The fog clung to the Srinagar airfield like a shroud, thick and wet, muffling the world. Dawn was a grey rumour on October 27th, 1947. Brigadier Rajinder Singh, commander of the remnants of the Jammu & Kashmir Rifles, stood on the cracked tarmac, his bandaged left hand throbbing – a souvenir from Baramulla. The damp cold seeped through his greatcoat, but it was the silence that gnawed at him. Then, a low, growing drone pierced the muffled stillness, swelling into a thunderous roar that vibrated in his chest. Shapes materialized overhead, huge and dark, descending through the murk – Indian Air Force Dakotas, emerging like avenging leviathans from the belly of the storm.
"Control," Rajinder barked into his radio, his voice tight, "Status on the *tribals*? Where are they?"
Static crackled, then a tinny voice replied, "*Lashkar* sighted at Shalateng, Brigadier Sahib! Ten kilometers west! They… they stopped, sir. Reports indicate heavy looting at a liquor warehouse and grain godown."
Rajinder exhaled, a plume of vapour hanging in the air. *Looting.* A delay bought with alcohol and greed. Kashmir's first miracle. Beside him, Colonel Parampal Singh of the freshly disembarked 1st Sikh Battalion was already in motion, his voice cutting through the engine noise like a knife. "Dig in! Use those overturned carts! Jamal! Take your Bren section – up that minaret! Cover the western approach! Move, *juldi karo*!"
Men poured from the bellies of the Dakotas, khaki figures materializing from the fog, their boots crunching on the frost-rimed tarmac. Priests moved among them, offering *prasad*, blessings swallowed with nervous gulps. Sepoy Gurcharan Singh, his face still pale from his first flight, stumbled slightly as he jumped down. He caught his reflection in the dripping wing of the aircraft – a boy from a Punjabi village, suddenly a soldier in a war he barely understood. He looked towards the west, where a dirty smear of smoke stained the horizon above Baramulla. The air tasted of aviation fuel and impending violence.
***
Shalateng Crossing, 11:30 AM. The stench of spilled rum, roasting mutton, and unwashed bodies hung heavy in the air. The tribal *lashkar* sprawled across the roadside, a scene of grotesque celebration. Drunken men danced, waving stolen silks and brass idols. Others forced captured Hindu women, their faces masks of terror, to stumble through crude dances. Gul Nawaz, stripped to the waist, his torso smeared with grease and ash, swayed dangerously, a bottle of stolen Scotch in one hand, his Lee-Enfield in the other. He bellowed a slurred rendition of a Pashto war song.
"*Fool!*" Major Khurshid Anwar, disguised as the tribesman Malik Tor Khan, grabbed Gul Nawaz's arm, his voice a venomous hiss barely audible over the din. "Srinagar lies open! Undefended! And you wallow in this *gandagi*? Your paradise is slipping away!"
Gul Nawaz blinked, focusing with difficulty on Anwar. A slow, drunken grin spread across his face. "Allah… Allah sent us spoils, Malik Sahib! Even the Prophet, peace be upon him… took booty at Badr! This is our *jaiz* reward!" He took another swig from the bottle. "Srinagar… will wait. The gold won't run."
*CRUMP!*
The earth erupted ten yards away. Mud, rock, and shards of wood from a shattered rum barrel rained down. A tribesman screamed, clutching a bleeding stump where his arm had been. Silence, stunned and sudden, fell over the raiders.
Anwar whirled, grabbing his radio operator. "Muzaffarabad Control! Anwar here! Shalateng crossing! Under mortar fire! Request artillery suppression! Immediate!"
Static hissed back, empty and mocking. Anwar slammed his fist against the radio. The line was dead – cut by Brigadier Rajinder's advance scouts. Panic, swift and infectious, rippled through the *lashkar*. Discipline, always tenuous, shattered like the rum bottles. Men dropped stolen goods, scrambled for their weapons, and began running not towards Srinagar, but back towards the perceived safety of the Jhelum River, abandoning trucks laden with carpets, grain, and terrified captives. Gul Nawaz stumbled, tripped over a discarded sack of rice, and fell face-first into the mud, his precious Scotch bottle shattering beside him.
