irony of that thought. Teng and his men would have been my sworn enemies just a few months ago, and indeed the Chinese officer I had killed in my raid wasn’t much older than Teng. Yet now I counted him a friend and a brother in arms. Clearly, in this new world that we live in, the common need to survive outweighs traditional bonds of nationality or religion. In some ways, that’s not such a bad thing, is it?
Again, I digress. So let me get back to what happened yesterday.
Teng’s men quickly established a perimeter around the hostel while Negi and his men guided the civilians away from the battle zone. Not that they were at much risk – Bharti’s troopers had their hands more than full with the Moreko, who in turn were getting shredded to pieces by a crossfire caused by the troopers and Teng’s men. By then, I had slipped out on a mission of my own, and begun the climb up the hill. My leg was acting up, but in the adrenaline rush of combat I had totally forgotten the limits of a prosthetic leg. I was a quarter of the way up the hill when I was forced to sit down on the side, taking cover behind a rock, rubbing at my thigh. By now, Bharti’s men on the hill had seen me and were firing away. That didn’t bother me much, since I hardly intended to do a kamikaze rush up a hill bristling with armed soldiers. My job was to do what most soldiers end up doing – yet another unglamorous part of being a grunt – being a magnet for enemy bullets. By firing, the troopers were giving away their positions, and Teng’s men were zeroing in on them with the two mortars they had brought with them. I heard a muffled explosion followed by screams as a round landed near the treeline and for a second, the shooting stopped. I moved a few meters up, and dove for cover as bullets pinged off the rock in front of me. By now, I was out of breath and my leg was killing me. For all my fighting, let me not leave you under any delusions about the kind of shape I’m in. I’m on the wrong side of thirty-five, have drunk myself to oblivion for many years since my discharge, and have one good leg. To say that I’m not quite fighting fit would be a massive understatement. But adrenaline can make a man do things he would not normally consider himself capable of, and I soldiered on.
Just then, I heard a growl behind me and turned to see two Moreko coming up, less than a few feet behind me. It was then that it struck me that firing from the town below had ceased, and the troopers had been overrun. Some of the Moreko might have gone towards Teng’s men, but the others were now coming up the hill. That left me running towards several armed troopers firing at me, while being chased by a bunch of decayed, stinking Moreko. Some guys have all the luck.
A combination of factors saved my ass. First, the fact that Teng’s mortarmen were a tad more accurate in their shooting than Bharti’s troopers. Second, I might have had one busted leg, but I could still outrun Moreko in an uphill race. Finally, as is often the deciding factor in any battle, I got lucky. Several bullets whistled past me, some passing so close that I could literally feel them going past my face, but soon I got close enough to join in the party and fire at the troopers on the hilltop, who were already taking a pounding from the mortars.
I paused to look behind and saw two Moreko still coming at me. One was a tall brute with his face caked in dried blood. A bullet to the head put him out of his misery. The other was a short, overweight man with a bad limp and fresh blood streaming down his chest. He had a piece of a human hand dangling from his mouth. I shot him once in the gut and followed up another shot to the neck. Having done away with Laurel and Hardy I looked up to see the troopers retreating to the bungalow as another mortar round crashed into their positions.
Behind me, the other Moreko had started dropping as Teng and his men began climbing up the hill and picking them off. That meant the Moreko down there were finished or had scattered. Either way, now it was just us and Bharti and his troopers at the bungalow. The last thing I wanted was a siege at the bungalow so I ran up as fast as I could. I saw a terrified-looking trooper cowering in the bushes and was about to shoot him when I paused on seeing his face. Poor fucker had lost his mind and was bawling like a baby. I would normally not consider myself a paragon of compassion but I left him and went towards the bungalow to be greeted by a wild burst of automatic weapons fire from a trooper at the door. I rolled to my left and got up to shoot him. I think I wounded him because he screamed and jumped back inside. By now, Teng and his men were almost at the summit and Teng knelt and shot another trooper who was on the roof and was aiming at me. In the chaos of battle, I hadn’t even realized that I had been in his sights. I owe Teng a drink – assuming there are any bars left where I can buy him one.
At that point it could have gone either way, but thankfully some of the troopers started to throw down their guns and put their hands up. As Teng and his men swept into the compound and began disarming them, I went inside. I went from room to room. A masked gunman took a shot at me that missed me by a fair margin and I put a bullet in him before continuing. There was no sign of Bharti anywhere. Teng was shouting out to me, asking me if I had found him. He seemed to have disappeared without a trace, and I had started checking the second floor when I heard a slight scraping above my head. Would you believe it? The bastard was hiding in the same attic where I had hidden.
I smashed the door open with the butt of my rifle and dove for cover as two pistol rounds were fired back. I fired a long burst through the false ceiling and heard a groan, followed by a masked gunman falling out onto the floor at my feet.
Then came Bharti. He dropped to the floor with the grace and agility of a sack of potatoes. His long hair, which he normally wore piled up on top of his head, was disheveled and fell around his face; his fleshy face was flushed and he looked like he had been crying. In short, he had definitely seen better days. He looked at me with eyes full of panic, and while I had my rifle trained on his head, I stopped myself from pulling the trigger. I had no intention of killing an unarmed man who was ready to surrender, even a scoundrel like Bharti, so I asked him to get up and give himself up.
