(1984) In Honour Bound

by Gerald Seymour

They could follow the path. The path was tramped with hoof and sandal prints.

  Piebald with snow, the path was clear' for them to see, curving into the emptiness of the plateau.

  Barney shouted at the wind gusts.

  'I love you, Mia Fiori.'

  The answering shout, fleeing away from his ears on the wind, a smaller voice.

  'I love you, Barney Crispin.'

  'There has to be something for us, beyond this path.'

  'There will be something.' Fierce and vibrant and sure.

  Barney's head was ducked onto his chest, his chin hugged his throat, the winds whipped his cap and his hair strands.

  'Before I came here I had nothing.'

  'I, too, I had nothing.'

  'Together we will make something, together we will never be alone.'

  'After the place we have been, I think it is a crime to be happy. . .'

  'Only for ourselves have we achieved anything.'

  if we have made ourselves happy is that sufficient achievement?'

  'Mia Fiori, I love you, and I am happy, and I do not know the answer.'

  He felt the strong grip of her fingers in his. He felt the brush of her leg against him as his stride faltered in the face of the gale gusts. He felt the wet in his boots and the dirt in the crevices of his body and the lice scabs on the flanks of his chest.

  On across the plateau. On away from the valley. He was true to his promise, never to look back, never to turn and look back at the roofs of the far walls of the valley.

  He flew up the valley fast and low. A speed of a hundred kilometres, an altitude of fifty metres. He flew the pattern of a coil, a coil of wire that has been released and is now spread out, so that the view of the baffles on the engine exhaust vents would always be minimised. The pattern was wasteful on fuel. He had saved the tanks while coming over the mountains, flying the direct route, now he turned the coin and was extravagant with his fuel. Over the radio he talked softly, calmly to Rostov. A pattern of flying was established, a pattern also of firing the Very flares from the fuselage hatch. He had Rostov in the hatchway secured by a hold strap to his waist. On each circle of the coil he saw the newest of the flares that Rostov had fired, falling prettily into a grey morning sky. He saw the deserted villages, he saw the wreckage of three helicopters.

  He came to Atinam where the bomb craters were clearly formed in the flat stepped fields, where the devastation of the houses was complete, where there was the wreckage of two more helicopters. He had passed over the place where the pilot, Vladdy, lay broken in the rocks, he had passed over the place where the jackals hid before returning to feast on the body of the gunner who was trapped in the seat of the machine gun canopy.

  The man would know, the man would understand. Medev believed that if his man, his one man only, was in the valley, that he would stand and present himself and fire.

  When one helicopter came, one helicopter alone, to search out the valley then the man would know. He would understand that this was the challenge of single-handed combat. Medev had come without the support of the Antonov reconnaissance aircraft and without the gunships flying behind him. Pyotr Medev believed that if the man were on the valley floor or on the valley walls that he would stand and take his chance and back his skill against the helicopter and the flares.

  He was sick in disappointment as he cruised in a loop over Atinam.

  Where was the bastard? Come out, you bastard . . .

  He saw the rubbish heap where the body of the pilot, Alexei, had been discarded.

  He saw the scar marks where the rockets had taken the helicopter of the pilot, Sergei, close to the river trickle . . . come out, you bastard ... he heard in his headset the plea of Rostov that enough was enough, that the search was unsuccessful... He climbed to three hundred metres.

  When he went back, south down the valley, he abandoned the circle coil pattern. He flew straight, over the river line with Rostov blasting the flares forward and above, and all the time he nudged the stick right and left so that the helicopter's motion was that of a pitching boat in a cross swell. The flares guarded his upper hemisphere, the regular fast tilt of the undercarriage would prevent a clear sight of the engine exhaust vents needed by a missile marksman.

  Come out, you bastard.

  Not a shot was fired at him. He gazed until his eyes ached down into the shadow gullies and the ravines and the deserted villages and the autumn orchards. He saw a single shepherd who sat proud on a rock beneath him near to a grazing herd. He saw dogs that ran wild. He came to the southern end of the valley.

