The Man Fifteen Yards Ahead

From the testimony of Maj Gen Lalji D. Singh — Indian Army, Corps of Engineers

General Lalji is ninety-odd and talks the way a man talks who has decided what is worth saying. He came to speak to us and he was funny about most of it — the father who blocked the Air Force and then the Navy, the girl he collided with on a staircase and later married, the professors who would not take his money. Then he stopped and said he wanted to tell us two things that were touching to his heart, and the room changed.

The first was from his time as a Second Lieutenant, newly joined at Saugor. Civilians were being killed on the bombing ranges. Air-dropped bombs carried a copper ring, worth money, and people ran onto the ranges to strip them off; sometimes the unexploded ones went up while they were doing it. Clearing them was a sapper's job. He had two hundred men out searching, and he had never in his life seen an unexploded bomb, so he read the manual at night. The manual said the officer places the charge himself.

He went forward to a cluster of them and a sound started coming from the bomb. The man behind him hit him from the back — struck his own officer — and the three of them went down and crawled. He is very precise about the crawling. In training the instructors made them crawl and everybody grumbled; that day, he says, they pulled themselves along by their fingernails. At a safer distance they went on their haunches, then ran. At a hundred yards it went up. The two hundred men watching from high ground a thousand yards away all fell flat.

Seven hundred pounds. If that bomb had gone, the school would have finished — he gestured around the hall to show us what he meant by that.

The second story he told more slowly.

In 1962 the Chinese laid mines at Se La, at around thirteen thousand feet. His unit was ordered to clear them; he was a Captain by then, and he thinks they gave it to him because by then they considered him the expert. There is a drill for it, and the drill is that you crawl and search every inch of the ground.

The same man was ahead of him. General Lalji was about fifteen yards back. At one place the man searched for half an hour and could not find the mine, and searched another ten or fifteen minutes, and still could not find it. Then he put his foot down.

They brought him off the mountain, down towards where the vehicle was. He asked to keep his head in his officer's lap, and he kept saying one thing, over and over, all the way down. He died somewhere between thirteen thousand feet and ten thousand.

What he was saying, as far as General Lalji could tell, was that he was sorry. That he had failed him. That he had been ordered forward and had not found the mine.

“Now this incident never leaves my heart. This is the dedication of the jawan towards his senior.”

He told us afterwards that life is a very strange thing, and very complex, and then he changed the subject, because he had been given forty-five minutes and he had already gone over.

Recorded when General Lalji spoke with students at Vantage Hall. The questions were prepared by this archive and put to him from the floor. The name of the sapper who died at Se La is not recoverable from the recording; the archive is seeking it, and this record will be amended when it is known.

I.Three Services, One Father

InterviewerWas there a defining moment when you knew you wanted to join?

OfficerMy elder brother used to go riding at the race course, and our house was very close to it. There I used to see people being recruited — small aircraft would come and land, and take off, and land again. I was so thrilled. Papa, papa, what is this? They were recruiting for the Air Force. The thing started from there. I hadn't put on a uniform at that time.

OfficerCutting the story short: I wanted to go to the Air Force. I tried, I got selected. My father said no. Once your father says no, you can't go. Then I tried for the Navy, and I got selected, and my father said no — my elder son is already in the Army, I don't want my second son in the Army as well. Again I was booted out. The third time I was in college, appearing for my graduation, and I got selected in the Army. So then I asked my father, Papa, now I'm above eighteen, and I'm going to run away from home. And he allowed me to run away to the Army.

OfficerI passed out from the Indian Military Academy in 1957, here in Dehradun. I really wanted to go into the Armoured Corps. My brother said no, because he had joined the Armoured Corps. He said, you go to Engineers. So I joined the Corps of Engineers¹. That is how I started my life.

Contextual Notes and Historical References

1 · The Corps of Engineers: The Indian Army's engineering arm, known as the Sappers. Beyond combat engineering, sappers are responsible for demolition, bridging, road-building and the clearance of mines and unexploded ordnance.

