(1984) In Honour Bound

by Gerald Seymour

  see the Brigadier head from his car for the front wicket gate of No. 97. The Brigadier wore a three-piece pin stripe, and below his pressed trouser turn-ups, his black shoes were brilliantly polished. He was looking at the front door for a light, and so did not see the dog mess in his path. There was a glimmer of light in the depths beyond the frosted glass. There was an overgrown flower-bed on one side of the path, and on the other a square of unmown grass bright with dandelions . . . and the woodwork needed a spruce of paint. He rang the bell, heard the chime, and wondered what Rossiter earned in a year.

  The door opened and a teenage boy confronted the Brigadier. The boy's hair was short and spiked up like a dandy brush. The boy looked him up and down.

  'Who are you?'

  'Fotheringay, Brigadier Fotheringay . . .' He smiled sweetly. 'Is your mother at home, Mrs Rossiter?'

  'Mum . . . there's a man here,' the boy shouted to the back of the hall, and then ducked into the front room and closed the door. He stood alone. He looked down at his feet. Bugger, and the dog mess had smeared the carpet and up the heel of his shoe.

  He was back outside, wiping the sole and heel on the grass when he saw she had come to the door.

  'Yes.'

  'Mrs Rossiter?'

  'I'm Mrs Rossiter.'

  He didn't really know what he had expected to find when he had made the decision to drive down to see her. She was a small, tired-looking woman, wearing carpet slippers and an apron. She was carrying rubber gloves. Her hair was grey streaked. The Brigadier surprised himself: he felt a moment of sympathy for this woman.

  'Can I come back in?'

  They stood in the hall together. She invited him no

  further. She looked at him as suspiciously as if he had come to check the television licence.

  it's about your husband, Mrs Rossiter.'

  'What's he done?'

  'I am sure you know your husband has been away on assignment for Foreign and Commonwealth . . . He's gone missing, Mrs Rossiter,' the Brigadier blurted it out. 'We don't know where he is.'

  'How should I know where he is?'

  'I wondered if you'd had any postcards,' the Brigadier said lamely.

  'From him, when did we ever have postcards?'

  if you'd had any communication with him, if he'd given any indication of his thinking . . .'

  'Be a fine time for him to start.' And then: is Ross all right?'

  'I've no reason to think he isn't. . . He's gone missing, I can tell you in strictest confidence, Mrs Rossiter, that he's gone missing in rather odd circumstances. That is to say in flagrant disregard of the most clear instruction to return home.'

  'Ross has gone missing . . .?'

  He saw she was crumbling, he saw the wobble in her throat, and the biting at her lip. He was a fool to have come.

  'But you've heard nothing from him?'

  'We never hear, not when he's away . . . He'd never talk to us about his work, not even when he's at home, never has. He's all right, you're sure . . .?'

  The Brigadier smiled emptily. 'I'm sure he's all right, I'm sure there's nothing for you to worry about. There'll be an explanation. As soon as I have word, you'll be told.

  That's a promise.' He was backing for the door. 'I'm very sorry to have troubled you.'

  He let himself out. He heard her sob through the frosted glass, and made his way circumspectly back to his car

  Rossiter was the Brigadier's man, and the Brigadier knew nothing of him. He'd have bet his best horse that Rossiter would have obeyed every bloody instruction given him.

  Either Rossiter was dead or he would have lost the horse that he loved.

  The boy had been walking for a day, he would walk through most of the night. Without the mules he could not have attempted the forced march into the high passes and plateaus that would lead him between the villages of Weigal to the south and Kamdesh to the north.

  Ascent, and descent, climb and fall, valley and cliff face. Now that the sun had slipped away and the light had faded there was only the occasional grey glimmer of the path in front of him when the cloud broke to make a window for the moon. Instinct and memory kept him on the path.

