(1984) In Honour Bound

by Gerald Seymour

  The orderly saw Medev when he was not more than a dozen feet into the mess and hurried forward with Georgian brandy in a small glass. Medev thought he kept the glass filled and ready in the kitchen for the squadron commander's entrance. He liked that, and the cheerful greeting from the orderly. And he liked also the way that the fliers snapped up from the chairs on his entrance, so that he could wave them down again, and make something of it.

  If they were busy, Medev thought, they would have little time to reflect. If they had little time to reflect then they would have less time to doubt. Doubt was the prerogative of Pyotr Medev. Doubt amongst the fliers was unthinkable.

  Carrying a tray with two bowls of soup, the orderly passed him again. Medev turned, saw the two pilots who had come into the mess after him. They smiled, dropped their heads in a gesture of respect. Meals were kept back for those on late flying duties.

  Medev had eaten earlier at Divisional HQ, but he took a chair and sat opposite the pilots. They would talk and he would listen and ask a few questions, but listen. That was his way with the young fliers.

  'Wasn't easy to find, not in that light, not with the references they gave us ... we found it all right, but the map co-ordinates were wrong, that ought to be sorted out . . .'

  Medev waved his hand, enough about the maps.

  'I went down, Alexei stayed up. I used the rockets first. I took the target of a large compound in the village centre . . . that's where the bastards usually are, that's where they'd entertain their bastard guests, right? . . . then I put the machine gun into them. I didn't get any munition explosions, just one fire, probably cattle fodder. We took some ground fire on the third pass, some under-carriage hits.'

  it was the right village?' Medev asked

  'It was the village we were sent to.'

  'I'm sure it was the village we were sent to . . . the Intelligence report for the tasking said that a European with weapons would be in that village. If a European was coming to the village with munitions then I have to believe the village would be waiting for him, there would be men who would defend the village waiting for him.'

  'Perhaps Intelligence gave us wrong information.'

  'I cannot believe Intelligence gave us incorrect information.'

  Medev grinned, pulled a face. The fliers would make light of a dusk mission.

  Medev knew the problems. Thermal updraughts after the heat of the day, the swirling winds of the late afternoon that made contour flying hazardous, the difficulties of night navigation back down to Jalalabad from the mountains. He wouldn't tolerate Intelligence messing with his fliers.

  'They told us at the briefing that this man and his mules would reach the village in the late afternoon, that was why we had to attack late . . . perhaps he had not reached the village.'

  'Perhaps not,' Medev said.

  'Are there really Europeans out there, Major Medev?'

  'How could Europeans help these shits? Wouldn't they know what they're really like, Major?'

  'I don't know,' Medev said softly. 'To your first question and to your second question, I don't know.'

  'There was one fat bastard, he ran from the houses, I followed him at 40 metres up.

  My bloody gunner wouldn't fire, it was like a fox chase, he ran till he dropped. When he'd dropped my gunner punctured him ... he must have run 200 metres. My bloody gunner says he likes to let them run, says it's good for their health.' The pilot, Alexei, was spilling soup from his spoon as he laughed.

  Medev left them to their meal. He muttered his congratulations and headed for his room. He had a letter from his wife to read, but the letter competed in his thoughts with the confusions caused by an Intelligence assessment that reported a European with munitions heading for a village south of Jalalabad.

  They buried the martyr early in the morning.

  The ground was too hard for the village men to scrape out more than a shallow hole.

  The cannon from the helicopter had decapitated the man, and they laid his head in the space between his knees and then made a high pile of stones over his body as protection against the vultures, and set amongst the stones a stick with a white strip of cloth tied to it as indication that he had fallen in battle.

