(1984) In Honour Bound

by Gerald Seymour

  'Tell me what happened . . .' Medev said calmly.

  In the afternoon, after the sun had dipped behind a rain cloud and the valley lay in shadow, long after the caravan had disappeared up the side valley in the west, Barney walked from his cave.

  He walked across the open ground in the middle of the valley carrying the body of Maxie Schumack. He had loaded the last of the missiles and tied the launcher to his back pack. On one shoulder was slung his own rifle, on the other was the American's Kalashnikov. Barney's forearms were out in front of him and made a cradle for Schumack's body.

  He walked past the body of the pilot, and past the helicopter. He walked through an orchard where the trees' leaf cover had been stripped to the ground. He skirted an old 500 kg bomb crater.

  He walked to where Ahmad Khan stood, his men in a half crescent around him.

  He said nothing. He laid the body on the ground close to Ahmad Khan's feet, and put the rifle beside it. He knelt and kissed the white cheeks of Maxie Schumack. He wiped a blood stain from his hand onto his trousers.

  Mia stood alone, apart from the men.

  Barney took her hand lightly in his own. He saw the dribble of tears in the dust on her face.

  'We will go in the morning. We have to go before the snow closes the passes,' he said.

  22

  While it was still dark, in the quiet of his quarters, Pyotr Medev dressed.

  For once he ignored the brief elasticated pants and the cotton vest that were habitual to him. He pulled over his body the combination thermal wool garment favoured by the pilots when winter is coming, when they fly high in the mountains. He selected a pair of heavy knit socks. In place of a starched shirt, he took from a drawer the sweat top that carried on the chest the crest of Eight Nine Two. He left on the hanger in the wardrobe his uniform tunic top and the matching trousers with the blue piping on the seam line, he struggled into his one-piece flying suit and pulled the zipper from waist to neck.

  From another drawer he lifted his flying cap. From the bottom of the wardrobe he picked out his soft leather flying boots, ponderous but lightweight, and dust covered.

  He blew the dust from his boots, sat on his unmade bed to draw them onto his feet. He felt a warmth and a sense of comfort now that he was dressed for flying. He looked around his room, it did not concern him that he might not see the room again. The room had been his home for a year. A small bare room with little of ornament and less of decoration. An anonymous room, and easy for a new man to slip into the bed of a flier who had no need of it because a bodybag was taking him home.

  Before he left the room he reached out to the bedside table and took from it the leather-cased photograph of his wife. He took her photograph from behind the glass and held it near to the light and close to his face, and saw the slight smile on the lips and the careworn eyes and the blonde hair that had been prepared for the photographer. From the bedside table he took, also, the cellophane folder that contained his military identity card. He placed the photograph of his wife into the folder, covering the card.

  He went to the door, he switched off the light, he closed the door quietly behind him. He walked away down the corridor.

  The memories of the previous evening swam over him as he walked the bright strip-light length of the corridor.

  Start at the beginning, start with Rostov, quivering in jelly nerves, telling the story of the loss of the pilot's, Vladdy's, helicopter.

  Move on from the beginning to the grounding of the squadron, what remained of it, on the express and personal order of the Frontal Aviation commander.

  Continue the road, listening to the report of the Anto- nov's spotter who said that a large caravan had moved immediately after the airborne attack from the valley and high into the mountains to the west.

  Finish at the end, finish with the scathing anger of the Frontal Aviation commander and Pyotr Medev face to face across the desk of the commander's office.

  '. . . The squadron is grounded because it has proved unable to carry out the duties assigned to it, because it has repeatedly provided false information on the capabilities of the enemy ... I will not stand aside and see young pilots butchered for a piece of rock that means little to the strategy of our operations. The caravan will be interdicted from Kabul when it is further down the line, out of our responsibility. For fuck's sake, Medev, don't you understand anything, your squadron has been slaughtered, it's barely operational . . . I'll tell you what I'm going to do, I am relieving you of your command and I don't give a shit whether you like it or you don't like it. At the end of the week you're going home.

