The raiding party assembled on the flattened mud of the camp parade ground just after night had fallen, 16 soldiers of the so-called Nyomita Bahini ╤ regular forces of Bangla Desh ╤ and two noncommissioned officers. The warrant officer╒s torch, as he passed down the line of men, illuminated 16 pairs of bare feet, three old Bren guns, three battered British two-inch mortars, and a kit bag with a dozen mortar bombs still in their sealed cardboard tubes.
The captain, a tall young man with spectacles who used to be an officer in the Pakistan Army Service Corps, emerged from his tent wearing a striped sports shirt and the long cloth skirt Bengalis call a ╥lunghi╙. The warrant officer saluted him. The captain then addressed the men in Bengali. The English word ╥discipline,╙ ╥disciplined force,╙ ╥no smoking╙ occurred several times. Then he ended by saying in English: ╥I want to see quick firing on target and quick dispersal.╙ The warrant officer saluted again, and the 18 men, with two correspondents trailing behind, set off from the camp, the headquarters of a 140 mile ╥sub-sector╙ of the western sector of the Mukti Bahini, in a border area about 55 miles north-west of Calcutta.
Facing his company, the captain had said earlier, were two battalions of the Pakistani Army, both from the Frontier Force Regiment. The night╒s patrol was what he called a ╥jitter party╙ and was aimed at disturbing the sleep and peace of mind of a company of Pakistani troops at a place called Maslia, on a bend of the River Kapotakshi, about four miles inside East Bengal. ╥I don╒t expect the fire to be very effective,╙ he had told us, ╥although we might be lucky and kill somebody sleeping in one of the huts instead of in the bunkers. But we╒ll be happy if we just keep them worried.╙
About a mile from the camp, the party climbed aboard three mortars down on large country boats. Somebody put one of the mortars down on my hand, there was much clicking of safety catches, and in spite of the captain╒s strictures, several men lit cigarettes. The sergeant, dressed like the warrant officer in soup bowl-type steel helmet, khaki uniform shirt, and shorts of the variety known as Bombay bloomers, took up a position with his Sten gun in the prow of the boat.
The boats began to slide across the water ╤ more like a huge and convoluted lake than a river now, swollen by flooding. Starlight gave a clear view of distant tree lines. We boated through a flooded village, between half-submerged houses whose owners were sleeping or squatting on high platforms inside, and through flooded fields of high jute with the feathery fronds slapping against our faces. Several of the men chatted away in normal conversational tones, to my horror, but the talk faded as we went deeper in.
Then the boats grounded and everybody jumped into the water and waded to land, one party of men with a Bren and one mortar disappearing into the darkness to the left, and the rest of us, with two Brens and two mortars, moving single file into a grove of trees. There were numerous inexplicable stops en route and the young guerrilla deputed to look after us kept saying rather pointlessly something like: ╥Here we are in Bangla Desh.╙
After perhaps 20 minutes we came to a large village, passed quietly through and emerged on to a river bank. The Brens and the mortars were set up, the bombs taken from the cardboard tubes. The sergeant pointed to the other side of the river ╤ about 200 yards away ╤ and said ╥enemy location.╙ Villagers in the huts nearest the firing party woke up and pulled out quickly, presumably to huts at the other end of the village, carrying bedding and other bundles. Two cows remained, placidly chewing hay.
Then the firing started, sounding incredibly loud after all the whispering and shuffling that had gone before ╤ short bursts from the Brens, whumps and bangs from the mortars, single shots from the .303 rifles carried by the other men. The party to our left joined in. There was no response from the ╥enemy location╙ and the sergeant mysteriously announced: ╥We fire now; in 20 minutes they fire.╙ When the firing stopped, one of the cows belched.
We returned to the boats at some speed, the warrant officer counted the party, and we pushed off into the water again. Twenty
minutes later, to the minute ╤ I looked at
my watch ╤ came the extremely nasty sound of a mortar bomb landing about 400 yards from the boats. Happily it was not followed by others. One of the men in our boat said: ╥Enemy fire. Three inch mortar. They are sighted on her because╙ ╤ he gestured round, indicating that this was the river╒s narrowest point.
Ten minutes later we were out of the boats and half an hour afterwards back at camp, freshening up by pouring pump water over our heads. The captain, confident that his jitter party would come to no harm, was sleeping soundly in his tent, his officer╒s perks of Heinz tomato ketchup and Nivea cream on the bedside table next to the clips for his Chinese submachine gun.
Warrant Officer Aladdin, as he padded through the mud back to the camp in front of us, had suddenly announced: ╥I was in the Second War with British Army. Burma, Assam. I was driver. Then 25 years my service in East Pakistan Rifles. They killed many EPRS in Dacca. I had 25 years╒ service.╙ He seemed almost to be regretting his pension but, when asked his age, replied, ╥Thirty nine.╙ Sensing that this had not gone down too well, he added ╥or forty.╙
On reflection, the patrol was a competent effort. The men knew how to work the weapons, and they moved quickly to and from the chosen position. On the other hand, the ritual nature of the affair argues a certain lack of originality by both sides. The Pakistanis have obviously got over the nervous stage when they wasted quantities of ammunition replying to such firing parties. But they have not yet got out to the point of seriously trying to hurt the Mukti Bahini. A single mortar round is pretty much a symbolic gesture while properly positioned troops, disposed to intercept just such a party as ours, could have blasted the boats and their contents all over the river.
To be fair to the Mukti, jitter parties are not their main occupation. The captain╒s company of Nyomita Bahini claims to have killed 125 Pakistani soldiers, including two officers, in the four months it has been in existence. Their best effort so far was an action in late July when they ambushed a column, killing or wounding a claimed 50 soldiers, and capturing two radio sets, which they now use themselves. They set ambushes using string-
operated American M-16 mines as ╥cutoffs╙ in front of and behind an enemy party on the road and then sweeping the trapped men with Bren fire, the captain told us.
He also said that, during the whole four months, the Pakistanis had attempted no counter-ambushes, done no counter-mining, and had ╥on only one occasion╙ attempted to outflank a Mukti party during an engagement. In other words, tactical skill and originality is at a comparatively low level on both sides, and it seems fair to assume that the Pakistanis, who have already learnt some lessons, will sooner or later start getting markedly better at anti-guerrilla work. Which is not to say that the Mukti will not be able to match such an escalation of skill. But with only 10 casualties admitted during the four months, this has so far not been too hard a war for Captain Najmul Huda╒s company.
In any case, the future lies not with the ╥sector troops,╙ the regulars whose function is border raiding and preparing for the time when they may be able to take on the Pakistanis in conventional battle, but with the guerrillas, who constitute a distinct organisation. Captain Huda, who commands not only his regular company but a nearby guerrilla training camp, claims that about 100 guerrilla parties have gone into the part of East Bengal which is his responsibility ╤ Jessor District and parts of Faridpur District.
They go in with ammunition sufficient for two or three weeks and their supplies are replenished by other groups going in later. Captain Huda confessed to a certain dissatisfaction with them in the past: ╥They were concentrating too much on easy targets like small police stations and Razakhar camps and not really taking on the Pakistani military.╙ Recently the groups going in have been getting more and better arms, and firmer instructions about their priorities once inside. The payoff on this new policy should come fairly soon.
Meanwhile the semi-distinct border war is unlikely to go on in the comparatively easy fashion exemplified in the jitter patrol. Once the monsoon ends the Pakistani Army is almost bound to make an effort to close up to the border, and it also is almost inevitable that they will get better at countering the raiders. There may not be too many more jolly boating parties riding to action across the shining water.
