“ROGER, CRUSADER SIX. GO FOR IT.”
We crept down the alley. Out of the vegetation on the left rose a stone wall eight feet high. On the right more vegetation and a drainage ditch and, further back, more walls, surrounding houses with brightly lit windows. The road narrowed. The wall closed in and on the right branches scratched at the windshield.
“Keep going,” said Captain Yarrow.
Up ahead a donkey cart stood against the wall with a donkey tied to it. The road widened slightly, and on the right a driveway ran over a culvert and back into the palms about ten yards to a large, well-lit house. Just past the donkey, the road swung left around an angle of wall.
The donkey brayed: ahhhhhweeyhornk-yhornk.
“Can you get by?”
“Roger, sir.”
“Keep going.”
I passed the cart, feeling the dirt at the edge of the ditch crumble under the truck’s wheels, and slid along slowly, closer and closer to the donkey now backing against the wall, panic flashing black in his eyes. The truck’s front bumper brushed his trembling flank.
Ahhweeyhornk!
“We got people! I mean contacts!” Sergeant Chandler shouted.
I looked back at two Iraqis in robes standing in the driveway, smoking cigarettes and watching us. Sergeant Chandler trained his rifle on them.
“Watch the men, Sergeant! Wilson, watch that donkey!”
Ahhweeeeyhornk-a-yhornk-a-yhornk!
I edged the truck forward, brushing against the donkey’s ribs. The truck behind followed close. I swung slowly around the corner of the wall. The road ended in a ditch. I stopped and looked at the humvee behind pressed against the braying donkey.
Ahhweeeeeeeyhornk!
“Fuck!” Captain Yarrow shouted. He got on the radio: “Crusader Attack elements, this is Crusader Six. Head back up to the, uh, back to the last route change, over.”
Captain Yarrow and Sergeant Chandler got out. Lieutenant Juarez came up. The donkey kept braying and Sergeant Chandler kept his rifle trained on the smoking Iraqis. Yarrow and Juarez traded heated whispers while the humvees behind us backed slowly down the road.
The BC slapped the rear of the truck to get my attention and started backing me toward the culvert and the driveway, which, it turned out, wasn’t wide enough.
“Are we backing up?” I shouted.
“We’re turning around.”
“I can just back up, sir.”
“You’re turning around, Wilson.”
Okay. I watched the mirror, the back tires, the BC’s hand signals, the wall on my left, the front bumper of the truck, and the increasingly freaked-out donkey all at once. The beast hopped up and down, convulsing, hooves stamping furiously. The bumper dragged against his rump.
The BC scowled and led me onto the driveway. The left rear tire started sinking. I couldn’t swing the truck any tighter without smashing the donkey, and if I kept on like this I’d slide into the ditch. The BC swung me back, though, and farther, the left side sinking deeper and deeper. Just when I thought we couldn’t go back any farther, the donkey maybe a foot in front, braying crazy-eyed in my headlights, the BC had me stop and turn hard left and pull forward. I went ahead until the brush guard rubbed the donkey’s ribs. The BC backed me up again, this time to the right, then forward again, again left. Awheeeeeeyhornk-a-yhornk-yhornk! Four more times, tight back and forth, the back end sinking, the donkey braying, and at last we got the truck turned around. I pulled forward, scraping the cart with a creak.
The BC and Sergeant Chandler mounted up, and we rolled back to the rest of the convoy. Yarrow called up Lieutenant Krauss and chewed him out for giving us bad directions.
We took the second left. The next road was wider and ended in the overgrown courtyard of an abandoned building. We stopped and the BC called Lieutenant Krauss on the radio and yelled at him.
“This is the second turn,” Captain Yarrow shouted.
“UH, ROGER, CRUSADER SIX. YOU CHECK BEHIND THE BUILDING?”
“Yes. This is it. It’s fucking palm trees. Look at the map again. Are you looking at the map?”
“ROGER, SIR. THE MAP’S RIGHT HERE.”
“So you’re looking at the fucking map?”
“ROGER, SIR.”
“Then you can see. It doesn’t go anywhere. It just stops.”
“ROGER, SIR.”
“So why the fuck you send me down here if you can see it just stops? What the fuck, Lieutenant? Can’t you read a fucking map?”
“ROGER, SIR.”
“Holy Christ. We’re sitting out here like fucking… sitting ducks, and those MPs need us, they could be dying right now, and you can’t even read a fucking map!”
“SIR.”
“What, Lieutenant?”
“SIR, I THINK IF YOU GO BACK TO THE MAIN ROAD, TURN LEFT AND STAY TO THE RIGHT, BREAK, JUST KEEP TO THE RIGHT AND YOU’LL COME TO SOME BUILDINGS, AND KEEP TO THE RIGHT OF THOSE, BREAK, THERE’S A ROAD THAT GOES BETWEEN THE BUILDINGS AND, UH, BREAK, IT LOOKS LIKE A SMALL CANAL, BREAK. NOW YOU STAY ON THAT ROAD UNTIL YOU GET TO ANOTHER BUNCH OF BUILDINGS, BREAK, THEN TAKE A LEFT AND FOLLOW THAT FOR, UH, BREAK, A KILOMETER, AND THERE SHOULD BE A BRIDGE OVER THE BIG CANAL. HOW COPY, OVER?”
“Stay to the right, go left, go over the bridge.”
“ROGER.”
“Alright, Crusader CP. This better fucking work.”
We passed more houses, lights burning bright in the darkness, more men standing in courtyards staring. Children watched from balconies. At the next turn, we went right and Lieutenant Juarez’s team went left and we rolled down the alley to what looked like a cul-de-sac.
“There, there!” the BC shouted, pointing to a gap between a house and a small canal. “That’s the road.”
“We can’t get through there, sir,” I told him. The path was no bigger than a walkway.
“Don’t fucking contradict me, Specialist! Drive down that road!”
Grinding teeth, I poked the truck into the alley. The right side dipped precipitously down the canal’s bank. Left tires against the wall, my right tires churning mud at the water’s edge, undercarriage dragging, I inched forward as the path narrowed and the slope steepened. I stopped the truck so I could shift into low-drive.
“Keep going! What are you stopping for!”
I eased the truck forward. The path narrowed and the right side sank deeper into ditch muck. Soon there wouldn’t be any path at all.
“Sir.”
“Fine, I see! Fine!”
I put the truck in reverse and backed out. Thankfully the drivers behind us had waited, so it was a straight shot back to the cul-de-sac. Mud flung up from the tires.
The BC called up Lieutenant Juarez. His team hit a dead end, too. The BC radioed Lieutenant Krauss and told him to ask the MPs for directions. We reformed the convoy and returned to the CP.
Lieutenant Krauss radioed just as we were coming in Gate 1 and told us the MPs had started their assault, but they still needed us. He told us they had a route that went around BIAP. We were to go through Checkpoint 7 and take the first right.
“Do you mean go in through Checkpoint 7 or out?” the BC asked.
“UH, OUT.”
“Alright. Let’s roll.”
We drove out Gate 2 and headed for Checkpoint 7. Just before reaching the checkpoint the BC told me to turn off the road. We drove between two closed-up vendors’ shacks into a rough field of hard furrows. The humvee bumped up and down.
“I don’t think this is a road, sir.”
“Keep going, Wilson.”
We came to a low berm separating the field from a flooded pasture.
“Fuck,” Captain Yarrow said. “Alright, turn around.”
We got back on the road and went through Checkpoint 7. The BC had me hug the right side, searching for the route over the canal. We eventually hit a dirt road that led off into the dark. The BC told me take it.