Soldier M: Invisible Enemy in Kazakhstan

by Peter Cave

  ‘Positively ecstatic,’ Hailsham agreed, with a cynical smile. He turned to look over at Tweedledum. ‘I suppose I’d better go and explain the position. Tell the men they’re welcome to come and say goodbye to him if they want to.’ He began to walk over towards the stricken trooper.

  Despite obvious pain and trauma from his recent surgery, Tweedledum had managed to stay conscious and even forced a weak smile as Hailsham stood over him. The major felt even more confident about the young nurse’s prediction that he would pull through safely.

  ‘Hi, boss,’ Tweedledum said weakly. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve come to offer me a piggyback.’

  Hailsham smiled back, realizing that Tweedledum was well aware of the score. ‘You’ve got some sick leave coming, Trooper. Won’t it be nice to spend it with such friendly people?’ He explained briefly the arrangements for getting him over the Mongolian border. ‘You’re going to be OK,’ he said firmly.

  Forgetting his wound for a moment, Tweedledum tried to nod, wincing with the sudden pain. He gritted his teeth, fighting to keep the brave smile on his face. ‘Have a drink waiting for me in the Paludrine Club, will you?’

  Hailsham nodded. ‘You got it. Mind you, you might not want to come home at all. Mukhtar, the head man, tells me he’s going to lend you one of his wives to keep you warm at night. And for anything else you might need, once you get your strength back.’

  ‘And here’s the even better news,’ came Tweedledee’s voice from behind him. ‘The rest of the boys have agreed to leave you their entire condom ration as a going-away present.’

  Hailsham turned, to see the men all hovering behind him, waiting to say their goodbyes. It was time to make a discreet exit, he decided.

  Just as Cyclops had originally suggested, the best way forward was the fork off the pathway which Andrew’s patrol had followed. Safar pointed to it as they all heaved on their bergens once again and prepared to move out.

  Mukhtar and a small delegation of the Uzbek men and women had come to see them off.

  ‘Shchisliva,’ said the head man. ‘Good luck to you.’ There was no attempt at a formal handshake.

  Hailsham bowed his head ceremoniously. ‘Daragoy drook,’ he replied. ‘Dear friend.’

  One of the women stepped forward, holding out a stick on which were impaled several small skinned and fire-seared animal carcasses. It was obviously a parting gift of food, Hailsham thought, accepting it with a suitable look of gratitude. Turning away, he followed Safar down the hill away from the camp.

  The Thinker looked at the distinctly unappetizing string of charred bodies with a look of distaste on his face. ‘What the bloody hell are those?’

  ‘Probably marmots,’ Hailsham told him.

  The corporal looked even more disgusted. ‘Bloody hell,’ he repeated.

  Cyclops grinned at him. ‘Don’t turn your nose up, Thinker. What the hell do you think was in that stew you enjoyed so much?’

  ‘Aw, Christ,’ the Thinker exploded. ‘Do you mean I’ve been eating bloody monkeys?’

  Cyclops shot him a pitying look. ‘You daft prat,’ he said witheringly. ‘You’re thinking of marmosets. Marmots are burrowing rodents – sort of a cross between a squirrel and a rabbit.’

  The pained look on the Thinker’s face told Cyclops that he found the fine distinction no more appetizing. ‘Well all I can say is I’m bloody looking forward to that fucking eagle,’ the Thinker muttered thickly.

  Cyclops grinned again. ‘I’ve got to shoot the bastard first.’

  They all fell silent, concentrating on keeping their balance as they started to descend the steepest part of the hill.

  Chapter 15

  General Chang was in a rare complimentary mood. Used as he was to almost total subservience and efficiency, he habitually took excellence for the norm and questioned the slightest deviation from perfection. There might be some areas in which the great communist system occasionally broke down, but the military machine ran with smooth and well-oiled precision.

  He regarded San Hung with a benevolent smile. ‘You have done well,’ he said generously, studying the report which the young lieutenant from military intelligence had just brought to his attention. ‘I shall make it my business to see that a commendation goes on your record.’

