‘Yet you came to another war zone,’ Amica said at length.
‘I’ve seen enough killing, but I’d heard something of what mines have done here and I wanted to do something to help. I had to crawl through a minefield in the Falklands – they’re all over the islands. They weren’t laid to a plan; no one knows where they are or how many. But it’s easy there; they just fence off the land and leave it. It’s only fit for sheep grazing, anyway.’
I saw the glint of a tear in the corner of her eye. There was another series of explosions and more flashes lit up the northern hillsides. ‘My country has been at war for more than thirty years,’ she said. ‘In all that time, I cannot ever remember a night that was not broken by the sound of gunfire. Some say we have never been at peace throughout our history. When we are not battling invaders, we fight among ourselves. The Soviets are long gone, but the war continues, Muslim against Muslim. Perhaps it will never end.’ She passed her hand over her face. ‘You will understand as you see more of Afghanistan. As you look around, something will puzzle you. At first you will not even realise what it is. Then it will begin to dawn on you. A whole generation is missing. There are virtually no men between fifteen and forty. Some are away fighting for the Taliban or one of the warlords, but most are already dead.
‘In the absence of their fathers, young boys must provide for their families. The women and girls cannot help them; they are confined to their homes, forbidden to work and banned from education after the age of eight. We’re not even allowed to possess money – why would we need it when we’re virtual prisoners in our own houses? Even there we’re not safe from the mullahs. A woman is forbidden to wash when menstruating or for forty days before the scheduled date of a birth and for forty days after it. Can you imagine that?’
‘I’d rather not,’ I said.
‘The boys do everything. They are builders, carpenters, money changers, mechanics, smugglers, farmers, thieves, but even they are not too young to fight. The Taliban always need more soldiers, and if there are not enough men, then boys must do.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘Christian rulers once sent the Children’s Crusade to besiege Jerusalem. They were slaughtered in their thousands. Now Muslim children are sent to fight and die for their religion. The mullahs tell us that there is no holier death, but I cannot believe that Allah would demand the death of children as the price of faith.’
‘And yet you are still a Muslim,’ I said, ‘despite everything that’s been done here in the name of Islam.’
‘Do you blame Christianity because the Catholic Church supported Hitler? Is the religion at fault because of what men do in its name?’ She fell silent.
‘Why do you stay in Afghanistan?’
‘Because it is my country, because I hope to play a small part in changing it for the better, and because.’ She hesitated. ‘Because my husband is buried here.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’
‘How could you?’
‘When did he die?’
‘When the Taliban took Kabul.’ Her voice had hardened and she looked away from me again, gazing towards the mountains.
I watched her for a while, then walked quietly away across the compound, leaving her staring into the darkness.
* * *
I catnapped for half an hour, but woke with the dawn, an Air Force habit so ingrained that no amount of fatigue could shake it. I felt the stubble on my chin, but the thought of shaving with blunt razors and cold water for months persuaded me to begin growing a beard. I splashed ice-cold water on my face and walked to the canteen.
Breakfast was simple but delicious – grapes, green tea and discs of warm, fresh naan bread. Jeff arrived a few minutes later, bleary-eyed. I saw him wink at the one-armed kitchen boy and slip him a couple of crumpled Afghani notes. When he sat down opposite me, he had two boiled eggs on his plate.
‘Didn’t take you long to work out the system, did it?’ I said.
‘He’d get them for you as well, if you asked him. Twenty Afghanis a throw.’
‘I’m the poor sap who has to survive on Air Force pay, remember. Anyway, I’m quite happy with my breakfast, thanks.’
‘Enjoy it while you can, Jeff,’ Dexy said, sitting down next to him. ‘The only protein you’ll be seeing once we get to Konarlan will be if you manage to catch a rat.’
I finished my breakfast and walked outside. Half the compound was still in shade, but I could already feel the heat of the sun as it rose above the mountains. I strolled over to the Hydra and began checking it, peering at the engine intakes and the landing gear and scanning the rotors for any sign of damage. Then I clambered into the cockpit and settled myself into the tiny, rock-hard seat. Jeff followed me a few moments later.