  Hours after the darkness had come there was a confirmation for Gul Bahdur that he had taken the correct track, the one that would steer him between the outposts of habitation in this wilderness. A caravan of men and mules and horses and munitions came towards him. Eerie ghost voices at first, and the scrape of hooves, and no faces and no beasts to marry with the sounds until he was upon them. Gul Bahdur was given bread to chew and some dried fruit, and he spoke of the destruction of four helicopters, and he said that aerial patrols were scarce in the valley ahead and that when the helicopters came it was in squadron force.

  He heard the caravan straining, creaking, away from him into the darkness. He felt a man. He believed he had passed a test of initiation into adulthood. He carried the news of a battle, the news of four downed helicopters. There was a light flurry of snow. His blanket was tight on his shoulders, his body sheltered from the winds hard against the flank of the mule.

  Maxie Schumack shook Barney's shoulder.

  It was light. He had slept through the dawn.

  Rain fell, fine and cloying. Barney shivered. His covering blanket gleamed from the sheen of droplets. His stomach growled in hunger. As soon as he was awake, he had seen Schumack bending over him, had assimilated the rock gully in which he had slept, then the pain itchqs of the lice scabs were alive on his flesh. His stomach growling, and a different noise, a new sound.

  'I would have let you sleep, but you ought to see the show,' Schumack said.

  The helicopters flew high over the valley in convoy.

  'Mi-8s, Hips we used to call them, can carry up to thirty men each.'

  He saw the gunships, escorts on the flanks.

  'Only one place that lot's going.'

  He saw the cascade of flares falling in regular descent from the Mi-24s.

  'Babies are learning.'

  'Only one place?' Barney asked quietly.

  The convoy was at maximum speed, Barney estimated its ceiling was 3000 feet above him. The Redeye launcher had been under his blanket while he slept, but it was damp now, smeared and wet. He wiped it with his sleeve but made no effort to arm it.

  'Give me your glass.'

  Schumack dug in his shirt front for the spy glass.

  'As you say, the babies are learning. . . they've got baffle tubes on the engine vents .

  . . I'll have to be closer, every time bloody closer, more of a bastard . . .'

  'Can you take one?'

  'What'll happen to the village?'

  Schumack screwed his face. 'They'll dynamite it, they'll burn it.'

  'What about the people?'

  Schumack shrugged. 'How smart have they been? If they're up high, if they stay in the caves, if they've reached the side valleys, then they won't see much and they won't feel much. Depends what the Soviets want out of it, what sort of lesson they're reckoning to teach . . . They can be mean bastards when they've the mind for it.'

  'Your answer is, I can take another one.'

  'You're thinking of the lady . . .'

  Barney's glance flashed angrily at Schumack.

  '. . . That's crap, Barney. She's made her bed, she can lie on it. What do you want?

  Do you want us to stand around and try to fight for villages when they're going to put troops in . . .?'

  He broke off. Above the helicopter convoy, above the cloud cover, reverberated the sounds of jet aircraft engines.

  'Guerrilla warfare, Barney Crispin, you're supposed to know what that's about.

  That's about ducking and weaving, and running for a better day. You think the 'Cong pissed about when we were coming in force? They ran, they went for the cracks in the walls. That's the way it happens. And you having a fancy fanny in there doesn't change anything. Got it, hero man?'

  'Why don't you piss off, Maxie.'

  'You didn't even screw her, d
id you?'

  'I can take a helicopter on my own.'

  'Better you're not on your own, Barney.' A soft kindness from Schumack. 'And a broad isn't worth us getting scratchy. Listen here, hero man, if you start getting emotional about fighting, personal, then you're in deep shit, you and all the bag carriers you've collected.'

  if you could get me two RPGs on the east side . . .'

  'And you'll climb on the west side?'

  'Right.'

  'Andtake them on the way back?'

  'Right.'

  'Don't get scratchy with me, hero man, and don't put a bit of fanny in the way of whatever you want to do here, whatever that is . . . because I'm going to be beside you, and if you're crapping about because of a fanny then I'm going to get scalped with you.'

