(1984) In Honour Bound

by Gerald Seymour

  In his operations room he read the forecast for the 24 hours ahead. Rain in the valleys in area Delta, snow on the high ground. Let it rain, let it snow. Let the rain fall and snow flake down on the body of that bastard foreigner. He was only sorry he had never seen the body and never had the chance to kick the arse off it.

  They had stayed on the mattress the whole day through.

  He couldn't believe they could sleep so long. Both stark naked, the blankets all over the place, and sweet clean satisfied sleeping breathing. A bloody eye opener for Howard Rossiter were Katie and Amanda. In the middle of the day he had first extricated himself from where he had slept between them. He'd made them some tea, felt bloody ridiculous standing beside the cooker while the kettle boiled and him wearing only a drying-up cloth knotted around his waist. No tea wanted. . . He'd gone back to the mattress, crawled over Katie, snuggled up to Amanda.

  That had been the day, unique in the life of Howard Rossiter.

  The room was darkening again. The way they'd slept through the day frightened the hell out of him. God alone knew what energy they'd have stored up for the evening's work. He lit a cigarette and flicked the dead match into the emptied soup tin on the floor near their heads. The cigarette didn't taste much, not after the night-time smokes, nothing to get his throat onto. When the cigarette was finished, he stubbed it out in the tin, and climbed again over Katie, saw her eyes twinkle and open, saw her mouth curl in a giggle. Bloody idiot he was. And bloody marvellous it had been. He muttered that he had to go out, saw the eyes close, saw the mouth settle. There was a law against this sort of thing at home, and for all he knew probably a law against it in Chitral. Probably get him castrated in public, if he only knew.

  He closed the kitchen door quietly behind him. He went to the side of the bungalow, looked into the kitchen, saw the debris of clothes on the floor, saw the girls sitting up on the mattress, saw their heads jumping in mime laughter.

  He hurried away for his nightly rendezvous at the Dreamland Hotel.

  Outside the dull-lit facade of the hotel, Rossiter hesitated. The night and day that he had spent on the mattress, with Katie and Amanda, were now just a taste in his mouth and a weariness in his gut. The training had taken over. He raked the street around him, he found no tail.

  He heard his name called. Rossiter swung round. He jack-knifed straight. A slight persistent voice. He twisted towards the source of the sound. Shadow beside a parked lorry. His name again. He waited for a movement, for a figure to emerge from the shadow. He walked forward. No movement in the shadow. He was sweating. He felt the thin light of the street lamp fade from his face. He walked into the darkness.

  'Hello, Mr Rossiter. . .'

  'Who is it?' A stiff, quavering voice from Rossiter.

  it is Gul Bahdur.'

  Christ, the boy who had come to the Peshawar bungalow with the bandage on his head and trapped Barney into the lunacy of the long walk into Afghanistan.

  is Barney here?'

  'No, Mr Rossiter.'

  is he hurt? Is he all right?'

  'I saw him four days ago, he was not hurt then.'

  'Where did you see him?'

  'Three days west of the border, in the north of Laghman, in a village called Atinam.'

  The boy lifted from the ground a dark sacking bundle, held it between them.

  'Barney said to bring this to you.'

  'Oh, my God. . .'

  it is the parts of an Mi-24, the parts that you wanted, Mr Rossiter/

  'He actually shot one down?'

  'Four, he shot down four. He fired four missiles, from the fourth only could he take the pieces you wanted.'

  A hiss of shock from Rossiter. 'And why is he not with you?'

  'He wants to kill four more helicopters. He wants to clear the valley where he is of helicopters.'

  Rossiter was dazed, his hand took the weight of the sacking bundle. He reached to feel the concealed angular pieces.

  'Clear a valley?'

  'Drive out the helicopters, that is what Barney is doing,' the boy said. 'There are photographs as well, and notes that Barney made about the helicopter, and he wrote a letter for you.'

  Rossiter grasped the folded paper that the boy had taken from the inside of his waistcoat. He hadn't his reading glasses with him, and it was too dark anyway to make out anything written on the torn edged paper. This was where it ended, what it had all been about, in the shadow on a pavement at the side of the Dreamland Hotel and holding a bag of a Hind's electronics. He was jolted, struck back from the thought of how crazy it all was.