  Get out of this office, Medev, before you say things that will have a permanent effect on your record, on your career . . . The valley is not worth the loss of another helicopter, certainly not worth the loss of another pilot. . .'

  Seven doors down, on the left side of the corridor, was the room of Captain Rostov. Medev went inside without the courtesy of a preliminary knock. He switched on the light. Rostov was sitting up in bed, blinking at the ceiling light. He wore florid red and orange and blue pyjamas. Without speaking, Medev went to the wardrobe, rifled out of it a winter anorak with synthetic fur lining and a roll neck sweater, and the severely polished boots, and thick socks and wet weather trouser overalls. He threw the clothes and the boots onto Rostov's bed, across his legs. He thought that if Rostov had protested he would have hit him, bloodied his mouth. He saw the tin of talcum beside Rostov's basin, and the bottle of after-shave lotion, and the canister of underarm deodorant spray.

  'Five minutes, in the operations room . . .' Medev said.

  Medev went out of the sleeping quarters building, into the small hours'

  darkness. He saw the bright perimeter lights. He saw a cruising jeep of MilPol. He saw the tanks, nose down, behind their bulldozed earthworks. He saw the helicopters in their revetments with the gaping spaces between them.

  'What area do you want?' The question from the corporal in the Meteorological section.

  'The north of Laghman province, area Delta.'

  He scribbled down into his notebook the information he was given. Wind speeds were strong, temperature was dropping, forecast of rain showers in the valleys and snow falls on the mountains.

  He went to the operations room. Rostov stood there, awkward and comical in his overall trousers and anorak, he wore a fur hat on his head, he was wiping the condensation from his spectacles. Medev ignored him.

  'XJ LIMA, what state?' He asked the question of the night operations clerk.

  'Fuelled and armed.'

  Medev gestured with his head for Rostov to follow. Medev walked ahead dissuading conversation. Twice Rostov had managed to reach his shoulder, twice he had seen the bleak face of the Major, and had dropped back. They went to the munitions depot. Medev shook some life into a sleeping man, half spinning him from his chair.

  'I want distress flares and a Very launcher pistol.'

  'They come in tens, the flares, packs often.'

  'Ten packs.'

  They carried the flares between them, and the Very pistol, to the helicopter revetments. The courage to ask came slowly to Rostov. It came finally.

  'Where are we going?' A timid voice.

  'To find him.' A cold and grudging reply.

  'But the squadron's grounded . . .'

  'Then I am disobeying the order, and regretfully you will be a party to that disobedience.'

  'What am I to do, I'm not a flier . . .' Fear in Rostov, but the greater fear was of challenging his major.

  'You'll fire the flares.'

  'Then there is no one for the machine gun.'

  'The rockets will be sufficient.'

  Rostov thought he saw a madness in Medev's eyes. He did not possess the courage to refuse and walk away.

  Medev looked up at the gunship, XJ LIMA. He saw the bruises in the paintwork from previous ground fire hits. He saw the smears on the cockpit canopy where bullets had been deflected. He hunted one man. He was sorry he had to take
Rostov, but without flares the combat was unequal. It should have been Medev alone against this one man, but Rostov did not outweigh the balance, Rostov equalled the scales. He saw in his mind the vague outline shape of a man who carried a missile launcher on his shoulder, the vague outline shape from a magnified photograph.

  It was his only thought as he opened the cockpit hatch of the helicopter xj lima.

  They shook Barney's hand with a limp correctness, as if they had seen such a gesture of formality on an old American film and regarded it as the proper usage of manners. He walked down the line of the mujahidin of Ahmad Khan and took each hand that was outstretched and murmured a word of farewell. Behind the men were piled their baggage pieces that they would soon load on their backs and carry away. He would go north and east towards the passes, they would go south down the length of the valley.

