(1984) In Honour Bound

by Gerald Seymour

  Barney shrugged him off. He let Schumack walk on alone back towards the village.

  He heard a shrill scream in the night, a scream of pain that was muffled by a closed door. He let Gul Bahdur catch up with him, and whispered his instructions for the loading of the mule with the parts of the Mi-24 and the three spare Redeye tubes. He heard the scream again. He knew what he would find, and he was drawn to the source of the cry. He was a soldier, he was a professional, a regular in the Special Air Service, he was going home because he had done what he was sent to do, going home to face the whole orchestra. He came to the house. There were holes in the roof tin, and from the holes came the light flickers, and the pain scream was mingled with a lower growl of moaning.

  He could not have guessed the extent of what he would find. He opened the door. In the light of the hurricane lamp he saw a mediaeval slaughterhouse. It was a carnage place.

  Mia Fiori was the only woman. Her bared hair and her long skirt and her bloodied blouse all identified her to Barney immediately. He thought there were five, six men in the room, splayed out on the floor on the carpets and the blankets. As he came through the door Barney saw the man who screamed. His leg was severed at the join of the right ankle. He screamed because Mia Fiori dabbed at the meat red soft stump with a cloth, and he struggled against the strength of four men who pinioned him, and he screamed because he had spat from his mouth the piece of wood that should have acted as a gag.

  There was a man who moaned and who was snow pale at his cheeks and whose scalp was pierced by a dark pencil hole wound. There was a man who cried, a little whimper cry, and whose arms were folded across his stomach because that way he held in place the cloths that were laid over the opened wound of his belly, and that heaved and tossed in the surges of his agony. Barney saw two more men with stomach wounds, and one of them had not yet been reached by Mia Fiori and his intestines still protruded from the gash amongst the dark hair of his beliy. Barney saw a man whose arm hung loose, useless, fastened to his elbow with a muscle thread. Barney was a soldier, he was a professional, but he had never before seen what he saw in Mia Fiori's casualty station.

  Ahmad Khan watched the nurse at her work, expressionless, impassive. The one who wore the red waistcoat stood at his side, and beside him was the man who would walk with a limp if he moved. They watched the one woman in the room as she worked, as she cried silently and without an attempt to hide the tears dribbling on her cheeks, as she reached out without looking behind her for

  more cloths to be given her, as she tossed aside bloodied rags. The sounds of the screams were a bell singing in Barney's mind.

  'You have what you came to collect, you are going now?' Ahmad Khan spoke across the room, over the bodies of the fallen fighters. The man who wore the red waistcoat spat noisily onto the floor, the man who walked with a limp stared in open contempt into Barney's face.

  Barney spoke stiffly. 'I have the pieces that I came for. It is better I should go in darkness.'

  'A price has been paid for your success.'

  'There are four helicopters in the valley,' Barney said. 'Four more than before I came.'

  'I did not hear myself complain.'

  He was dismissed by Ahmad Khan, the schoolteacher turned away from him.

  The girl stood, eased herself fluently onto the soles of her feet. Her face blazed at Barney, the tears streamed on her face.

  'You came to see what you had achieved?'

  Barney's face was tight. 'I have three morphine syringes, I came to leave them for you, and a few other things . . .'He had swung his pack off his shoulders, he was groping in the depths of the pack.

  'What would a spy want with morphine?' She flung the words back at him.

  'I have three syringes. If you want them, you can have them.'

  'And you are going now, so you can be safe away from here tomorrow. You know what happens tomorrow?'

  'I have done what I came to do.' He had spoken the words before he had thought out their meaning.

  Mia Fiori stepped across the man whose arm was all but severed from his elbow.

  She caught at the fullness of Barney's shirt. 'All this is yours, you brought it to this village . . . and

  in the morning when you are gone, they will come back with their helicopters. You are a great hero, Barney Crispin, you are a brave fighting man. Christ, I admire your courage. If you were what I thought you were . . .'

  'Do you want the morphine?'

