He had lit no fire, he preferred to be swathed in his blanket. He was no longer with a column of mujahidin. He was his own master. His own rules did not allow for a fire. The hunger racked him, but he was a trained soldier. He wondered how the boy could sustain himself without food and water. In the morning they would have to come down from the hills to the plains of the Kabul river to find food and water.
The pebble landed in the entrance of the cave, rolled and came to rest against Barney's boots. When he was in the field he would never remove his boots, not even to sleep, if sleep were possible on the floor of the cave with the hunger in his stomach. He had loosened the laces, that was a concession. It was the third pebble.
Barney heard the voice close to the cave's mouth. A voice shredded with impatience.
'You haven't eaten, Barney Crispin. All day you haven't eaten. If a man has no food then he cannot be on his own.'
'Be careful,' the boy whispered.
'I will be careful, Gul Badhur,' Barney said. 'But we have no food…'
He heard the voice call again.
'A man isn't a crapping island, Crispin.'
'What food have you?'
'Some bread, some dried fruit.'
The shadow crossed the mouth of the cave. The moon was lost for a moment as the shadow crossed it. There were the sounds of a man moving on knees and elbows over the dry ground.
'You don't hurry yourself, making up your mind you're hungry.'
Barney heard a hand searching in the darkness, felt fingers touch his boots, reach to his socks. He stretched out in the blackness, took the hand in his fist.
'Thank you,' Barney said. The boy had moved back into the cave and sensed his nervousness at the intrusion. Now he edged forward. They ate fast, eagerly.
Barney pulled his blanket over his knees to catch crumbs of bread. Dry, hard bread, but satisfying for all that. And after that were the raisins that he could gulp down, and beside him the boy ate his share in silence.
'I'll ask a question, it's "yes" or "no" for an answer. If it's "yes" then we talk about it, if it's "no" the questions finish. Is Maxie Schumack a freelancer?'
'He's a freelancer.'
'Tell me.'
His stomach warbled on the food and Barney settled himself back against the missile tubes.
'I was born Maximilian Herbert Schumack, Christ knows where they took the names from, and they're dead so I can't ask. I was born in New York City, fifty-two years ago. There's not much to show for it, where I was born, it's a car park and garage now. So, I'm an old bird, what we call a clover fucker. I took a Greyhound to Bragg when I was seventeen and enlisted. I went up and I went down. I had stripes, I was busted. First place I kept my stripes was Da Nang. Shitty place, shitty bars, shitty expensive girls. My first trip to 'Nam, we hadn't much time for bars and whores, and I'd been fifteen years in the Corps and I was a veteran, and I'd never had a shot fired at me before.
'To stay alive with the god-awful kids they gave me I stayed clear of the bars and the whores. I didn't get clap and I didn't get my arse shot off. You're a fighting man, you know what it was in 'Nam, and you don't need the fucking New York Times war stories from me. Next time I went back was Khe Sanh. They say the Corps doesn't dig. My platoon dug at Khe Sanh. I stood over the bastards till they'd dug. And dug. Didn't do a lot of fighting, just sat in holes with the rain pissing down plus the incoming. Had a bit of time to think there, and I reckoned I'd cracked it. Sam's got himself in a heap of shit here, I reckoned. Weren't many to say Sergeant Schumack got it wrong. I took my platoon out of Khe Sanh with one KIA and three WIA. That was good. Sam gave me a medal, said I was a credit to the fucking Corps. I went back one last time. On the roof of the Embassy chucking slants off the Hueys, that the fat cats wanted for a ride out to the fleet. Sam was deep in the shit by then, up to his ears. Didn't take me to tell Sam that.
'We'd been seen off by the fucking gooks. I did some time at home after Saigon went, and I got another medal, not that any bastards Stateside wanted to know. On Stateside they reckoned that Sergeant Schumack and half a million others had lost Sam his little war. The old shits, who'd never walked the paddies with the incoming, they reckoned we'd lost a war we should have won. Most didn't but I stayed in. Nowhere to quit to. I burned a bit and I boiled and I stayed in the Corps. I got Kabul in '78, Embassy marine guard. Piss awful place, on the front desk in full dress, spit polish boots and the medal ribbons. And then we lost the Ambassador, "Spike" Dubs. Great guy. Some shite-arses lifted him between the Residence and the Embassy. Sam screwed again. The Soviets, the advisers in the fucking ministry there, told the Afghans what to do, they crapped on all we told them. They busted in where he was holed up and played a shooting gallery.
'"Spike" Dubs died. Sam couldn't help him. I was brought home. Another Stateside garrison town for a super fucking veteran. Then the mothers took our Embassy in Teheran, crapping all over Sam, like everyone was, like it became a habit. They put a force together, a Marine Corps force, and Schumack was on the team. Eight times we were due to go and bust that place open, and seven times Sam hadn't the balls, rubbing his fucking hands together and wondering what the civvie casualties would be. Who gave a fart what they'd be? The eighth time we went. I don't have to tell you what happened, Mr Crispin, the whole bloody world knows what happened. Sam fouled up. I tell you this, the 'Nam wounded my faith in Sam, Kabul butchered it, and Desert One buried it. I quit. Too late but I quit. I took the money and I holed out. I went up to Canada and I bummed. I was putting canoes in the water for smart arse kids, and clearing up their fucking garbage. To the kids I was like something from under a stone.
'Last year I bought a ticket, I paid a oneway airfare to Pakistan. I lost my hand at Desert One for Sam. They said they'd keep me in, as an instructor or a drill pig, but Sam's all shit. Sam's no longer my place. I took a bus ride to Peshawar, and I walked in here a fortnight later. I'm here for keeps, Mr Crispin. I'm staying like we never used to. I'm staying here, and no bastard in the Pentagon tells me I'm aborting. I'm happy as a pig in mud. You understand me?'
'I understand you,' Barney said.
'I talk too much.'
'You don't have a lot of chance to talk.'
'Here? I've shit all chance to talk. My turn, same question — yes or no. Are you a freelancer?'
'No.'
'That means…?'
'That means there are no more questions.'
'What's the load on the mules?'
'No more questions.'
Schumack persisted. 'I had a glass on you. You didn't tie the sacking too well. It's tubes you're carrying.'
'As you said, you talk too much.'
'Tubes is mortars, but you don't carry on two mules a load of mortar bombs that's worth a damn. Tubes could be anti-tank, but they've all they want of those from the Soviets and the Afghan army. Tubes could be ground-to-air…'
Barney could smell Schumack close to him, he could make out the dim shape in front of him.
'Ground-to-air would be rich, Mr Crispin.'
Barney heard the boy wriggle nearer to him, heard the tension of his breathing.
'I tell you straight, you won't have any idea what it's like to be under the helicopters and have no way of hurting the bastards. What makes these guys in the hills crap themselves? The helicopter. What makes Maxie Schumack wet himself? The helicopter. To see a ground-to-air knock the pigs out of the sky, I'd laugh myself sick.'
Barney said nothing.
'I'm going north in the morning,' Schumack said. 'Which way are you going?'
'North,' Barney said.
'Across the river?'
'Into Laghman, north to the mountains.'
'I've something you're short of, Mr Crispin.'
Barney put out his hand. His fingers brushed the smooth wood of a rifle stock, felt the cold metal of a curved magazine and the sharpness of the foresight. He took the Kalashnikov in his hand. He was a man who had been naked and was now clothed. His hands ran the length of the barrel, flickered over the working parts, found the cocking lever and the Safety catch.