In Honour Bound

Usually he was lenient with a conscript who worked bleary-eyed after an evening's hash chewing. Not that morning when they fitted metre lengths of central heating duct tubing to the engine exhaust vents. One conscript, flabbergasted and sullen, he put on an immediate charge, sent him to the Guard Room cells.

The work clattered around him. He fussed over every detail. The senior sergeant had only the vaguest of impressions of a homing missile and a stricken helicopter. Impossible for him to comprehend the vulnerability of the big armour plated birds to a portable ground-to-air missile. And it was said in the NCO's mess that only one man fired the missile. One man only…

* * *

The flicker skim of lightning above the valley's walls. A thunder clap over the valley.

The sun gone. The cloud streaming south to overtake the mujahidin column. Echoing blasts of thunder. The flashing of lightning. A shadow over all the valley, as far as the men in the column could see ahead of them. A desolate place of rock and boulder and gully and tree and abandoned field.

Ahmad Khan walked at Barney's side. The man who had been a schoolteacher carried only his automatic rifle. His stride was fluent, beside the heavier steps of Barney who was weighed down by the launcher and the spare missile tube.

Barney broke their silence.

'How long have you been in the valley?'

'I came when they took my father to the Pul-i-Charki prison three years ago…he died there.'

'How long will you stay?'

'Until it is finished. I will go when the Soviets go.'

'They have a hundred thousand men. They have the tanks and the bombers and the helicopters. How can you make them go?'

'By our faith, our faith in Islam.'

'There comes a time when, if you have not won, then you have been defeated.'

'If they have not won either, then perhaps it is they who are defeated.'

'Your people are starving, they can't work the fields, they can't draw in the harvests. That will defeat you.'

'We have the food of Islam. It is nothing to you, it is nothing to the Soviets. To us it is everything. It is a holy war, the jihad sustains us.'

'The Soviets have the towns and the cities, and the main roads of your country. How can they be beaten?'

'We will win, perhaps long after you have gone. After you have forgotten any adventure you enjoyed in our country, we will win.'

'How will you know when you have started to win?'

'I will know we have started to win when I no longer have to look into the sky for their helicopters.'

'I brought only eight missiles…'

'Do not give yourself too much importance, Englishman,' Ahmad Khan said. 'We will win with you, we will win without you. You are a butterfly that crosses our path, you are with us and you are not with us. We will be here long after you have left us…we will have forgotten you.'

'If I have overstayed my welcome…'

'When you have fired the last of your missiles, the day after that you will have overstayed your welcome.'

Ahmad Khan loped away, light-footed, to the front of the column.

* * *

'There is concern in Kabul at the level of your casualties…'

'And so there ought to be, sir.'

'Don't interrupt me, Major Medev…' The rasping reprimand from the Frontal Aviation commander. 'In Kabul they are confused by the markings on the missile tube they were sent. American made, but with Israeli and Iranian markings overpainted, yet the missile came from Pakistan and it seems it is fired by a Caucasian white, a European or an American. The evaluation in Kabul is that the missile was intended to be used by the Afghan bandits, but is now operated by this mercenary. Kabul believes the missile was introduced to bring down an Mi-24 for equipment stripping. It would be a prize of exceptional value. Last evening's helicopter did not catch fire, it could be presumed that the opportunity to strip the helicopter has been taken and that the purpose of the mercenary's mission has been satisfied.'

'That he has no more reason to be in the valley?'

'It is a presumption…as I said. In Kabul there is concern at your casualties. Four helicopters in one week…'

'Four pilots in one week,' Medev said grimly.

'The casualties in area Delta have emasculated our patrol programme. I cannot permit a situation where day after day area Delta takes priority over all other flying. Your present strength is…?'

'Six. Six helicopters.'

'Coming in from Kandahar is a full strength squadron, sixteen gunships.'

'I want area Delta.'

'And the new squadron?'

'Where you like — anywhere else, any other valley.'

'Is your squadron, what remains of it, capable of maintaining a presence over area Delta?'

A hoarse snap in Medev's voice. 'Very capable, sir.'

'Are you capable yourself, Major Medev?'

If it had not been the Frontal Aviation commander, his direct superior, Medev thought he would have kicked the shit out of him.

'I am capable.'

'I have heard of something close to mutiny in your mess.'

'It's a lie…'

'Careful, Major.'

'I put it to you, we have business in that valley.'

'Revenge is a dangerous business for expensively trained pilots, for expensive helicopters. Tomorrow morning a paratroop regiment will be lifted to the northern end of the valley, to Atinam…'

'For what?'

'To punish a village where two helicopters have been destroyed.' A cut of sarcasm from the Frontal Aviation commander. 'There is a wider war, Medev, than your personal war of pride.'

* * *

They told him that their names were Amanda and Katie.

He told them that his name was Howard Rossiter, that his friends called him Ross.

He shouldn't, of course, have struck up a conversation in a public place, least of all in the shop where he purchased his groceries. They were ahead of him as he waited to pay for three tins and a loaf and toothpaste and a throwaway razor. They were young enough to have been his daughters. Pretty little things, with tanned faces, and streaky hair hanging on their shoulders. English girls roughing it in northern Pakistan. At home he would have called them 'hippies', and if he had been with his own children when he saw them he would have issued a critical analysis of the younger generation's lack of standards and discipline. But Howard Rossiter was in Chitral and lonely.

He wasn't doing too well himself on standards and discipline. There was stubble on his face and his hair was too long and uncombed. His trousers had lost their creases. His shoes were grubby. They had a nice way with them, Rossiter thought. He liked the way they pecked in the purse for coins for their two loaves, he liked the long flowing skirts and the peeping painted toe nails. He liked the scarves that were slung around their shoulders. He liked the blouses they wore, and the pimples on the bulges that told him what they didn't wear…Steady on, Rossiter.

They would have looked over him, they would have wondered where this cuckoo had fallen from. Bit past it for the youngster's trail, wasn't he? Bit past the hash hippy trail to Kathmandu. He'd said 'good afternoon' in his best Whitehall clip and with a smile on his face, and they'd collapsed in giggles. But they waited on the rutted pavement for him to pay his money and follow out after them.