  They were both smiling. Schumack had crowbarred his way into Barney's life. He was a stray dog that had come to a kitchen door, and no way would the beggar be turned aside.

  'Just get me two RPGs on the east side.'

  They had been in the morning to the village of Atinam escorting the troop-carrying birds, they had returned to Jalalabad. In the late afternoon, still spewing their flares, and wearing their fresh painted engine vent baffles, they had come back to Atinam to collect the big Mi-8s.

  Behind them now, as they flew south in the valley, was a village where two companies of Airborne troops had done a job of work. A violent, bloody job of work.

  They had been landed beside the village on the valley's floor, also on the roof of the valley. They had secured the side valleys and the waterfall ravines, they had cleared those caves that were close to the village. A violent, bloody job.

  By the end of the day the cloud levels had fallen. The helicopter convoy flew beneath the cloud ceiling on full power. The flares were brilliant on that early evening.

  Any light would show up on that early evening, any flash of flame.

  They had not been attacked. They had not taken ground fire either at the village or on the way there or on the way back. They were escorting butchers back from a long day's work. There was little for the gunship pilots to feel proud of.

  The Reaktivniy Protivotankovyi Granatomet, the RPG-7, is the smallest and most widely used anti-tank launcher utilised by the Soviet armed forces and their satellite allies. Through capture from overwhelmed Soviet and Afghan Army units, this weapon has become standard equipment in the arsenals of the mujahidin.

  When fired, the RPG-7 emits a fierce flash signalling the rocket's ignition.

  On that evening, in the shadow of the valley, in the gloom of the rain clouds, the flash would be white light, easily seen. Glimpsed cursorily through the curved distortion in the wings of the Mi-24's cockpit bulb, the ignition of an RPG-7 could give the appearance of the malfunctioned firing of a Redeye missile.

  Schumack had talked with Ahmad Khan.

  Ahmad Khan now talked with the man who wore the red waistcoat and the man who limped when he walked.

  'You are our leader, and we tell you as we have the right to tell you, that you give this unbeliever too much,' said the man with the red waistcoat.

  it is as if you have given to him the decision of your tactics, when you strike, how you strike,' said the man who limped when he walked.

  'He is a poison in your mind.'

  'The one place in the valley where we were assured of food and some safety was the village of Atinam and, because of the unbeliever, Atinam is destroyed.'

  'You should never have offered him your hospitality.'

  'He should have been food for the eagles.'

  'He has not stayed to help us.'

  'He has stayed to fornicate with the woman.'

  'He will destroy you as he destroyed Atinam,' said the man with the red waistcoat.

  'He will destroy us all,' said the man who limped when he walked.

  Ahmad Khan had not spoken during the denunciation of Barney Crispin. Now he waved his hand irritably for quiet. He spoke abruptly.

  'You will fire the launchers. He said that before he came there were no helicopters killed in my valley. You will fire the launchers on my command. Where I had killed none, he has killed four helicopters in my valley.'

  There was no further argument. To have disputed further would have caused the man who wore the red waistcoat and the man who limped when he walked to trek out of the valley to search for a new commander.

  On that evening, and where the valley was a little less than eight hundred metres in width, the two RPG-7s were sited on the east side. On the west side, hidden on a rock bluff, was Barney Crispin.

  Barney thought of the woman. He thought of the bombers that he had heard overhead above the cloud cover. He thought of the troop carriers that he had seen ferrying the combat troops to an undefended target.

  He saw the approach of the returning convoy and their flares. They came above the centre of the valley. They came level in height with the rock where Barney waited. The Redeye launcher rested on his shoulder.

  Schumack crouched at his side.

  Two spurts of light from the east side of the valley. Almost simultaneous. Two sheets of flame from the east side of the valley floor. Two explosions trailing the picture.

