We gazed down then into the dark creases of the hills, as if we might see, huddled in the shadows of night, small, fierce bands of insurgents. The hills were black, though, revealing nothing of the danger that might be lurking in them. The airfield, as we swooped down towards it, was dotted with hundreds of small fires, which glittered so that it seemed, for a moment, as if the plane had been upturned and beneath us stretched a starry expanse of sky. As we drew closer, we could see, huddled around these fires, the tents of the dembels◦– soldiers who had served their two years and were waiting for their flight home.
A large crowd of them gathered around the plane as it drew to a stop at the end of the runway. They surrounded us, staggering drunkenly, laughing and calling.
‘You don’t stand a chance…’
‘You won’t survive…’
‘Better to kill yourselves now. You don’t want to know what they will do to you…’
We stumbled through the crowd to the trucks awaiting us, to take us through the town to our base. The moon hung heavily over the city, as though it were closer to the earth here than it had been back home. The streets were deserted, only soldiers visible at the corner checkpoints, waving us through peremptorily.
‘Curfew,’ the driver explained.
In the centre of our barracks, on the edge of the city, a large eucalyptus spread its bare branches across a well-trimmed lawn. The dusty parade ground glimmered in the moonlight. I took a deep breath of the sharp night air and stood for a few moments gazing over the rooftops towards the mountains. They shone milky blue against the pitch darkness of the sky.
The rhythm of life soon established itself. Six a.m. reveille. Physical training. Breakfast. Line-up. Political studies. Weapons-cleaning. Lunch. Duties. Dinner. Lights out. Reveille had to be perfect; three seconds and one hundred and eighty men had to get out of bed and fall in. After forty-five seconds we had to be in full uniform. One person failed and we all did it again. And again. And again until we were perfect.
We soon learnt, too, the immutable hierarchy of the army in Afghanistan. The lowest level of this hierarchy was the new recruit, fresh in the country. After six months of service you became a ‘granddad’ and nearing the end of service a dembel.
The new recruit was nothing, an object, a punch bag or slave for the granddads. Their word was the word of God.
‘What’s your name?’ Kozlov, a granddad from Moscow, asked as I waited outside the stinking latrines on the first day. Behind him stood another granddad. Kozlov eyed the packet of cigarettes I held.
I told him my name.
Kozlov held out his hand. For a moment I did not grasp his meaning.
‘Give me the cigarettes,’ he said then, as if to an idiot.
Instinctively I slipped them into the pocket of my jacket. They were my last pack of More cigarettes.
‘How long have you been here?’ Kozlov asked.
‘What’s it to you?’ I said. I glanced at Kolya, who stood beside me. There were two of them and two of us, I figured.
Kozlov laughed. His face twisted into a sneer. He was not much bigger than me, but his body was lean and taut, his skin tough and tanned. He grabbed the front of my jacket and swung my back against the concrete wall of the latrines.
‘Nobody taught you no fucking manners, you little shit?’
‘I think this kid needs teaching a few lessons in respect,’ the granddad behind Kozlov chipped in.
‘Lick my boots clean, you little shit.’
I stared at him, watching the curve of his smile, believing even then, perhaps, that it was a joke. I didn’t see the first punch coming. His knuckles ground into my kidneys. I gasped and fell to my knees. Kolya stepped forward but the other granddad grabbed him and threw him aside.
‘Lick my boots, shitface, lick them until they shine,’ Kozlov snarled. He hit me hard. My head snapped back and cracked against the concrete wall. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kolya scrabble away from the boot of Kozlov’s friend. Kozlov karate-chopped the base of my neck and I crashed to the earth by his shoe. He thrust his foot against my face, splitting my lip. As I struggled away, his other boot came down heavily on the back of my neck.
‘Lick them, or I’ll break your fucking neck,’ he hissed.
I licked them. I felt the thick dust furring my tongue, the sand gritty on my teeth. Kozlov kept the pressure hard against the back of my neck so that I could barely move and had to stick my tongue out to reach the toe of his boot.
‘Lick it well, make it shine, or I’ll squash your backbone and cripple you for life. You think anybody is going to give a fuck? Do you think anybody will listen to you? Do you want me to tell you what would happen if you reported this? Let me tell you. The senior officer would come and ask why you hadn’t been trained properly, then you would get a proper fucking beating for having reported your seniors. Do you understand?’ I heard the shuffle of feet on the gravel as the latrine door opened. The pressure on the back of my neck lessened so that I was able to swivel my head free and roll away. I looked up to see a large form blocking the light of the sun above me.
‘Enjoying yourself, Kozlov?’ a voice asked.
‘Just teaching the kid a few rules,’ Kozlov said. He bent over and pulled the packet of cigarettes from my pocket. When he had gone, the large shape bent down and lifted me up.
‘You OK?’
I nodded.
‘Vassily,’ he said, holding out a large hand. His grip was crushing. ‘From Novgorod. I heard you speaking Lithuanian to another of the recruits.’
‘You’ve been to Lithuania?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. It’s not so far from Novgorod.’
I leant back against the latrine wall. My kidneys throbbed painfully and I found it hard to straighten up. Vassily took out a packet of cigarettes and offered me one.
‘You’re lucky that was Kozlov,’ he said, holding out a red plastic lighter. ‘He’s been here only six months and is still flexing his muscles. Believe what he said, nobody would give a fuck if he broke your neck. You want to go home, you better learn some rules.’
For the next few days, when I pissed blood flecked my urine. I stumbled through physical training, assault courses, hand-to-hand combat using shovels, sticks, knives, breaking bricks with our fists, martial arts. When we were not fighting we were washing the clothes of the granddads, starching them, sewing gleaming new white patches of cloth on their collars, making them drinks; ‘Everything but holding their dicks when they piss,’ as Kolya put it.
Twice a week a convoy left the base to pick up supplies from Kabul. Kolya and I were picked for duty on the convoy’s armed escort. Vassily was chosen too. After loading sacks of potatoes and boxes of tinned milk on to the back of the KamaZ, Vassily suggested he introduce us to the city. Shouldering our Kalashnikovs, we followed him, leaving the truck in the compound.
The streets were cluttered with wooden carts loaded high with boxes of firewood so large and heavy it did not seem possible that the small mules could pull them, or that they would fit down the narrow lanes. The dusty roads were heavy with traffic. Camels, mules, Toyotas, Mercedes, Zhigulis, Volgas imported from Russia. A brightly painted bus◦– yellow and red with orange flowers and geometrical patterns, a riot of colours and rattles and grunts, bags and suitcases piled high on its roof, belching acrid fumes into the street. Pipes poked from buildings, pouring sewerage into the gutters.
Around us rose the mountains, blue and misty, faintly visible through the thick clouds of wood smoke hanging over the streets. Turbanned men wandered around indolently, while women flitted along in small groups shrouded in chadors◦– blue, green, faded and tatty or stiff and neatly embroidered. There was something spectral about the way they passed noiselessly down the street.