Chimera

Ansari thought about that as he walked towards the line of men trudging into the base camp of the army battalion. Each member of the team had beards by now and looked completely exhausted. But they had a smile on their faces.

So. Some PLA squad did get whacked on their way home.

Home?

They were home before they came down south.

Ansari ordered other soldiers nearby to assist the team members to get back into civilization, in a manner of speaking. He walked over and patted Gephel on the back. The bearded man turned around and smiled.

“Ansari! What are you doing here?” Gephel said joyfully.

“You didn’t think I would be here?”

“I thought we had lost you to the big-wigs in New-Delhi,” Gephel said. And then took a deep breath. “But it’s nice to see you again, my friend. It’s good to smell the scent of freedom out here, even if the mountains all look the same from both sides of the border.”

Ansari nodded in silence. He didn’t know whether that was true or not, but he knew Gephel had indeed seen it from both sides…

As the other team members disappeared into the camp, Ngawang walked over to Gephel and Ansari.

“I wonder what that chap General Macdonald would have thought if he had to face us instead of the peasants he massacred!”

Ansari laughed at that and neither Gephel nor Ngawang knew why. He explained after a few seconds of uncontrolled laughter:

“Just a while ago I was thinking about the same thing. I will say this though: all he had to do was face those Tibetan peasants armed with bloody matchlocks while he used field artillery and crack mountain troops. He still ended up needing a Brigade of men and thousands more people maintaining a threadbare logistical artery on a three hundred kilometer march to Lhasa. Your people ask us now why we didn’t go into Tibet in 1950 when the Chinese invaded. Guess what: back then the Chinese army was a two-hundred-fifty Division force. We couldn’t even spare a Brigade back then from the other requirements of the nation to help create an expeditionary force. But that was fifty years ago. Now things are different,” Ansari concluded. His two Tibetan charges nodded in silence.

“Perhaps,” the battalion commander noted. “But we still have less than a Brigade guarding these northern passes. When Lef-tenant-General Suman decides to divert some units to help me protect these northern passes better, I might feel better about our adventures into Tibet!”

The Colonel emphatically waved towards the darkened peaks north of his camp. Ansari, dismissed that line of thought:

“I don’t think you have to worry about these peaks, sir. We are monitoring the Chinese pretty closely on this. They are aiming for the killing blow to our military ability, not land grab. The last thing they want is unnecessary diversion of resources for tracts of land they cannot maintain in the long run. These peaks are natural watersheds, and will remain unchallenged.”

KASHGAR AIRBASE

SINKIANG AUTONOMOUS REGION

CHINA

DAY 3 + 0820 HRS

“This is not working,” Feng said quietly.

Chen nodded silently as both men watched the large sized screen inside the operations center showing the ongoing battle between four J-11Bs and four J-8IIs from the 32ND Fighter Division and a mixture of Indian Su-30s and Mirage-2000s from Srinagar and Avantipur airbases.

Losses had been registered on both sides as the BVR engagement had disintegrated into a melee at close range. On both sides the battle was being watched by AWACS aircraft.

Two Indian aircraft including one Mirage-2000 and one Su-30 had been destroyed so far. In return, all four J-8IIs had been lost during the initial stages of the BVR engagement while the J-11Bs had suffered two losses. The last two J-11B pilots were currently trying desperately to disengage from the battle by pulling closer to the Aksai Chin sector where the few handful of surviving S-300 batteries could provide cover…

The role of the PLAAF during the ground offensive of the PLA into Ladakh had been to provide air cover against Indian air attacks. Unfortunately, the powerful S-300 defensive belt in the Aksai Chin set up by Feng, Chen and Wencang had been chopped down by the elaborate attacks of the IAF the night before.

The only recent significant gains were the complete destruction of airstrips at Daulat-beg-oldi, Chushul and Fukche by the PLA long-range artillery systems. Other tactical Advanced Landing Grounds or ALGs had also been made inoperative but they only affected the army.

As it stood now, the PLAAF’s ability to defend the PLA Divisions surging into Ladakh was critically reduced. In fact, IAF Jaguars were striking deep and hard into Chinese territory even inside south-western Tibet now. The war for the skies of Ladakh was close to being lost, and both Feng and Chen could see it.