by Harry Parker
26
I am made in China. My body was stamped from sheet metal, my barrel extruded, my stock and grip carved from wood and I was assembled and riveted together. I was packed off the production line in 1978.
I was sold by dealers to capitalists and became hot in a cold war.
I was fired at soldiers. I was fired into the air to celebrate weddings. I might or might not have killed anyone. For years I hung off the shoulder of a shepherd in the mountains and I seized up. But I was found and cleaned and given to Aktar.
*
I was where he often kept me, wrapped in a cloth, stuffed between the split water tank and the wall. The men pulled me out with the other weapons and unwrapped me. They crouched and waited in the shade. The weapons were handed out and they pulled the magazines clear, checked and reinserted them. One man tossed a bag of loose ammunition to another. They shrugged on assault vests that hung loose around them.
I was placed next to Aktar. He was peering through a gap in the trees and holding a radio in his hand. He spoke into it but it was silent and then fuzzed.
‘He is not responding,’ he said and looked at his watch.
He picked me up and wiped away grit that had collected on me and then blew more from the groove between my trigger housing and stock.
‘We take no risks. Just the same as last time,’ he said. ‘Abdul, Latif, we will go forward to the edge of the buildings. Paugi, be ready with the rocket. And then we meet back here and hide the weapons.’
The four men looked at each other. One sat on his haunches, holding the grenade launcher, and grinned yellow teeth at Latif. Aktar glanced down at the radio again and then held it to his mouth. ‘Karmal, are you there? Can you see the entrance?’ Again there was no reply and he pushed the radio into his vest. ‘Let’s go,’ he said to them.
Aktar carried me by his side. He pushed through the branches and walked out towards a track that led us between old walls. The others followed behind, half-crouched with their weapons across their stomachs. Aktar knelt down and looked carefully over a wall that was only waist high. He could see the flag flapping lazily above the camp and the horizontal slit of the watchtower.
‘It seems quiet,’ he said, then dropped down to crawl past the opening.
The boy Latif followed behind him.
Aktar walked on, keeping close to a wall until he was pressing his back against it, sidestepping, and my stock scraped against the dry stone. Then he leant forward and there was the watchtower again, now much closer.
The three others were lined up next to him.
‘One at a time,’ he said.
Aktar smoothly stepped around the exposed wall and back into the shadows of a doorway. They followed him in and waited for the bullets to come, but the watchtowers were silent. One of them blew out a silent whistle.
Aktar checked around the frame, which seemed untouched. He held his breath and pushed the door open, afraid it might squeak. The men went with him into the compound and across to the other side. The far wall was destroyed and lay in craters and piles of rubble. He moved into a corner and propped me against the loose masonry. The others grouped together with him and squatted down. They looked nervous. One itched his forehead under his hat.
Aktar shuffled out on his belly and scanned across the camp and then the desert that climbed up beyond the river by the cemetery. There was no movement.
‘Latif and I will fire at the tower on the left,’ he said as he studied the camp. ‘Abdul, take the one on the right, through the trees. Try to conserve your ammunition, all of you.’
He crawled over to pick me up. He worked my cocking handle, compressing and then releasing my spring, and my bolt carrier sprang forward, collecting the top round from the magazine and sliding it into my breech. My bolt rotated into position behind it.
‘We should spread out,’ he said. ‘You first, Latif.’
Latif crawled out past Aktar’s boots and around the craters and rubble until he could hide behind a stack of bricks. He anxiously glanced back at them and cocked his weapon.
Aktar flicked his head at the next man, who slid out, dragging himself beyond the boy until they were spaced out along the wall.
Aktar clasped my grip and clicked my safety lever down with his finger. He knelt behind the wall and checked to make sure the others were ready. Their weapons were poised in front of them and they waited for his command.
Aktar nodded and held me up to his shoulder. He pulled me closer and twisted his chest out from behind the wall until I was pointing at the watchtower. His finger hardened on me. He swayed, my sights looping around the target. Then his breath exhaled onto my stock and we settled. He gently squeezed my trigger.