  Schumack stood a little aside from the men who had carried the body from the village and who had listened to the few words of the mullah. He had stood with his head bowed, but he had not intruded on the burial. Close to him had crouched an idiot, a strange shrunken creature with a wide grin and gap-toothed smile and torn clothes and scars on his face. He had not seen the idiot before the attack by the helicopters. Perhaps he had come in the night and slept under a field wall of stone. There was little charity in the villages for idiots. Feed the fittest, because the fittest were the fighters. An idiot would roam from village to village, and get scraps of food if he was fortunate.

  The man they buried had been the last of Schumack's companions. They had been together but they had only had the basics of a common language. If a man wanted to run out of a house where he was safe and protected by mud brick walls and stand upright in a compound yard to get a better aim at a strafing helicopter, that was his business. Since Chuck and Paddy and Carlo had gone he would never walk out from this war . . . but, shit, he wouldn't make it easy for them, not as easy as standing in the open with an AK

  against a big bird.

  Slung on his shoulder were two rifles. His own Kalash- nikov and that of the man now buried.

  If they were to follow the airstrike of the previous evening then the Mi-8 helicopters would come to the village with the Soviet troops mid-morning. That was their pattern, and they were a methodical people.

  As the last stones were piled on the grave cairn, Schumack left the village. He was alone when he strode away down the goat path, his pack on his back, his blanket hanging on his shoulders, his right hand taking the weight of the rifles' straps, his left hand that was a claw hanging loose against his hip. They had given him some bread, they had filled his water canteen. He left for the emptiness of the high slopes, for the places where the wild flowers grew in their blues and yellows in the rock fissures.

  Always when he was alone he aimed to climb above the flight path of the helicopters. If Schumack hated one thing in his life it was the helicopters of Frontal Aviation.

  By the time Schumack was out of earshot of the village they were already repairing the damaged roofs and slapping wet mud onto the cannon holes in the walls. No man watched him go, only a few children, and the idiot.

  He would drift like a feather in the winds. The feather would fall, and Schumack would find a group that would permit this itinerant warrior to attach himself to their column or to their fighting base. He was an uncomplicated man. He could endure the boredom of the weeks between combat because time meant little to him. He asked for food, for water, and for ammunition for the two strapped magazines of his Kalashnikov. Because he asked for so little he did not go short. He had walked for two hours when he saw them.

  Ahead of him and above him. A dust puff on the scree alerted him, a tiny inconsistency in the shape of the upper hillside.

  He took from his back pack a one-eyed spy glass. He rested the glass on his damaged left arm and with his right hand fiddled with the focus.

  Two men, two mules.

  A man taller than the other and more solidly built. A man who walked in short chopped strides. No stranger could walk like an Afghan.

  He turned off the path. He found a way through the tree line, through the scrub line and out onto the scree, a way that would bring him to the same height but behind them.

  'It was raining. It always rained in London in late August. Dripping streets, slippery pavements, traffic snarled. Rain doubled the time of the journey to Whitehall and FCO.

  The detective varied his route these days. Sometimes he came via the Mall sometimes by Birdcage Walk, sometimes round by Victoria Street. Pretty pointless, the Foreign Secretary thought, because he always ended up at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office b
ack door, the trusty Ambassador's entrance.

  His Personal Private Secretary made a point of meeting him just inside the doorway.

  'Good morning, Minister . . .'

  Down the corridors and past the portraits - he'd be there himself soon, Heaven help him, hung for posterity, picking their way along the Eastern carpets.

  'Quite a quiet day for you, Minister.'

  'We went through my day last night. I know what I have today.'

  'Not everything, you don't, sir. Brigadier Fotheringay is camping outside your office. Says he has to see you. I've told him you're busy, but. . .'

  'I ll see him immediately,' the Foreign Secretary said.

  'You have a number of other appointments, sir.'

  immediately, I said, and put everything else on hold.'

  'What advisers will you want to sit in?'

  i'll deal with this alone, Clive.'

  In the next fifteen minutes the Foreign Secretary would drink half a dozen cups of black coffee. The Brigadier's cup remained untouched and grew cold.

