Captain Rayan

CAPTAIN RAYAN

KHALID MUSHTAQ

Copyright © Khalid Mushtaq 2014

Published at Smashwords

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

ISBN: 9781311190864

DISCLAIMER

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

THE RAGING FLAMES

IN THE LAP OF REZEGH

THE UNCERTAIN PATHS

FARAH AND ANGELINA

THE UNFORTUNATE SEPARATION

NEW LIFE, NEW ASPIRATIONS

TRACING THE TWILIGHT

THE EXPOSURE OF A SECRET

NEW TRIALS AT NEW JUCTURES

THE BLACKOUT

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

THE SEARCH OF DESTINY

THE BAGHDAD CITY & THE RISE OF LOVE

A DECISION & THE FIRST TRIAL

THE RISE OF FASCINATION

AN EXPLOSION

THE LAST JOURNEY

MOMENTS OF SADNESS

FAREWELL TO THE VALLEY OF SINNA

TWENTY YEARS LATER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PREFACE

Captain Rayan is an enticing melodrama of exciting adventure, breathtaking suspense and dazzling romance, an historical and a topical novel that focuses on World War II. The scene of the story is the one of the fiercest battles of the Second World War. The story revolves around the characters of the Captain Adam Rayan and Lieutenant Zayn Danyal. They are two loyal officers of the British Crown, in the No.7 Indian Subcontinent Division of the 12 Brigade of the British Army in Indian Subcontinent. After the rout of the Allied forces at the hands of the Axis at Tabruq in Libya, the two officers try to avoid capture by the Nazis. Their clandestine, underground, vagrant existence, face them with many unusual and exciting experiences of life and incredible adventures. And these bitter experiences also disillusion them with the whole drama of the war and even their own profession as soldiers. Their military mental framework is ultimately utterly shattered. Their hatred for war and the large-scale, senseless destruction of it turn them into rebels against the British crown and the powerful military machine behind it. They ultimately abandon the army and shift from the Libyan Desert to the hills of Iraqi Kurdistan where they are once again sucked into the clandestine Iraqi guerilla war of liberation and at the same time caught in the enticing net of love affair. There too they play with fire as a result of which one of them is killed and the other is netted by a Kurdish beauty that he ultimately brings home with him.

The novel also conveys a message: the message being a man is basically innocent by nature; he has been corrupted and loaded with numerous prejudices of color, caste, creed, language, tribe and nation etc by political, commercial and religious leaders all with thinly disguised vested interests. These so-called leaders have drawn these dividing lines for the protection of their perks and privileges and all kinds of vested interests on the vast globe of the earth of God to turn it into silly territories and pockets of influence. In short, these lines are drawn for the exploitation of man by man. But when time and circumstances provide a chance to someone to peep beyond such artificial boundaries, he necessarily reverts to his basic innocence. Only then he is at peace with himself and with the world around him and finds peace, contentment and tranquility.

THE RAGING FLAMES

The two angels of goodness and evil were sitting in deep meditation, on the top of a high hill, in the north of the Sinna valley, which is a hilly habitation of Iraqi Kurdistan. Gradually one of them raised his head and cast a bird’s eye view on the forest-bound valley around. All around, the dry and brittle, autumnal branches were being laden with the fresh budding of spring. The ground below was covered with a thin sheet of greenery, watered by little, sparkling streams and fairy-waterfalls, tumbling down from the sides of scrubby crags. The sweet smells of flowers and fruits and the dreamy songs of melodious birds of various hues and description pervaded the whole atmosphere. The main valley along with its numerous offshoots was dotted with herds of sheep, goats, cows and camels happily pasturing with leisure. Farmers and gardeners were busy in tending their farms and orchards with traditional care and devotion. Some of them would be singing songs as if to appease the ancient deity of fertility and regeneration. And many water springs here and there were surrounded by groups of village women and girls filling their water skin for taking home. They would also be playfully laughing and joking and sometime even singing in a group like the chorus in some primitive drama. Deep down in the valley, flocks of pigeons were fluttering around the towering minarets of mosques, in the streets and markets of the town. In the meantime, the call for the mid-day prayer resounded from one of the high minarets of a mosque, filling the whole valley around with the spiritual air of sanctity and peace. The whole universe appeared to be listening to the sacred call with a bated away in the deep haze of the sky. While still lost in the spell of the bewitching atmosphere of the deep valley, the one angel slowly said to the other:

How lucky man is! How sweet human life is and how beautiful this little world with all its tantalizing sensuous appeal! Would that we too were children of Adam and Eve and inhabitants of this wonderful world!