  By the time that the snows came to the valley's floor, they would have moved to the villages at the mouth of the valley where they could survive the winter. The destruction of five helicopters in their valley had won for Barney no display of overt affection. He wondered if, when they came back to the valley in the spring and they found the helicopter wreckage that had been snow- covered and was now revealed again, whether then they would remember him.

  He came to where Ahmad Khan stood, a little distanced from the line of his men.

  Close to Ahmad Khan was the cairn of stones that marked the resting place of Maxie Schumack . . . New Yorker far from home, veteran of Khe Sanh and Kabul and Desert One and buried where there's no running from, thanks for the memory, kiddo, thanks for the memory of the humble grave of a mighty man . . . Barney shook the hand of Ahmad Khan.

  The mocking sweet smile of Ahmad Khan. 'Did you achieve in our valley what you came to achieve? Or are you like all the foreigners that have come to Afghanistan?

  Perhaps you have stamped your foot on rock. Perhaps you have left no imprint.'

  Barney looked into the cavern-brown eyes of the schoolteacher. He saw what he believed was a nobility. He saw the clear gaze of the eyes, he saw their certainty.

  'I have learned something that is my own. Perhaps that is my achievement. . .

  Goodbye, Ahmad Khan.'

  'Goodbye, Barney Crispin.'

  He walked away from Ahmad Khan, away from Maxie Schumack's grave, away from the line of men.

  When he reached Mia Fiori he took her hand.

  t

  They went together, away along the dirt path in the slow growing light of the morning. The rifle hung from Barney's shoulder and the Redeye launcher with the last of the missile tubes rested beside his neck. As they walked Mia Fiori twice looked back, turned her head to stare behind her into the depths of the valley.

  Barney never looked back, he had said in his arrogance that he would never look back on the valley where he had killed five helicopters.

  He set a fierce hard speed up the water gullies of the side valley. It was as if his sole goal was to be clear of the valley and the memories of the valley. She did not complain, she did not ask him to be allowed to rest or to drink from the water that he carried. They climbed towards the snow peaks at the side of the valley, they scrambled on the rocks and the smooth stones where the first ice sheen had formed. When he heard her breath behind him, sagging, panting, he took her hand tight in his own and dragged her after him. In his mind were the instructions that Ahmad Khan had given him for the route to the passes that would take him to Pakistan.

  He never looked back. When they had reached the roof of the valley, when they had flopped gasping for the rare air, he did not turn to look back and down into the valley, to search for one last time to find the wreckage specks of the helicopters he had killed.

  'Did you find nothing there that you valued?'

  For answer he reached to her and took her head in his hands and kissed the wetness of the rain and snow spray from her lips, and buried his head against her, and held her head and kissed her again.

  'Did you find nothing else that you valued?'

  He stood up, he took her hand tight in his own. He saw ahead of him the scape of the plateau stretching eastwards between the mountain summits. He felt the winds buffet against him, felt her stagger against the blast force of the wind. He held her hand, he led her forward onto the plateau where snow patches had formed, away from the valley.

  Rossiter awoke. He rubbed at his face, cleared the sleep haze from his eyes. He looked at the mattress across the floor from him. The boy had not come back in the night. It was the second night since he had found the boy gone. He had given the little bugger food and water, even some rupees, and that was the thanks. The creature had scarpered when Rossiter had taken the bundle down to the Dreamland. Left nothing of an explanation. In your pocket and dependent one moment, gone the next and leaving you to whistle for a reason. The boy had been allowed to edge too close to Barney Crispin, that was Howard Rossiter's opinion, that's what made him so bloody cocky. Only a bed of bloody nails for your pains when these people were allowed to edge too close.

  He had little to look forward to. Another day alone in the bungalow. At dusk he would go into Chitral for his shopping and the contact with the Night Manager of the Dreamland. It was raining against the windows above his mattress.

  He wondered when Barney Crispin would come, if he would come ... He felt a greater sense of despair than he had known before. A piss wet day waited for him, and not even the wretched boy to talk with. And he must wait. That was the fate of Howard Rossiter and his kind, to sit with their hands under their arses and to wait.