  'A specific instruction was sent to this man Rossiter in Peshawar, an instruction stating unequivocally that he should at once leave Pakistan, plus the instructor, and return via New Delhi to the United Kingdom, and you are telling me that your instruction was communicated to Rossiter, and that so far as you can discover that instruction, that order, Godammit, has been ignored? I find that incredible. And to cap it all, your best intelligence is that these two men, two men whom it took Pakistan's chaps ten minutes to smoke out, have simply disappeared.'

  That is correct, sir.'

  'And what is your explanation?'

  'My explanation, sir?'

  'I am entitled to ask for an explanation.'

  'I don't have one. Other than that an order has been ignored, there is no explanation.'

  'Could they have gone . . .'

  'Not Rossiter, he's too old.'

  'Could the instructor have gone?'

  'Into Afghanistan, he could have.' The Brigadier sighed. 'It has to be a possibility, and a very ugly one. The repercussions, if he's caught, hardly bear thinking about.'

  'What would he have gone into Afghanistan forT the Foreign Secretary asked.

  'To shoot down a bloody helicopter, what else?' The Brigadier's voice was shrill. 'To strip the thing.'

  'He'd be a brave young man, Brigadier.'

  'I'll have him strung up by his thumbs when I get him back. I'll break him, smash him . . .'

  'And Rossiter?'

  'Rossiter's a low grade,

  second-rate nobody. He was hand picked for this sort

  of thing. He's never made an original move nor had an original thought in his life.'

  'I see. What about the instructor? Has he ever given way to an original thought, I wonder. Who is he?'

  'Captain Crispin of the SAS.'

  if Captain Crispin has entered Afghanistan, and if the Soviets were to capture him there, then the implications would indeed be quite horrifying. Bad enough if the Pakistanis were to find him. But if that's the journey he's embarked on, then I have to say that I am rather taken with him. A gutsy young man.'

  'He wasn't asked to be gutsy, Foreign Secretary. He was given his instructions and expected to obey them.'

  'Quite so, Brigadier. But as you keep saying, you win some, you lose some. Little did I suspect how prophetic you would be. Tell me this: if he has gone into Afghanistan, just how likely is he to succeed, provide us with Hind's innards?'

  'A total stranger to the country, not speaking the local tongue, one chance in a thousand, and a better than even chance of getting himself killed or captured.'

  'Well, that's a pretty prospect, Brigadier. If you can come up with any fresh disasters, you'll keep me posted, will you?'

  'That's not quite fair,' the Brigadier said and let himself thankfully out of the room.

  He was a foreigner and he was a soldier.

  Schumack found over the next three hours as he tracked the man and the boy and the two mules that he could have set his watch on the minutes they spent resting each and every hour, on the hour. A trained man would rest for a few minutes in each hour.

  Much of the time Schumack could not see them as they hugged the curved hillsides.

  He estimated that he was a mile behind them. He had closed his speed to their pace.

  Schu- mack, Marine Corps Sergeant, knew a soldier's trail when it was laid in front of him. He wondered when he should close with the foreigner, perhaps at dusk. He'd considered whether the foreigner could be a Soviet surveillance officer, but dismissed the thought.

  'He's a Maxie Schumack,' he said aloud to himself. 'He's the same as Maxie Schumack, fighting man, come to kick Soviet ass like Maxie Schumack does. Not a white bum Soviet. Too dangerous for the shites to be walking the hills, love their balls too much to go walking.'

  The sun beat down on him, played tricks with his eyes, and twice he retrieved the spy glass from his pack and searched the backgrounds of rough rock wall and low scrub trees for the men and their mules, and could not see them. But there was always the track of the hooves for him to follow, the outline of small sandals, and the imprint of a soldier's boots.

  'What in Christ's name is the mother doing here?'

  'There are many problems associated with flying in Laghman province.'

  'I would remind you, Major, there are problems for all of us when we operate in Laghman.'