He began groveling at my feet, saying that all he had wanted to do was start over again. He ranted on about how man had stopped believing in God and that had led to our downfall, and we needed to get back to the way things were before. I should have noticed the gleam in his eyes as he spoke, I should have acted faster and I shouldn’t have let my guard down. But I was tired, my bloody leg hurt like hell and I just wanted him to shut up so I could take him into my custody. I half believed that he was losing his mind and while sympathy would not be an entirely accurate description of my feelings, my hatred for him was being gradually replaced by pity.
So when he leaped towards me and stuck a knife in me, he seriously hurt my feelings.
I returned the favor by putting a bullet in his head, putting an end to his delusions of grandeur. I hope he took his visions of society and religion with him to Hell.
In case you’re wondering how I’m so blasé about being stabbed, he stuck the knife in my plastic and carbon fiber leg. Prosthetic leg: 1. Evil godman: 0.
Day 152. More lessons in leadership.
Today was a really exciting day. All the civilians with us came to the bungalow, escorted by Teng’s men. A few of Bharti’s troopers had fled into the city when the Moreko overran their positions and they were spotted on a couple of occasions, but they clearly had no more fight left in them, and they melted away. I wonder how long they will last in the city with the Moreko around.
We have about twenty of Bharti’s troopers who surrendered as prisoners. We’re a bit unsure of what to do with them. Yes, they are prisoners of war, but do things like the Geneva Convention mean anything in the times in which we now live? We debated their fate for a while, and it wasn’t surprising that some of the civilians who had suffered at their hands argued that they be left in the city below, at the mercy of the Moreko. I began to protest, but then I realized they were only following the example I had set in the forest.
In the end, Negi provided the voice of sanity and reason. He argued that
many of the troopers had indeed treated the civilians like dirt, but none of the prisoners we had were associated with rapes or beatings. Indeed, it looked like the worst offenders, perhaps sensing what would happen if they were captured, had gone down fighting. So Negi proposed that we give them a chance to rehabilitate themselves. They would of course lose all rights to bear weapons, and would be watched and punished at the first sign of misconduct, but they were to be given a chance to contribute to our community. They would help gather firewood and stand guard duty, and over time, we could evaluate if they could fully be integrated into our community.
I saw several doubtful faces, and also the terror in the eyes of the troopers. However, seeing their former captors reduced to crying and groveling, many of the civilians were clearly having a change of heart. Teng backed Negi up, saying that if none of these men could clearly be linked to atrocities, then it was fair to assume that they were acting on orders – perhaps they were wrong to follow a man like Bharti, but surely they deserved another chance. Negi argued that they were being punished, but with the equivalent of community service, not with summary execution, which would be perhaps disproportionate.
As I watched the exchange, I realized the limits to my own leadership. I could guide them in battle, and I could help them survive in forests, but I knew little about swaying people with words and logic. In those few minutes, I could sense a tangible change as the mantle of leadership shifted subtly but inexorably from my shoulders to Negi.
I think that’s a good thing. These people deserve a better leader than me. I am like an old guard dog – I know how to bark and how to bite, but I’m not really capable of anything more subtle. However, I suspect an old dog like me still has his uses. I can hear the Moreko screaming down in the valley.
This thing is far from over.
Day 153. The problem with overpopulation.
We did a census. There are one hundred and sixty four people here, including forty-one of Teng’s soldiers and twenty of Bharti’s troopers whom we took prisoner. The bungalow is huge, with five sprawling bedrooms, a large study, a big living and dining room and three outhouses in the back for the staff. Still, there are way too many of us to be able to live in any sort of comfort.
The easy decision was to move the prisoners to the outhouses, but that still means we barely have room to move without bumping into someone. Add to that crying kids, scarce food and water, and you have the makings of a disaster. As the old cliché goes, we won the war, but we risk losing the peace. Tempers are fraying and Teng, Negi and I are meeting this evening to come up with a plan before things get out of control.
I’ve been holed up in this very bungalow for three months, so I know something that most of the others don’t. We cannot pretend that being here means we’re isolated from what’s going on in the city. We will have to go down to fetch food and water, and honestly, given our numbers, we will have to find some means of housing people other than the bungalow. I have no idea what our long-term plan is. We can’t just stay in this bungalow forever. I can only imagine what people’s reaction will be when we tell them that.
Day 154. A message of hope?
The day started on a rotten note. One of the civvies had a bust-up with one of the Chinese soldiers. As is usually the case when people are stressed out, there was really no reason, and nobody could remember what had happened. Teng wanted to punish his man, but I held him back, advising him that nobody was to blame. Everyone had rallied together so far because they were united – by fear, by a desire to escape Bharti and a desire to find safety. Now people wondered aloud what the plan was.
