The Saviours of Piffer

I am about to tell a story – a story of tenacity and courage.

I must tell this story, before it gets permanently lost from the annals of the regimental history of 1/9 Gorkha Rifles.

1/9 Gorkha Rifles, was deployed along the Indo-Pak Line of Control (LC) from 1995 – 97. The area of responsibility stretched along the LC which ran parallel to National Highway 1A and a few Kilometres offset to the North. Delta Company, 1/9 Gorkha Rifles had its headquarters at Post 43 – a mere 300 metres from the Line of Control and arguably the closest to it anywhere!

  

Delta Company was spread out along the Line of Control in different pickets and satellite posts stretching along a part of the Line of Control entrusted to the 'First-Nine'. The forward-most satellite post of Post 43 was called ‘Piffer’. Piffer was literally a stone's throw from the Line of Control (and from the corresponding Pakistani post across it). Regulations required anyone moving ahead of Post 43 towards Piffer to remove all forms of identification like rank badges, name badges and in fact anything else that would make one look different from the troops on duty. This was rigidly ensured. Even senior officers visiting Post 43 who did venture beyond Post 43 were requested to comply with this requirement, not only because The Pakistanis were watching at close range and since anything unusual could escalate tension on the LC, but also, because of the strong possibility of a Pak sniper putting a hole in a target as interesting as an Indian general presented to him at temptingly close range.

             

                           The Company Commander's Bunker at Post 43

 'The Mile-stone' at Post 43 

      (POK 300m, 

      Bielargo - 7 Km

      Olthingthang- 16 Km 

      Skardu- 110 Km

      Islamabad - well within reach)

            1/9 GORKHA RIFLES took over Post 43 in 1995 from 26 MADRAS. The unit soon after taking over began improving defences and making minor alterations to bunker alignments. The Pakistanis routinely objected to such work as being in violation of the terms of The Simla agreement (which forbade any defence work activity in the near vicinity of the Line of Control). 

It was a tinderbox situation that prevailed there on the LC. Troops on the two sides were so close to each other with an heavy arsenal of weaponry pointed at each other’s posts and tensions ran high. It was easy for any situation to get escalated out of hand leading to a firefight and casualties. A drill had been evolved to prevent this from happening. 

Either side which had any objection to any activity on the other side of the Line of Control would raise a red flag in warning before opening fire. The company commander would usually go to Piffer in such an eventuality and the activity objected to would be conveyed in a shouted conversation across Piffer. It was then upto the side at the receiving end of the objection to either stop the activity or negotiate a temporary peace. There was however always the possibility of an escalation of the situation into a firefight as it sometimes did. While something as innocent as porters and their donkeys carrying supplies to Piffer could trigger off a red flag drill (or even a warning shot into the air) from the Pakistanis, we on the Indian side were more tolerant. It however became sometimes imperative to do a red flag drill on our side too if only to maintain an aggressive posture and prevent a ‘victim’ psyche from taking over the troops. So we lived, each side constantly on guard against and occasionally intimidating the other!

Piffer was commanded by a junior commissioned officer and had six men besides. It was equipped with a 7.62 mm light machine gun apart from the personal arms (7.62 mm SLRs and 9 mm Carbines) each individual carried. Piffer itself was in a poor state of repair since - given it’s close proximity to the Pakistani post - it was nearly impossible to do any but the barest minimum form of maintenance without the other side hearing you (and presumably running up the red flag). There was a breast-wall about 6 feet high running along the track leading from Post 43 to Piffer (about 300 metres long) which enabled porters and donkeys to carry supplies like food – tinned and fresh, water and kerosene to Piffer without the Pakistanis observing it. On one side of the track was the mountain-side and on the other side about 25 feet below flowed the River Shingo which crossed the Line of Control at Post 43 into Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Life on Piffer was tough - not in the least due to the stress of living in close proximity of the enemy. The possibility of a ‘grab action’ or a night-time raid across the Line of Control was all-too-real. Thus did an uneasy calm prevail in The Shingo Valley. It was a fateful night in April 1996 that was to change that!

The snow had barely melted at Post 43 itself and was still melting on the mountain-side above Post 43. Subedar Pritha Bahadur of Delta Company was in command of Piffer. The melting snow had probably loosened the rocks on the mountain-face above the track leading to Piffer. On that night there was a deafening roar – one that resounded over the roar of The Shingo. The Company Commander was away from his headquarters at another satellite post called ‘New Post’ which was about 45 minutes climb from Post 43. The scene that met him when he scrambled down to his headquarters was dismaying. A landslide had occurred which had washed away a portion of the breast-wall that concealed the track between post 43 and Piffer. The track itself was covered by a huge mound of rubble and rocks which made a smooth passage over it impossible. Donkeys could no longer get across to Piffer and even troops and porters laden with supplies would have a tough time doing so. 

