Pvt. Vance finally gave a signal that Azra’eil was clean. He felt drained from the encounter.
Following strict Civilian Encounter Procedures (CEP), they searched around both vehicles, as well as the undercarriages using a round mirror secured to an extended metal rod. They searched the interior compartments and last, the roofs.
There was concern the girl was communicating with—or acting as a spotter for—insurgents. Sgt. Moore put the team on high alert as the marines piled into their respective vehicles.
Azra’eil began walking beside the Humvee right between the two wheels; a yellowy flower between two white ones.
“That was strange,” said Cpl. Pence as he took his seat next to Pvt. Fudgerié in the Humvee. “Can you see her out there?”
The private put his window down and checked the side view mirror. “Yep.”
“Think she’s a little terrorist?”
“I hearddddd that!” came the call from outside the Humvee. Azra’eil hopped on the step below the passenger door and spoke in the window, which made Pvt. Fudgerié lean away from her. Azra’eil stuck a leg and arm into the air. “Weee! Never ridden on one of these before.”
“You are not to be riding on the side of the vehicle,” Cpl. Pence warned. “Get off now.”
She mouthed the words back to him.
This made Pvt. Fudgerié laugh uncontrollably. When he collected himself he was surprised to see that the girl was no longer there.
“Where is she?” Cpl. Pence
Pvt. Fudgerié checked his sideview. “Got me.”
They were about to radio the Skullcrusher when they heard, “Boo!”
The girl’s head appeared, adorned in the ḥijāb head covering, upside down at Pvt. Fudgerié’s window. She was on the roof, piercing green eyes staring into the cab. They had no idea how she had gotten up there so fast and without them seeing her.
“Off!” demanded Cpl. Pence. He had never felt so helpless in the armored vehicle.
“What are you going to do, force me to peel potatoes back at base camp? That’s not what we eat around here, solider boy. You know, when in Afghanistan.”
“Down!”
The girl finally complied by sliding down the windshield and then hopped off the Humvee and continued walking beside it.
“What gives with grouchy pants in there?” she asked Pvt. Fudgerié in a hushed voice.
He shrugged. “Uh, so how long have you lived here?” Pvt. Fudgerié said and immediately felt stupid for asking it.
“About a year. Before that I was on a tour of duty—as you blokes would call it—in Iraq. This country needs my special attention now. I am a big fan of Afghanistan.”
Pvt. Fudgerié glanced over at Cpl. Pence and saw a scowl on his face.
“What? She’s cute.”
“‘Cute,’ Fudgie? Haven’t heard that word since junior high.”
Through the open window Pvt. Fudgerié heard Azra’eil say, “Tell him to quit calling you Fudgie. Tell him I’m going to go sand-ghetto on his desert derrière. He still has time. The paint isn’t dry yet.”
The private didn’t understand about dried paint, but the little encouragement from the girl emboldened him. He turned to the driver. “Stop calling me Fudgie. I’ve told you, it’s pronounced Fudg-aye. It’s French. You know, like lingerié.”
“Like you’ve ever seen real lingerié, Fudgie,” responded Cpl. Pence.
Pvt. Fudgerié bit his lip in distain just as he had done when the rest of the family sat around the dinning table laughing at him in his besmeared seersucker suit that had gravy oozing down the leg.
Along the dashboard were taped photos of his dog, him catching a fish in parts unknown of the Midwest, and his favorite football player back in the States. In the backseat were his laptop computer, a bag of cured beef sticks, and a wrapped cherry pie from a vending machine at the base. This wasn’t the first cherry pie he got out of the machine that morning. The first one he dropped onto the tile floor and the sides began leaking crimson jelly. This caused him to flash back to the gravy boat incident under the stress of knowing today was to be his first time to hold a skull.
“From all the food you bring, you’d think we were going for a month,” said Cpl. Pence.
“I eat when I get nervous. It keeps me alert. If I get hungry I get distracted.”
“When we have food in my village,” said Azra’eil, “I eat when I got nervous, too. So don’t feel bad.”
“And don’t smudge the seats with your greasy fingers, Fudgie. How are you going to hold a skull if we find one?”
“I haven’t eaten any chips today,” Pvt. Fudgerié responded.