My hammer was released, leapt up and slapped into the back of my bolt, sending my firing pin forward into the base of the first round. I fired and the bullet left my barrel, forced out by the explosion in my breech. The expanding gas worked my piston and flung my extractor back. The empty case spun out of me in a copper whirr as I punched up and sideways into Aktar’s shoulder.
My bolt carrier flung forward and lifted another round into my breech. I was ready.
He adjusted his aim and jerked my trigger back again, and again, and I bucked in his arms each time. The others were firing too and Aktar’s eyes sparkled next to me. He saw a burst of debris lift from the infidels’ watchtower as one of my rounds hit. Then another struck right below the slit. He glanced to his right.
‘Well done, Abdul. Keep firing at the tower,’ he shouted over the noise, excited now. ‘Send them to hell, Latif. God is greatest.’
And then a jagged yellow cross strobed silently in the black slit. They were being shot at. Noise and violence suddenly cracked the air around us in piercing clips that beat through the sky. Aktar ducked behind the wall and grinned at the others.
Latif was reloading, dropped his magazine, then fumbled to pick it up and looked back at Aktar. ‘God is greatest,’ the boy said but his words were lost in the shock of metal tearing through the air above.
‘Keep firing, Latif,’ Aktar said in a lull. ‘Just a few more moments.’
He switched me to automatic and held me out around the wall, firing me blindly. I spewed bullets and my barrel heated and bucked and my action blurred as it sawed back and forward inside me. Phosphorus-tipped rounds traced bright ephemeral lines out into the haze. My magazine chunked empty and Aktar stepped back into shelter. He worked my magazine release catch and pushed the empty into his vest, replaced it and cocked me. Then I was firing again.
Dust jumped from the wall in front of Latif as bullets slammed into it. He held his weapon above his head and fired back until the cloud engulfed him and he ducked away, covered in dirt and rubble.
Aktar looked over and laughed at him. ‘Are you okay, Latif? Keep firing.’
‘God is greatest,’ he shouted back, laughing too, and fired over the wall again.
Then the pitch of the cracks changed as different weapons fired at them. The higher-calibre rounds smacked new notes overhead, lodging in walls or deflecting up and ricocheting into the sky.
On the far side of the wall the man was crouched in cover. ‘Aktar, I have nearly run out,’ he shouted and pointed at his magazine.
Aktar looked around. He pulled the shirt of the man next to him. ‘Now, Paugi. Make it count,’ he said over the noise.
The man ran out and held the launcher on his shoulder. He paused, the green cone of the grenade wobbling as he aimed it. He steadied himself as a round puffed beside his foot, and then another, closer.
‘Come on, Paugi,’ Aktar said. ‘Fire.’
Then his grenade hammered away in an instant cloud of propellant. He shouted that God was greatest through the smoke as the projectile fizzed into the chaos and exploded in the distance.
Suddenly rounds stripped across the wall, tracked over the open ground and through the man and he was on the floor, the firing tube clattering beside him. Aktar ducked back into cover and held me across his chest.<
br />
‘Paugi,’ the boy yelled and slid down into shelter.
‘Keep firing, Latif. Keep firing at them,’ Aktar shouted and watched the injured man. He was holding his thigh and blood showed between his fingers. His mouth gulped up and down as he hissed and clawed at the ground.
‘Paugi, can you crawl here?’ Aktar called. ‘Crawl over here. You will be hit again if you remain there.’ A round made a stone jump next to the man. Something was wrong. The noise was wrong; it was never normally this violent. Aktar held me in his shoulder and looked around the corner at the base. And now he saw them, out to the left in the desert, spread out near the cemetery and firing.
‘Latif, get back,’ he shouted. ‘They’re on the hill as well. To our left.’ He was scared, his tongue dry in his mouth.
‘What?’ the boy said and dragged his weapon back to him.
‘There, up on the hill now – they’ve left the camp to outflank us.’ Aktar beckoned above the wall. ‘You are exposed. Get down.’