  Rostov yelled into Medev's headset.

  'You've done enough, Major . . . You don't have to do any more . . .'

  'Keep the flares going.'

  He banked the helicopter, he turned north again. He pulled the stick back to the warmth of his groin, flew the helicopter up and up and up towards the roof of the valley.

  'He is too much of a coward to show himself.'

  'The man who has killed five pilots, five helicopters, he is not a coward.'

  The winds bundled against them, the helicopter sagged in the thin air, dropped and fell, yawed back to its station. As if a sledgehammer beat against the walls and canopy of his cockpit.

  'They'll flay us when we get back.'

  if you don't keep the flares going, you won't get back. . . From where did he kill Viktor? From the top of the valley. . . keep the flares going.'

  And Rostov had sunk back to silence. A flare of brilliant green arched up forward of his vision. He was above the valley and he nudged the helicopter away from the chisel cut below and took a course on the east side of the valley and a kilometre from the cliff edge. Again he flew north. With his left hand he hung to the stick, feeling the pull strength of the winds, with his right hand he made the pencil calculations of speed and minutes and fuel capacity and range from the north end of the valley back to the music at Jalalabad. It was a chance. At this altitude, in this gale wind, the engines gulped the fuel. He had not flown that morning from the base at Jalalabad to ignore any chance. He flew one hundred metres over the bare, weather-savaged ground that bordered the valley's cliff walls.

  Another flare burst in a cascade of yellow light ahead of him. So tired, his eyes. So tired, the wrist that held the flying stick. Another flare, and another . . . and the fuel gauge needle sliding on the dial, and the ache in his eyes and the pain in his wrist.

  Rostov saw them, Rostov made the sighting.

  A shrill voice in Medev's ear.

  'Starboard, out there, two of them . . .'

  The helicopter swung right, banked, hovered. In front of Medev was a wide plateau reaching to a mountain break. His gaze swept the smoothed flat surface. A rain squall, snow flurry, splashed on the screen of his canopy. He snapped down with his finger onto the wiper switch. The arm passed over the screen, cleaned it. He saw them. He saw the outline of the missile. They were in the open, past low cloud, short of low cloud. He had wanted a battle, and they were without cover. He flew the helicopter forward, low down over the floor of the plateau.

  'Listen very carefully to me, Rostov, no flares until I say, nothing until I say . . .'

  He estimated they were a little more than 3500 metres ahead of him, and they had no place to hide from his rockets, not while they were short of the low cloud belt that was ahead of them, across their path.

  Only the sounds of the wind and the strike of their footfall on the stones and the pounding of their breathing.

  He felt the grip of her fingers tighten. He felt the nails of her fingers cut into his hand. She stopped, he pulled. She had stopped, she would not move.

  'We can't rest, we can't stop . . .'

  Again Barney pulled at her. His eyes were watering from the wind's cold. He saw ahead of him a tooth gap in the mountains, the end of the plateau.

  As if she were anchored she took the force of his pull. He turned to her. Her arm was outstretched and pointing back along their trail. There was despair, there was an agony.
He followed her arm, he wiped his eyes.

  For Barney there was a first instinctive moment for preservation. His head spun, fast, the full cycle. He saw the expanse of the plateau, he saw the shallow fall of the sides of the plateau. There was nowhere to run. He had no cover. It was a knife thrust in his side. There was no place of safety from the helicopter. The wind purged his back, stumbled him a yard forward and into Mia Fiori... He had thought he had achieved something, he had achieved nothing ... He had achieved a place on a killing ground of open plateau, without cover, without the possibility of defence.

  The helicopter hovered a kilometre from Barney and Mia Fiori. It was low and he could see the dust arc under its belly. It had no need to advance and to be hazarded. He saw the dim shape of the rocket pods under the stub wings. Mia Fiori clung to him.

  'What are you going to do?'

  'He is different to all of the others. He knows I can do nothing.'

  'You have to do something.'

  'To fire I must see the engine exhaust vents, I can't see them.'

  'Then we are going to die here, you have to do something. . .'