Compared to a Puma or a Chinook, the Hydra was rudimentary in the extreme. Much of the interior, even down to the grips on the flying controls, was bare metal. The backs of the pilots’ seats were the only division between the cockpit and the cab. There were no seats in the back, just metal rings fixed to the walls at one-metre intervals, to which equipment – or passengers – could be attached. There was a winch and a mounting for a machine gun by the door, and twin guns in the nose, fired by the pilot.
The only instrumentation was an altimeter, an engine gauge, an airspeed indicator, temperature, fuel and oil pressure gauges and a warning panel. There was no radalt, no head-up display, no computerised navigation system.
‘As far as I can see, the only way to navigate is by holding a folded map on your knee. How did we come to believe for so long that the Soviet threat was quite so terrifying?’
Jeff looked up from the instruments. ‘Because it suited everybody to believe it. The forces got more manpower and weapons – and more generals and air marshals – the arms manufacturers got more orders, there were jobs for spies, spooks, analysts and experts by the bucketload, and the politicians got to talk tough and strike macho postures without ever running the risk of their bluff being called.’
‘It’s good to see that your time in the Air Force hasn’t blunted your idealism; it could so easily have turned you into a cynic.’
‘So what’s your explanation?’
I smiled. ‘The same as yours.’
Dexy too had climbed into the cab. He leaned forward in the gap between our seats. ‘Think you can fly it?’
‘It’s a helicopter, isn’t it?’ Jeff said. ‘Of course we can fly it.’ I held up a hand. ‘But first we’ll need a couple of hours bumping around to get used to the control settings and the feel of it. After that we can take it anywhere you like, though we might need a little more practice before we go low-level.’
Dexy smiled. ‘We’ll save that for tomorrow then.’
‘We’re going to start her up in a moment. You’re welcome to stay right where you are while we take it for a test drive, but perhaps you’d be happier watching from ground level?’
‘I’ve some stuff to do,’ Dexy said a little too quickly. ‘I’ll see you when you get back.’
‘What’s the matter?’ Jeff said. ‘Don’t you trust us?’ We exchanged a private smile as Dexy scrambled down from the cab.
I pulled on the flying helmet and connected the intercom and radio cables. I ran my eyes over the instruments, then reached up for the starting switch. There was a whine as the turbine began to turn. The engine stuttered and belched black smoke, then roared into life.
Jeff checked for fuel and hydraulic leaks as I kept my eyes on the engine gauge. When it reached twenty per cent, I slid the lever from stop to ground idle and Jeff released the rotor brake on his side of the cockpit. The noise of the engine doubled and the blades began to turn. Their shadows passed over the cockpit with a slow swish like a scythe cutting grass, then accelerated to a blur as the noise grew.
I slid the levers forward again into flight idle and felt the Hydra lift a little on its springs. I released the brakes and eased the cyclic forward a touch. The response was more sluggish and the Hydra’s controls slacker than the Pumas I no
rmally flew.
Jeff and I ran through a final set of preflight checks, then I radioed Kabul control and announced ourselves in both Farsi and English. ‘Kabul Centre, this is AMCO helicopter, seeking clearance for a proving flight.’
I was uncertain whether the centre would even be manned, but I was greeted at once in the precise English of a Pakistani air traffic controller: ‘Roger, AMCO. Your destination?’
‘Centre, we’re returning to the AMCO compound here.’
‘Roger AMCO, no traffic, you’re cleared for take-off.’
I glanced across at Jeff. ‘Here goes.’
He nodded. ‘Shit or bust.’
I checked the sky was clear above us, then took a firm grip on the cyclic with my right hand and began to pull the collective lever slowly upwards with my left. The engine howled and the downwash sent dust, sand and debris scudding away across the compound. The nose lifted first, followed a fraction of a second later by the tail. It lurched upwards, swaying from side to side and dipping at the nose and tail as I adjusted the controls.