Teng had been busy all day on his radio, trying to get in touch with his superiors in Lhasa. I could see the strain on his face, and he confided to me that what he feared most was that Lhasa had also been overrun by the undead. In that case, we were well and truly on our own, with no hope for help or reprieve. Then in the evening came a breakthrough that made everyone forget their squabbles: a message that seemed to bring with it the hope for some sort of a future. A voice on the radio told Teng that helicopters would be flying to our position in three days’ time, bringing with them the general commanding the forces in Lhasa and some supplies.
People seem to be in a much better mood as we get ready for bed, and Negi has come up with a brilliant plan to ensure that people are too busy over the next three days to squabble among each other. Tomorrow, we go down into the city to fetch water and food to last us till the helicopter arrives. I can’t say too many people are excited about it, but everyone knows we’re almost out of water and food. We’ll figure out the logistics of how we organize our trip down, but right now everyone’s talking about the radio transmission.
I’m sitting by myself, wondering what lies ahead and if the radio transmission is indeed a message of hope. I like Teng, and am thankful for all the help he’s provided, but what is the agenda of the general running things in Tibet? Call me a cynic, but when someone gets too much power in his hands, usually nothing good comes of it.
Day 156. Hunting and gathering.
Didn’t have time to write yesterday, and it’s almost dark as I sit down to write this entry. The general arrives tomorrow morning but most people are just too tired from the exertions of the last couple of days to show any kind of excitement at his imminent arrival. Negi is lying a few feet away from me, and for all the things I admire about the man, he snores louder than a bloody power drill. Anyways, I’m not really sleepy – the adrenaline is still working its way through my body and it’ll be a while before I can get myself to sleep.
We began our foraging in the city for food and water yesterday morning. The first thing we decided was to get only enough to last two or three days, since Teng had informed us that the choppers would be bringing supplies as well. However, with the number of mouths to feed, that still meant a considerable amount of supplies. Next came the matter of who would actually go down into the city. Negi volunteered to go down and then, perhaps a bit naively, asked for volunteers. Teng moved towards Negi, but other than that, there was pin-drop silence in the room. I guess we all learnt another important lesson – that democracy has its limits.
I moved into the room and told people that every single adult would go down to fetch supplies. One of the men, someone I didn’t recognize, grumbled about how families with kids needed more supplies but the kids not going down meant that the families were going to get unfairly advantaged. I stared him down and told him that he was going to be the first man down. I think I shouted louder than I should have, but I was beyond angry. After all the crap we had endured, I had hoped people would rise above their petty self-interest. I’m no saint, but I know when it’s my turn to bear someone’s burden, simply because there have been times when without others bearing mine, I would have been toast.
The first three trips went without incident, and I had been down twice. When Teng told me that I didn’t need to go down any more, I just shrugged and asked him for a drink.
It seems our resident godman, for all his other issues, had impeccable taste in alcohol. Bharti had a stash of bottles of Jose Cuervo, probably looted from some shop in the city, which I promptly liberated. I felt the tequila burn its way down my throat as I got ready to go back down for a third time. Part of what was driving me was sheer adrenaline – it was a familiar feeling whenever I went into combat. I was buzzed and if there was fighting to be done in the city below, I wanted a part of it.
Negi pulled me aside and told me that I was being crazy, and that I did not have to take on so much responsibility. Here’s a dirty secret in case you get this diary – what Negi mistakes for a sense of responsibility is nothing so noble. I guess the shrinks will have a fancy word for it, but my head’s so messed up with all I’ve been through that I enjoy being in combat, and yes, killing people. It’s hard to admit it, and you can’t see me pausing as I write this, but yes, when I’m in battle it’s the only time I feel like I’m capable of doing something useful. In the old world, I was a faile
d officer, a failed husband, a failed writer. In this new world we’ve inherited, my writing skills count for nothing. But I can fight, and that matters, perhaps more than any other skill.
Enough catharsis – perhaps it’s just the tequila speaking. I’ve had three shots after I sat down to write and I’m a bit buzzed. Let me get back to what happened over the last two days.
There were four civilians ahead of me. Well, I guess I should stop using the term ‘civilians’. All of us were now armed, and all of us were workers, cleaners, soldiers, teachers all rolled into one, doing whatever is needed to be done to stay alive. Two of Teng’s soldiers were right behind me and following them came four of Bharti’s former troopers, whom we had not armed yet. We split up into pairs and went into homes, avoiding those that had been marked with red paint, indicating a team had already been in it. I had just announced my triumphant discovery of four packs of biscuits in a house when the first Moreko arrived.
I heard shouting in Chinese and then several shots rang out. Teng’s men were competent, and if it was a single Moreko who had blundered into our path, then they would get rid of it in short order. When I didn’t hear any more noises for a few seconds, I relaxed and got back to my scavenging.
That was when I heard the growls outside and the unmistakable shuffling sounds of a large number of Moreko on the move. I looked out the window and saw four Moreko just outside, moving towards the four men who had just come out of a building, laden with supplies. One of them took out his pistol – we still hadn’t trained all the civilians in using rifles, so most of them carried pistols – and fired, his shots going wide and enraging the Moreko.
