(Read the sequel to Dicing and Death – ‘Buzzard Feast)
Main article on the raid is at Blooding of the Phor Thud GR
Lt. Col. A.K. ‘Sam’ Sharma (May 2010)
Now,
even four point five decades on
to the day,…
today,
and every 18th of May ,
I dice time, ….
and tear it to tatters..,
scour in my mind’s eye despite the cobwebs…. .
Dilating time for seven and half hours, through dilated irises,
I scour every nook and corner;
nook and cranny, the rhododendron, fern, bramble bush and the stunted pine, the cobwebs in the corners, the enemy Penga Post reverse slopes, the rock and the broken ground to Chanda’s RV;
for you…Kharke;
…till the deathly dawn broke our resolve at first light; amidst enemy Browning- bursts…., and the crackle of the wireless from the CO,…
…. for yet another sortie….
…like it was on that peppery-hot night in the May of Nineteen Sixty-five.
I dribble with death repeatedly, and dodge the racing Fourth Horseman, with hollow eyes, all covered from head to toe in a dark- black hooded cape, galloping towards me;
lunging repeatedly at me with his swinging scythe on the night of 17/18 May 1965…
armed only with my brazen brashness,
… and a naked khukri, and your wooden visage;….
…dicing death, and dicing time,
every time,
(when I reminiscence the turkey buzzards feasting
on killed razakaars,
…….. and you too ?)
Sam Sharma is 4/3 Gorkha Officers, who was the original Bronco. This poem, as well as Buzzard Feast are based on exploits of the broncos in the 1965 war with Pakistan; actually a raid on a Pakistani post, on the Line of Control. He is a regular visitor to the site and a great supporter.