  What was the point of a gesture?

  But taking the Redeye into Afghanistan had been a gesture . . . killing the helicopters in the valley had been a gesture . . . and the support of Howard Rossiter had been a gesture. . . and the journey of Gul Bahdur who had walked back with the launcher to Peshawar after thirteen men had died, that had been a gesture.

  He prised Mia Fiori from his arm. He set the Redeye on his shoulder. He aimed a little above the helicopter. He waited for the flash spurts of the rockets. He saw the helicopter hovering above the dirt cloud. It was only a bastard gesture.

  Why doesn't he fire his rockets, why doesn't he finish it?

  He engaged the battery coolant. A low whine in his ear. Just the low whine because there was no target.

  Barney fired the Redeye.

  The last firing of eight Redeyes. No longer fire and forget. No longer the running stampede in the moment after the second flash flame of ignition. Nowhere to run, nothing to forget. For a fraction of time the missile seemed to run true to its aim, then it careered away to the left, a joking ball of brilliance that climbed and then fell and then curved in a death throe, that died on the hard stone scree of the plateau.

  He dropped the launcher and the empty missile tube to the ground. He pressed Mia Fiori down to her knees. His rifle was at his shoulder . . . another gesture.

  He saw the light spits as the first rockets were fired.

  Nowhere to run to, nowhere to turn to.

  The howl of the rockets hitting the ground around him. He stooped to cover Mia Fiori. He felt the scream of pain in his shoulder. He was tossed and moving and falling.

  He fell on his side, on his wound. He felt the blood wet on his hand when his fingers reached for his shoulder.

  He heard the thunder of the rocket strike close to him.

  She crouched now above him, she threw her blanket away from her shoulders. She wrenched for the buttons of her blouse. She was crying, croaking her tears. She heaved her blouse over her head.

  She stood. She waved the blouse high above her. A grey white blouse, a grey white surrender flag.

  He had been as far inside the hold of the helicopter as the strap clipped to his waist would permit. Rostov had knelt against the armoured bulkhead behind the pilot's cockpit from the moment he had seen the man standing with the missile launcher at his shoulder.

  'What happened?' Rostov called plaintively into the face microphone of his helmet.

  'While you were shitting yourself?' The dry quiet reply in Rostov's ears. 'He fired, he had no target, the missile destroyed itself.'

  'Why did he fire?'

  'To show he was not what you called him, not a coward.'

  'I heard the rockets.'

  'He is wounded, I think. I don't think he is dead. A woman is with him, she has surrendered for them.'

  Excitement surging in Rostov. 'Well done, Major, well done ... a prisoner, that's a triumph . . .'

  'Perhaps, Captain Rostov.'

  The pain was an open river in his shoulder. With his head bent he could see the rent hole in the blanket where the rocket shrapnel had passed, he could see the torn thread of his shirt, and the pink mush flesh of the wound.

  The dust was in his eyes, the spurting grit was in his face and in the wound at his shoulder. Fifty yards from Barney the helicopter landed. Beside his face were Mia Fiori's sandals and bare ankles and skirt hem. He saw the bareness of her back, goosed by the wind, he saw her hair blowing on her shoulders, he saw the blouse high above her head and outstretched by the gale gusts. He lay on his rifle, he had no chance to manoeuvre, to aim it. In front of Barney the roar of the rotors sagged in a spent force.

  He saw the mightiness of the big bird, saw its power and weight and grandeur. Protruding from the fuselage hatch was a white owl face with pebble spectacles, rimmed by a flying helmet, and in front of the face was an aimed Very pistol. His mind clouded and was confused because the helicopter carried no forward machine gunner, the gun compartment was empty. The helicopter sat squat on its wheels. The cockpit hatch opened, swung away, broke the lines of camouflage painting. He saw the pilot pull off his helmet and then appear in the hatch, and jump down and land loosely and easily on the ground. He carried no weapon.

  A stocky blond man, with sharp military cut hair and a browned face, walking with the confidence that no threat existed. Barney saw the markings on the shoulder flags of the flying suit, saw the man's ranking.

