Dragon Fire

Drapchi Prison, Lhasa, Tibet

In the past week the beatings had started again, just like when he had first arrived at the prison sixteen years before. They had forgotten about his good behaviour and his proclaimed loyalty to the Communist Party as if they had never happened. Six days earlier, shortly after 0500, they had hauled him out of the cell alone. Outside the temperature hovered just above freezing. They hadn’t let him put on his shoes and his skin was torn on cold, hard ground as they dragged him across the yard. They kicked him and hit him behind the knees with a metal rod so that he stumbled. Once in the interrogation room, they said they were going to kill him. Then they tied him up to the wall and gave him electric shocks.

Lhundrub Togden, aged fifty-three, a Buddhist monk from Gangden Monastery in Lhasa, had three years of a nineteen-year sentence to run. After that, he would begin an eight-year sentence for organizing riots — and by then he would be sixty-four, if he survived.

‘You are accused of splittist activities,’ they said to him. ‘You are a subversive organizing the dismemberment of the Motherland.’

Togden remained silent. Whatever he said, the beatings would continue. After he had refused to speak for one whole session, they had pushed him into a close-confinement cell, the opposite to solitary, where there was no light, little air, no sanitation and prisoners were crammed together as tightly as possible in conditions which made sleep impossible.

The next day he was given nothing to eat until the evening when, close to collapse, he was handed a steamed bun and broth, so watery that he was unable to taste any vegetables or meat. He survived using the mantra ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’, a six-syllable invocation to Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion, of whom the Dalai Lama is regarded as an emanation. By reciting it endlessly, he disciplined his mind into a tranquil meditation so that he barely felt the blows or the pain.

Under prison regulations, they could torture, deny sleep and limit meals without referring to higher officials. But Togden understood the system and psychology of Drapchi. They would not move him from the Fifth Division, nor would they seriously injure or kill him, without direct permission from Beijing. He was a special-case prisoner, well known to groups such as Amnesty International, and Hollywood film stars had personally named him a ‘hero of peace’.

Togden was made to run with a bag of rocks on his back for hours on end. For years he worked in the greenhouses where temperatures would reach more than fifty degrees Centigrade. At one stage he suffered from fluid retention, becoming grossly bloated, with his cheeks and eyes puffed. He recovered from that, but his dramatic swings in size and weight left him looking gaunt and ghostlike. He spent two years in solitary confinement and a year ago was sent back to the Fifth Division, the section specially created for male political prisoners.

When news leaked out that Togden had finally been moved, Choedrak was approached to rescue him. Togden was the most commanding Tibetan figure who advocated acampaign of violent insurgency against Chinese rule. Once freed, he could change the future of the whole resistance movement.

Togden was in state of semi-conscious meditation, forcing away the pain which wracked his body. Shortly after ten in the morning, he heard the first burst of gunfire to the south, coming from the old city, near the Jokhang. This time, however, it was not unarmed defenceless civilians who were fired upon by the Chinese police. Men from the Special Frontier Force, who had walked for days over the rugged and freezing Tibetan plateau to reach the capital, had infiltrated the city like peasant warriors from another age. They came into Lhasa from the north along the Beijing Nub Lan, and only when they were interspersed with the crowds of people in the narrow streets around the Jokhang did the first unit throw back their grubby Tibetan coats to reveal the weaponry of modern commandos. From then on their chances of survival were minimal.

They threw two grenades into the police station at Bharkor, followed by a burst from two AK-47 assault rifles. The men then split up into pairs, heading north; two went past the Snowland Hotel to Beijing Shar Lam, the other two up through the Jokhang, Nangtseshag, past the Lhasa Department Store, and meeting up with the others outside the Jebumgang police station. People were running back and forth in a familiar pattern indicating the start of trouble. Police opened fire above their heads, but their volley was met with a devastating assault from the SFF Tibetans. Five policemen died. Two Tibetans were hit in the exchange, stumbling and falling. Civilians rushed forward to help, but by the time they got there both the commandos had bitten cyanide capsules and were in the throes of death.

Police ran out of the building, firing into the crowd, killing and wounding civilians: the figures are still unclear as to how many. Screams were heard all over Jokhang, bringing people out of their houses, and word spread rapidly that the armed uprising had begun, just like in March 1959. The Khampas were back to liberate their country.

With four- and five-man units, the SFF were able to attack ten different positions throughout Lhasa, spreading confusion and drawing and thinning out the Chinese forces into separate parts of the city.

Three units struck the Armed Police Auxiliary building and the Satellite Earth Station along Ngachen Lam. Two and a half kilometres to the west, the radio and television station on Lingkor Nub Lam was hit with two rocket-propelled grenades, then raked with small-arms fire. They attacked the Tibetan Military Area compound, which housed a battalion of PLA soldiers, firing from the northern bank of the Kyichu River, careful to avoid hitting the women and children’s hospital in the north-east corner of the compound.