  San Hung did not linger to bask in this uncharacteristic warmth. Past experience had taught him that General Chang’s moods could change as rapidly as a pattern of fallen leaves in the wind. With an obsequious bow, he excused himself and backed out of the room.

  Chang thumbed the intercom on his desk, summoning Leng Pui, who appeared from one of the interconnecting offices as though he had been primed and waiting for the call. He, too, could not help but notice the rather smug and self-satisfied smile on his superior’s face.

  ‘You look pleased, General. Your plans continue to go well?’

  Chang allowed himself a patronizing nod. ‘With a bit of help from our SAS friends,’ he conceded. ‘They seem to be playing the game even more enthusiastically than I had hoped.’ He picked up the typewritten intelligence report and handed it to the other man.

  Leng Pui read the document carefully. It seemed almost trivial – merely an intercepted emergency distress call sent to the Kazakh military base in Alma-Ata some hours earlier. Under normal circumstances it might well have been filed away with dozens of other monitored messages and scraps of intelligence, but it was clear from Chang’s attitude that this particular message had some special significance.

  His failure to grasp that significance straight away placed Leng Pui in a somewhat awkward and vulnerable situation. Chang was obviously in a mood for praise and self-congratulation. To disappoint him by showing ignorance would not be wise.

  Improvising with the sort of devious cunning he had learned from his superior, Leng Pui assumed an approving smile. ‘This is excellent news,’ he said, with forced enthusiasm. ‘And you think the SAS are responsible?’

  Chang shrugged. ‘Who else could it be? Nothing we have learned has ever suggested that these mountain guerrilla groups possess a SAM capability – and we certainly have not supplied them with such. Mortars, shells and guns, yes – but nothing on this scale. Yet this distress call definitely establishes that a Kazakh military helicopter was brought down by a missile strike. Quite obviously, the SAS have chosen sides, as I fully expected them to do sooner or later.’

  ‘But sooner being better?’ Leng Pui said slyly, beginning to catch on at last.

  Chang beamed at him. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And now?’ Leng Pui asked.

  ‘And now we initiate the next move in the game,’ Chang answered. ‘We make sure that this information gets leaked to the appropriate Kazakh authorities. Knowing that they have a new enemy to contend with will confuse and disorientate them. Whatever moves they make to deal with it will inevitably split their already overtaxed military capabilities and weaken them.’

  ‘Making it that much easier for our own troops to continue fomenting trouble in the border areas,’ Leng Pui said, now fully appraising the situation. ‘And we gain a bonus, of course. Giving them the British as a scapegoat will provide a possible explanation of why the rebel factions have been able to arm themselves so well in recent months – and, indeed, to inflict such damage.’

  ‘You miss the most subtle, but perhaps the most important factor,’ Chang pointed out, annoyed that Leng Pui had not picked it up and congratulated him. ‘Creating bad relations with the British will have severe diplomatic, as well as military, repercussions. It will almost certainly affect any Russian attemps to gain economic aid and trade agreements with the European Community. So they will continue to be weak on two fronts – at the very time when our own economy is going from strength to strength. The face of war has changed, Leng Pui. Today the banknote is as formidable a weapon as the bomb.’

  ‘But if the British should find out…’ Leng Pui left the awful thought unspoken.

  ‘We must ensure that they don’t,’ Chang said with a c
hilling smile. ‘Whatever happens, we must appear to be completely innocent in all this. Which is why the SAS must never return from this mission alive.

  ‘And if they do?’

  ‘Then we shall have to kill them ourselves,’ said Chang with a shrug. ‘A helicopter or transport-aircraft crash on the way back to the Tacheng base. A tragic accident – or even better, some suggestion of a Kazakh attack – might suit our purpose best.’

  Chang looked directly into Leng Pui’s eyes, seeking admiration and finding it. His expansive mood bordered on euphoria. ‘I shall entrust you with the task of leaking this disinformation to Kazakh sources,’ he said, as though he were offering the man some rare and precious gift. ‘But you must be discreet, and extremely subtle. I have no wish to see my plans fail now because of clumsiness.’