  The pilot walked briskly to Barney and the girl and when he had reached them he bent down and picked up the girl's blanket and smacked it with his hand to clear it of dust, and without speaking he held it up and then wrapped it over the shoulders of Mia Fiori, covering her. He smiled, a curt small and sad smile at her. He knelt beside Barney. He took Barney's right hand. Right hand on right hand. He gazed into Barney's face, as if by the meeting of their eyes he might find an answer.

  'Pyotr Medev. . .'The pilot pointed to his chest.

  'Barney Crispin.'

  'One . . .?' He struggled for the simple word in English.

  They had no language. They met on the roof of the world, they could not speak to each other. It was a strong face that Barney stared into, made weak only by the lack of the common language.

  'I was alone, I was one man.' Barney raised a single finger.

  It seemed the answer Pyotr Medev had expected. He looked from Barney's face to Barney's wound, his face was caught in a grimace, something of sympathy.

  The pilot stood and then walked quickly back to the helicopter, and all the time the owl face with the Very pistol covered Barney and Mia Fiori. The pilot climbed to his hatch and reached inside.

  The pilot, Pyotr Medev, returned carrying a brown cloth field dressing and a roll of bandages. He gave them into the hands of Mia Fiori.

  Again he held Barney's hand, a terrible glimpse of anguish on his face. Barney peered back into the torment of the eyes. He thought he understood. Barney's hand was dropped, fell back to the ground. The Major nodded to Mia Fiori as if his control was regained. He went to the discarded Redeye launcher. Again the sad smile. He picked it up.

  He carried the Redeye launcher under his arm as he walked back to the gunship.

  When the helicopter took off Mia Fiori covered Barney and his wound with her body, saving him from the dirt storm.

  A hundred feet above them the helicopter's nose dipped as if in salute and Barney struggled to his feet, stood like a soldier and waved a farewell.

  Later, when it was gone, when it was no longer a throbbing speck going west over the plateau, she started to dress Barney's wound.

  Later, when the ringing of the helicopter's engines was no longer in their ears, she supported him as they went, snail pace, towards the mountain break to the east, towards a blowing blizzard of snow.

  All the pilots of Pyotr Medev's squadron had gathered to watch their Major land at th
e Jalalabad base. They had distanced themselves from the Frontal Aviation commander and the Political Officer who was at his side, and the MilPol jeep with the idling engine.

  To give an estimated landing time he had broken his radio silence just the once. All the pilots were there, hushed since the first sighting of the Mi-24, coming high and fast and silhouetted against the mountains that were across the Kabul river. The pilots watched as the helicopter was brought down surely, carefully, without bravado and exhibition.

  The engines were cut. They saw Rostov at the fuselage hatch, hesitating, unwilling to take the responsibility of being the first to drop his boots onto the concrete apron.

  Medev climbed down from the pilot's cockpit hatch. He carried something in his hand, a piece of brown painted equipment, he climbed with the heaviness of a man gripped by exhaustion. He looked around him. He looked into the face of the Frontal Aviation commander.

  He walked to the Frontal Aviation commander, handed him the launcher and optical sight of the Redeye missile system. He bobbed his head in respect. He walked past the commander, and the Political Officer, and the pilots of his squadron, walked towards the prefabricated block, which housed his quarters and his bed.

  Two days after he was wounded, in a storm flurry of snow, they heard the cry of his name.

  A sharp clear desperate voice calling to them.

  On the beaten path, shadows in the driven snow, were Gul Bahdur and the mule that Barney had called Maggie.

  When the boy found them they were sitting, they were frozen cold and wrapped together for warmth.

  23

  It was a routine meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries at Foreign Minister level, and hosted by the West Germans in one of those Wagnerian castles in Bavaria. Fake history, the Foreign Secretary thought it.

  Because the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency was attending, the Foreign Secretary had added to his entourage the name of Brigadier Henry Fotheringay MBE

  DSO, who would travel with a well-filled briefcase.