Then Poor Man strode in, smiling. — “You angry?” he said. “Pindzuh minuta.” Five minutes. — His men carried cases of bullets and rocket-launcher shells into the storeroom. Then Poor Man snapped his fingers for the American to get up, and everyone climbed into the back of a covered van. All the other Mujahideen were sitting there. They smiled at him. The van went up the dirt road toward the mountains. It began to rain. Cool rain dripped in through the canopy, refreshing everyone’s face. The Young Man was exhilarated. Around him sat the Mujahideen — twenty of them now — laughing at each other, smoking, cleaning their topaks. The van was full of the pleasant smell of gun oil.
At six that evening they reached the village again. The malik welcomed the Young Man back and embraced him. All the other men were sitting out in the middle of the village, watching the Mujahideen. They were cooking kebabs for the children who were too young to observe Ramazan. The Young Man’s mouth watered. Suleiman, a Mujahid with whom he was especially friendly, offered to buy him one, but the Young Man smiled nobly and said, “You no eat, I no eat.” (It sounded very funny in Pushtu.) — The children of the village surrounded him; he was a novelty again, having been gone for half the day. They wanted him to take pictures of them for the Afghanistan Picture Show. But he said no. He was only taking pictures of the jihad. He was afraid that his film would run out.
The malik invited the Young Man into his house, where, out of sight of the others, he was given a meal. It had not occurred to them that he wanted to be strong like them; how could they know? And if he refused the meal he would give offense. It was lukewarm tea and bread with a bite taken out of it. The malik explained proudly that the Young Man was receiving Poor Man’s own leavings. They tasted good. — An hour later the Mujahideen broke fast together in a grand meal. Poor Man had the Young Man sit at his right side, and spoke to him in his minimal English, to honor him. They were to leave for Afghanistan at 3 a.m.
The Young Man lay awake all night, bitten by bedbugs, excited and terrified. He had been given a charpoy. Beside him, in the next bed, Poor Man coughed and coughed.
“My name is ——— ——. I come from Ningrahar. I am the son of —— and the grandson of ——.‖ I command a group of Afghan Mujahideen. In a recent battle I succeeded in getting some small souvenirs, including the uniform of a Russian brigadier general, which I brought to Peshawar and had sent to Islamabad. This battle took place at a Russian base with a hospital and landing facilities. The fighting lasted for eighteen days, in which period I killed the Russian general and several other people.”
“What tactics have you found to be most successful against the Russians?” the Young Man asked.
“Last year, when we were weaker from a military point of view, we used to perform night operations. Now we have Russian weapons, such as Kalashnikovs, and the battles can take place in the daytime. We can inflict heavy casualties now. We still cannot give them a pitched battle, especially in the daytime, but in our hilly terrain we can dig in with trenches and give them a good fight.”
“Which Soviet tactics cause you the greatest problems?”
“There are four stages,” Poor Man said. — He was sitting out with the General and the Young Man at the General’s house in Peshawar, and a bird was hopping in the lime tree. — “First they come with gun-ship helicopters, and they know our locations; they bombard us. After that, the gunships having marked the place for them, come the MiG bombers. Third comes heavy artillery fire — mortars and rockets. And then the fourth is the Soviet infantry. We have to fight directly with them in this fourth stage, because the infantry comes up against us head-on. All of this is difficult.”
“What arms and other aid would you most appreciate?”
“The first thing we want is anti-gunship weapons, to shoot down the helicopters, because they are the most damaging thing. And secondly, we want weapons that we can give to the people, so that we can raise troops.”
“Are the Afghans getting tired of fighting now? Do they fight less strongly?”
“We have a high morale,” Poor Man smiled. “We like to fight, and we will keep on fighting.”
They walked for thirty-six hours. What the Young Man hated the most were the river crossings in the dark, when you could vaguely see the rocks and foaming water, but well enough to be gambling with each jump from stone to stone. The Mujahideen did everything they could for him. They carried his pack, held him by the hand, and let him lean his weight on them as they made their way up and down the mountains. They even carried him piggyback where the fordings were especially difficult. Even so, the Young Man quickly became exhausted. One thing that forced him to go on, however (the other was the impossibility of returning alone), was a sense of shame, for his body was no less well-made than theirs; and in appurtenances he was better equipped, having his comfortable Italian hiking boots while they wore sandals and slippers, and as they walked their feet were sometimes bleeding on the rocks. Their limbs, like his, swelled up and purpled with the altitude and the great exertion. Like him, they licked their lips with thirst. They went up into the snow and the fog of the mountain peaks, and across a terrifying green meadow where it hailed continually — hailstones half as big as a fist. Then they were in Afghanistan, and it was not safe to slacken their steps, even, for fear that a helicopter would see them.a They descended through the mists again, the trail down the cliffsides being nothing but loose, wobbling rocks (for all the easy paths had been mined by the Soviets). Then they slipped down kilometer after kilometer of snow-covered, rotten summer glacier, the snow sometimes covering huge pits where a boulder had broken through to the water ten feet beneath. The Young Man was exhausted and terrified. He stumbled along, leaning on their shoulders. — What a burden he was! As I recall this, you cannot imagine a tenth of the shame I still feel. — At one point he tripped in the unfamiliar baggy trousers and ripped them halfway up the length of a leg. They all chuckled. They sat him down; a Mujahid pulled out needle and thread and sewed them up again. (If a plane had come then, not a one could have survived.) They were unfailingly cheerful, praying and singing and smiling as they went. No one lagged or complained but the Young Man. Once he was so tired that they carried him half a kilometer. Then his shame overcame his exhaustion again, and he kept on. Early in the second morning, when it was still dark, he thought he couldn’t go on. Then one of them finally lost patience and gave him a prod in the back, yelling at him to go faster. Another one pinched him in the arm and hand. This made him angry. — “Don’t treat me like that!” he said to the Mujahid who had shoved him. “I Ameriki, not Mujahid.” The Young Man meant: I don’t belong to you. He shook the Mujahid by the shoulder. The man snarled and shook him back, much harder, and dug his rifle butt into the Young Man’s back. This was real; this made him keep going. His slowness was endangering their lives. Without him they could have made the journey in one long day.
When they came up to the top of a bluff, Poor Man told him to be careful where he stepped. The trail had many little bombs, he said.
A little after sunrise, as they came into the main war zone, they stopped for tea. They fed him unripe plums, which tasted delicious in his dry mouth, and lumps of gura, or hardened sugar. Gradually the way grew easier and shadier. As they walked they reached up and plucked fruits and nuts. At all times his friend Suleiman stood at his shoulder supporting him.