'Shut your silly little face, kiddie,' Schumack said.
it will be different when the helicopters come, I promise you.'
'You are a coward, you are frightened . . .' Gul Bahdur sneered.
'Shut up, kiddie.' Cold anger from Schumack.
Barney turned away from the valley and faced the boy.
'Do you see those flares? They would divert the Redeye system. They are too fast for us. If we fire the Redeye and we hit, that is a victory. If we fire and we miss, that is a defeat. We want only to win, Gul Bahdur. Wait till the helicopters come.'
'Watch your bastard mouth till then, kiddie,' Schumack said .With his claw he scratched at Barney's shoulder. 'I don't know what you said to Ahmad Khan, I've never known the hairies hold their fire like this. They've given you a chance. For them not to fire on attacking aircraft is like telling a man in the desert not to drink. It's the hardest thing in their lives. They've given you a chance. You'd better take that chance.'
'You think the helicopters will come?'
'Bet your ass,' Schumack said.
The Colonel of Intelligence dropped the blown-up photograph onto Medev's desk, slapped down on top of it a heavy magnifying glass. Rostov craned over Medev's shoulder.
Medev found a woman walking, a trembling image under the wavering glass.
Something white held above her head. He gazed at it. His eyes squinted, his brow furrowed at his inability to see the significance of the image. Rostov leaned further forward, his breath on Medev's neck.
A grin broke over Rostov.
it's a bra ... we have discovered there is a woman who wears a white bra in area Delta. Excellent.'
''Past her on the path.' The Colonel of Intelligence flicked his fingers irritably.
'Further down the path.'
Medev found three figures walking on the clear line of a track beside a river bed.
His hand was trembling, the image jumped before his eyes. The one who walked ahead of the other two caught his attention. There was an outlined smear on the man's shoulder. Instinct told him it was a man with a missile launcher. He traversed to the other two figures behind, they could be carrying replacement tubes or mortar tubes or RPG-7 tubes. But the man who walked in front carried a missile launcher. He knew it, he would have sworn to it.
'Your man,' the Colonel of Intelligence said with satisfaction.
Rostov could not see the image on which Medev focused. 'What woman would wear a bra in that valley?'
Medev did not look at him. 'Try a European woman, try a nurse . . .'
He spoke from the side of his mouth as if unwilling to break away even for an instant from the figure who walked with the missile launcher balanced on his shoulder.
His man, his enemyv The man who had downed two helicopters, filled four bodybags.
'Where is this path?'
'The village of Atinam, north end of the valley, this morning. The Antonov's camera.'
'Would we be permitted to fly the whole squadron against the village, only against the village?'
it is not my decision. For myself, with the launcher identified, I would recommend that the village is destroyed.'
Medev pushed the photograph and the magnifying glass away across his desk. He seemed to shake himself, then bit briefly at his lower lip as if the pain could somehow sharpen him.
'All the crews on "Ready", I want an immediate briefing.'
Rostov hurried from the office.
'And there was no firing at the aircraft when they attacked Atinam?'
'None,' the sombre reply from the Colonel of Intelligence.
'Why should they not fire on the aircraft, however futile that would be?'
'Because they play a game with you, and the game has continued too long. It is time that the game was finished.'
Medev walked to the window. He stared out at the line of Mi-24 gunship helicopters.
'Each time he thinks in terms of a trap, a trap to draw me in,' Medev mused. But he could not stay away from the valley, not when Photo Reconnaissance showed him a man walking with a missile launcher on his shoulder. His pilots must fly. Trap or no trap.
The pilot, Sergei, was twenty-two years old.
A little past one o'clock in the afternoon he lifted off the tarmac at Jalalabad, took the Mi-24 sluggishly up in company with his pair, the helicopter of Alexei.
