In Honour Bound

'I had forgotten.' Her head swung away, to gaze out over the lightening valley. 'When you go home, to whom do you go?'

'To nobody.'

'There is a someone, there must be a someone.'

'No. There is nobody.'

'I have nobody, when I go to Paris there is nobody.'

Barney took her hand, lifted it to his lips, kissed the knuckles of her fingers. 'We will go home together then, so that we shall each have someone.'

Barney stood up, his teeth were clenched shut. He slung Redeye onto his shoulder. He was remembering the way she had bathed the slashes and nicks and cuts in his side and legs. He felt again the finger touch of her hands.

'As soon as the caravan has cleared the valley I will take you.'

A light rain was falling. Rain in the valley, snow on the high ground.

She called after him. 'When you leave this valley, will you look down on it for a last time?'

'No,' said Barney.

* * *

Even the piercing hangover failed to deter the light step of Pyotr Medev as he left the office of the Frontal Aviation commander. While the launcher was loose in area Delta there was no possibility of his being permitted to take the monthly trip to Kabul for the de-briefing at the High Command's Taj Beg palace. He had taken coffee with his commander, black and mercifully thick, and he had been given his clearance. He would be a celebrity at the Taj Beg, he was told. He was the man who had fought off their most serious threat. It didn't bear thinking about if the helicopters could not fly at will in the mountain countryside to which the tanks and the APCs were denied access. His experiences would be picked and sifted. He would tell them about the flares and the emergency baffles.

And he would see the wife of that fool, the agronomist of Kandahar. And he would buy a present in the bazaar for his own wife. One more week in Jalalabad and he would be flying the long haul, to the transport base of Frontal Aviation south of Moscow in the belly of the big Antonov 22. A week's packing up and winding down in Jalalabad and then a freedom bird home. Shit…and the woman at home had better be in a happier humour when he came through the front door. Her last letter was all whining about shortages, the child's cold, about him not writing regularly…nothing sweet, nothing feminine. But he was damned if the thought of her would take anything from the anticipated delight in the agronomist's wife in Kabul.

In his operations room he read the forecast for the 24 hours ahead. Rain in the valleys in area Delta, snow on the high ground. Let it rain, let it snow. Let the rain fall and snow flake down on the body of that bastard foreigner. He was only sorry he had never seen the body and never had the chance to kick the arse off it.

* * *

They had stayed on the mattress the whole day through.

He couldn't believe they could sleep so long. Both stark naked, the blankets all over the place, and sweet clean satisfied sleeping breathing. A bloody eye opener for Howard Rossiter were Katie and Amanda. In the middle of the day he had first extricated himself from where he had slept between them. He'd made them some tea, felt bloody ridiculous standing beside the cooker while the kettle boiled and him wearing only a drying-up cloth knotted around his waist. No tea wanted. He'd gone back to the mattress, crawled over Katie, snuggled up to Amanda.

That had been the day, unique in the life of Howard Rossiter.

The room was darkening again. The way they'd slept through the day frightened the hell out of him. God alone knew what energy they'd have stored up for the evening's work. He lit a cigarette and flicked the dead match into the emptied soup tin on the floor near their heads. The cigarette didn't taste much, not after the night-time smokes, nothing to get his throat onto. When the cigarette was finished, he stubbed it out in the tin, and climbed again over Katie, saw her eyes twinkle and open, saw her mouth curl in a giggle. Bloody idiot he was. And bloody marvellous it had been. He muttered that he had to go out, saw the eyes close, saw the mouth settle. There was a law against this sort of thing at home, and for all he knew probably a law against it in Chitral. Probably get him castrated in public, if he only knew.

He closed the kitchen door quietly behind him. He went to the side of the bungalow, looked into the kitchen, saw the debris of clothes on the floor, saw the girls sitting up on the mattress, saw their heads jumping in mime laughter.

He hurried away for his nightly rendezvous at the Dreamland Hotel.

Outside the dull-lit facade of the hotel, Rossiter hesitated. The night and day that he had spent on the mattress with Katie and Amanda were now just a taste in his mouth and a weariness in his gut. The training had taken over. He raked the street around him, he found no tail.

He heard his name called. Rossiter swung round. He jackknifed straight. A slight persistent voice. He twisted towards the source of the sound. Shadow beside a parked lorry. His name again. He waited for a movement, for a figure to emerge from the shadow. He walked forward. No movement in the shadow. He was sweating. He felt the thin light of the street lamp fade from his face. He walked into the darkness.

'Hello, Mr Rossiter…'

'Who is it?' A stiff, quavering voice from Rossiter.

'It is Gul Bahdur.'

Christ, the boy who had come to the Peshawar bungalow with the bandage on his head and trapped Barney into the lunacy of the long walk into Afghanistan.

'Is Barney here?'

'No, Mr Rossiter.'

'Is he hurt? Is he all right?'

'I saw him four days ago, he was not hurt then.'

'Where did you see him?'

'Three days west of the border, in the north of Laghman, in a village called Atinam.'

The boy lifted from the ground a dark sacking bundle, held it between them. 'Barney said to bring this to you.'

'Oh, my God…'

'It is the parts of an Mi-24, the parts that you wanted, Mr Rossiter.'

'He actually shot one down?'

'Four, he shot down four. He fired four missiles, from the fourth only could he take the pieces you wanted.'

A hiss of shock from Rossiter. 'And why is he not with you?'

'He wants to kill four more helicopters. He wants to clear the valley where he is of helicopters.'

Rossiter was dazed, his hand took the weight of the sacking bundle. He reached to feel the concealed angular pieces.

'Clear a valley?'

'Driving out the helicopters, that is what Barney is doing,' the boy said. 'There are photographs as well, and notes that Barney made about the helicopter, and he wrote a letter for you.'

Rossiter grasped the folded paper that the boy had taken from the inside of his waistcoat. He hadn't his reading glasses with him, and it was too dark anyway to make out anything written on the torn edged paper. This was where it ended, what it had all been about, in the shadow on a pavement at the side of the Dreamland Hotel and holding a bag of a Hind's electronics. He was jolted, struck back from the thought of how crazy it all was.

'Will he make it out?'

'It is snowing in the passes.'

'Does he know the route?'

'Perhaps he will have a guide, perhaps not.'

'How long does he mean to stay there?'

'He is with the Resistance and he has pledged to clear their valley of helicopters.'

He had been screwing through the night, taking his pleasure, gasping his happiness on his back. He thought of Barney. He saw the determination in his face. He saw the deep distant eyes. Barney was out there, fighting a war. He thought he might vomit up his food and the hashish and the sweat tastes of the girls. Out there, out beyond the mountains, out beyond the borders of all sanity. Barney fighting a war with gunship helicopters while Howard Rossiter screwed himself towards senility.