  'If you were what I thought you were, you could never leave this place, not when the helicopters will come back in the morning.'

  Barney put the syringes in her hand. She turned away from him. She knelt beside the man with the intestines bulging from his stomach. He saw the gentle, narrow outline of her shoulders. He turned and went out of the house.

  Schumack stood in the darkness beside the closed door.

  'You're on your way?'

  'No,' Barney said.

  'Listen, hero man. You've had luck you don't know about . . . You caught the buggers when they were soft, when they were slobby. It's their turn to learn smart.

  You're snuffed when they get smart. Staying behind to fire four Redeyes, that's immoral for a young guy. You're not a Maxie Schumack, an old shitehawk. There's more to you than giving a helping hand to these mothers.'

  'Perhaps there isn't.'

  'That's pathetic . . . What are you doing with that junk?'

  'The boy's going to take it back,' Barney said.

  'With the mule?' Schumack asked, a shrewd concern in his voice.

  'The boy's going back with Maggie . . .'

  'You've one loaded, you've three to carry. You won't go far carrying three tubes.'

  'I stay until I have fired all the missiles.'

  'You'll need me watching your back, you goddam fool.'

  if that's what you want, then it's your pleasure to watch it,' Barney said.

  The boy caught up with Barney. He had slipped his arm into the crook of Barney's elbow. There was no argument, there was no disputing Barney's decision. They talked of how long it would take the boy to cross the mountains and reach the Pakistan frontier, three days. How long it would then take him to reach Chitral, perhaps another day. He remembered the name of the man he must meet in Chitral, Howard Rossiter.

  He remembered where he should ask for him, the Dreamland Hotel. And afterwards the boy was to go back to Peshawar. After Chitral and the Dreamland the part of the boy was finished. Barney could not see his face, could not read his expression as he talked of Gul Bahdur going back to the refugee camps. He asked when the first snow would fall on the high passes over which the boy must travel to reach Pakistan by the northern route, two weeks, perhaps, three weeks, not more before the first snow. There was no wheedling in the boy's voice, no sense of resentment that he was being sent from the valley with the equipment from the helicopter. The boy would go before dawn.

  Barney would remain in the valley with four Redeye missiles, and with Maxie Schumack to watch his bum.

  'I'm hungry,' Maxie Schumack said.

  It was twenty-three hours since Barney had last eaten.

  Outside the door of the mess Rostov caught his Major. Rostov had been running all the way from Maintenance Workshops beside the helicopter parking revetments. He had run to catch Medev before he entered the public forum of the mess.

  Because he had run, he was panting and able only to blurt out his statement.

  'I have just been at the workshops ... we have to fix a baffle o the helicopters, a baffle that will reduce the hot air content when it is released from the engine vent. . .

  they say in the workshops that the designers of the Mi-24 ignored the threat of missile attack, not like the Americans and the British and the French, that's what they say . . . at the moment the exhaust protrudes by less than 300 millimetres from the fuselage, the air is hot, the metal around it is hot, and we are taking the hits . . . we have to suppress the quality of the hot air, in the workshops they have been talking abou
t making a baffle for the hot air . . . the senior sergeant in the workshops says that the American and British and French helicopters all have their engine's exhausts set at the rear and the top of the fuselage, we have ours at the side where everyone can see it. To fire at a Western helicopter you have a quarter of a chance less with Redeye than you have with our bird. . . In the workshops they are designing an extension to the exhaust vent, a metre long, but you have to get clearance from the top . . . There would be two effects.

  When the air emerges from the vent it will have travelled a greater distance through the baffle vent and will therefore have cooled more, that's one effect. The second effect, the Redeye explodes on contact, the warhead is only a kilo of HE, if the explosion is one metre from the fuselage side as against being right up to it, then the damage is proportionally much less . . . that is the idea in the workshops . . . what do you think of their idea?'

  'You know what I did this afternoon?'

  'I know, Major.'

  'I would do anything not to repeat what I did.'

  Rostov's face was composed now, the jelly shake was controlled. 'What do you think, Major?'