  Leng Pui nodded deferentially. ‘You can count on me, General,’ he promised.

  Chang allowed himself a thin smile. ‘Yes, I’m sure I can,’ he murmured, knowing that his second-in-command had also walked into his intricately spun web of deceit. Now, even if the unthinkable happened and things went wrong, he had an underling to blame. It was another comforting safety-net to have beneath him now that he was walking such a high and dangerous tightrope on the world stage.

  * * *

  What had started out as an open mountain path had now closed in to form a tight and narrow ravine as Safar led the SAS team up into the higher mountains. Although steep, with a fairly steady incline of about thirty-five degrees, the floor of the ravine continued to be reasonably even and obstacle-free, suggesting that they were still following a regular route which was well trodden during the spring and summer months. The directness and comparative accessibility of the path had allowed them to make good and steady progress, gaining considerable distance and height in the past three hours.

  But this bonus was more than balanced by a single disadvantage. The narrow ravine faced almost directly north, and acted as a natural funnel for the savage winds tearing down from the wastes of the Siberian plains. It was like trying to climb along a wind-tunnel, but with the added problem that this wind carried a body- and mind-numbing chill factor which reduced the ambient temperature to well below zero. It tore through every square inch of their protective clothing, sucking out the precious body heat created by their physical exertion.

  Every yard gained was a triumph over physical torture, and there was a mental penalty to be paid as well. Like the rest, Hailsham was fully and constantly aware that it could only get progressively worse the higher they went. This knowledge clawed constantly at a man’s bodily strength and mental resolve, sapping both.

  With savage humour, Hailsham made a mental note to mention the place to a couple of the guys in Training Wing when they got back to Stirling Lines. It might appeal to their more sadistic inclinations. Certainly it made the Fan Dance’ – the 40-mile endurance march up Pen-y-Fan which marked the final phase of SAS recruitment selection – seem like a summer afternoon stroll. And in terms of a ‘sickener’, or testing ordeal, climbing up an icy wind-tunnel was one innovation which had yet to occur to someone’s nasty little mind.

  It was certainly God-forsaken terrain, Hailsham thought, staring ahead of him up the seemingly endless climb towards the snowcapped mountains. He could only admire the sheer tenacity of the rugged semi-nomadic tribespeople who called this country home and found it worth fighting, even dying, for. This admiration focused on the figure of Safar 20 yards ahead of him, trudging steadily onwards with hardly a break in his step and never a backward glance. Clad in a goatskin jacket and a few tattered blankets and with only a small skull-cap to cover his head, he seemed oblivious to the cold which chilled Hailsham to the bone even through the protection of his high-tech thermal gear. Perhaps it was simply a matter of growing acclimatized, Hailsham reflected. Or maybe it was a genetic thing – generations of survival in such extreme conditions producing a thickening of the blood, or some bodily capacity to produce extra heat.

  The thought depressed Hailsham, sapping his resolve to go on. They should not be here, a silent voice screamed in his brain. They did not belong in these mountains, in this country, in this stupid, logic-defying situation. He tore his eyes away from the little Uzbek guide, staring down instead at his next step, and the step after that. How many had he already taken, he wondered. How many more would he take before they reached their objective? How much longer could his body continue to dredge up new reserves of strength?

  It came as almost a shock to Hailsham to suddenly realize that his mind had locked into a cyclic chain of depression and defeat. ‘Stupid bastard,’ he cursed himself under his breath. It was not physical strength he needed most now – it was mental stamina. He was forgetting the most basic rules of endurance survival. More importantly, he was forgetting his men, and their psychological needs. They must be suffering the same mental and physical anguish, and indeed it was probably worse for the youngsters like Barry and Tweedledee. He fought to clear all negative thoughts from his head, concentrating on the positive aspects of what they had achieved so far. Positive reinforcement – that was the key phrase that the psychology boys liked to use a lot when they were discussing continuation and cross-training exercises.