From a stolen police jeep, they fired into the Armed Police Headquarters along Chingdrol Kyol Lam, drove straight on half a kilometre to the east, pulled up, set up a mortar and fired four rounds into the compound housing the Tibetan civilian administration. This was the first unit to come under attack from the PLA rapid deployment force, which was operational within ninety seconds of the firefight breaking out in the Jokhang.

A Chinese WZ 551 armoured personnel carrier drove straight towards the SFF mortar position. Its 25mm cannon was silent, but the 7.62mm heavy machine gun cut a swathe of destruction through the small guerrilla unit. The last commando fell as the fourth mortar round was let off. Then two Chinese Z-9 helicopters, based on the French-built Eurocopter SA 365 Dauphin, were in the air with searchlights. Crews of other Chinese helicopters, including three Sikorsky S-70 Black Hawks, were being called in, and this was just what Choedrak had planned for.

With its camouflage colours and Chinese markings, Choedrak’s lumbering Indian Mi-26 helicopter flew into the Plain of Lhasa north across the tributaries of the Kyichu. It was over the city, on schedule, fifteen minutes after the fighting began. Choedrak could see crowds gathered around the Jokhang, fires burning in the police stations and the muzzle flashes of gunfire. Special Chinese army units were closing in on the narrow streets of the old city, moving cautiously, knowing they were entering a nightmare of close-combat urban warfare. More troops were pouring in along the Ngachen Lam from the PLA’s main Tibetan headquarters just to the east of Lhasa.

Seconds later, the helicopter was over Drapchi prison, which seemed quiet, with light morning traffic. Looking north towards the mountains it was as if nothing untoward was happening at all. By now there were other helicopters in the skies, but there was too much confusion for the Mi-26 to be noticed. Choedrak listened for the AN-32.

‘Keep flying,’ he ordered.

The pilot held a northerly course to Sera monastery in the foothills of the Gyaltsen Mountain, then turned west-south-west down to the Kyichu, making a circle of Lhasa so that he would come back to Drapchi from the east. The SFF infiltration force was in action throughout the southern sector of Lhasa, with up to sixty men engaged in combat. Forty remained in reserve, retaining their disguises, to stagger deployment over the next thirty minutes between the breakout at Drapchi and the escape.

‘There he is,’ said the pilot. ‘Two o’clock and coming down fast.’

‘Thank God,’ said Choedrak.

Choedrak saw the Antonov’s silhouette plunging out of the morning darkness. He recognized the distinctive turboprop engine casings above the wings. It came down in a spiral to avoid anti-aircraft fire, and just when it seemed certain the plane would not be able to pull out, the nose levelled and the rear ramp came down. The wings tipped and paratroopers tumbled out, their chutes opening straight away, the men identifying their positions in the prison compound, concentrating hard with only fifteen seconds between the jump and the landfall.

The sudden roar of aircraft and the mushrooming of white chutes were followed by the crackle of small-arms fire as half the paratroopers landed inside the camp, their job to hold down the Chinese troops for the few minutes of the operation and blow the two gates leading to the prison compound.

The two gunners on the Mi-26 shot out each of the watchtowers. Already, men lay dead and wounded on the frozen ground of the military camp. But enough were engaging the Chinese in a fierce firefight to hold the gate leading from the camp to the prison.

Other paratroopers made it into the prison itself. Ten men took cover between the clinic and the wall of the women’s prison, setting up a lethal field of fire along the main road running through the compound. Five men set up a position between the fence and the First Division building, laying down covering fire for another four who were working on explosives on the prison gate.

The helicopter came in due south over the Sera Lam road into the city, the pilot skimming the traffic and bringing the aircraft to hover a few feet off the ground opposite the shabby main prison entrance. It led into a military camp. The second gate went into a sort of antechamber to the prison, then there was the prison gate itself. Each section was protected by three layers of electrified fencing and the compound was overlooked by six watch-towers, each manned by two guards with searchlights and heavy machine guns. Division Five, where Togden was held, was the furthest point from the prison entrance, sealed off in its own compound with its own gate.

Choedrak was the first out.

A searing explosion ripped away the main gate, hurling debris into the air, and the men from the SFF ran through the flames into the chaos of the military camp. Their firing was controlled and highly skilled, hitting the Chinese, identifying their own and shouting commands in Tibetan, using their own language in their own country for the first time.

The second gate was shattered with plastic explosives, then the gate to the prison compound itself was destroyed and the men ran in, relieving those who had been holding the ground. Each had an intricate knowledge of the prison from the diagrams they had studied, each four-man unit responsible for a specific task. The aim of the operation was to free as many prisoners as quickly as possible onto the streets of Lhasa, destroy the prison and deliver Lhundrub Togden to India or Nepal.

The Antonov was on a course due south, flying at the dangerously low level of 300 feet to avoid Chinese radar and air defences, which would now be on high alert. For the next twenty minutes, the pilot was relying on luck to reach the border with Bhutan, 200 kilometres away, before the Chinese air defences brought him down.