The heli plunged downwards as I pushed the cyclic forward a touch too far. I jerked it back at once, but the Hydra still hit the ground with a thud that made the springs groan, and then catapulted back into the air. I tried again, nosing the heli around within the tight confines of the compound.
Twice more I almost lost it as the unfamiliar travel on the controls undid me, but each time I recovered it quickly. Finally I managed to settle it into a relatively stable hover. I held it at twenty feet above the ground, using a notch in the hills on the horizon as a reference point to check attitude and stability, while I kept testing the response of the controls to minute adjustments of the cyclic and collective.
I paddled the left and right rudders to test the rate of turn, then raised the collective higher. The beat of the rotors quickened and the nose rose under the extra power. I pushed the cyclic forward a fraction to hold it at five degrees above the horizon and felt the vibrations through the fuselage change.
As we climbed higher, I saw the knot of guards outside the gate. The low sun cast long, thin black shadows on the ground beyond them. I stared at them, trying to read the shapes, then I dumped the collective and sent the heli plunging back towards the ground as shots rang out above the thunder of the engine.
‘What the fu—?’
We hit the ground so hard that Jeff’s helmet slammed into the roof of the cab.
I killed the engine, hit the belt release and was out of the heli in seconds, ducking under the rotors as they wound down. I kept the armoured steel hull between myself and the gates, in case the Taliban were still trigger-happy, then sprinted for the corner of the building.
Jeff joined me a couple of seconds later.
I peered round towards the gates. Dexy and Amica were already there, remonstrating with the guards. As we stepped out of cover, I glanced at Jeff. ‘How does that hundred K look now?’
There was a catch in his voice. ‘Not enough, not nearly enough.’
Dexy and Amica walked over to us. ‘You guys all right?’
‘I’m beginning to see why the other pilots left. What the hell was that about?’
Dexy gave a weary shake of his head. ‘We had no authorisation to make a flight today.’
‘We were cleared by air traffic control.’
‘But not by the soldiers on the gate.’
‘So they shot at us?’
Amica shrugged. ‘It’s the normal Taliban solution to a problem.’
‘So what happens now?’
‘We have to wait for authorisation, even though we already have blanket permission to fly within our defined areas. You may as well take the rest of the day off. Their commander, Salan, is otherwise engaged today, so we’re going nowhere till tomorrow at the earliest.’
‘I have to go to the bazaar,’ Amica said. ‘There’s something we need. I must bring another woman with me. Why don’t you come with us?’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’d like that.’
Amica and her colleague appeared a few minutes later, indistinguishable from each other in mauve burkas. I peered at the mesh, trying to make out the features behind.
‘Don’t do that in the bazaar,’ Amica said. ‘Avoid looking at any women, even though they are veiled, and be very careful not to touch any. Even brushing against them is grossly offensive. You must also walk a few paces in front of us. It is forbidden for men and women who are not married to walk together.’
‘Even with a safe conduct from the Taliban?’
She shrugged. ‘It is not wise to put too much trust in pieces of paper, especially when most of the Taliban soldiers can’t read.’
Despite his beating the previous day, Panna, chauffeuring again, produced another tape of Indian film music with a flourish and began to play it as soon as we were through the compound gates.
We drove in towards the city centre, past shelled buildings and ranks of rusting, sawn-off shipping containers that provided homes for families who peered at us from their dark interiors. ‘We call this area Khair Khana – Container City,’ Amica said.
Only a few figures moved through the desolate landscape. An old man and two boys, who could not have been more than eight, were working at the side of the road, using wooden forms to make mud bricks out of the dust and rubble that must once have been their house. Their faces looked back at us, stoic and impassive, their skin, hair and clothes so covered in clinging yellow dust that they looked as if they had grown out of the rubble.
A few moments later Panna pulled up at the side of the road. ‘We’ll walk from here,’ Amica said. She handed me a thick bundle of grubby banknotes. ‘We’re making for the Street of the Scribes. I’ll show you the shop. They sell rubber stamps ready-cut with Islamic texts and symbols. I want you to buy as many different ones as you can, every kind of paper and every shade of green ink they have.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ I said. ‘You’re going to make your own greetings cards.’