  'Will he make it out?'

  it is snowing in the passes.'

  'Does he know the route?'

  'Perhaps he will have a guide, perhaps not.'

  'How long does he mean to stay there?'

  'He is with the Resistance and he has pledged to clear their valley of helicopters.'

  He had been screwing through the night, taking his pleasure, gasping his happiness on his back. He thought of Barney. He saw the determination in his face. He saw the deep distant eyes. Barney was out there, fighting a war. He thought he might vomit up his food and the hashish and the sweat tastes of the girls. Out there, out beyond the mountains, out beyond the borders of all sanity. Barney fighting a war with gunship helicopters while Howard Rossiter screwed himself towards senility.

  He took the bundle in both hands and slung it over his shoulder, and put the letter in his top pocket. He led the way back to the bungalow. Gul Bahdur told him, as they walked, of the smoke that had crawled from a cave, of the tethered mule and of stone-filled clothes beside a river bed, and of the light streak across a valley, and of the destruction of the helicopters. The boy told him of the bombers' run on the village, and of the helicopter strikes that had followed . . . Rossiter said nothing, nothing for him to say, a world beyond his comprehension. . . Gul Bahdur told him about an American called Maxie Schumack who had one hand and one claw. He told him about a nurse from Europe who worked without medicine in the village. He seemed hardly to hear the boy. The bundle concerned him. If there was anything to be saved from the awfulness of the boy's stories then that salvation lay in the bundle. How to shift it, how to get it away from Chitral, those were the new, furious preoccupations of Howard Rossiter. If he failed to get it away then he had destroyed himself, and broken Barney Crispin. The boy was telling him of a guerrilla leader called Ahmad Khan, and of a Soviet pilot whose testicles had been ripped from his body. Rossiter no longer listened.

  Rossiter stopped at the gate to the bungalow. He gripped Gul Bahdur's shoulders, placed him beside the gate, and went on alone up the driveway.

  He paused at the window.

  The girls were sitting up on the mattress, smoking. He saw his teethmarks, a double weal, in Amanda's shoulder. He felt a growing outrage. He saw what he thought was an incarnation of the Devil. He saw Katie teasing the nipple of her friend.

  The tears thundered in Rossiter's eyes. He pounded open the kitchen door. The room ahead of him was a moisture blur. He swept into the room. His feet were close to the mattress.

  'Go away . . .'he screamed.

  He turned his back on them, could not look down into their faces.

  'Go away, you little bitches . . .'

  He heard behind him the scurry of their movement.

  'Away . . .'

  He heard the sounds of their dressing, the whispering of their clothes, the clatter of their sandals, the sweeping up of their belongings.

  'Away, out, out, out. . .' Rossiter shrieked.

  He heard the crash of the kitchen door heaved open. He heard their feet sliding on the mud and gravel of the driveway. Then he turned, and saw the mattress and the brief powder blue pants discarded on the linoleum. He picked up the pants and pocketed them.

  Rossiter went back to the gateway to collect Gul Bahdur. The boy said nothing of the two phantom shapes that had run past him, loud in their laughter.

  Later, when he had examined the contents of the sac
king cloth bundle, when he had stared into the clear quality of the Polaroid photographs, when he had glanced over the notes describing the Mi-24 cockpit interior, he left the boy in the bungalow and set off again for the Dreamland.

  At the hotel he found a telephone. He waited twenty minutes for the connection to the Night Duty Officer at the High Commission in Islamabad. He asked for a message to be passed as a matter of urgency to Mr Davies. It was past office hours, the caller would appreciate, Mr Davies had gone home.

  'Just do it,' Rossiter said. When he was outside again, it was raining. He tucked his neck down into his chest. If it was raining in Chitral, then snow would be falling on the high mountain passes over the border.

  He wiped the rain droplets from his nose and started to run, a slow shambling run back to the bungalow.

  Barney and Schumack were a thousand yards ahead of the column. He walked with the loaded launcher across his shoulder and with the last of the missile tubes strapped to his back pack, and with the AK-47 assault rifle hanging at his side.

