Battlefield Pacific

The Indians Are Coming

Lieutenant General Adhar Chatterji of the Second Indian Expeditionary Army watched the tired and battered Russian soldiers stand in line, waiting to board the train that would take them West, toward the next defensive line. Should his Indian forces not be able to stop the Americans from steamrolling across their positions, they would hopefully be rested and ready to fight. While the Russian soldiers stood silently waiting for the train to empty, Chatterji felt pride swell within his chest as nearly a battalion’s worth of his Indian Army soldiers exited the train. These new arrivals were led to a long line of trucks that would transport them to one of the many military camps that had sprung up around the city of Komsomolsk.

A month ago, the Americans had landed a sizeable force of Marines among the coastal cities along the Sea of Okhotsk and the Kamchatka Peninsula. Once on the ground, the Americans had advanced stealthily throughout the Russian Far East, severing the oil and natural gas fields of eastern Russia and disrupting a host of other mining operations. The Marines were quickly gobbling up the Far East, which was why General Chatterji and his corps now found themselves here, as opposed to Eastern Europe.

While General Chatterji was not thrilled with being allied with the Chinese, he understood the reasons why his government had gone along. The one concession the Indians had made the Chinese agree to was that neither country would station soldiers on each other’s territories, at least not until both sides felt more comfortable with the arrangement. If it hadn’t been for President Petrov’s intervention in the negotiations, Chatterji highly doubted India would have joined the new Eastern Alliance.

In the dark recesses of his mind, General Chatterji felt bad about going to war with the Americans. His younger brother had emigrated to America twenty-six years ago and loved being an American. Becoming a US citizen had been one of his proudest moments. He’d brag about it nearly every time he came home to visit.

“I hope Krishna is still doing OK in America,” Chatterji thought. He hadn’t been able to talk to his brother in a while, and he worried that some of his nieces and nephews might have been drafted.

After greeting and welcoming his soldiers to Russia following their nearly eight-day train ride from India, he turned to leave the trainyard and was pleasantly surprised when his soldiers spontaneously started to sing an old military hymn.

“They’re excited about going to war…” he reveled to himself.

An hour later, he walked into his headquarters building and made his way over to the room he had set up as his new office. When he walked in, he was pleasantly surprised to see his new boss, a Russian major general, and one of his colonels. Smiling, he extended his hand. “Major General Oleg Chirkin, it’s good to see you. I thought we were meeting for dinner in a couple of hours?”

Major General Chirkin smiled briefly at the question. “Yes, I have a reservation made for us. However, I wanted to speak with you now — it’s a matter of great urgency,” he replied, still standing near the wall of the office.

Chatterji signaled for the two Russian officers to take a seat as he walked around to his desk. Chirkin remained standing. “General, I understand you arrived yesterday and have set this building up as your new headquarters. As my new deputy, I must insist that you pick a new location for your headquarters,” urged Chirkin. “I also recommend that you find a way to trim your staff down by at least half and find a more discreet way to run operations.”

Lifting his head up a bit, Chatterji clarified, “You’re concerned with this location being quickly identified by the Americans and then destroyed?”

Chirkin nodded. “Yes. My predecessor didn’t relocate his headquarters when the war started, and the Americans blew him up with a cruise missile. By all accounts, you’re a very competent general. I don’t want the US to score a quick victory and destroy your HQ the first week you’re in Russia,” he replied, hoping the new general wouldn’t take offense to him saying this.

Chetterji smiled broadly. “We’ve already thought about this, General. We made a lot of noise about this new location and are setting up enough communications transmissions emanating from this building to be convincing as well. I even have a body double who will come here daily. We want the Americans to destroy this building. We want to show our people at home how vicious the US is, and how they will even kill civilians and then blame us for setting up our headquarters near a heavily populated area.”

Chatterji wagged his finger with a smile. “I already have a secured headquarters set up. After today, I’ll never set foot in this building again. This is all a ruse,” he concluded.

Laughing at what they had been told, both of the Russians had to take a minute to regain their composure. “Very clever, General. You’re just as crafty and devious as I have heard. Now, can you put that craftiness to use in slowing down the Americans?”

Turning serious, General Chertterji responded, “I have a plan to deal with them. My engineering brigade has finally arrived. We’re starting construction of twelve new airfields. When they’re completed, the Air Force will be sending 150 fighter aircraft, and we’ll also receive a few squadrons of Jaguar ground-attack planes. When our air operations are up and running, we’ll stop the Americans from advancing any further, and then as additional brigades arrive from home, we’ll work on removing them altogether. Under your leadership, this joint Russian-Indian task force is sure to prevail. By the end of summer, we’ll have 90,000 Indian soldiers here, and double that number next spring.”

Leaning forward, he looked the Russians in the eyes. “I’m going to rely on you for your help and expertise. You have hard-fought experience fighting the Americans. With your help, we’re going to defeat the enemy and end this bloody war,” he concluded.

General Chatterji noted the smiles spreading across his Russian compatriots’ faces. He wanted to make sure they knew they were going to be equal partners in this campaign; if they believed that, then their forces would fight harder, and the likelihood of them winning would increase significantly.