His speech melted away in a sigh of regret as their very birth as angels was a sort of punishment or bad luck or misfortune. With this, the other angel opened his eyes and looked at the sky for a while. There was a sign of malignant grin on his pursed lips when he said:

A Wonderful world indeed! But appearances are often deceptive. A thing may appear sweet but may be hiding poison in it. So far you look at only one side of the picture. You look at the children of Adam and Eve through the deceptive glitter of their outward appearance and their wonderful habitation and domestic occupation. Yu don’t appear to see the essential animal nature of this cream of creation, shaped out of a speck of dust, which even the devil would disdain. Even God would wonder at the resourceful fickleness and devilish machinations of this strangely wonderful creature and repeatedly admonish it through a long chain of his messengers. And still they would not heed. When they are bent upon mischief even the devil is worried for his protection and safety, his life and soul.

Then flapping his wings to arise, he said to the other angel while about to fly:

Friend, lets have a closer view of this wonderful world and these most wonderful people living in it, from a little closer and a little more intimately.

With this they flew up into the sky and were soon hovering over the great Sahara, a vast desert of stretching and shifting desert, under the grey sky full of floating clouds here and there. It was the mid-day of 20th June 1942. The desert of Libya had turned burning-red, under the blazing and scorching summer sun. The sun appeared to have lowered down by the length of a spear, in order to closely watch the cruelties and savageries of the children of Adam and Eve, against their very humanity, at such a horrendous scale. A thick blanket of floating dust and dense, suffocating, gunpowder smoke had covered up the whole atmosphere. The earth itself was badly shaken and shattered by the mighty impact of severe crossfire and heavy bombardment by the artillery, tanks and airplanes of Germany and the Allied forces. The booming thunder of artillery and the zooming screech of the airplanes were punctuated by the painful cries of the wounded and dying soldiers, being mercilessly shredded to pieces and blown up to smithereens. In places, vultures were hovering over mutilated and stinking corpses and splintered skulls and bones.

In this raging storm of hell, a military jeep, under a layer of an inch-thick dust, like a clod of moving clay, sped beyond the line of defense at Dom, crawling to the forward garrison. The jeep was bearing British military signs. It stopped at the back of a mound and a fair-looking, young and healthy officer, in his twenties, quickly jumped from it. From the Stars and Stripes on his uniform it appeared that he was a captain of the No. 7 Indian Subcontinent Division of Twelfth Brigade of the British Army. He climbed to the top of the mound in order to review the front. His fair color had turned sooty black with the heat and sweat and dust and smoke of the battlefield. Looking intently in front, he was trying to watch the movements of the Nazi forces, behind the thick screen of dust and smoke. Then he put the binoculars to his eyes with which he could see the mysterious movement of the forces of General Rommel, beyond the Zero Point. While he was busy in this reconnaissance, a swishing and heated cannon ball suddenly fell beside him with a heavy thud. He instinctively dived down into a nearby shallow ditch. When he looked around, another similar ball had blown up his jeep into a thousand pieces of flying scrap.

He wiped his face, drew a long sigh and crawled into a nearby trench. On entering a bunker at the other end of the trench he cried out aloud for Lieutenant Zayn Danyal. With this, a similarly young though a little older and smart soldier crept out of the bunker, like a mouse. He was also covered with layers of dust and dirt. The stripes on his shoulders indicated him to be a Lieutenant of the Indian Subcontinent cadre of the British Army. As soon as he came out of the bunker, he clicked his heels at attention and saluted the young captain. With this the captain was requested to enter the bunker.

It was a vast bunker, made of concrete. In a corner of it, two soldiers were busy at the wireless, receiving messages from the Headquarters and relaying fresh accounts of the war front. In one corner were lying ammunition crates and in another were a water tank, plates and cups and empty bottles and empty packets of biscuits and cigarettes. On the left side was lying a big war map and beside it was the telephone or intercom, connecting various units with each other.