  'You want to fly with chimney stacks on the vents. It is an excellent idea . . . I have one regret.'

  'Which is?'

  'My regret is that before we thought of this I have lost four helicopters.'

  'In the workshops they said that no one had been there to ask their opinion.' A rare candour from Rostov.

  Medev went into the mess. The orderly came to his elbow, and offered the familiar brandy. Medev stood with his back to the stove. Some of the pilots were sitting, some stood. There was an atmosphere of hatred and misery in the mess. Every pilot stared at Medev. In front of him was the long table laid for dinner. Two candles burned on the table, floating shadows across two places set with knives and forks and spoons and glasses. Their hostility beat at Medev. He bit at his lip, jutted out his chin. Their misery circled him. He drained his glass, he felt the wash of the brandy in his throat. He stared them out, each in turn, young face to young face. Which one had the courage to answer him? Which of them? Did they think it was easier for him because he had not been high over the grounded xj sunray? Did they think it was easier to have been distanced by one hundred kilometres from area Delta than to have been there as a witness? Young face to young face.

  Onto the young face of the pilot, Vladdy.

  Eyes meeting, eyes challenging.

  'You are a murderer, Major Medev.' Said quietly, said with a soft emphasis.

  A collective gasp in the mess, a little murmur of movement.

  'If you didn't hear me, I'll say it again, you are a murderer, Major Medev.'

  'Come here and say that.'

  Vladdy pushed himself up from his chair, laid his magazine down where he had sat, walked to Medev. His face was a few inches from that of his commanding officer.

  'I said you were a murderer, Major . . .'

  Medev hit him, hard and with the clenched fist, onto the side of the jaw. The pilot reeled away, half fell, staggered, held his balance. His skin was livid where Medev had struck him.

  'Do you want the MilPol?' Rostov at Medev's side.

  'I'll not have any fucking Military Police in my mess,' Medev hissed.

  As if a signal had been given, the pilots started to move towards the door. They affected a casualness, they did not look at Medev, they shuffled towards the door.

  'Get to your places at the table,' Medev shouted. 'Sit in your fucking places . . .'

  His voice was a pistol shot. His order was a whip crack. One pilot hesitated, they all stopped.

  One pilot turned, they all turned.

  One sat, they all sat. Vladdy went to his place at the table, eased into his chair. One of the candles burned beside Vladdy's place.

  Medev stood at the end of the table.

  'Would you let one man destroy you, destroy Eight Nine Two? One man alone . . .

  You are here to fight a war, you are not conscripted troopers, you are elite trained pilots, you have been entrusted by the leadership of our nation with a task. We are helicopter pilots, not High Command strategists, not Foreign Ministry strategists. We fly helicopters, and we will continue to do that, to go where we are sent. I make one point, gentlemen, hear me carefully . . . If a pony breaks a leg it is destroyed, it is kinder, it lessens the certainty of pain ... If one of you is down and cannot be reached, cannot be rescued, then I will order you destroyed, because it is kinder, because it lessens the certainty of pain... If any of you are so ignorant of the conditions in Afghanistan that you do not understand the certainty of pain should you be downed and alive and abandoned, then you should go in the morning to Intelligence and consult with them and they will willingly tell you what is the fate of Soviet military who are captured by the bandits. Questions?'

  There were none. They ate the meal. By midnight most of the men around the table were drunk in a fraud of forgetful- ness.

  They had eaten hunks of two-day-old nan, they had drunk green tea that was thin and sweet, they had chewed the half cooked flesh of a goat that had been decapitated by a bomb splinter. The boy was not invited to eat with the dozen men who took their food with Ahmad Khan, but he sat behind Barney and Maxie Schumack and unobtrusively whispered a translation. They talked of their fighting, of their heroism under fire, they boasted of the helicopters that had been hit with rifle bullets. They did not talk of the Redeye, nor of the half of the village of Atinam that had been destroyed. Nor was it discussed that Ahmad Khan and the men who formed his permanent fighting cadre would move on south down the valley in the morning. Barney had eaten fast, as fast as any of them, tearing the bread, swilling the tea, gnawing at the goat bone he had taken from the pot. Redeye could not make Barney Crispin a part of these men . . . That night the villagers of Atinam slept where they could find a secure roof, where they were out of the mountain winds. Barney's building had survived, after a fashion, survived enough to be slept in.

