Daily Times

It was a cold winter night in 1984 at Tilla Artillery Firing Ranges, which lies in the Salt Range foothills near Jhelum, in upper Central Punjab. We had just roughed out our rigorous annual practice firing without a major mishap and were celebrating the occasion in our unit field Mess, ploughing through ample supplies of charcoal grilled meat, varieties of chicken, kebabs, mounds of fruit, various sweet dishes and all that goes with it. Extra calories and rich food tend to blur straight thinking. So it happened to be a young, overstuffed subaltern who blurted out the idea of going for a local urial shoot the next night. Urial is a poorer cousin of the Marco Polo sheep found in the Punjab/Sindh mountain ranges. I was looking for just such an excuse as my guns were almost rusting due to heavy commitment with unit affairs. A unit command is the best thing that can happen to an officer in the army.

We made arrangements with a local guide at Jalalpur Pirwala a few miles up in the hills for the coming night. The sky was already overcast and a cold breeze was blowing since the morning. I kept strengthening the sagging determination of volunteer officers who were keen to accompany us for the sake of the shoot but for the increasingly cold wind that was sweeping across the Jhelum valley. Except the transport officer, the rest were enthusiastic novices. In any shoot, more accidents take place due to inexperience than anything else. I had lost half my hearing in one ear when an over-eager novice fired his repeater just above my shoulder trying to bring down a flying partridge a few years earlier. I now had a problem at hand and a serious one. While I desperately wanted to warm my gun barrel through a challenging shoot like this one, I was very mindful of the safety of the young officers, which included proper handling of a shotgun, different from a service rifle, their appropriate outfit that should neither be heavy to cause sweating after a mountainous walk nor too light to expose them to bitterly cold weather, which by the evening had changed into a light drizzle.

A shoot like this one required a strict regime of self-control, stealth, noise and trigger training. It was understood that there will be a large measure of physical exertion needed and no sleep, possibly. Everyone was supposed to carry a standard food pack comprising nuts, raisins, hunter beef and a field water bottle filled and slung to the belt. Other essentials needed were a field torch and a waterproof cape should the drizzle turn into a downpour. I arranged for the additional guns required and issued ammunition from my own stock. Such little encouragements are necessary to initiate newcomers into this noble sport. And by the way, it is one of the best ways to hone military skills.

The boys were surprised when told that the command of the shikar (hunting) party will pass on to the local guide as soon as we join him at the rendezvous in the foot of the hills outside the village. This was absolutely a must as he alone knew where to find this elusive mountain sheep. .That evening we ate light food and set out in jeeps to the guide’s village. In an hour we were there. Our guide was a middle-aged man, slim and quite athletic. He was dressed in utterly unlikely attire, which almost looked ludicrous for the occasion. A Punjabi loin cloth around his waist, a loose long shirt, sleeveless woollen sweater and a funny looking fluffy wool cap that, when pulled down, would look like an ape mask. Most conspicuous were his shoes, just like the typical lightweight hand-sewn native leather gofers that one sees in Punjab villages. This was an amazing outfit for a rough shoot like that, I thought.

After a quick briefing by him we set out on foot through the stony nullah that kept rising into the mountain slopes winding hopelessly at times, strewn with boulders, weed and little water. At places there would be a sharp fall that had to be negotiated with great difficulty. In that pitch dark, zigzagging nullah bed and rising crests on both sides it was difficult to keep track of the direction except for the helpful North Star that kept popping up occasionally. Our guide was extremely agile and his track sense was absolutely amazing. He knew exactly where he was going and was following a nearly invisible goat track that only he could see or perhaps feel under his soles.

The clouds had parted but wind chill had increased to freezing levels, whistling through the narrow gorge that we were trekking. It was more than two hours since we had left our vehicles when the guide decided to take a break or rather a pause. He quietly took a head count and then announced in whispers that beyond the next crest was the night resting place of the urials. Therefore, load your guns now, apply safety catches, climb surefooted and no noise, talking or munching from now on, at all.

(To be continued)

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at clay.potter@hotmail.com