In Honour Bound

'That's bloody ridiculous.'

Barney walked to the kitchen. Rossiter heard the chink of a metal spoon in the coffee jar. He heard the spout of water running into the kettle. He heard the match strike.

Rossiter slammed the door shut behind him.

* * *

The Brigadier rang the front door bell of the St James's flat of the Foreign Secretary at three o'clock in the morning.

The door eased open to the length of a security chain. The Brigadier held his ID card at the gap, though he could see no one. In a few moments the chain was unhooked and the door opened. The detective was shirt-sleeved, there was a revolver poking from the waistband of his trousers and a radio hanging from a strap looped over his shoulder.

All a bit melodramatic, the Brigadier thought.

'Fotheringay…I have to see the Foreign Secretary.'

The detective pulled a face. He left the Brigadier standing in the hallway and lighting a cigarette. He went to a telephone to wake the man he guarded.

'Freddie, can we have some coffee…in the drawing room.'

The Foreign Secretary came down the stairs and led the way into the heavily curtained room. He switched on a fierce ceiling light, waved for the Brigadier to sit down.

'You have my attention.'

'Afghanistan, sir.'

'The Redeye business?'

'It's collapsed.'

The Foreign Secretary tugged at a tangle of his hair, pursed his lips. A kettle whistled, muffled, behind closed doors.

'We'll wait until the coffee's ready or would you prefer tea? No? Please smoke, Brigadier.'

The Brigadier blushed. The Foreign Secretary passed him an ashtray.

The detective carried in a tray. A jug of coffee and hot milk. He left them.

'How has it collapsed?'

'Lack of discretion by our people, the Pakistan security authorities want them out. We'd stalled on that for the last week, run up a yarn about Refugee Action to give the mission a chance. That's exhausted now.'

'You gave the mission a chance?'

'Our instructor had two weeks with a group preparing them to use Redeye. The group went into Afghanistan nine days ago, fourteen of them. They bungled it. They lost two missiles, they fired two more ineffectively. Thirteen of the fourteen died. That's how it collapsed.'

'And why are you here now?'

'To clear with you that we extricate our personnel as soon as possible. Dispose of the equipment that remains and get out. Lunchtime flight to Delhi, something like that, before the Pakistanis start hollering.'

'What are the alternatives?'

'There are no alternatives, sir.'

The Foreign Secretary played with the tassel of his dressing gown cord, quite furiously. He had not touched his coffee.

'You promised me.'

'I beg your pardon, sir?'

'You promised you were going to give me the workings of a Soviet gunship helicopter.'

'I promised that you would have our best effort.'

'And you've fouled it.'

'It's not an exact science,' said the Brigadier. 'Nothing exact about downing a sophisticated helicopter when you've got a savage on the trigger with two weeks coaching behind him.'

'Did I tell you what the Americans said to me, the provocation I was under that led me to bring you in? And now you're calling it off before we've even begun.'

The Brigadier bridled. He stubbed out his cigarette.

'I'm calling nothing off, you're calling it off. You authorised an intelligence-gathering mission. You started it and now you have to end it, sir.'

There was a light smile on the Foreign Secretary's face, the smile of the disillusioned. He said nothing.

The Brigadier fidgeted in his seat. He wanted to be out, in his own bed.

'I'll send the signal then, for them to get out soonest.'

The Foreign Secretary said, 'The man you sent to Pakistan, the Special Air Service instructor, he couldn't go and get the helicopter himself, could he?'

'A British serving officer, inside Afghanistan, with a heat-seeker missile? Preposterous and out of the question. I'm sorry, sir, I've been in Intelligence fifteen years, what you learn in fifteen years is to accept a fact. The fact is that you win a few and you lose a lot. That's the way it is, whether you're playing against the Soviets or the cousins. Another thing you learn, sir, you don't throw good after bad, when it's bad you cut and quit.'

'Well, Brigadier. I am very disappointed. I am sad beyond means at thirteen pointless deaths, but I am bitterly disappointed at the failure of your mission. Send your signal and see at least if you can end the affair without any more of a mess. Freddie,' he hardly raised his voice, but the door opened, 'please show the Brigadier out when he has finished his coffee. If you'll excuse me, Brigadier, I'll go back to bed. Goodnight to you.'

* * *

Barney came into his bedroom carrying the missiles cradled across his outstretched arms. He laid them on the rug beside the bed. The boy was sleeping, on his back, mouth open, half covered by the blanket.

Beside the missiles Barney started a small pile. A bottle of penicillin tablets, a packet of three morphine-loaded syringes, a packet of salt tablets, a bottle of glucose sweets, aspirin and dysentery and diarrhoea pills. All he had rifled from the Refugee Action surgery cupboard. Onto the pile he put the hard bar of soap that would last, and then his thick socks.

Other than that his eyes were open, the boy gave no sign of having woken.

Barney undressed. His face was set, grim masked, without expression, shadowed by the light squeezing through the half opened door. He replaced his short-sleeved shirt and his jeans with the dress of a Pathan tribesman. He climbed into the wide-waisted trousers of rough cotton, pulled tight the waist string. He slipped the long shirt over his head. Then the heavy woollen socks. He was lacing his boots when the boy spoke.

'You are going home, Barney?'

'No.'

'Where are you going?'

'Walking, Gul Bahdur.'

'Where I have been?'

'Tell me about the helicopter attack.'

The boy twisted off his back, lay on his side with his hand holding up his head. Barney threaded the laces through the eyes of the boots.

'After we had fired the missile? After that? First the helicopter we had fired against turned fast away. Then it circled us, going very quickly, as it searched for us. Then it came at us. They began with the rockets. I think four rockets at a time, then when it was very close there was the machine gun, the big machine gun, the big machine gun at the front. It came over us once and when it had gone by then it turned and stayed a little way from us. Then there were more rockets, and all the time the machine gun. Each time one of the men tried to run he was caught by the machine gun. You couldn't even fire at it, every time you fired, the machine gun came after you. When it came the last time it came so low that I could see the gunner in the front and the pilot behind. I could see their faces, Barney. And all the time the other helicopters circled high above us. They watched to see that we had all been killed. I could see their faces, then the helicopters went away. It was not a very long time, the attack.'

'Why did you carry back the launcher?'

'I think you know why,' the boy whispered.

'You tell me why you brought back the launcher.'

'Without the launcher the Redeye cannot be fired.'

'Who is to fire the missile?'

'We cannot.'

'Who is to fire the missile?' The harsh grate in Barney's question.

'You, Barney.'

The first grey of dawn nudged at the material of the curtains. Barney watched the boy's face, saw the mixed paints of caution and confusion merge into understanding and then excitement. The boy leaped from the bed and flung his arms round Barney and hugged him and kissed him on the cheeks. Gently, Barney loosed the boy's hands, set him back on the bed.