As soon as the captain entered the bunker, he quickly went to bend over the wireless. The soldiers also raised their heads and seeing the captain, they got up and saluted him and then again got busy in their work as usual Any fresh news? Captain Adam Rayan asked Lieutenant Zayn Danyal in a hurry.

Sir, we repulsed one attack and now we have strengthened our defenses against another possible attack. But I believe their first attack was not meant to be a powerful, outright onslaught. Perhaps it was a tentative move only meant to find out our position and test our strength. I am, however, confident that our valiant soldiers will fully defend the Zero Point against any incursion. Captain Rayan smiled at the intelligent analysis of the Lieutenant and said:

The same is the report of our field intelligence. However, we have to plan, in advance, in the light of this report, according to our own observation and experience and the resources at our command. And we have to be quick about it. Anything can happen in the meantime.

In the meantime then the two of them started consulting the map, taking every possible eventuality into account, in the light of the prevailing circumstances. Soon the atmosphere resounded with a booming thunder. With it the sirens also started wailing. Captain Rayan quickly peeped out of the bunker. Outside, the sky was spanned by Nazi bombers, swooping on targets on the ground below like hungry vultures. With the big bombs that they dropped, the sandy plain of Tabruq was rent asunder and singed with smoking craters. Simultaneous with it, a wall of moving steel of the Nazi war machine of heavy guns, tanks and APCs, was rattling towards the front. On the other hand, the Allied forces had also come out into counteraction and their guns were belching the fire of hell on the slowly advancing enemy. The two sides had locked their horns in one of the fiercest battles of history.

Captain Rayan quickly established an observation post, by the side of a ditch, on the top of the mound above the bunker. In a deeper ditch by his right, Lieutenant Danyal also established his own post. To his left, Lieutenant Hermit Singh found suitable places for his company. To the left and right of Captain Rayan, Omar Noah and Sergeant Tamsir readied their guns for instant action. The flames of war intensified with every passing moment. Both sides were raining fire on each other. The dust and smoke of heavy bombardment was rising to the sky like a cluster of giant umbrellas. The deafening din of war rent the whole atmosphere. It appeared to be a virtual doomsday.

Captain Adam Rayan was roaring like a wounded lion while he was shouting instructions to his units: Well done, Boys, well done! Your valor and your honor are being tested today. Take every care not to allow even an inch of your ground to the enemy.

His words were punctuated by the blasting balls of the RR guns, targeting enemy tanks and APCs. When an enemy tank or APC would be blow up by one of these deadly balls the blood-red eyes of Captain Rayan would become even bloodier with fury. He would be increasingly fuming at his mouth with the growing intensity and heat of the war. With the incessant crackling of the guns of Omar Noah, the dear precious soldiers of Hitler would be blown to smithereens, like popcorn in a red-hot steel pot full of burning sand.

Back in the big cities and peaceful villages of Germany thousands of miles away from the war front, mothers, sisters and sweet hearts would be silently sighing and praying for their sons, brother s and lovers, with big tears in their despairing eyes. But their tears would fall to the dry ground in vain, leaving their eyelashes wet and dejected. What else could they do! Even their prayers proved futile.

Adam was bewildered at this saga of death and destruction and Eve was holding her little finger between her teeth in utter stupefaction. To watch this human drama of cruelty and savagery and inhumanity, even the angels were peeping from the half-opened doors and windows of heaven, in utter disgust. Yet man called himself the cream of creation, the vicegerent of God on earth.

There was an incessant rain of bullets but the men behind the guns had no idea of the actual targets of the venom in their fire. They had no idea at all, of the person or persons being blown by their bullets. At the back of their mind was the idea of a faceless enemy whom they had to brutally kill and destroy or what was this whole war about. In the heat of the war, it never occurred to them that the enemy too was a human being, a sentient son of the human family. He too was somebody’s father, son, brother or husband. It was never considered that a whole family was blasted with his death; leaving behind widows and orphans, dejected relatives and destitute parents in its wake. The dead bodies of these senseless soldiers would be rotting on the burning desert sand, to be devoured by vultures and jackals. Nobody would ever bury them, putting a tombstone on their graves; and nobody would occasionally burn candles and incense or put bouquets of flowers on their moldering mounds. If at all they were accorded any honor in death it would only be through a stone monument or some silly War Memorial in some city called the grave of the anonymous soldier who was killed in that bloody war, where some flowers would be put by some citizens once a year. And that would be the end of their so called heroism and sacrifices.