He was consumed at that time with a sense of anger. He had asked at the briefing when all the pilots had been present, in front of them all, why they had not been issued with the anti-missile flares that could be fired from the helicopter. He had been told that the flares had been requested from Kabul, that they had not yet arrived. He had asked whether the fixed wings flying earlier over the valley had been equipped with decoy flares. He had been told that flares were standard for the SU-24 aircraft and not for the Mi-24 helicopter. Medev had barked at him that what could be done was being done, that if he thought he was better able to breathe some fire up Kabul's arse then he could try himself to get the flares from Central Equipment Depot.
Such was the anger of the pilot, Sergei, that he had given no consideration to the possibility of his death on that September afternoon.
They flew in pairs, as always, and at staggered heights into area Delta.
Above the valley was the Antonov spotter that would circle high over the village of Atinam and maintain a constant radio relay link between the helicopter pilots when they dived low for their attack and Jalalabad Operations.
At twenty-two years old, the pilot, Sergei, was already highly qualified in the technique of helicopter flying, was regarded as of outstanding officer material. In his tour of duty he had twice been commended for the quality of his flying at low level in support of ambushed military convoys.
Over area Delta, over the entrance to the valley, his temper had abated to a sharp irritability as he ordered his gunner to test fire the nose canopy machine guns. He could not hear the blast from the depressed barrels but through the tinted glass he could see the bright flashes and feel the rocking on the momentum of the helicopter.
From all the pilots who flew fast and on full power along the valley from south to north, he had been selected, marked down.
Four kilometres short of the village of Atinam they had seen the smoke that lingered from the bombers' attack. The smoke filled the valley, compressed and held there under the valley's walls.
Too much chatter on the radio, because combat time was closing in on them. Shouts from the more senior fliers for concentration on the briefing detail. And the shouts ignored, and all the pilots talking, and the rockets going, and the machine guns. Rockets and machine guns blasting the damaged homes of the village. Rockets and machine guns hammering at the cave mouths in the shallow slopes of the lower valley walls.
Sergei felt the tremors of rifle fire beating on the titanium- armoured hull of the fuselage. Bullshit against the plate defences of the helicopter. A machine gun had started up. Green tracer rounds shafting their light across the valley. A fucking target, something to bite at that was not a stone built house, or the black hole of a cave, or the green emptiness of tree foliage.
There was a moment when the attention of three pilots was diverted to a cave entrance, the source of the green tracer.
There was a moment when the far side of the valley was not covered by another bird.
There was a moment when a flame streak shone brilliantly against the far side grey valley wall. . . when the shout of the observer in the high-above Antonov bounced into the pilots' headsets. . . when a missile homed onto the hot metal of the engine exhaust of the helicopter piloted by young Sergei. . . There was a moment before the blast of the high explosive detonated above and behind the cockpit canopy.
The big bird fluttered down. Not a direct fall, but an indecisive stagger towards the rocks below. All the rifles were aimed at the helicopter. Smudges formed on the cockpit glass as the bullets were deflected away. The tapping of drum sticks on the armour of the fuselage. The rending of m
etal when they struck the upper body work above the armour.
The houses swept up to meet his fall, and the river bed, and a rope bridge. Sergei felt the wrenching impact of his landing and the jarring of his spine, and the heaving on his harness, and the helicopter came down nose first. He did not know whether his gunner would have survived. Rifle fire loud on the superstructure around him. Through the canopy he saw the helicopters swerving as disturbed wasps in pursuit of a target. . . Fuck them, screw them, they were the living, he was the dead. A rain of gunfire spattering on the fuselage and canopy glass. . .Trapped like a fucking rat, and fire followed a crash . . . He unfastened his harness. He heaved open the cockpit door. Around him was the steady clamour of the rifle fire, of machine guns, rockets. He had no memory of taking his pistol from the holster beside his knee, but it was in his hand as he dropped from the door to the ground. There were the wretched dry stone walls of a house a dozen metres away. He ran to it. Anything to escape the bullet patter on the helicopter. He ran low and clumsy in his flying suit. He reached an open doorway, sobbing, shouting his fear into the gaping doorway. Behind him the helicopter caught fire, was bloated with flame and exploding ammunition. He threw himself into the darkened room. His face brushed against the hard dry dirt of the floor, and dry dirt was on his tongue. His elbows and knees and forehead scraped the dry dirt.