***
Hari Parbat Fort, a grim stone sentinel overlooking Srinagar, 2:00 PM. Subedar Kirpa Ram, his face a roadmap of scars earned fighting the Japanese in Burma, peered over the parapet through binoculars. Below, a wave of tribesmen, perhaps four hundred strong, surged up the slopes towards the fort's main gate. Only thirty Dogra soldiers held the position. Beside Kirpa Ram, Havildar Noor Khan, a Muslim Rajput from Poonch, adjusted the sights on his .303 Enfield, his knuckles white.
"Sahib," Noor Khan's voice was tight, strained. He lowered the rifle slightly, pointing. "That boy… in the front, the one with the green *patka*… that's Wazir. My cousin's son."
Kirpa Ram didn't take his eyes from the advancing horde. He slapped a fresh magazine into the heavy Vickers machine gun bolted to the parapet. "Then make it clean, Havildar. Spare him a slow death. Aim true." His voice was gravel, devoid of inflection.
Noor Khan closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, breathed out slowly, and raised his rifle again. He found the green *patka* in his sights. The boy, Wazir, was yelling, waving a curved *tulwar*, his face contorted with youthful fervor. Noor squeezed the trigger. The crack of the rifle was sharp and final. Wazir jerked backwards, the *tulwar* flying from his hand, and crumpled silently onto the rocky slope. Kirpa Ram opened fire with the Vickers, the heavy *thud-thud-thud* drowning out the tribal war cries. A dozen figures fell in the first burst, tumbling down the hillside. The charge faltered, broke, the tribesmen scrambling for cover, dragging their wounded and dead.
In the sudden, eerie quiet that followed the retreat, Kirpa Ram passed a coarse *atta* roti to Noor Khan. They ate in silence, the shared food gritty with stone dust. "After this," Kirpa Ram finally said, his voice low, "will Kashmir remember we fought together? Dogra and Muslim? Against those…" he gestured towards the retreating tribesmen with contempt.
Noor Khan spat a glob of phlegm streaked with dust and blood onto the stones. "Remember, Sahib? In Pakistan, they will call me *ghaddar* – traitor. In India?" He gave a bitter, hollow laugh. "*Jasoos*. Spy. There is no place for men like me in this new world they are making." He stared towards the spot where his cousin's son lay still.
***
Prime Minister's Office, New Delhi, 4:00 PM. The air was thick with the frantic clatter of telegraph keys and the low murmur of aides. Jawaharlal Nehru paced like a caged tiger, his Kashmiri *pheran* incongruous over his formal suit. His eyes were haunted, fixed on a large map of Kashmir where red pins clustered near Srinagar. V.P. Menon stood nearby, looking exhausted but alert. Lord Mountbatten sat calmly in a plush armchair, sipping gin and tonic, studying the map with detached interest.
"Send more battalions!" Nehru's fist slammed onto the heavy oak desk, making the inkwell rattle. "Baramulla is gone! They are at the gates of Srinagar! I promised Sheikh Abdullah… I promised the *people*…!"
Mountbatten took a slow sip, savouring the gin. "Reinforcements require *formal* accession, Jawaharlal," he stated coolly, his voice cutting through Nehru's agitation. "Hari Singh's signature on that piece of paper last night is merely an offer. It requires the Dominion of India's *acceptance*. Without that formal endorsement by your government, legally, those troops landing now are… adventurers."
Nehru whirled on him, his face livid. "You would let Srinagar burn? Let thousands be butchered for the sake of *paperwork*? For legal niceties while barbarians are at the door?"
Mountbatten met his gaze, a faint, chilling smile playing on his lips. "Empire taught me one thing above all, Prime Minister: always get the signature first. Ensure the *legal* framework is solid. Sentiment is poor foundation for statecraft." He gestured languidly towards the Instrument of Accession document Menon held. "Clause Five. The plebiscite promise. Sign it. Accept the accession. *Then* send your army."
Nehru stared at the document Menon proffered. Clause Five: *"The question of the State's accession should be settled by a reference to the people."* A plebiscite. He knew, with a cold certainty in his gut, that India would never risk it. It was a lie offered to a dying king. He snatched the pen from Menon's hand. His signature, *Jawaharlal Nehru*, slashed across the paper was an angry scrawl, a surrender to expediency. Mountbatten watched, a satisfied gleam in his eye. He carefully placed his empty glass on the desk. Another trophy.