The flames of war were raging. The Nazi army on the other side of the Zero Point tried to advance but the brave soldiers from the Khyber Pass effectively repulsed them without letting them to gain even an inch. Elsewhere on the same front, the formidable tanks of Rommel had crushed the enemy resistance and crossed the line of advance here and there. But the Indian Subcontinent units of the British Army were fighting valiantly for their foreign masters, stopping the Nazi bullets even with their breasts. They behaved to be even more loyal than the king. And the Nazi appeared to have been intimidated by the fighting zeal of the units of Captain Rayan for they never carried out any serious attack against his bristling wasp hive. He felt as if his company was scrupulously avoided for reasons best known to the enemy.

The dust on his face had made Captain Rayan not only formidably intimidating but also positively terrible. His parched throat had turned sour not only with the heat and dust but also with the loud and continuous shouting. In that shower of bullets, he was bravely commanding his unit. Suddenly the crackling rhythm of the RR gun stopped at his right side. When he looked around, Omar Noah was still profusely bleeding but had instantly died. His face was turned towards the east and his eyes were wide open as if looking at someone at a great distance. Perhaps he was trying to watch his ill-fated sweetheart, waiting for his return, somewhere, in the barren hills of Tirah, thousands of miles away. She would be surrounded by a small flock of domestic sheep and goats, grazing on the slope of a barren hill.

Involuntarily she would again and again look westward with a pray, Dear God! Let no one die in foreign lands; as he will be pining for home, even in the hour of death.

But the poor lass would have no idea that her prayers would never be answered, as her departed sweetheart would have departed from this life altogether and now they could only meet in the hereafter. She had to wait till then.

The eyes of Captain Adam Rayan were filled with bitter tears when he involuntarily and loudly uttered this death prayer for his subordinate comrade (verily we belong to God and to Him we return) then took position with the gun himself. Once again the drama of death became brisk with action. The soldier would be quickly supplying Captain Rayan with magazines and the young captain would be showering the fire of hell on the enemy bunkers and tanks. The Nazi forces had stretched their might and, in the shadows of the steel wall of their war machine, they had successfully breached the Allied defenses in many places. Now they were storming the front lines of the Allied forces; but the valiant soldiers of the Indian Subcontinent units stood as a shield against the German holocaust, and their inexorable advance was not only stopped but also effectively repulsed, but for how long?

With the growing intensity of war everybody was bathed in his own sweat. Everybody was busy in using whatever ammunition he had. Heavy guns were booming, rifles were clattering and the continuous explosions of bombs were showering fire and ashes and dust and smoke. And poor soldiers were mowed down like fresh crop under the sickle of a farmer or, among cries and groans and they were riddled with bullets or blasted to pieces. It was a virtual doomsday for the combatants on both sides.

The hands of Captain Rayan had become numb with continuously firing the heavy RR Gun. The barrel of the gun had also turned red-hot with rapid fire. Still Captain Rayan went on firing and did not relax or wait for the gun to cool down or his hands to regain senses. It was a matter to kill or get killed. It was a matter of life and death and he could not afford any interval in the incessant firing.

He was busy with this fire of hell when Lieutenant Danyal came running, of course bending low to the ground to save his head being blown away. He came with the secret message of the Brigadier with the order of the day. Captain Rayan could not believe his eyes when he read the message. The message read:

All commanders, 12 Brigade, the water of Mediterranean is red. The night sky will be clear.

This message clearly meant that the defense of the 12 Brigade, which was entrusted with the defense of the road along the Mediterranean, going to the city of Bardiyah, was shattered. All the units were asked to retreat and protect themselves.

Captain Rayan looked at the Lieutenant with a visible wonder on his face. For a moment the two of them were silent about the import of the order. Then Captain Rayan rubbed his tongue on his dry lips and said:

It means that our units are effectively encircled by the Nazi forces.