II.A Glass of Milk Instead of a Fee

OfficerMy selection was subject to passing my graduation with a certain percentage of marks. And just like every Indian family, my parents said he must meet a girl before going to the Army. We went on a holiday, and by chance I was trying to climb a stair and a girl was coming down. We both hit each other. She was just of a good age; I was eighteen — about your age. We both looked at each other, and giggled, and went on. But that was that.

OfficerI came back to the college and the teachers helped me. They all knew I had been selected for the Army. Each professor called me, for each subject, and made me revise the whole thing — because in those days you didn't have year-wise exams, you had one final exam covering two years. And my heart was beating, because how would I pay them? Teachers doing private tuition like to be paid.

OfficerCan you beat it — none of the professors in those days took a single penny. Instead their families would give me a glass of milk, they would make breakfast for me, somebody would bring me a sandwich, and they would sit me down comfortably. Within fifteen days the whole syllabus was revived. When the result came I had passed with reasonably good marks — about seventy per cent. Not like you. But in those days if you had eighty per cent, mind you, the whole of joint Punjab¹ knew that so-and-so boy had got eighty and above. Nowadays if anybody has less than ninety-nine per cent they are also not known. The marking system has changed.

Contextual Notes and Historical References

1 · Joint Punjab: Punjab before the reorganisation of 1966, which divided the state into present-day Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

III.The Copper Rings

OfficerI was a Second Lieutenant — a one-star officer in our times — and after commissioning I joined my unit at Saugor¹. One day I was called and told to go to the ranges, where live weapons are fired; even aircraft come and drop bombs there and practise.

OfficerA lot of civilians were getting killed over there. Whichever bomb came from the Air Force, there used to be a ring along with it, a very expensive copper ring in those days, and civilians used to run to remove that ring. Sometimes the unexploded bomb would explode while they were at it. So clearing the ranges of all the UXBs² — unexploded bombs — is one of our tasks.

OfficerI had two hundred boys with me to search. But I had never known what an unexploded bomb is. At night I used to read, and it said that if there is an unexploded bomb, the officer himself will do the needful to make it explode safely.

OfficerSo there was one cluster of bombs lying there, and I went. As per the drill there were only three of us. I said I will go and place the explosive near the bomb. He said no, sir — but I had read the book. All the two hundred others who were helping us were standing about a thousand yards away, on high ground, watching.

OfficerThe moment I went near the bomb, the sound started coming from the bomb. He hit me from the back.

OfficerMind you, during training all the instructors used to say crawl, crawl — but that day the three of us literally crawled, pulling ourselves along by the nails, because there were seven-hundred-pound unexploded bombs lying close by. If that bomb had gone, the school would have finished. That is the impact of those. After some time, when we were safer, we crawled in a different manner; when we were a little further, we ran on our haunches, and we got saved. But the moment we were a hundred yards away, the bomb exploded — and the jawans who were watching all fell flat.

Contextual Notes and Historical References

1 · Saugor: Sagar, in Madhya Pradesh — a long-established Indian Army station with associated field firing and bombing ranges.
2 · UXB: Unexploded bomb. Ordnance that has been fired or dropped but failed to detonate, and which remains live and unstable until cleared.

IV.Se La, 1962

OfficerIn the '62 war¹ the Chinese had laid a lot of mines. There are two types: anti-tank — if the tank comes, the wheel sets it off and the tank is stopped — and anti-personnel. They put a lot of anti-personnel mines at Se La², which is about thirteen thousand feet high. You must have heard the name.

OfficerMy unit was asked to remove those mines. I was a Captain by then. They probably thought I was an expert now. And there is a drill which we followed. He was ahead; I was about fifteen yards back. You have to crawl each and every inch of the ground to search for the mine.

OfficerAt one place ahead of me, he was searching for about half an hour, but he could not find the mine. It took another ten, fifteen minutes. Still we could not locate it. He kept his foot on the ground. The mine blasted.

OfficerSo we brought him down from thirteen thousand feet to where the vehicle was, and he only wanted to keep his head in my lap. Now, why I am saying this is dedication. He kept on saying only one thing. He kept on saying it from thirteen thousand until we brought him up to ten thousand in the vehicle, when he left us.

OfficerNow this incident never leaves my heart. This is the dedication of the jawan towards his senior. Though it was my command — you go ahead — he was feeling sorry that he had failed me. That he could not find the mine.