‘How did they get there?’ Latif started to crawl away. A burst of automatic fire clicked over us.
Aktar slung my strap over his shoulder and paused, looking at the heaving body of the man. He noticed a shard of rock flick up and a blade of grass stir. And then we were moving and he didn’t feel anything and his head was hot and he ran out as a tunnel of sound wrapped around us. His legs pushed us on, tingling under him until we were next to the man.
We skidded down beside him and Aktar grabbed his arms. The man screamed in pain as he was dragged. Bullets cracked past us. I fell from his shoulder and down to his elbow and dangled awkwardly on my sling, knocking into the head of the injured man as Aktar pulled him into cover.
Aktar gasped for air and leant back against the stones. The injured man was below him, breathing through clenched teeth in the lee of the wall. And then the other men crawled over.
‘What do we do, Aktar?’
‘We need to get him back to the road,’ Aktar said between breaths.
‘We can’t get him across the field,’ Latif said. ‘They will cut us down.’
‘Latif, you will help me carry him,’ Aktar said. ‘Abdul, make sure they aren’t trying to encircle us.’
‘Aktar, it is too dangerous – we will be too slow with him.’ The man looked out around the wall. A bullet kicked up dust to his left and another clapped past and struck the wall at the far side of the compound. ‘They are up on the hill now.’
‘I know, Abdul. But we must get him back to the road.’ Aktar stared at him over the groaning man. ‘We cannot leave him here. You need to cover us.’
*
I banged against Aktar’s back on my strap as he supported the hurt man. Latif was on the other side and their arms were wrapped around him. The man’s head lolled forward and his legs dragged through the dirt. They carried him out of the compound. The sky still cracked and the weapons echoed and thumped in the distance. We moved down the wall, past an exposed corner and there was a sudden burst of fire.
‘Faster, Latif,’ Aktar said, and they stumbled on under the weight. He was angry with fear and his back crawled with the certainty that a bullet was about to thud into it. ‘Abdul, fire back.’
Behind us the man raised his rifle above a wall and sprayed countless rounds.
‘This way, Aktar,’ Latif said. He was tiring. ‘It will be quicker if we cross to the trees here.’
Aktar swore. ‘No, Latif, that is where we laid the bombs. We must follow this track.’
He was angry that he couldn’t take the short route now, that his bombs made him vulnerable, and angry that he was going to die. He wanted to drop the body and run, or turn and fire. And I made him angry, banging impotently against his back as he carried the wounded man. He was angry that he hadn’t seen them up on the hill and he was angry with Karmal for not being there on the radio.
We kept on down the track to the road. The firing had stopped and all he could hear was their breathing and the effort pounding in his ears. The man’s leg was soaked with blood and he left a dark trail behind us. He was whimpering.
‘We should stop soon, Aktar,’ the boy said. ‘I don’t think Paugi can take any more.’
‘A bit farther, Latif. We need to get beyond where they will follow us. Beyond the bridge,’ Aktar said, trying to glance back. ‘Are they still following, Abdul?’
‘I cannot see them.’
‘We should cross into this field, Latif,’ Aktar said.
They stepped over an irrigation ditch, awkwardly pulling his legs across, and moved along the edge of the field. Then bullets started clipping the thigh-high leaves around us.
‘Fire back, Abdul,’ Aktar grunted.
‘I can’t see where they are.’
‘Fire anyway. Just keep shooting.’
And he fired his weapon back towards the camp in a long automatic burst and the red tracer drifted away to the horizon.
‘Get to shelter,’ Aktar said.
They staggered down a path thick with foliage and came out next to a wall. A young man was sitting against it. His bicycle was propped next to him and he was eating dried apricots. He looked up as we appeared.
‘You. Come here, we need help,’ Aktar said as he saw him.
The young man stood and backed away towards a green bicycle.
‘I said come here, boy.’
‘Latif?’ he said.
‘How do you know Latif?’ Aktar studied him. ‘Quick, you can help us. We need to get this man to safety.’