***
Srinagar's Dal Gate, Dusk. The stench of cordite, blood, and spilled milk choked the air. Sepoy Gurcharan Singh huddled behind a makeshift barricade of overturned bullock carts, their spilled contents – sacks of grain and shattered clay jars of milk – forming a slippery, white morass. His Bren gun was hot, the barrel smoking. Tribesmen, emboldened by Gul Nawaz screaming obscenities and promises of paradise, charged again, using captured Dogra artillery pieces for cover. A shell screamed overhead, exploding in a house behind them, showering the defenders with debris.
"*Vaheguru*… sing with me, brother!" Gurcharan yelled over the din to a wounded Sikh soldier beside him, whose breath came in wet, ragged gasps, his uniform dark with blood spreading from his stomach.
Fatima, her nurse's uniform now indistinguishable from the mud and gore, crawled over, pressing a wad of torn curtain against the wound. "He's Muslim, you fool!" she shouted, her voice raw. "His name is Abdul!"
Gurcharan blinked, momentarily confused, then ripped open a fresh Bren gun magazine. "God won't mind the tune, sister! Just sing!"
*WHUMP!*
A shell from Gul Nawaz's captured artillery found its mark. It struck the heart of the milk-cart barricade. The explosion was deafening. Boiling milk, hot shrapnel, and splintered wood erupted outwards in a scalding wave. Gurcharan screamed as the searing liquid hit his face and chest. Blinded, skin blistering instantly, he kept firing the Bren gun, the weapon bucking in his hands, the heat from the barrel fusing the blistered skin of his palms to the metal. He fired blind, screaming prayers and curses into the smoke and chaos.
Tribesmen, seeing the barricade shattered, surged forward with knives and bayonets, howling. Fatima saw them coming. She saw Gurcharan, blinded, fused to his gun, still firing wildly. Without thinking, she grabbed a fallen Lee-Enfield rifle from the mud, its stock slick with blood. She fumbled with the bolt, the cold metal unfamiliar. A tribesman lunged at Gurcharan, knife raised high. Fatima raised the rifle, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger. The kick slammed her shoulder. She opened her eyes. The tribesman lay sprawled, half his head gone. *Her first kill.* Nausea warred with a fierce, terrifying surge of adrenaline.
Then the Bren gun fell silent. Gurcharan slumped forward, still fused to the weapon, smoke curling from his charred hands and the gun's barrel. The Indian reinforcements arrived moments later, driving the tribesmen back with concentrated fire. They found Sepoy Gurcharan Singh like that, a grotesque statue of defiance in a pool of cooling milk and blood, the Bren gun silent at last in his death grip.
***
Srinagar, Midnight. Fatima sat in a commandeered houseboat on Dal Lake, bandaging Havildar Noor Khan's shrapnel wounds by the flickering light of a kerosene lamp. His face was grey with pain and exhaustion. Outside, the sporadic crackle of gunfire had lessened, replaced by other sounds: the shouts of soldiers, the crash of breaking wood. Through a bullet-shattered window, Fatima watched Sikh soldiers emerging from Muslim homes lining the lakefront. They carried silver trays, silk carpets, brass lamps, even ornate wooden stands that had once held Qurans. *Liberators?* The word tasted like ash. *Conquerors?*
High on Hari Parbat, under the cold gaze of the stars, Subedar Kirpa Ram oversaw the digging of a shallow grave. They wrapped Sepoy Gurcharan Singh's body, still partly fused to the Bren, in a green *Allahu Akbar* banner looted from a dead tribesman. "It's just cloth, son," Kirpa Ram murmured, his voice rough. "And you fought like ten men. You deserve a shroud." He threw the first handful of earth onto the makeshift shroud.
In Delhi, Nehru sat at his desk, the weight of the day crushing him. He picked up a pen to draft his speech to the United Nations, the words echoing hollowly in the silent room: *"The accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India is complete and irrevocable..."*
And from a hidden cave near Muzaffarabad, Major Khurshid Anwar finally got a crackling signal through to Rawalpindi Control. His voice was flat, stripped of emotion: "Srinagar lost. Indian Army deployed in strength. Tribesmen broke at Shalateng… delayed by loot." A pause, filled only by static. "We lost this battle. Not the war. Tell Jinnah Sahib… tell him we return in the spring."
The guns around Srinagar fell into an uneasy quiet, but the silence wasn't peace. It was the pause of a beast gathering breath, the quiet before the next, inevitable storm. Some guns fall silent only to reload. The fires of Kashmir had just begun to burn.