He had to say that he had never met a man like Charlie. A bull of a man was Charlie and, when he charged, the fences broke. He'd made that little spook in Peshawar jump to it on the home shipment for Charlie's Brigadier. The guy didn't like it, but, by God, he'd do it. And even if Charlie was ten years older than Joey Dickens then he could still walk faster. He wondered what he would tell his wife. Down in the Gulf somewhere he'd said, and she'd looked at him as if he was off with a woman to Torquay and not dared make the challenge. Christ, her bloody eyes would be out on stops when he came back without a roll on his stomach and with the black bulge of his bank account. When he was back, in the solid comfort of the front bedroom, he might tell her about Charlie.
He had to shade his eyes to see the group in front. He blinked. The right heel blister was the worst bastard. He wiped the sweat that ran from his forehead down into his eyes. He saw the guide run from the mule he had been leading. He saw Charlie and Eddie scramble away from the river bed towards the surrounding rocks.
Joey Dickens did not understand. Just the ache in his head, the pinch of pain in his stomach, and the hurt in his feet. He did not understand what he watched and what he saw. There was a rumble behind him, the light throb of a coming drummer.
The mule walked on, the rope dangling from its head collar, same pace, same destination. The man with the shattered leg rose up from his litter on the flank of the mule. He gestured into the brightness of the sky behind Joey Dickens. The man who was wounded screamed in his fear and the words reached Joey Dickens, but he did not know the Pushtu language.
He spun, and looked up. The ache and the pain fled.
They were a pair.
Two helicopters for Corporal Dickens to stare up at. An RAF maintenance technician, and he was watching the dive descent of two battle cruiser helicopters. He saw the breakup of camouflage paint; he saw the serial number on the belly; he saw the tinted glass bulbs that masked the gunner and the pilot; he saw the nose machine gun meandering for an aim; he saw the rocket pod clusters; he saw the mark of the red star.
He began to run; he pounded after the mule; and the skin ripped off his heel blisters.
There was a patter by his feet, and dust sprinkling up from the track, and the whine of a ricochet, and the snap of fractured rock, and the shrieks of the men who were wounded and lying on the mule's litters, and the crash as the first rocket exploded.
There were no trees. There were no bushes. There were no sheltering rock crevices.
He ran.
A few yards, and his breath was weeping in his throat when the spray of machine gun bullets trapped him, imprisoned him. The rocks around were wet, red and soft with his intestines.
The machine gun bullets cut the body of Joey Dickens into pieces. The bullet path moved forward to punch into the laden mule, into the men who were already wounded, into Charlie and Eddie who had found no hiding place, into the low huddled figure of the guide.
The helicopters hammered the still air, quartering the sides of the valley then rose again for the high empty skies.
In the evening, after darkness had curtained the river bed, some tribesmen who were making their way to the Pakistan border found the bodies of their countrymen and the mule and the three white foreigners. They piled the bodies together and placed over a shallow scuffed grave a heap of stones to keep off the birds of prey.
They had taken the back packs from Charlie and Eddie and Joey Dickens and tipped away the weighty equipment, so that one man could comfortably carry all three packs.
They would take them to the bungalow office of the American consul in Peshawar and would be rewarded with dollars.
The mule's body they left across the path.
It had been a small luncheon party, in an upper room of the United States Embassy in Mayfair's Grosvenor Square, to introduce the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency who was making a rare visit to London. The guest of honour was Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the two were now alone at the table.
'Foreign Secretary, there's a thing I've been waiting for this opportunity to discuss with you, and it's for your ears only,' the Director said.
'Tell me.'
'Afghanistan is our patch. We wouldn't mess on your patch in Zimbabwe…Afghanistan's our theatre.'
'I am afraid I don't know what you can be referring to, Director.'
'Look, we're private, we're colleagues, and we share what we get, but what you've started doing in Afghanistan is off the park. We'd prefer you to put the brake on it, a hard brake.'
'I said, I don't know what you're talking about.'
'Three weeks ago you had three creeps shot up when on their way out with aircraft parts, helicopter parts. We know what they had because among the possessions of one of them was an inventory. We had something in the works to get the same stuff — we had to abort after your people messed up. Just do us a favour, will you, and stick to interrogating Afghans when they're on Rest and Recuperation back in Peshawar.'
'I find your attitude quite offensive,' said the Foreign Secretary, 'and I repeat: I have no knowledge of this matter.'
'Your people need a lot from us, more than we need from you. I'll tell you something, the Mi-24 Hind helicopter is the best the Soviets have. When it comes down they blow it to pieces. This one was more or less intact because the terrain prevented their bombers getting in to destroy it. While we were putting our thing together, to go get it properly, your people went in and botched it, pissed on something that was precious.'
'That is offensive and unwarranted.'
The Director smiled, bland and cold. 'I'm concerned that, in the future, professional work isn't hampered by the bungling of British amateurs. Of course, if you would have me believe that you know nothing of teams of incompetent Englishmen tramping around the edges of the Soviet Union, well, with some reluctance I'll believe it. Just this once.'
The Ambassador had crossed to them. Within a moment the smiles were wide, the handshakes crisp.
An hour after returning to Foreign and Commonwealth Office, his vexation undiminished, the Foreign Secretary waved to an arm chair the Deputy Under Secretary who headed the Secret Intelligence Service. The Foreign Secretary briskly retailed the American complaint.
'Not our bailiwick, I'm afraid, sir…' The Deputy Under Secretary was a pillar of calm in the storm. 'We're clean, and that's what I told our cousin two days ago. I said that if they wanted to stamp on this sort of thing that he should take advantage of today's lunch. If you'll forgive me, sir, I would stress that my people in Pakistan are interested in detailed and expert analysis of the military and political situation appertaining to the Soviet presence in Afghanistan and the resistance with which their occupation is confronted. Put bluntly, sir, I don't regard the collection of ironmongery as my service's priority. These three mercenaries were in touch with Army Intelligence, and I gather they had an understanding with a Brigadier Fotheringay for payment if they delivered. Against our better judgement, we had agreed to ship their stuff home. That was the limit of our involvement.'
Next he welcomed into his office the First Secretary who headed the Afghanistan desk at FCO. He offered him a drink that was politely declined. The First Secretary glanced openly at his watch as if one train home had been missed. They talked for an hour.