In Honour Bound

'Which is?'

'My regret is that before we thought of this I have lost four helicopters.'

'In the workshops they said that no one had been there to ask their opinion.' A rare candour from Rostov.

* * *

Medev went into the mess. The orderly came to his elbow, and offered the familiar brandy. Medev stood with his back to the stove. Some of the pilots were sitting, some stood. There was an atmosphere of hatred and misery in the mess. Every pilot stared at Medev. In front of him was the long table laid for dinner. Two candles burned on the table, floating shadows across two places set with knives and forks and spoons and glasses. Their hostility beat at Medev. He bit at his lip, jutted out his chin. Their misery circled him. He drained his glass, he felt the wash of the brandy in his throat. He stared them out, each in turn, young face to young face. Which one had the courage to answer him? Which of them? Did they think it was easier for him because he had not been high over the grounded XJ SUNRAY? Did they think it was easier to have been distanced by one hundred kilometres from area Delta than to have been there as a witness?

Young face to young face. On to the young face of the pilot, Vladdy. Eyes meeting, eyes challenging.

'You are a murderer, Major Medev.' Said quietly, said with a soft emphasis.

A collective gasp in the mess, a little murmur of movement.

'If you didn't hear me, I'll say it again — you are a murderer, Major Medev.'

'Come here and say that.'

Vladdy pushed himself up from his chair, laid his magazine down where he had sat, walked to Medev. His face was a few inches from that of his commanding officer.

'I said you were a murderer, Major…'

Medev hit him, hard and with a clenched fist, on the side of the jaw. The pilot reeled away, half fell, staggered, held his balance. His skin was livid where Medev had struck him.

'Do you want the MilPol?' Rostov at Medev's side.

'I'll not have any fucking Military Police in my mess,' Medev hissed.

As if a signal had been given, the pilots started to move towards the door. They affected a casualness; they did not look at Medev, they shuffled towards the door.

'Get to your places at the table,' Medev shouted. 'Sit in your fucking places!' His voice was a pistol shot. His order was a whip crack.

One pilot hesitated, they all stopped.

One pilot turned, they all turned.

One sat, they all sat. Vladdy went to his place at the table, eased into his chair. One of the candles burned beside Vladdy's place.

Medev stood at the end of the table.

'Would you let one man destroy you — destroy Eight Nine Two? One man alone? You are here to fight a war, you are not conscripted troopers — you are elite trained pilots. You have been entrusted by the leadership of our nation with a task. We are helicopter pilots, not High Command strategists, not Foreign Ministry strategists. We fly helicopters, and we will continue to do that, to go where we are sent. I make one point, gentlemen…hear me carefully…if a pony breaks a leg it is destroyed, it is kinder, it lessens the certainty of pain. If one of you is down and cannot be reached, cannot be rescued, then I will order you destroyed, because it is kinder, because it lessens the certainty of pain. If any of you are so ignorant of the conditions in Afghanistan that you do not understand the certainty of pain should you be downed and alive and abandoned, then you should go in the morning to Intelligence and consult with them and they will willingly tell you what is the fate of Soviet military who are captured by the bandits. Questions?'

There were none. They ate the meal. By midnight most of the men around the table were drunk in a fraud of forgetfulness.

* * *

They had eaten hunks of two-day-old nan, they had drunk green tea that was thin and sweet, they had chewed the half cooked flesh of a goat that had been decapitated by a bomb splinter. The boy was not invited to eat with the dozen men who took their food with Ahmad Khan, but he sat behind Barney and Maxie Schumack and unobtrusively whispered a translation. They talked of their fighting, of their heroism under fire, they boasted of the helicopters that had been hit with rifle bullets. They did not talk of the Redeye, nor of the half of the village of Atinam that had been destroyed. Nor was it discussed that Ahmad Khan and the men who formed his permanent fighting cadre would move on south down the valley in the morning.

Barney had eaten fast, as fast as any of them, tearing the bread, swilling the tea, gnawing at the goat bone he had taken from the pot. Redeye could not make Barney Crispin a part of these men. That night the villagers of Atinam slept where they could find a secure roof, where they were out of the mountain winds. Barney's building had survived, after a fashion, survived enough to be slept in. There was no fire, but as if from a previous ritual Barney and Maxie Schumack laid out their blankets on either side of the dead embers.

He heard the girl cough.

He thought of her face and her eyes and her hands.

Across the heap of charred wood Maxie Schumack watched, balefully. He heard the girl cough again. He sat up. 'She'll eat you, eat you and spit you bloody out,' he said.

Barney rose to his feet, looked down for a moment at Maxie Schumack, then went to the closed inner door. He paused by the door.

'Give her one from me,' Schumack called.

Barney went through the door, closed it behind him. A blackness in the room. He bent his body, stretched an arm in front of himself, had his hand low and close to the dirt floor of the room as an antenna. She caught his wrist. A gentle pressure to pull him down to her side. Her voice was a whisper, her breath was a ripple on his face.

'Why did you come?'

'To talk.'

'Why with me?'

'I wanted to talk with you.'

'You have your man friend, you have your boy friend, you have your guerrilla friend …why with me?'

'I want to talk with you because you are not the man and the boy and the guerrilla.'

Barney heard the narrow brittle laugh. 'Do you want to fuck me?'

'No. No…I don't.'

'Why not? Because I slept with him, out there?'

'Because I killed two pilots today…'

'You want to cry against my shoulder, and cry to their mothers that there was nothing personal?'

'I wanted to talk to you, to someone…' Barney said simply.

'While you are crying, tell me what you achieved for the village today. There are seven hundred people who live in this village. They have malnutrition, they have measles, they have tuberculosis, the women and the children are in shock from the bombing. But you do not want to talk about that. And you do not want to talk about the men I have tried to keep alive tonight.'

'I wanted to talk to you.'

'Because you have no one else to speak to?'

Her fingers were loose now on his wrist, relaxed, twined gently on him.

'No one.'

'Why should I be the one person you can talk to?'

'Because you don't have to be here.'

'Why are you here?'

'I thought it was helping.'

'And now, what do you think now?'

'When I saw the helicopters killed then I thought I was helping. When I saw what had happened to the village then I didn't know.'

'I was told that you have collected the instruments from the helicopter you killed this afternoon, with that you could go back.'

'You have no medicine here, because you have no medicine you could go back.'

'And that would be abandoning these people.'

'Running away,' Barney said.

'Showing them our fear.'

'Telling them of the emptiness of our promises.'

'What do you want of me tonight?' Her voice was close in Barney's ear.

'To sleep beside you, to sleep against your warmth, I want that.'

'And in the morning?'