Yes, sir. The last signal that we received before this message was that the positions of the forces of Major Hasan and Captain Smith, on our left, were under tremendous pressure. Probably their defenses will have been shattered as indicated by this message. Clearly any further resistance would be a waste of time on our part.

With this report of the Lieutenant, the face of Captain Rayan was clouded for a while. Then looking up the Lieutenant straight in his face he said; Lieutenant Danyal, now we should try to get out of here. You contact all the section commanders at once and order them to retreat to avoid being encircled by the enemy. This order should be carried out at once by the entire company. Instead I will perform the duty of the fire cover while you take the soldiers out of the enemy ring.

But Sir, your life is equally important if not more precious. I can very well look after the necessary fire cover while you extricate the company from the enemy ring. The Lieutenant suggested. Lieutenant Danyal, an order is an order and I mean it to be carried out as it is. I don’t want you to waste any more time in useless expostulations. Captain Rayan thundered in anger.

Okay Sir. The Lieutenant replied in a helpless tone and returned with the usual salute. He did not want to leave his young captain in the throes of danger, because Captain Rayan was not only an officer but also a close friend of the Lieutenant; a friend whose separation he couldn’t even imagine. But still Captain Rayan was his boss and the army discipline demanded to obey his order. When the Lieutenant returned, Captain Rayan once again took the position and started shelling and continued shelling till firing the last bullet in his chamber. Then he took out the bolt of the RR gun and buried it in the ground. He got up and had a look around for an outing for retreat.

There was no let up in the bloody war, going on between the aggressive German forces and the retreating Allied armies, fighting with all their might as the Titans and the Olympians. The war was raging with increasing intensity on all sides. The depressing drama of death and destruction, being played on the vast, bewildering stage of the Sahara, had reached its climax. For a fistful of soil man was washing his hands with the blood of man. An incessant hailstorm of balls and bullets, shells and rockets was pounding and piercing the desert, raising a hideous dust storm and gunpowder smoke in its wake. Captain Rayan drew a deep sigh. He cast a dejected look at the corpses of his dead comrades, but, to save his own skin, he quickly jumped into a trench. He was repeatedly reminded of the proverb, which used to be much quoted by Lieutenant Danyal that discretion is the better part of valor, and that too in a war like that. It was for the first time that he realized the significance of discretion and the thought of self-preservation; otherwise he would bravely fight even to death. He had similarly fought at various fronts: from Anam Siyam in Burma to Basra in Baghdad and to Tabruq in Libya. But now he didn’t mind fleeing from a virtually falling front, like a rat instinctively abandoning a sinking ship. If he had any regrets it was that all his dear comrades, who were dearer to him than his closest relatives, were simply killed or lost on the faceless desert of Sahara. Some were lost to eternal death while other had simply disappeared alive in the bewildering maze of the vast desert. The separation of Lieutenant Zayn Danyal was a particularly severe blow to his wavering courage. The two of them appeared to be incomplete without each other; what with the differences in their ranks and their ages. In the course of normal life, and away from the strict military discipline of the battlefield, the two of them would meet on equal footing, as two inseparable friends, or the one being the other. It was also because of Lieutenant Danyal that not only the soldiers and officers of his company but that of the entire 12 Brigade would accord him utmost respect. But Captain Rayan was also less of an officer and more of a friend for all his subordinates. Particularly on the battlefield, he would dine with his soldiers, on the same common ground, with a mat spread out for their meal. His wise and sweet conversation would turn the barracks and the bunkers into Lodge.

Abandoning his bunker Captain Rayan was trudging on the hilly tracks of Sidi Rezegh while the bullets of death were still showering all around him. He could be compared to a sailor whose ship was caught in a violent storm, or a traveler who was utterly lost, or an old man in the throes of death. The sprawling chains of the hills of Rezegh, crisscrossed by numerous dry riverbeds, without a trace of the summer rains, if there had been any, confronted him. He trudged along all day and when the sun was about to set towards the evening, he climbed a mound to search for any human habitation around. He was disappointed to see none. Towards the south, he could see the furiously rising and falling waves of the Mediterranean at a great distance. In the foot of hills along the seashore a black