He saw his life as fast flash, framed pictures. Pictures of the street in Kiev in which lived his mother and his father. Pictures of the girl that it was planned he should marry, her face, her breasts, her laughing. Pictures of the briefing room at Jalalabad, of the anger of Medev when the question of anti-missile flares was raised. Pictures of the hurtling movement of the cockpit dials in the second after the missile strike. He was sobbing because he was afraid, he was afraid because he knew that he would die. His fingers groped forward and caught against material, pushed on and fell against the hardness of flesh that was tight against bone. He looked up. He knelt against the leg of an old woman. The light seemed to grow around him. He stared into the face above that was a myriad of age lines, into the bright eyes that were precious stones. She screamed, a high-pitched, clear scream. He heard the battering of the helicopters above, and the gunfire and the explosions. The helicopters were out of reach. He was below, he was dead. And an old woman's scream betrayed him.
It was the women and the girls who came in answer to the scream. Sergei heard their answering calls, he heard the murder of the gunfire above him, fired by the living.
He heard the slither of the first footfall to reach the doorway. A shadow fell into the room, and then another. Hands reaching out to him, dragging at his flying suit, tearing at him, wheeling him to his feet, skipping him across the dirt floor. Nails on the skin of his face, scratching at the cheek flesh beside the flaps of his flying helmet. A fist between his legs, from behind and catching at his genitals, and slavering breathing close to his nose. When he opened his eyes he was outside the house and cocooned amongst a bundle of robes and dresses and blankets and head scarves. The hand still on his genitals and the pain took his breath away. Crying his quiet terror, Sergei was hustled from the house. He fell, half was pushed, half stumbled, into the sewer ditch that ran beside the path between the houses. The stench was in his lungs, the slime dripped on his face. He could hear the helicopters, he could not know whether the brother pilots could see him. The face of a grandmother was in front of him, a gap-tooth mouth. The face of a girl, spitting in his eye. The hand at his genitals squeezed, pulled, squeezed, turned. Hands at the zips of his flying suit, and then a knife tearing at the thin material. All the time the pistol that he had carried was in his fist, forgotten in his terror.
It fell from his hand. The cotton fine hope that might have sustained him was snapped.
Soaring towards his face was a rock held between raw brown fingers, into his face, onto his forehead. He felt the pain, he smelled the warm dribble of his blood and choked. A stone cracked into the back of his skull.
Sergei, on his knees now, saw a woman in the crowd around him, a woman staring at him wide-eyed and in shock, and apart from those who clawed and beat him and hung to his genitals. A lovely, pretty woman. A grey white blouse and a full long skirt.
Her mouth was open, as if to scream when she could not.
A knife skewered his hamstring. He collapsed. He would never stand again. The life of the young flier was battered out by pounding stones and flashing knives on the path beside the open sewer.
The helicopters left behind them the cloud of black fuel smoke from Sergei's Mi-24.
After the helicopters had gone the Sukhois returned and the fires in the village were given urgent new life with the blasting of high explosive bombs and the scattering billows of white phosphorous.
And after the bombers had made their last deafening assault the valley was quiet, except for the distant drone of the Antonov spotter.
'We have five who are dead, seven who are injured,' Ahmad Khan said.
'And you have one helicopter,' Barney said.
'They must come again, this evening, after what we have done to them . . .'
'After what they have done to you.'
'One man, three women, one child dead, that is little enough to us. A rocket went into a cave, that was some, others came out from hiding when they heard a Soviet was alive in the village, they would have walked through walls to find him. The bombers will come again this evening.'
They had walked to the rope bridge in the centre of the village. The ropes were torn but holding. Either side of the bridge were crushed homes, crazily bent roofing, rubble piles, all the debris of war.
