Chapter 250: Battle of Ladakh part -8
Bahadur Veeren Thapa stood atop the highest ridge on the southern perimeter of the Ladakhi establishment. His rank, Bahadur, was equivalent to a captain’s rank. He was on his way with his squad of five elite Gurkhas near the very site where the enemy citadel had been obliterated just hours ago. The destruction had left an open area to cross over to the main enemy base camp.
From his vantage point, his sharp eyes scanned the Ladakhi encampment in the distance. The sight before him left him momentarily speechless—the aftermath of the second rocket barrage had turned the enemy’s position into a charred ruin.
Men ran frantically, dousing burning tents with water, while others scrambled to carry the wounded or the dead away from the field. Thick columns of smoke billowed into the frozen air, obscuring the once-proud fortifications that had now been reduced to rubble. Almost half of the enemy base camp has been impacted.
The sheer devastation wrought by those bamboo-like rockets was unfathomable. How could such primitive-looking weapons unleash such destruction from a distance? Yet, there was no time to dwell on the mystery—he had a mission to fulfill.
Entrusted by his king, Bahadur had been tasked with making point of contact with the allied imperial forces trapped at the western front. To aid their mission, one of his men, who was a pet master, actually carried a caged messenger pigeon. Its fragile form was wrapped in a white cloth over the cage, shielding it from the cold and prying eyes.
The rest of the squad was armed with ropes, grenades, khurpis, bows, and arrows, each weapon chosen for both stealth and survival. For infiltration, they wore the same leather military attire of the Ladakhis that they had looted from dead corpses.
He had expected some form of barricade or resistance along the way, yet the immediate area was eerily deserted. The only logical conclusion was that the enemy leadership had abandoned the southern sector, retreating north and west to consolidate their forces behind stronger fortifications.
Letting out a quiet sigh, Bahadur motioned for his men to keep their heads low as they advanced toward the western blockade. Their stolen leather armour from enemy corpses was quite comfortable in the harsh environment as they moved in coordinated silence.
The blockade ahead was a formidable obstacle, a zigzagging patchwork of palisade walls reinforced with wooden barricades. Watchtowers loomed above, their occupants scanning the terrain, while deep trenches and stockades lined both sides of the pass.
To cross it, they had two options: either scale the mountains at the edges, avoiding the fortifications on the ridges, or attempt a daring passage through the center, using the scattered debris and natural ridges for cover. One prioritized safety, while the other favored speed.
After careful deliberation, Bahadur chose to scale the mountain edges at the corners to avoid the fortifications on the ridges. They just needed to cross only a few areas inside the enemy military base, as most of the mountains outside the pass were unscalable.
Moreover, the remnants of earlier fortifications, combined with shallow ridges and abandoned ditches, provided the best chance of slipping through undetected.