  There was now a plan, negotiated by Schumack. The column was moving south and Barney would be ahead and clear of the column, and if the helicopters surprised them, flew north up the valley, they would pass over Barney on the attack run, and he would have the chance to fire on the engine exhausts. The two DShK machine guns wobbled on the wheels inside the column, one in the centre and one in the rear. If the helicopters came, then the DShK fire would draw their attention. That was the extent of the plan.

  Mia was away behind him, with the children and the one woman who had come with her from Atinam.

  The column was moving to a place near the centre of the valley where a side valley came down from the west and where a side valley rose up to the east. It was a place where the main trail from the Pakistan border crossed the valley on the route to the liberated zones of the Panjshir. The big caravan of munitions would come down the side valley from the east and the men would rest their animals in the valley before climbing again to the west. In one day, or in two days, or in three days the caravan would arrive. The men who would come with the caravan were not of Ahmad Khan's allegiance. But the code of Pushtunwalah ruled in the valleys and the mountains, the hospitality to a traveller, the sharing of bread and meat. The code dictated that Ahmad Khan would fight to his last man, to his last round of ammunition, to ensure the caravan a safe crossing of his valley. For the caravan's sake Ahmad Khan allowed Barney Crispin to walk with his column.

  Barney was aware of Schumack's exhaustion. He didn't suggest the American should carry the spare missile. Usually when they walked together Barney was a yard or two ahead, sometimes now he had to stop to allow himself to be caught. The claw was hurting Schumack. He seemed to wring the claw more frequently and to pinch at the flesh above the strapping as if that squeezed a poison out of his arm. Deepening age lines at the eyes and a slower step and a wheezing breath.

  'Why don't you come out with me, when I go with her?'

  'I'm not running.'

  'It's not running away, not to come out of this place.'

  'I've done my running, did it for Sam. We ran out of 'Nam, holding our arses and running like we were scared. We ran in Kabul all the way down to the airport to load

  "Spike" Dubs' body on the transport because we'd screwed saving him. We ran out of Desert One before we'd even started. You ever run away, hero man? It's dirty as shit.

  Doesn't count that some mother with tabs on his shoulder, gold on his cuffs, tells you it's not running, that it's strategic withdrawal or tactical abort. I'm not running any more, and thank Christ, Sam can't tell me to run any more . . .'

  'Your gut's in trouble, hell only knows what insects you've got crawling around inside you.'

  'If I come out where do I go? Back to Sam? They had us run out of 'Nam after we'd filled 55,000 bags, takes some counting when you're running, fifty-five thousand stiffs and, nine years later, they've just got round to remembering the fifty-five thousand who couldn't run when they gave the shout. Back in Sam, they treat them like crap, those who ran when they were told. Treat them like they're some sort of mother disgrace. You ever been in Sam, Barney? . . . It's diseased. It's all queers and pervs and hippies and weirdos. It's rotten like my gut, it's got rotten with running.'

  'Do you have no one to go back to?'

  'No one.' A whistle of breath between Schumack's teeth. 'I'm past running to go looking for someone . . .'

  Barney turned, still walking, to look at Schumack. He saw the strain and the tiredness.. He saw a man who stamped his feet onto the rock path to keep up his speed.

  He saw the pallor of the stubbled cheeks and the dark eye caves.

  'Will the helicopters come for the caravan?'

  'Sure the Antonov'll find them. That mother always finds them. When the Antonov recce finds them, then we'll have the helicopters come . . . Specially after you've missed twice.' A dry laugh from Schumack.

  Barney could not remember how many days ago he had come to the valley, but there had been flowers between the rocks then, the pink of the wild roses and the mauve blue of the violets. Now he saw no flowers. He saw the grey green brown of the rocks and the scrub bushes and the trees that were losing their foliage.

  'Let me take you out when I go.'

  'Did I ever tell you about Kabul?'

  'You will,' Barney said lightly.