A squadron of six fighters scrambled from the Chinese air-force base just north of Lhasa. They were Shenyang-12 or J-12 fighters, Chinese-built, but based on the Russian-designed SU-27, more than enough to take on the lightly armed Antonov-32 and Mi-26.

Seven more Chinese helicopters were in the sky, but, amazingly, the Mi-26 was still flying undetected. When the alert at Drapchi was sounded the Armed Police Headquarters and Tibet Military Area command headquarters were themselves under attack from SFF units. The message came through not that there was an attack on Drapchi, but that there was a riot. Then the radio operators were killed and their equipment smashed.

As soon as the last paratrooper was out, seconds after the main gate was blown, the pilot took the Mi-26 up again, flying south towards the Kuru Sampa, the main southerly bridge across the Kyichu River. Chinese reinforcements from the east were entering the city, but the area around the bridge was still clear. The pilot brought the helicopter down on the northern banks of the Kyichu, dropped off twenty commandos and delivered another twelve to the southern edge of the bridge at the beginning of the Tibet— Sichuan Highway. Looming above them was the Bhumpa Mountain, where they were to flee once the helicopter was out of action.

1,500 metres to the south-west armoured vehicles came out of the PLA’s main depot south of the river, heading towards the bridge. Tibetan fighters saw them, melted into the rocky terrain and watched them pass.

It would only be minutes before the helicopter was identified as an enemy aircraft. The pilot’s most dangerous task now was retracing the flight path to Drapchi. He flew low over the Jokhang, now an orange glow of burning buildings and street-fighting. Then it fell quieter below him until suddenly he was above the flames curling up from the prison compound itself.

The first burst of tracer anti-aircraft fire cut a line of speckled yellow and white in front of the cockpit. The gunners returned with a long burst of theirs and the pilot brought the helicopter down into a hover above the prison compound.

SFF units had taken high positions in the prison buildings and watchtowers. The winchman released the ladder from the helicopter, and the pilot identified Choedrak, running through the smoke, with the prisoner, Lhundrub Togden.

The Mi-26 was not designed for such elaborate work and the pilot had difficulty keeping her steady. Togden was on the ladder first, as commandos set up fields of fire in protective layers around him. The Drapchi prisoners formed a human barrier at the gates of the prison, where Chinese troops were now trying to get in. As Togden was on the ladder the first Chinese mortar landed in the prison compound with a ferocity which caused panic among the prisoners. The Chinese later admitted that twenty-nine were killed or wounded with that one mortar shell.

Choedrak was the next up on the ladder. It swayed precariously, but the winchman’s hand was there to haul him in, while the pilot took the helicopter up and turned the nose south again. A second mortar landed right inside the prison and exploded beneath them.

Heavy machine-gun fire from the ground cut through the fuselage, killing the starboard gunner. Choedrak took the weapon and kept firing at troops moving in on the prison perimeter. He saw a Tibetan commando raise his weapon above his head in a salute as the helicopter cleared the prison wall. It was the finest salute Choedrak had ever seen: a Tibetan fighting for his country, proud, brave, determined, and holding his post so others could escape. A happy man about to die.

The pilot, too, sensed he had only minutes to live. He kept the helicopter low and fast, skimming the rooftops and twisting to avoid the high buildings. Another round of machine-gun fire hit the tail, striking the rudder control which at once became sluggish. He kept her height at barely 100 feet. He saw the roadblock set up by the SFF units north of the Kuru Sampa, already under attack by two Chinese armoured cars coming down from Samchen Dong Lam. One APC was stopped in a jarring explosion, hit by a rocket-propelled grenade from the Tibetans. The helicopter flew overhead in a deafening roar, following the line of the bridge, an agreed signal to the men on the ground that Togden was on board and they should move on to the next stage.

The SFF explosives unit detonated the charges laid under the bridge. The road collapsed into the river, leaving their own men on the northern banks cut off from escape, but blocking the Chinese pursuit.

‘Out now,’ the pilot ordered. The aircraft was barely airworthy. He just managed to control its descent again, keeping her steady above the road, recognizing the Tibetans on the ground and holding off Chinese armoured vehicles. ‘Everyone,’ he repeated, turning in his seat. ‘Not a man left on board.’

As the last paratrooper jumped off, he regained enough height to move the wrecked machine towards the PLA barracks. He could have landed her on the road and surrendered. But that would have been the act of a coward. He saw his fellow Tibetans, distant shapes now, taking to the mountains. He got the helicopter to 150 feet, then let it drop, guiding it down until the last few feet to make sure that it shattered in the middle of the highway, spewing out oil and burning fuel, wrecking the thoroughfare with twisted parts and lumps of aircraft metal which would block the PLA attack for the vital minutes that Togden and Choedrak needed to get away.