“Keep it that way.”
Slowly, methodically, the two sweeper vehicles continued moving across the sand. Next to the rear vehicle was a brightly colored girl issuing Pvt. Fudgerié words of advice and wisdom far beyond her years. And when her mouth took an infrequent break, he heard the handle of her paintbrush knocking inside her paint can.
Within a hundred yards Sgt. Moore announced over the communicator that a skull had been spotted. The vehicles rolled to a halt. This time the spotter was sure. This time the ever-changing landscape had effaced a teardrop area of sand and along with it a copse of green-blue wires.
The area was scanned for insurgents. Once cleared, the double-jointed arm extended and swiped out the area in a rather jerky motion. It scooped out the device. Sand washed over the sides to reveal an arachnid-looking explosive with green-blue legs.
Cpl. Pence gave his partner a hearty slap on the back as they exited the Humvee. He ordered Azra’eil to stay near the vehicles.
“It’s not like I’m going to be doing cartwheels.”
Pvt. Fudgerié’s boots were leaden as he trudged across the sand. He felt he was on his death march or walking out of the kitchen with the gravy boat. After what seemed to be weeks on end, he finally made it to the scoop and peered over its metallic teeth.
There sat the skull.
For a brief instant the skull morphed into the appearance of Mom Gretchen with her bushy eyebrows and cornrow teeth. And then it began singing, “Here Comes the Bride.” Pvt. Fudgerié was no longer wearing military fatigues, but a light blue seersucker suit that had gotten way too small on his plump frame.
From behind—over the music—he started hearing Pvt. Vance urging him to pick it up and hold it so Pvt. Vance could dismantle the IED.
From the roof of the Skullcrusher (none of the marines having a clue how she climbed on top of the monstrous vehicle), Azra’eil called out words of encouragement that Pvt. Fudgerié failed to hear.
Trying to blink away alternating images of the grey IED and a gravy boat pattern of “peony flowers in bloom” and Mom Gretchen’s chattering face, Pvt. Fudgerié reached down and cupped the object in both hands. He was careful not to snag his sleeve on the teeth of the scoop.
In what seemed like hours, but actually only took 47.5 seconds per Sgt. Moore’s watch, Pvt. Fudgerié was now holding the IED with both hands.
Pvt. Vance went to work on the explosive with a type of Swiss army knife that had wire strippers, scissors and screwdriver all in one. After a minute he glanced up at Pvt. Fudgerié.
The fear was palpable in his eyes.
“Keep your head on, Marine. Remember your training.”
“How much longer?”
“Longer? I just got started, Fudgie. Now pipe down and let me concentrate.”
Yeah, Fudgie, pipe down, ordered a voice that had the tone and inflection of Mom Gretchen’s just after he failed miserably at his attempt to carry the steaming, circa 1812 English china gravy bowl with fluted gooseneck spout, which, in Mom Gretchen’s mind, would have made him a man if he had only been successful. This would be his second attempt because Mom never gave him another one. That had been the true reason he had signed up for the marines and shortly thereafter the most dangerous squad in Afghanistan. He would prove to Mom and to himself that he was a man.
I can do this. I could h
ave done it before.
But you didn’t, Fudgie. You screwed up just like you always do.
No I didn’t! I tripped over the carpet.
And you are going to screw up now.
I will be someone.
Mom said otherwise.
She’ll see.
Pudgie Fudgie!
“Shut up!”
“What?” Pvt. Vance asked, then turned to Cpl. Pence and said, “Fudgie’s talking to himself while I’m trying to disarm this skull.”
Sgt. Moore looked on nervously from the cab of the Skullcrusher.
Pvt. Fudgerié was sweating profusely as the merciless Afghan sun poured down on his neck and ears. He especially felt it on the undersides of his wrists as he stood there holding the skull. The relentless, arid wind did little to cool him. Sand flies were biting his earlobes. A streak of sweat raced from his forehead to the tip of his nose. It hung there with the private unable to scratch it away.
“Steady, Fudgie,” he heard one of them implore. The words undulated and were garbled as if spoken underwater. Pvt. Fudgerié was focused on the heat.