The boy looked at Latif, who was bent under the weight of the injured man. ‘Are you okay, Latif?’ he said. ‘I know a place that’s not far. Follow me.’ He reached out for Latif’s weapon, then me, and slung us on the handlebars of his bike.
He pushed the bicycle beside him as he led them across the field. I swung off the handlebars as it rolled through the wheat to a small building edged by irrigation ditches. They all rested against the wall as the boy took a key from his pocket and opened the door.
‘You will be safe in here,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ Latif said.
They edged the man sideways through the door and into a dark storage room filled with cans of fuel, bags of grease and buckets among stacked tools and farming equipment. They gently laid the man down on the concrete floor.
‘What should we do with Paugi?’ the boy said. He put his hands on his knees and coughed. ‘He might die.’
‘I will go for the doctor,’ Aktar said, then unhooked my strap from the handlebars and held my grip.
‘You must stop the blood leaving him,’ the other boy said. ‘Here, let me.’ He crouched down beside the body, tore a strip of cloth from his shirt, wrapped it around the thigh and pulled it tight.
‘Thank you, Faridun,’ Latif said and joined him, tearing his own shirt and wrapping another cloth around the leg.
Aktar looked at the injured man. ‘He might survive, so do what you can. I will be back soon.’ He stepped towards the door. ‘Abdul, come out here. You must keep guard.’
‘How long will you be, Aktar?’ he said as they walked out and he knelt beside the building.
‘Not long, Abdul. I will return from that direction.’ Aktar pointed towards the road. ‘The infidels shouldn’t come this far, but keep watch. Here, take this,’ he said and unclipped the magazine from me and threw it to him.
He held me at his side as he ran across the field back to the road. We dropped down to the water tank and he swung his leg onto his motorbike. He slipped his head through my sling so I was across his back, then kicked down on the bike and powered it up onto the road. His turban fluttered against me as we sped away and the wind whistled on my barrel.
He was pleased by how well the boy Latif had done.
But something flashed off to his right and caught his eye – a mushroom of grey dust that lifted out from among the trees. He knew there was no longer any need for a doctor before the shockwave of the explosion passed through him.
He thought he sho
uld go and check if any of them had survived, but fear paralysed him and he imagined another missile dropping towards him. He clenched low over the petrol tank and drove on, his eyes watering in the wind.
27
‘This is for you, Tom,’ the nurse said as she wheeled me up to your bed. You pushed yourself up on your elbows.
‘Great,’ you said and looked down at me. ‘About time.’
‘Do you want to try it?’
‘Sure,’ you said and started to pull yourself from the bed with a grunt.
‘Wait, Tom, not so fast.’ She laughed. ‘You’ll need this until you’re stronger.’ She reached for a wooden board propped by the wall and balanced one end on the bed and the other on my seat.
‘Now, slide slowly onto the board.’ She put her hands under your arms and helped you inch across. ‘That’s it. No rush.’
You were thin and weak and your arms trembled as you pulled yourself into me. You puffed out your cheeks.
‘Are you okay?’ she said.
‘Just a bit dizzy.’
‘That’s normal. You haven’t done much exercise for a few weeks.’
‘Five, it must be now,’ you said.
‘Right, have a quick try.’
You placed your hands on my rings and pushed my wheels around and reversed me away from the bed. Then you pushed down with your left hand, my castors flicked around and I turned to the right and rolled into the centre of the bay.
‘Aha, look who’s got new wheels,’ a man said from one of the other beds. He dropped a magazine into his lap.
‘How am I doing?’ you said.
‘Pretty pathetic, I’m afraid, mate. I’m not sure you’ll make it to the pub.’
‘Well that’s a blessing, Adam. I won’t have to listen to your chat.’ You pushed the tops of my wheels forward and I glided across the lino.
‘I’ll let you have a few days, Tom, and then I’ll race you. We’ll see if you can make it onto the hot-laps leaderboard.’
‘Adam, there’ll be no more wheelchair racing. The ward manager isn’t at all happy about it.’