The Last Gamble

By Divya Behl

Blood slicked the dirt beneath him, pooling in the gaps like ink on parchment paper. Major Arjun Rathore clutched his side, breath ragged, as the world blurred into shades of agony. A few feet away, Captain Salman Qureshi leaned against a half-destroyed barricade, his leg twisted at an unnatural angle. Smoke coiled in the air, mingling with the scent of scorched Earth and gunpowder. They had done it, and now they would pay for it.

Hours earlier, the sky had been an expanse of steel grey, dawn creeping over the battlefield with deceptive serenity. The air between the Indian and Pakistani encampments was a taut wire, ready to snap and charge. Orders had come – march, attack, eliminate. The next sunrise was to be painted in blood. Salman’s voice had crackled over the radio, low and urgent from the Pakistani border. “Arjun, we don’t have time.” Arjun had exhaled slowly, gripping the receiver as if it were a sponge, waiting to be compressed. “Then, let’s make use of the time.” They had spent their childhood sharing secrets beneath banyan trees, their laughter carried by the wind. And now, that same wind howled with the dying soldiers’ ghosts. They couldn’t let history devour more. Their plan was reckless, a madman’s gamble. They wove a web of misinformation– false army movements, delayed weapons, whispers of an impending ambush. It was just enough to stall the inevitable. Just enough to force the commands’ hands into hesitation. 

Now, as they bled into the dirt of no man’s land, the truth stared them in the face. The moon cast ghastly shadows over the barbed wires as footsteps approached, Indian and Pakistani soldiers. The soldiers hesitated. Rifles aimed, fingers trembled. They had been comrades once, before borders made them enemies. And now watching their fallen officers, uncertainty flickered in their eyes. Arjun’s breath came in ragged bursts. His vision darkened, but he saw it, what he and Salman had fought for. Not an explosion of hatred, but hesitation. A moment where war was not the only option. Salman coughed, his voice barely above a whisper. “We did it, Arjun!” Arjun managed a weak smile. “Yes, we did it.” The ceasefire was declared at dawn. 

Months later, in a quiet hospital far from the border, a man with a stitched-up wound stared out of the window, watching the world move on without him. Another sat beside him, his limp a reminder of their choice. Neither wore a uniform anymore. The generals of the Pakistani and Indian armies would have taken the appreciation and received medals. Their names were rarely spoken, and forgotten by their nations. But history remembered the war that never came, and the two ghosts who had stopped it.

By Divya Behl