It’s hot as a steaming ladle of Mom’s award winning gravy, isn’t it Fudgie? Look at the V-shaped hull of the Skullcrusher. It’s the mother of all gravy boats. Look. The arm is the ladle. You’re holding its little baby. Don’t drop it, Fudgie!
Not now!
And when was the last time you went wee-wee, Fudgie? Huh? One too many chocolate milks this morning?
Stop it. I’ve got this.
Yeah right, Fudgie. The metal is hot now. You can feel it burning those sausage link fingers, can’t you? Those slippery, sweaty fingers just like the gravy boat did.
The explosive was getting extremely heavy and scorching hot against his clammy skin. Pvt. Fudgerié could feel it beginning to slip. The drop at the end of his nose rolled off and splashed onto the grey metal below in a tiny hiss.
Maybe it was the added weight of the sweat drop or maybe Pvt. Fudgerié spread his fingers microscopically apart that caused the skull to slip—rotating in the air as it fell—Pvt. Vance snatching at hot desert air in a late attempt at snagging the skull by its wires—Sgt. Moore screaming from inside the Skullcrusher—Cpl. Pence diving in any direction that led him away from the bomb—Pvt. Fudgerié whelping in horror. No one is sure.
Just as no one is sure how long the marines stood in the desert trying to figure out if they had died, unsure whether they had become parts-and-pieces and whether pervasive shock and numbness was the denizen of death. Yet they heard no explosion. Perhaps they had all gone deaf from the cacophony. But they heard the whirling of dry air. And they felt no pain. And it struck them all at the same moment that they didn’t hear the skull thump the ground.
“You looking for this?” came a high-pitched voice.
When Pvt. Fudgerié looked down, he saw the piercing green eyes of Azra’eil peering up at him. There she lay in a diving position, on her stomach in the sand, arms outstretched with the IED between her hands.
Cpl. Pence looked at both vehicles and they were too distant for any person, let alone a child, to have dove from under one of them and caught the falling IED. Besides, there were no small footprints, either.
By this time Sgt. Moore had climbed out the back of the Skullcrusher and was standing off to the side with an M-4 rifle pointed at Azra’eil. “Put the explosive down,” he warned.
The girl turned over slowly so that she was facing him. She placed the IED in the yellow lap of her Pashtun outfit. “You may find this surprising, but I am helping you out here. You need it, believe me.”
Sgt. Moore pointed with the M-4. “Hand the explosive to Cpl. Pence there.”
“I can paint it for you. Perhaps an indigo blue.”
Sgt. Moore told her she had three seconds to do as he commanded. He began counting.
Azra’eil shrugged and pushed the IED up to the marine. The girl stood up and brushed sand off her qmis. She fixed the ḥijāb that had gone cockeyed.
Sgt. Moore put the M-4 at ease.
For a few moments the marines stood in awe of the young girl as the wind hummed through the tight nooks and crevices of their machinery. They were truly speechless.
Finally, Sgt. Moore asked, “Where were you hiding?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“You didn’t set this bomb, did you?”
“Would I set a bomb and then save you from getting blown up by it? Think about it.”
Sgt. Moore felt dim-witted. “Why are you helping us?”
“Helping? You silly, silly boys. It just wasn’t right. Not here. Not now. The paint is almost dry.”
None of them understood the response.
“We’d like to thank you,” offered Cpl. Pence. They knew it was important to gain any comity they could with the locals.
Azra’eil raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess, more bottled water. You really know how to treat a girl.”
Pvt. Vance turned to Pvt. Fudgerié and said, “You’ve gotta have a bunch of candy bars stashed somewhere back there.” He nodded over his shoulder to the Humvee.
The marines all focused on Pvt. Fudgerié in the hopes of a positive response.
Cpl. Pence noticed it first. “Look! Fudgie’s wet himself. Look!” He was pointing at the marine’s leg and the dark color spreading down his fatigues. He forgot about the IED and began laughing hysterically as the others joined in.
By the time Sgt. Moore had quieted down the subordinates, Azra’eil was gone. As quickly as she had appeared, she had vanished.
“I’ve seen stranger out here,” Sgt. Moore informed as they searched under the vehicles. “The sand’ll play tricks. People can just up and disappear when they are three feet in front of you. We’ve lost whole convoys in dust storms only to find them again two-hundred yards away.”