  'You're not my fucking officer. Don't you piss on me . . . We are the most powerful nation on earth, that's what Washington calls us, and the Ambassador is the representative of the most powerful nation on earth, got it Captain Crispin? ... In Kabul we had less clout than a black used to have in Baton Rouge. Three shites had the Ambassador in a hotel room, and the Soviets were running the "rescue" show, some fucking rescue. The Soviets wouldn't let us up the stairs to the landing where our Ambassador was held, they wouldn't talk to us, wouldn't let us talk to them. They shut every fucking door on us. We were shouting stall and play for time and delay, and the Soviets were arming up the attack squad, machine guns and rockets and automatic rifles. We wanted to play the old softly softly, they were going to storm before it was even decent. We were the most powerful nation on earth and we couldn't shift those mothers, those crap Ivans ignored us, they pissed on us. I don't know whether they shot our Ambassador themselves, or whether the Afghans did, or whether the gooks who'd taken him did. He was pretty dead by the time they let us get to him, damn near dead.

  I'll give you a long word you didn't know I had. I hate impotence, I hate fannying about, if that's easier for you. So, no, I'm not going.'

  'I understand.'

  'I didn't ask your opinion, hero man, I was telling you.'

  'I understand what you're saying, but there has to be somewhere better for you than here.'

  There was no reply. Barney heard only the stamp of Schumack's boots and the rasp of the breath in his throat.

  The British High Commission in Islamabad is run on rigid and compartmentalised tracks.

  To the Night Security Officer who had taken Rossiter's call, Davies the spook was Mr Davies with the rank of Second Secretary and member of Consular and Visas. No way that a Night Security Officer, with 22 years service in the Black Watch behind him and a Regimental Sergeant Major's stripes thrown in, was going to shift himself after office hours by telephoning a Second Secretary. Not for him to know who was the High Commission's spook in residence. And the message for Mr Davies was incomprehensible.

  The message paper was folded, left in Davies' pigeon hole, and since the spook did not come to the High Commission until late the following afternoon, that message had already gathered a fine film of dust.

  'Package to collect 3550 lands of dreams 7156, Miss Howard.'

  That was the message.

  Enough to make the spook weep. All right, yes, security men had a tail on him in Islamabad. All right, yes, there was a tap on his telephone . . . But this was so ghastly melodramatic. He'd known as soon as he met Rossiter that the man was lacking a scintilla of style
.

  From his map of Pakistan he traced out the co-ordination of 35 50 North 71 56 East.

  His finger nail converged on the place name of Chitral. Bloody Howard Rossiter up on the bloody border. He took from a shelf a well worn 'Pakistan - a Travel Survival Kit', too right, everything was survival in Pakistan. Under 'Accommodation and places to eat in Chitral', he found a one line reference to the Dreamland Hotel on Shahi Bazaar. Not very sophisticated Mister Howard bloody Rossiter, and a piece of luck that the lumbering fool on night duty at the High Commission hadn't put the message over His home telephone. He wouldn't have reckoned that the cracking of this code would have taken Pakistan Security five minutes more than it had taken him.

  Not that the spook could make the trip up country, not with the tail that had been on him since Rossiter and his Action Man had disappeared. The new fellow in Information would enjoy a drive out of town. He could take the High Commission land-rover.

  The spook had heard the rumour from the Americans, where else, that in one valley in Laghman province helicopters had been shot down. They dropped their silver about and they heard the most... He looked at his map. Laghman province and Chitral were not adjacent, but not a million miles.

  'Alexander? . . . Davies here ... I need a spot of help, I wonder if you could pop up before you shut your shop for the night. . . it'll keep till I see you . . . Cheers.'

  It would be a job for the Diplomatic Bag. And after he'd bagged the package then he'd have to find a way of shipping the bloody undesirables out, new passport, overland into India, and all the rest of the paraphernalia . . .

  Bugger London, bugger them for messing his patch.

  He strode away down the corridors of the Taj Beg, out into the autumn light, past the sentries in their spick-span uniforms that never saw the shit filth of combat, past the fat arse staff officers who knew fuck-all of the war in the mountains, past the MilPol jeep with the lolling shites who rounded up the fighting men when they were on a Twenty Four in Kabul and looking for hash or tail, past all the cretin apparatus that thought the war was winnable.