A writer-doctor on the frontlines of the Kargil war

Fresh out of surgical training from the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, a year earlier, Basu found himself posted to a remote field hospital in the absence of basic infrastructure. What seemed like a career dead-end soon turned into the most defining chapter of his life. By May 1999, he was sent to Kargil, the sole surgeon at a forward field hospital amid a brutal war.

  Over a relentless two-month period, from May 19 to July 24, he performed almost 250 life-saving surgeries on Indian soldiers and even an enemy soldier. In his book, Basu not only talks about the wounds he stitched but of the invisible history of those soldiers who died in the rocky heights under enemy fire. Basu reflects on battlefield truths – they may be lost because war stories are told by survivors, not the dead. 

    Below is an extract from the book, which has been published by Bloomsbury 25 years since the war, and costs ~399:

By the last week of May 1999, we were in an unofficial warzone. Even though war had not been declared, the reality on the ground was different. The situation in the Kargil sector had worsened and the families of officers had all left by then. The artillery and mortar firings interspersed with gunfire continued unabated, and there was a sense of dread in the air. We were definitely at the receiving end of the fighting. Our casualties were rising by the day and another emergency surgical site was opened in the Dras sector to take on some of the surgical load temporarily.

  The Indian Air Force had joined the fighting, targeting enemy bunkers and intruder camps. It was not an easy task as they would have had to spot their targets from a height of 3,000 metres at near supersonic speeds. Whenever we heard the sound of the fighter jets, we knew that an air attack was on.

  One afternoon, the telephone rang. 'Sir, an officer is severely injured,' said the voice on the line. 'He will reach you shortly.' 'Name and unit?' I asked. 'Major Vikram Shekhavat of the Jat Regiment.' I had heard that name recently. 'Wait a minute,' I said. 'Wasn't he declared dead on a private news channel?' 'He was wounded yesterday, sir, but he is very much alive!'

  'Reporters!' I cried angrily. 'They cook up all kinds of stories just for a sensational news headline!' When Major Vikram Shekhavat arrived, I examined him and found that he had a wound in the abdomen on the left side. As he breathed, his abdomen rose up and down slowly and a bit irregularly. The X-ray revealed a long, jagged splinter was inside him. He had to be operated on immediately. This could be serious. 

Upon opening him, I found a river of blood inside. I managed to clear it with suctioning. His spleen was shattered. Among the remains of the pulverised organ was the splinter that had caused the injury. Apart from damaging the spleen, it had broken two ribs and damaged the diaphragm and the pleura — the covering of the lung. This was going to be a major surgery.

  I removed the spleen after ligating the main vessels supplying blood to it. Then I cleaned the ribs and smoothened their edges before repairing the diaphragm. Finally, I inserted a tube for the lung to expand and recover. The surgery took three hours. As he was coming out of anaesthesia, the injured officer muttered, 'Doc, will I be able to fight again?'

  ‘Of course you will,' said Major Ramprasad. 'But for now, take some rest.’ That was the first major surgery performed in Kargil, and as an independent surgeon, I felt satisfied. I was certain the patient would be all right. I had checked and rechecked everything to the best of my knowledge. Major Vikram Shekhavat was taken to Srinagar the next day by an air force helicopter. He was stable when boarding, and the hospital in Srinagar informed me later that he was out of danger.  

The same afternoon, a lance naik was brought in by a lieutenant colonel. He had a deep wound in the right side of his back and his abdomen was slightly swollen. The officer told us that they had been travelling by Jeep from Leh to Kargil, with the lance naik driving. After a while, the officer asked the driver to take a break and took the wheel himself. As they approached Kargil, an artillery shell exploded just behind them and a splinter pierced the passenger seat, hitting the lance naik from behind. It was strange luck. Had he not offered to trade places, it would have been him and not the lance naik lying wounded in the hospital. 

During the surgery, I found that the splinter had just about missed the spinal cord, the bigger blood vessels of the abdomen and the right ureter. If any of those had been hit, the injury would have been fatal. The splinter had torn the small intestine at five places and had damaged the mesentery of the small intestine. (The mesentery is a flat, fat-laden, fan-shaped tissue commencing at the proximal intestine, holding the entire small intestine in a partially mobile manner. 

It has numerous blood vessels, all carrying digested fat and protein-laden substance to the liver.) I cleaned the area and removed about twelve inches of the intestine before doing an anastomosis. Then I sealed the intestine with sutures. The operation lasted two hours and all seemed good. The next day, the patient was stable and was sent to Leh. I had successfully handled my first two major cases within a span of a few hours. 

A few days later, a casualty arrived at about two in the afternoon. It was a twenty-two-year-old sepoy who had been hit by a splinter. About eight hours had passed since the injury, and he had gone into a state of shock. His pulse was feeble and his blood pressure very low. His abdomen was distended and the X-ray revealed that the splinter had entered his upper abdomen on the left side. The splinter seemed to be less than a centimetre long. Then why was he in such a terrible state, I wondered?

We commenced surgery immediately. On opening his abdomen, I found a pool of blood, approximately four litres of it.  I panicked but kept operating. I had to cup out the blood with my hands as the suction was not enough. An emergency summons was issued for Dr Kachu. I could not locate the splinter but found that the stomach had been pierced. Was it inside the stomach? I checked and didn't find it there. I quickly fixed the damage to the stomach, but the blood kept filling up the cavity.

  Finally, I found the splinter. It was lying between the stomach and the liver. Such a small splinter had torn his stomach and pancreas and lacerated two major blood vessels...

The next book that will feature in the Blueprint: The Long Game: How the Chinese Negotiate with India, by Vijay Gokhale­