  He flew due north. He climbed to clear the mountains ahead of him. With his tanks fully loaded he possessed a flying range of 475 kilometres. He would not waste fuel by skirting the direct route to area Delta and flying the winding river beds. The calculations he made on his knee told him that he would have an hour over the valley, an hour to find his one man.

  The wind came from the north, came into the teeth of the helicopter's flight path.

  One hand hard on the stick to hold the big bird stable, with his wrist wrenched as the power of the gusts caught at the airframe and beat on the bulk of the cockpit canopy and the machine gun bubble. Rostov would be sick, sick as a pig dog in the big hold behind the pilot's cockpit. He'd be strapped down in a webbing seat, puking his guts and shouting that he didn't volunteer to come, and no bastard hearing him. With his free hand Medev traced clear pencil lines on the map, directed himself to the place where the contour lines ran in tandem rails, where the valley was overstamped 'area Delta'.

  The static burst in his ears, then the distort call of the radio.

  '. . . XJ LIMA come in. XJ LIMA come in. XJ LIMA come in . .

  A quiet mirthless smile on Medev's face.

  'XJ LIMA.'

  '. . . Medev, this is the Frontal Aviation commander, Jalalabad base. You have disobeyed an instruction. You are in violation of orders. You are to return to your base immediately . . .'

  Stupid fart. He'd have the Political Officer standing behind him with his book and pencil ready, ready for the Court Martial evidence. Now the shit was spinning he'd have brought in the Political Officer, and put out the signals orderlies and the clerks.

  Wouldn't want them to hear the Frontal Aviation commander given two fingers over the radio set.

  'You know my destination, you know the range of the helicopter. From that you will know when I am returning.'

  A hollow chuckle in Medev's mouth. His fingers slipped down, flicked off the radio switch.

  One man, one man only had dragged him to this flagrant breach of orders. High above the mountain peaks, sometimes blinded in cloud, sometimes seeing the snake river lines beneath him, he gave up the logical and consequential thoughts that on any other day and in any other place would have dominated him. Alone in the cockpit of the big bird, alone behind the wind-beaten canopy, he never doubted that he would find the one man, the one man only.

  It was a bare landscape. A landscape of small rock and broken gravel a
nd stunted weed.

  No trees and no scrub bushes had survived the age old ferocity of the wind, and no great rocks here.

  They went fast onto the plateau.

  Because there was no cover, Barney pushed their pace. She was strong, Mia Fiori.

  He was not a man who willingly praised others. He would shout her praises, because he loved her, because she was strong, because she did not fight the pace he set.

  He saw no hiding place on the plateau. He had no way of knowing at what altitude they walked. He knew they would be close to the altitude ceiling of the Mi-24, he had no way of knowing whether this plateau was above or below the helicopter's ceiling. It was hard to breathe on the plateau, the breathing was like the punching of a sponge. He struggled to win the flow of air down into his lungs. He wondered how Mia Fiori could manage. He was a shield for her body against the wind.

  It was the ceiling of the world, the roof of the hemisphere. Around the plateau were the great mountains, the chimney stacks of the roof. The Hindu Kush and the Karakorams and the Himalayas were the mountain ranges to the west and the north and the east.

  He thought that he had never loved a woman before in the way that he loved Mia Fiori.

  The winds struck him, staggered him as he dropped his shoulder to take the charge of the gale winds. There had been girls at home, girls in the back of his car, girls on their parents' sofa, girls to escort to the Regiment's cocktail parties, girls to take to the Aqua Club under the Qurm Heights in Oman. There had never been a woman who was widowed, a woman who took her holiday in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan, a woman who could climb without protest and rest up the side gullies of a battlefield valley. There had never been a woman like Mia Fiori.

  All the time that they walked he held tight on her hand, and she was close behind his back, and the horizon for her eyes would be his back pack and his slung rifle and the Redeye missile launcher low on his shoulder.