  Hailsham broke step, coming to an abrupt halt and turning to look back down the steep incline behind him. The steppe was far below and behind them now, their original drop point an invisible spot beyond the horizon. His men were strung out at irregular intervals back along the ravine, looking isolated, fatigued and every bit as dispirited as he himself had been. It was time, he decided, to give the men an opportunity to recharge their mental and physical batteries with a short rest and the chance of some comradeship and shared humour. He held his ground as Cyclops, the Thinker and Tweedledee trudged wearily to join him. Barry and Jimmy were still a good 50 yards behind them, with Andrew the straggling backmarker, still encumbered by the crippling weight of the Stinger on top of his formidable personal burden.

  The major waited until they were all clustered around him again, and then faced forwards to check on Safar. The Uzbek guide had got the message now, and had come to a halt about 60 yards ahead of them. Realizing that a rest had been called, he started to backtrack slowly to join them.

  ‘Tea break, boss?’ Cyclops asked. ‘I could do with a nice hot cuppa. Hope somebody remembered to bring the fucking kettle.’

  ‘Dunno about the kettle, but the poor old sarge looks like he’s carrying the bleeding kitchen sink,’ Jimmy observed as Andrew finally staggered in to join them.

  It was Hailsham’s cue to tap the heavy missile launcher slung across Andrew’s broad back. ‘Time to ditch it, Andrew,’ he murmured. ‘We said the lower foothills, remember?’

  Andrew put on a brave face. ‘It’s all right, boss. I can manage it for a while longer,’ he insisted.

  ‘We could take turns,’ the Thinker suggested. ‘It’s been a pretty handy little tool to have along, so far.’

  Hailsham gave the idea only fleeting consideration, finally shaking his head. The climb ahead of them could only get more demanding, the weather conditions worse. It was important for the men’s morale that they perceive the task ahead of them as getting easier, not ever harder. Shedding excess weight now would help to give them all that much-needed boost.

  The decision made, Hailsham was adamant. ‘The Stinger stays here,’ he said firmly. ‘We’ll cache it, along with all the spare missiles the rest of you are carrying and any other non-essentials.’

  ‘Christ, boss, we’re travelling bloody light as it is,’ the Thinker pointed out. ‘There ain’t much else we can ditch, is there?’

  Hailsham shrugged, conceding that the corporal had a point. ‘Maybe not,’ he agreed. ‘But shed what you can. We’re going to need to be as light-footed as mountain goats in another day or so. The less energy we waste now, the easier it will be when the going really gets tough.’

  To start the ball rolling, Hailsham stripped off his own bergen and rummaged through his basic equ
ipment, discarding what few bits and pieces he considered reasonably expendable. The others followed suit, and in a few minutes there was a small pile at the side of the ravine.

  ‘Wonder what the bye-laws round here are like for littering?’ Jimmy said. ‘We don’t want to upset the locals, do we?’

  ‘I expect they’re already pissed off, what with all those bits of junk from the helicopter scattered all over their nice clean mountains,’ answered Barry, raising a smile. ‘And talking of dumping stuff, how do we have a crap without freezing our arses off?’

  ‘Do it in your pants,’ Jimmy suggested. ‘It might help to keep your balls warm. Only stay downwind from me, that’s all.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have thought it would bother you,’ Barry retorted. ‘You’re full of crap already.’

  Hailsham smiled to himself as the lavatorial humour served its traditional purpose of lightening the men’s spirits. The rest break was obviously having its intended effect. He busied himself dragging all the bergens into a pile across the width of the narrow footpath. Heaped one on top of the other, they made a partially effective windbreak. Hailsham squatted down behind it, grateful for its shelter.

  ‘Why don’t we all sit down and have a cosy little cuddle?’ he said with a leer. ‘And if you’re all really good boys I’ll tell you the story about the whore and the donkey in Kuwait City.’

  ‘Which one did you fancy then, boss?’ Jimmy shot back. But he took Hailsham’s suggestion at face value, sitting down and pressing himself up against his superior officer in the lee of the makeshift windbreak. The idea caught on quickly. Tweedledee, Andrew, Barry, Cyclops and the Thinker joined them gratefully, squatting down in a tight little circle and huddling together to pool their precious body warmth.