  Barney saw the tracer fly from the gunships, heard the snarl as the engine power increased, as the birds manoeuvred as the Mi-24s bucked away from the east side firing positions. Redeye on his shoulder. Over the open sight and onto the helicopter that flew wide to the west side of the valley before turning to flail the flash fire positions with the big nose-cone machine gun.

  Battery coolant on. Hearing the first whine of the contact.

  How would the baffle tube work against the Redeye? Didn't bloody know. He did know that the girl had stayed behind at Atinam with the women and the children and the old men, and Barney Crispin was alive and fighting on another day.

  The howl in his ear of the infra-red contact. Point blank for Redeye. The squeeze on the launcher trigger.

  First flash, second flash . . .

  Barney and Schumack lit up, bonfire kids, illuminated by the second stage ignition.

  Barney should have been running. He watched the light ball plunge out across the valley. He was captivated by the light power he had created. Schumack was pulling, yelling at him.

  One brilliant explosion.

  The tension burst from Barney's body. They tumbled together down the valley wall and away from the exposed rock bluff. Schumack sobbed in a cry of pain as his stump arm cracked down onto rock. Sliding and stumbling together.

  They found a gully, a damp crevice where a little of the rain water had collected, where they could cover their heads with their blankets, where they could merge into the featureless valley walls.

  'Did I kill it?'

  it's still up.' Dead words from Maxie Schumack, a cold message.

  'But the explosion?' Barney shouted.

  it's still up.'

  The helicopters did not stay to hunt down the fire position. The gunships were on escort. There was a cursory strafing of the area from which the Redeye had been launched. They had wavered towards the first trap, they would not be baited a second time.

  When they reached the floor of the valley Ahmad Khan waited for them.

  He took Barney to the east side. Barney had seen the stone face of the young schoolteacher, set and expressionless. He knew what he was to see.

  In death he could recognise the two men who had fired the RPG-7s. Through the nightmare death of a helicopter's machine gun bullets, Barney could remember their features.

  'I had a hit,' Barney said bleakly.

  'I see no helicopter.'

  Ahmad Khan walked away, left Barney to look down on the bodies. Barney saw the man who wore the red waistcoat and his shirt was red also, and his thighs and the skin of his face. And the leg of the man who limped when he walked was two metres from his body, and the brain was splashed further. Barney took a launch tube from Schumack's back and reloaded the Redeye.

  The pilot, Vladdy, brought the
helicopter gunship back to Jalalabad and the blazing apron lights, and the waiting ambulances, and the fire tenders. One of the twin turbo shafts had been damaged. There was an oil leak. Hard, slow flying on one functioning engine, but the pilot brought it back.

  Medev was on the apron. When Vladdy climbed down from the cockpit, when the rescue services had driven away, when the maintenance crews began to scramble up around the shattered baffle tube, Medev took the pilot in his arms. He held the shaking young man against his chest, hugged him, squeezed him, poured out against him his gratitude that the big bird had not been lost.

  'It is the end of his luck,' Medev whispered.

  'We got it back, that's all. . .' the pilot said dully, it'll be days before it's operational again.'

  'Not important, he fired and he failed. He has all night to think on that. He fired and he failed to destroy you. The first failure is the hardest. . . What now does he have to look to?'

  'Will we go back to the valley?'

  'Of course.'

  'For what?'

  'To kill him,' Medev said. 'To kill him now that he is at the end of his luck.'

  The pilot broke clear and walked fast away. Once he turned to Medev who followed him.

  'You fly with us . . .' the pilot shouted at Major Pyotr Medev.'. . . Now that he is at the end of his luck, you fly with us, and see what it is like when the missile is fired, Just the one time you come with us to know what it is like to live because of luck.'

  19

  Two long days slipped by, two long nights.

  The weather had closed over the valley. Rain and snow flurries, a cloud ceiling down onto the river bed and the orchard trees.

  No helicopters were seen. Only once there had been the distant sounds of an Antonov. High beyond the clouds.

  A caravan came through the valley under cover of that cloud.