  There was no fire, but as if from a previous ritual Barney and Maxie Schumack laid out their blankets on either side of the dead embers.

  He heard the girl cough.

  He thought of her face and her eyes and her hands.

  Across the heap of charred wood Maxie Schumack watched, balefully. He heard the girl cough again. He sat up.

  'She'll eat you, eat you and spit you bloody out,' Schumack said.

  Barney rose to his feet, looked down for a moment at Maxie Schumack, then went to the closed inner door. He paused by the door.

  'Give her one from me,' Schumack called.

  Barney went through the door, closed it behind him. A blackness in the room. He bent his body, stretched an arm in front of himself, had his hand low and close to the dirt floor of the room as an antenna.

  She caught his wrist. A gentle pressure to pull him down to her side. Her voice was a whisper, her breath was a ripple on his face.

  'Why did you come?'

  'To talk.'

  'Why with me?' -

  'I wanted to talk with you.'

  'You have your man friend, you have your boy friend, you have your guerrilla friend

  . . . why with me?'

  'I want to talk with you because you are not the man and the boy and the guerrilla.'

  Barney heard the narrow brittle laugh. 'Do you want to fuck me?'

  'No ... no ... I don't.'

  'Why not? Because I slept with him, out there?'

  'Because I killed two pilots today . . .'

  'You want to cry against my shoulder, and cry to their mothers that there was nothing personal?'

  'I wanted to talk to you, to someone . . .' Barney said simply.

  'While you are crying, tell me what you achieved for the village today. There are seven hundred people who live in this village. They have malnutrition, they have measles, they have tuberculosis, the women and the children are in shock from the bombing. . . But you do not wantto talk about that. And you do not want to talk about the men I
have tried to keep alive tonight.'

  'I wanted to talk to you.'

  'Because you have no one else to speak to?'

  Her fingers were loose now on his wrist, relaxed, twined gently on him.

  'No one.'

  'Why should I be the one person you can talk to?'

  'Because you don't have to be here.'

  'Why are you here?'

  i thought it was helping.'

  'And now, what do you think now?'

  'When I saw the helicopters killed then I thought I was helping. When I saw what had happened to the village then I didn't know.'

  'I was told that you have collected the instruments from the helicopter you killed this afternoon, with that you could go back . . .'

  'You have no medicine here, because you have no medicine you could go back.'

  'And that would be abandoning these people.'

  'Running away,' Barney said.

  'Showing them our fear.'

  'Telling them of the emptiness of our promises.'

  'What do you want of me tonight?' Her voice was close in Barney's ear.

  'To sleep beside you, to sleep against your warmth, I want that.'

  'And in the morning?'

  in the morning we go south down the valley.'

  'And what happens to the village?'

  'I know what happens to the village,' Barney said.

  Barney started to sit up, started to crook his legs under him so that he could stand.

  Her grip tightened on his wrist. She urged him back, down, beside her. He felt the glow heat of her body through the muslin cotton of her blouse, he felt the shape of her legs against his thighs. He lay on the bend of her arm and all the time she held his wrist.

  He slept a dreamless sleep, a dead sleep.

  Ahmad Khan and the man who wore the red waistcoat and the man with the limp from the damaged leg worked together. They lifted the wounded who had been treated by the nurse so that their bodies formed a close large mass together in the centre of the room, and as they carried them they whispered to them of the Garden of God, and the glory of the jihad. They made their promises of victory, far away but certain victory, and they told of how the names of the martyrs would be remembered and handed down from the old fighters to the young. They were sad moist eyes that gazed up at Ahmad Khan and the man in the red waistcoat and the man with the limp, calm patient eyes as they were gently lifted.