OfficerSo that incident I would like to tell you, because this gave me a lot. Life is a very strange thing. Life is very complex.

Contextual Notes and Historical References

1 · The 1962 war: The Sino-Indian War of October–November 1962, fought principally in Ladakh and in the North-East Frontier Agency, now Arunachal Pradesh.
2 · Se La: A pass at roughly 13,700 feet in what is now Arunachal Pradesh, and among the most contested positions of the 1962 war.
3 · Jawan: Literally ‘young man’; the standard term for a soldier of other ranks in the Indian Army.

V.What the Uniform Does to a Family

InterviewerDid being in uniform change your relationship with your family, or affect it?

OfficerUniform life is very different. I'll give you one example, to tell you how it affects family life. I had a child at home. When I went away he was newly born; when I went back home after a year he was a bigger boy, and talking also. And whenever I went he would say —

OfficerThis will tell you the life of a soldier. When we are at home we forget. We enjoy more than anybody else in the world. We dance, we go places, we eat whenever we feel like it — because we do not know whether the next day the sun will be there or not.

OfficerThe life of a soldier's wife is very difficult. A soldier can only be a soldier if the wife is a stone wall behind him. He knows that she will look after the household, she will look after the children, she will do everything that is required — and she will also look after him when he comes back from the battlefield. So it is a very complex life. I would not like to elaborate. Maybe next time when we talk, we'll only talk about a soldier's life.

VI.Four Annas at Dhauri

OfficerFrom Ambala you used to take a train to Kalka, and from Kalka a small train up to Simla¹. On the way there was a station about a third of the way to Simla. It was evening, a little drizzly. I had a small suitcase with me. I was going home, and I had only four annas² left, though I had my ticket.

OfficerI sat on a bench waiting, and I dozed off — like some of you may be feeling like sleeping now. When I opened my eyes I saw the train moving. And, stupid boy that I was, I picked up my suitcase and ran to the train and caught one of the bars.

OfficerUnluckily the bar I caught was the second one, not the front. Since the train was moving I got swung around. I wouldn't let go. I tried to pull myself up; I couldn't. Luckily I didn't get killed — because if I had opened my hand I would have gone between the train and the platform. There is very little space there. Probably I would not have been here today.

OfficerThere was a man inside. He saw me. He first tried to pull me up, but it is very difficult to pull a person when the train is moving, and it was starting to move faster. So he thought I should open my hand, and he began prising my fist open, one finger at a time, like this. As he opened my hand, the train left the platform, and I fell on the ground.

OfficerI didn't get sucked under. I went rolling, and scratched my back on the stones — the whole back had cuts. Everyone at the station said, God came. But God wanted something else. They came and picked me up. And there was a lady at the station who had seen it, and she gave me something to eat. I was shaking — you know how a lizard's tail keeps shaking after it is cut — my legs were shaking like that.

OfficerThat was my first experience of life and death. And it was before I even joined.

Contextual Notes and Historical References

1 · Ambala, Kalka and Simla: The rail journey into the hills: broad gauge to Kalka, then the narrow-gauge Kalka–Simla mountain railway, opened in 1903.
2 · Four annas: A quarter of a rupee, under the pre-decimal currency used in India until 1957.

VII.The Tank His Son Asked For

OfficerI went to staff college — there are two types, technical and non-technical, and mine was technical. There I was given a project on anti-missile systems.

OfficerNow, when he was small, my son had asked me: Papa, papa, I want a tank. And I said no, that is too expensive, I can't buy it for you. He said, no — throughout my life I have not asked for anything, but please, I want that.

OfficerThat came back to me. So I made a model, with a track, that moved when you pressed a button from a distance. They probably thought I was very clever. But it was not me. It was my son who had given me that.

Maj Gen Lalji D. Singh

The full story, as I was told it

The Shape of Memory

I.Three Services, One Father

II.A Glass of Milk Instead of a Fee

III.The Copper Rings

IV.Se La, 1962

V.What the Uniform Does to a Family

VI.Four Annas at Dhauri

VII.The Tank His Son Asked For

The Keystone

Photographs & Service Record