  'The problems of helicopters are acute in the high ranges.'

  'Acute but not insurmountable. I am sure your fliers are quite capable of meeting our requirements.'

  The Colonel General flicked his pen irritably back and forth on his table. Major Medev sat opposite him.

  'My fliers are the best.'

  'Be realistic, Medev. We are all concerned with equipment losses, we are all concerned with casualties. You have no greater right to concern than a major of infantry, of artillery, of armour. It is dangerous for the Mi-24 to fly in the valleys north of here. It is dangerous for the infantry in their personnel carriers, for the artillery in their bivouacs, for the tanks on the river bed roads. I cannot send the infantry and the artillery and the armour into the mountains of Laghman, if first I have to tell their officers that their colleagues from Frontal Aviation believe it is too dangerous to fly above those valleys. You understand me, Medev?'

  The flush burned on Medev's skin. He had allowed himself to be out-manoeuvred, then scolded. Perhaps he was too close to his men, perhaps he cared too much for the magic of the clean casualty sheet.

  'Ii was merely making the point that at altitude . . .'

  'The point is made . . . Now, the resupply of the bandits reaches a peak before the first snows close the upper mountain passes in Laghman. They have two, three weeks to bring their materials from Pakistan. I have a direct order from the Taj Beg to frustrate the transhipment of those supplies.'

  'They are taken through the high passes, at the maximum altitude of the helicopter.'

  'I know where they are taken, Major.'

  in the high passes we have grave difficulties with turbulence in the airstream, and the thermal effects can be dramatic, a helicopter can be sucked up . . .'

  'Each time I make a statement, Major, you interrupt me. This is not a conversation, it is a briefing. If you feel that your pilots, under your leadership, do not have the necessary confidence . . .'

  'Forgive me, Colonel General. There will be no failings from my squadron.'

  'How long does your tour have to run?'

  Medev hesitated. 'I think a month, something like four weeks.'

  'I imagine you know to the day how long you have to serve here. I think each man in Afghanistan, each man of a hundred thousand knows exactly how many days he has to serve. You are not alone. But I give you some advice. You have had an excellent tour.

  Do not spoil that in the remaining four weeks you are with us. You understand my advice?'

  'And I thank you for it, Colonel General.'


  'You won't fail me, Major Medev.'

  'There is no possibility of failure, Colonel General.'

  'I am gratified. Your own commander would have given you these instructions if he had not been in Kabul. They are cleared with him, of course. Your helicopters should be grounded for the next forty-eight hours for extensive maintenance, after that there may not be the chance. You'll be flying the arses off them. There will be an airborne battalion on stand by, three hours . . .that's all.'

  Medev saluted, and turned for the door.

  He walked out into the brightness of the afternoon. The light bounced at him from the runway. A fighter bomber roared away, smoke and flame belching from the engine exhausts, then waddled into the sky weighed down by the bombs and rockets clinging to the belly and wing pods. The taste of burned fuel settled on his tongue. He spat onto the concrete. In a neat line on the far side of the runway from Division's headquarters were his helicopters, safe behind their sand bag revetments and wire. The Colonel General knew nothing of flying in the high mountain valleys of Laghman, knew nothing of a helicopter straining for altitude at 4000 metres, surrounded by mountain cliffs. Impossible to exercise the control needed for contour flying at that altitude. What did the Colonel General know? The Colonel General knew nothing.

  Each day Mia asked the same question.

  'When do I go forward?'

  Each day she hunted down the leaders of the column.

  'I am supposed to be in Panjshir, not in southern Laghman. If there is fighting in Panjshir then that is where I should be.. If there is fighting then there will be people who are hurt, if they are hurt then they need my help.'

  Each day she pleaded. Each day she achieved nothing, beyond the promise that news would come soon giving permission for her to go forward.

  'You don't care about the casualties, not about the children, not about the women, you don't care what happens to the children and the women. All you care about is your own fucking martyrdom.'