'Where would you wish to be?' Ahmad Khan said abruptly.
'I want to be in the village. Where I can move after 1 have fired, where I am not trapped as I was in the cave. I want the heavy machine guns, one on each side of the valley . . .' Barney paused, gazed into Ahmad Khan's face.'. . .Are you better with me than without me? The one helicopter, was that worth what happened to the village?'
'When you have cleared the valley of helicopter flights then I will tell you what has been worthwhile.'
Ahmad Khan walked away from Barney. A group of men had waited for him. They were out in the open, in the view of the circling Antonov. They knelt in prayer.
Barney watched, then turned and beckoned to Schumack and the boy, and led the way into the village.
They killed him with their hands and with rocks.' She spat the words at him.
Mia Fiori standing, her hands on her hips, her legs wide apart and sturdy, and the disgust twisting at her mouth.
Barney was sitting against the wall of a stone house with the Redeye launcher across his lap.
They wouldn't even kill a goat the way they killed that man.'
Barney saw the livid anger on her cheeks.
'You come here with your conceit . . you're no better than a primitive. If you are a part of this people's war then you are a savage. They stoned him to death . . . Christ, he looked at me, he looked to me to save him.'
'He flew a helicopter gunship', Barney said.
'You know where he is now?'
'I don't need to know where he is now.'
'He's where their rubbish is, he's in with their filth. You know what their rubbish is.
It's afterbirth, it's shit, it's where the maggots and the disease are. Don't you have a code, doesn't a pretty little European soldier have a code for his prisoner? Don't you get him a drink, and make him comfortable, and see that he's fed? Don't you protect him from animals? Christ, he was your prisoner. You brought him down. Where were you, you bastard, when the women pulled the balls off him? They didn't cut them, they pulled them off him. You shot him down, you were responsible. And where were you? A mile away on your stomach in a cave. You make me sick.'
Barney stood up. He took Mia by the shoulders. She did not pull away. Her anger was done.
'They'll come back this afternoon,' Barney said. 'Go back to the caves.'
He let her go. Sh
e turned from him, and ran, sobbing, away.
Schumack had watched and listened.
'Stupid bitch . . . where does she think she is?'
'Piss off,' Barney said.
17
Brilliant colours cascading from the late afternoon skies.
A display of dancing, falling lights as if it was a gala, not the battlefield at Atinam.
From the mouths of the caves the fighters watched the flares, from deeper in the recesses the women and the children saw the blues and greens and reds, floating down from the helicopters.
Barney and Schumack had taken a place in a squat stone-built granary built against the cliff to the west of the valley. Barney did not know where Ahmad Khan had positioned himself, but Schumack would know. Schumack had taken it upon himself to be the co-ordinator for the firing of the Redeyes. When Barney wanted the covering fire of the DShKs then Schumack would pass the message. Schumack, veteran of Khe Sanh and Desert One, had found a new officer to care for.
They watched the flares climb to a fire zenith before subsiding.
'Not with those bastards, you can't fire,' Schumack hissed.
'They had to learn something . . .'Barney said.
Around the village from the caves there was the flimsy rattle of automatic rifle fire, answered and dominated by the ripple of the heavy machine guns of the Mi-24s, and their rockets.
'With the flares we're screwed, they'll shaft the village to nothing.'
'What's the pattern of the flares?'
They lay on their backs in the doorway of the granary. Each had covered his body and face with a blanket, leaving free only the eyes. They lay still and close to each other in the small doorway. At Maxie Schumack's side was his rifle, at Barney's side was the loaded launcher.
'You can't fire into the flares, it'll go rogue and destruct.'
'There's a pattern,' Barney said.
Three, four kilometres from the village, the helicopters seemed to queue in their pairs for the run in onto Atinam. They came in fast and low. Barney wondered at the miracle that there was anything remaining in the village to burn, but new fires had started.
(1984) In Honour Bound Page 21