The Pakistanis quickly realised the nuisance potential that this caprice of nature offered them. Their next actions would put Piffer Post and the small band of men who manned it in a precarious situation!

All day long after the landslide, The Pakistanis kept up intermittent machine gun fire on the portion where the breast-wall has been felled by the landslide and the mounds of rubble lay on the track effectively cutting off Piffer from Post 43. Although night did offer cover from observation, progress on clearing the track was frustratingly slow since the Pakistanis had machine guns placed on fixed line sporadically firing on the area and shifting by a few clicks to the left or right every few seconds  By the next night, the Pakistanis had powerful searchlights in place focussed on the area. These were effectively protected from fire from the sides by rocks or sandbags and were intermittently switched on and off so that it was difficult to aim at them except if a sniper was directly in the beam path (and thus in the line of fire). We tried but could never hit a light even though the range wasn’t much. Even in that situation, it was difficult not to admire our enemy’s ingenuity!

Subedar Pritha Bahadur and six men with him were trapped in Piffer. Any crossing of the landslide area- although only about about 30 m wide - could be achieved only by climbing over the boulders and loose rocks slowly and deliberately. An extremely risky venture. It was impossible to time the crossing since the lights were switched on and off in a completely random manner and any silhouette picked up by the lights promptly invited a burst of machine gun fire from across the river. Using porters and donkeys was out of the question. 

Although Piffer had some stock of rations, thanks to the surplus from the advance winter stocking, this stock would soon run out. Piffer needed water, fresh rations and lots of morale boosting . The brave men of Delta Company ferried loads like jerricans of water, fresh supplies to Piffer across the landslide area every night. The Company had two medium machine guns deployed. These along with the light machine guns tried to silence the enemy machine guns while ferrying operations were on. So did the machine guns from ‘Bagicha’- the BSF post across The Shingo. Yet we bought casualties night after night. There were gunshot wounds aplenty - fortunately none of them fatal. Something had to be done and done fast! Water was the first priority. A way had to be figured out to get water to Piffer without the company commander and his men having to put their lives on the line every night. The commanding officer Colonel (later Major General) Namesh Singh Jamwal assessed the situation and a plan was hatched.

          A 500 litre Sintex water tank was brought up from the base at Kargil and installed at a height of about 10 metres above Post 43 concealed from enemy observation and fire. A pipeline was then laid in jointed sections from this tank across the landslide area till Piffer which already had a tank to store water. A Shaktiman 3-ton water bowser would bring water to Post 43 which would be transferred to the Sintex tank in buckets manually (3-ton water bowsers did not have water pumps). All this could be accomplished safely out of sight of the enemy. Opening the cock to let the water into the pipe-and on its way to Piffer was however a tricky affair. Open the cock too little and the pressure wouldn’t be adequate to get the water over the landslide area (where the pipe actually had to climb over the mound of rubble and boulders). Open it too much and the pressure would cause the joints to give way causing a leak of the precious fluid. Piffer would have to be alerted on telephone or radio before the cock was opened. As soon as a drop in pressure was reported from Piffer- meaning that the line had sprung a leak somewhere - personnel stationed every 100 metres of the length of the pipeline to listen for leaks would swing into action to fix it. Before the joint could be re-established the pressure would have to be brought down by closing the cock at the tank end. Sometimes the leak would be in a joint in the landslide area which meant that someone would actually have to crawl over and risk getting caught in the searchlights and being fired upon to be able to fix the leak (eventually we managed to reinforce the joints with coils of string wrapped around them which was partly effective since the leaks were now less frequent). It was a tedious procedure and risky too but it definitely beat heaving jerricans of water across the landslide patch - and risking getting shot in the process.

The state of affairs at Piffer was reported to The General Officer Commanding, 3 infantry Division who came down to Post 43 to take a look. After different options were war-gamed, a plan to construct a sort of tunnel using sandbags was finally agreed upon. A section from the divisional engineer regiment was allotted to Post 43.

 It took weeks. Delta Company worked under the guidance and with the help of the sappers. Night by night, stone by stone, sandbag by sandbag and bit by bit a tunnel was built across the gap. The Pak side tried their best to interfere by firing on the work-site. Many were the splinter injuries and grazing bullet wounds. It was apparent to the Pakistanis after the very first day when the work started that something was afoot. In a few days, what we were trying was quite clear to them  but eventually the link to Piffer was established. The tunnel was christened The Cassino Tunnel. I do not know if it still exists or whether it has been replaced by something better but The Cassino Tunnel does still stand in my mind’s eye – A testimony to the fortitude and courage of 'The Jethi Paltan'. While every man of Delta Company put in his bit (and quite a few pooled in from other companies too, the ones who bore the brunt of the whole episode of course were Subedar Pritha Bahadur and his brave band of men who truly deserve to be called – THE SAVIOURS OF PIFFER

                           

                      The Saviours of Piffer (Sub Pritha Bahadur in the centre)