Where ever she was hiding—if she was actually hiding—they could not find her. After they gave up searching, it took the marines another half hour to get the IED fully disarmed and dismantled.
Pvt. Fudgerié took no part in the process and had a private talk with Sgt. Moore where he explained he could no longer ride with Cpl. Pence and his big mouth. Sgt. Moore, displaying a rare sign of compassion for the marine, agreed. Sgt. Moore coupled it with strict orders that he sit only on the tarp in the back.
As the team of bomb-sweeping vehicles moved on, Pvt. Fudgerié—stiff-legged—quickly asked about a Latin tattoo on the arm of Sgt. Moore. He wanted to talk about any subject but what had just happened.
“Servo permaneo bovis provestri. Save the last bullet for yourself,” Sgt. Moore informed.
Cpl. Pence, who was now in constant communication as he was riding alone in the trailing Humvee, added over the radio, “You should get one, Fudgie. Servo permaneo doughis provestri. Save the last doughnut for yourself.”
The marines burst out laughing.
As they drove, Pvt. Vance scanned the horizon for more shiny objects. At eleven o’clock he noticed another graveyard of military vehicles. They too had lilies painted on the tires and various other parts of their machinery.
“Our girl has been busy,” he told the others. “Hey wait a second. I just noticed this. The burn marks are over the flowers. It’s as if Azra’eil painted the vehicles before they got torched. Just like the Humvee. Hey, you don’t think—”
Sgt. Moore cursed and hit the steering wheel. “Would you look at that? Pence is creeping up on us again. Pence!”
With a quick burst of speed, the Humvee pulled along side the Skullcrusher.
“Pence, listen to me. Don’t get stupid.”
He stuck out his tongue and raced past the marines in the other vehicle. Fine desert grains pelted the Skullcrusher as Cpl. Pence jockeyed to the forefront. There was no window gesture or radio communication that could slow him down.
He only held the pole position for a few seconds before a jarring sound pierced their ears. They saw blue-green fire spurt from the undercarriage of the Humvee. It launched the vehicle s
ix feet off the ground. The occupants of the Skullcrusher watched in slow motion as the twisted hunk of metal landed on the driver’s side, jounced, and ground to a halt.
When the other marines arrived at the wreckage they noticed the lily-painted tires spinning in mid air. It was an air filled with the acrid smell of burnt rubber and oil. A small but malevolent fire was burning near the back axle.
“The fastest way to get Pence out is to tip it over,” Sgt. Moore yelled. He feared if they were not quick in their response, even more explosions could occur.
Pvt. Vance joined his superior in pushing on the roof with his hands.
“You too, Fudgie!”
Pvt. Fudgerié began pushing on the roof with his sizeable back. The Humvee jostled in the sand and settled at least twice before they managed to get it rocking. A final effort sent it back on all fours.
With the Humvee righted, Sgt. Moore jerked the driver’s door open. It was almost impossible to see if Cpl. Pence was hurt through the gummy, cracked sheet of glass that was designed to withstand bullet impacts and IED bursts.
Once the door creaked open, Sgt. Moore reached inside and undid the seatbelt. Before the commander could get hold of him, Cpl. Pence fell onto the sand in a crumpled heap of death.
Pvt. Fudgerié looked off into the distance. He wondered if the girl had anything to do with this. Through the billowing sand he saw a flapping pane of yellow, then the girl standing there in her colorful outfit, the wind tousling it to and fro. His first thought was to alert the others (anything to make him a bit helpful on this wrecked mission)—
—but then a peculiar thing happened. She raised the paint can and smiled.
He reflected for a moment, a twirl of coal-black smoke billowing behind him, then responded in like kind through a large grin that appeared in the middle of Pvt. Fudgerié’s moon face.
A sheet of grit snapped across the desert. Azra’eil was gone. The private heard the derogatory call of: “Fudgie, get over here!”
When Pvt. Fudgerié turned back toward the Skullcrusher he noticed that the fat tires had been painted into lilies, too.
Azra’eil & Fudgie
Afterword
Azra'eil & Fudgie: A Short Story Page 2