She hesitated. ‘The Taliban commanders and the local warlords all issue safe-conduct passes, like the one you’re carrying. Many of the commanders and the vast majority of their foot soldiers are illiterate, so the signature is often a thumbprint and the pictogram is as important for ID purposes as the script.’
‘Why do we need to forge them when we’re operating with the permission of the Taliban?’
She hesitated again. ‘Sometimes we need to work in areas the Taliban want to keep us out of.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Clearing mines, of course.’
‘What happens if we get caught?’
‘I try not to think about that.’
After the silence of the near-empty streets came the noise and bustle of the bazaar. The gutters were choked with refuse and stank of raw sewage. Crowds of pedestrians pushed past, apparently oblivious to the stench. Many hobbled on crutches or were half-supported, half-carried by their companions.
We threaded our way along the narrow, twisting alleys. Women in blue, mauve and cinnamon coloured burkas stopped dead at our approach and turned their faces to the wall until we had passed them by.
The stench of animal and human dung and black, choking clouds of diesel smoke belched out by the ancient trucks mingled with wood smoke, incense, the aromas of fruits and spices, and the stink of decaying meat. The scrawny mule of an ice seller dragged a cart laden with opaque blocks draped in wet sacking. Clouds of flies followed it, swarming on the water dripping slowly from the cart. Stallholders squatted on the ground, haranguing or haggling with passers-by. The people all looked pinched and thin and the goods on display were a threadbare collection – sandals cut from old tyres, second-hand cooking pots, empty bottles and used light bulbs. Pedlars and hawkers with ramshackle stalls, upturned cardboard boxes or sheets of crumpled paper spread in the dirt, offered cigarettes and gaudy plastic trinkets. Others sold cucumbers, radishes and tomatoes, grapes, mangoes and apricots, though few people seemed to have the money to
buy. Only the gun shops were lavishly equipped, with an assortment of rifles, including some ancient Lee-Enfields dating back to the British–Afghan wars, and rows and rows of Kalashnikovs.
I nudged Jeff. ‘Each one of those represents a dead Russian.’
‘Or an Afghan,’ Amica said. ‘The puppet government’s troops were issued with them too.’
A nearby stall sold the staples of Afghan life – black and green tea, rice, sugar and naan bread. The price of a Kalashnikov was the same as a half-kilo of sugar.
The metal workers were clustered together at one end of the bazaar, announcing themselves by the din of hammers pounding on steel. An astonishing array of goods made from recycled metal lay on the stalls or in the dust around their feet. Some had been burnished until the metal shone. The dull surface of others still carried Cyrillic inscriptions, showing their Soviet origin.
Like virtually all the stallholders, the coppersmiths and metalworkers were young boys. So too were the money changers. ‘Inglisi!’ one shouted, brandishing thick bundles of much used currency. ‘You want Afghanis? I take dollars, pounds, marks, francs, rupees, dirhams, Saudi riyals. I give you good rate.’
I smiled and shook my head.
We found what we were seeking in a long narrow alley off the main bazaar. A scribe sat cross-legged on the step, writing letters for a queue of illiterates waiting their turn with stoic patience. The shop was cramped and gloomy and every inch of the walls and ceiling was covered with merchandise. Among the tins and boxes were sheafs of yellowing paper, Chinese-made ballpoint pens and a few fountain pens which I’d already noticed people wearing as jewellery.
The shopkeeper, a wizened old man showing a mouthful of black teeth, greeted us with his hand on his heart, and immediately dispatched a boy to fetch tea from the teahouse.
I sorted through his stock, amassing a pile of rubber stamps, some blank, others ready-cut with different inscriptions from the Koran, images of crossed scimitars and Kalashnikovs and the wavering outline of the borders of Afghanistan. He shot us a suspicious glance as I lined up our purchases, but by the time we had done some half-hearted haggling, the amount we were paying had swept away his reservations.
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