by Idries Shah
Beyond the barbed wire, clear in his binoculars, Adam could see vast riches. As tempting as sweets to a child they lay there, piled in the open. Half concealed by tarpaulins, the guns and ammunition were neatly stacked, perhaps only recently seized from Afghan troops of doubtful loyalty to the rickety communist regime and now awaiting either storage or re-issue.
As night fell, the searchlights on the perimeter’s observation towers were switched on and the thump of generators mingled with the clatter of jackboots as some two hundred men, obviously Russians, emerged from their quarters to line up on parade.
So the camp had an independent electricity and water supply. A huge water tank dominated the far side of the compound sitting on top of a watchtower. It was one of six such towers, each equipped with a searchlight. In each sat a sentry, and Adam noted that some of them were reading quietly. Like many other Russians, the watchtower sentries wore Afghan Army uniforms, a stratagem adopted by the Soviets in the odd belief that this would reassure the Afghan population. No dogs patrolled the wire, which was the usual fifteen feet high, but guards on foot, rifles slung across their backs, moved regularly around inside.
There was only a single radio mast with several stubby microwave antennae sprouting at intervals down its length, interspersed with round VHF receiving dishes. It looked almost like some weird metal creation offered as a profound piece of avant-garde art at a fashionable gallery.
Five against two hundred, maybe two hundred and fifty. What chance did they really have? ‘As for numbers,’ grinned the ancient Khizrhayat, catching Adam’s thought and exposing naked gums, ‘I would suggest that fifty to one is just about right for us.’
‘Very well then.’ The Eagle let him joke but did not smile. ‘Now, as you know, if we are not back at the Caves, or haven’t sent a signal’ – he glanced at his watch – ‘by two hours from now, the support group will set out and the attack will be on. We can only hope that if they come round by way of Kalantut village and see the destruction, their discipline will hold. If it doesn’t the raid will be a disaster from the start. You now have three hours to rest. Be back here then, ready to take up positions and for any last-minute orders. Stay under cover, doubly careful, if there is any air activity. Make sure that you do not eat or drink for one hour before the time of action. We don’t want people being sick over each other. Besides, vomit is bad for the rifles.’
Three of the band – young Aslam, the old man Khizrhayat and Tirandaz the sharpshooter, went off somewhere to sleep. The Eagle lay back, his head on his knapsack, rifle beside him. Qasim, similarly stretched, lay in the opposite direction so that they could scan the road that ran beside the camp in both directions.
Fifteen minutes before zero hour the five guerrillas reassembled. They settled in the darkness behind the scrub about thirty yards from the armoury’s outer fence. There seemed to be little activity among the Russians inside, nothing to suggest that they anticipated anything more than another quiet night.
Then, a little to his right, The Eagle thought he heard something move – perhaps only a rabbit. He froze, and opened his mouth slightly, in the way his father’s hunter had taught him – a trick that increased the sharpness of one’s hearing.
At first there was nothing. Then, suddenly, he felt a movement right beside him, and knew a real spasm of fear.
Out of the darkness, brilliant white and seemingly as large as a dinner plate, the huge flat face of an army flashlight glared straight at him, held at arm’s length by the looming figure of a man.
Was it a Russian, creeping out illicitly from the camp? Or one of a patrol, checking the perimeter wire was intact? The Eagle was just registering that he could expect the hammer-blow of a bullet at any moment when the Russian, his long-service chevron and star suddenly visible as he jerked his flashlamp in fright, called out like a man who has seen a ghost. In a reflex action Adam brought up his Kalashnikov hoping to kill with the first stab of his short bayonet, and with luck to do it silently.
As he hurled himself at the man, the Russian spun sideways then hared off towards the main gate, shouting wildly to the guardhouse to raise the alarm. Obviously he had been unarmed. The chevron and star insignia were worn only by men with five to nine years’ service. If armed, he would not have run off like that.
The klaxons blared over and over again. Then the loudspeakers: ‘Ataka! Ataka! Ataka!’ The Eagle could hear men running, oaths carried clearly on the still night air. The searchlights on the towers started to scan the area, seeming to pause at every rock and bush.
Adam cursed. Now the element of surprise was lost: and the support group had not yet arrived. He’d only given them two hours to march ten miles over rough country. Although lightly laden, they would have to jog-trot in the dim quarter-moon most of the way. Now he would have to call off the operation, and give the signal for retreat. This was beginning to look as bad as the fiasco of the bugles. What a commander he was turning out to be …
And then, even above the roar from the compound, from all around, like the sound of a mighty army on the march, and punctual to the second, came an incredible cacophony of sixty bugles. The support group, not a single weapon among them, had arrived.
A giant field-lighter flare exploded, brilliant white, high in the sky, and like some celebration firework, came floating gently down on its parachute, bathing the valley with its weird light. The Russians were trying to see exactly what they were facing.
The Eagle crept behind a less than adequate rock as machinegun bullets at six hundred rounds a minute, whipped past him. He could see, and feel from their buzzing whisper, why the people called them ‘messengers of death’. The glowing white tracers, fire-bullets interspersed with the lead ones, showed the gunners where their shots were going. Both these and the flare gave Adam a new piece of information. If the Russians needed such indicators they had no infra-red equipment to see in the dark. That might help to even out the odds just a little.
Adam’s patrol group had moved as near as they dared to the camp before opening fire. Then, in a manoeuvre they had rehearsed for days, each man fired a short burst, moved sideways and fired again, ran on and fired once more, giving the impression that the place was surrounded by attackers shooting in relay time. All six of the perimeter searchlights were shot out before the second burst of firing was over.
Ten machine-guns were already chattering with the sound of the standard Russian light weapon – large magazines with a very rapid rate of fire. The type, an RPK, could cover eight hundred metres ahead, but needed reloading after only seventy-five rounds: just over a minute’s firing. Not very efficient, compared to many a belt-feed gun. In fact the armoury should have been defended by the heavy Goryunovs, fed by 250-round chain-belts. It so happened that these were being checked, and the lighter weapon intended for squad support duty had been substituted.
As the flare died, its parachute and burnt-out corpse plopping into a giant oak tree not far from where The Eagle was huddled, a body fell heavily beside him in the hollow and young Aslam’s voice spoke in his ear. ‘Eagle, I have brought you a prisoner!’
Above the din of battle, The Eagle turned a furious face towards the boy and shouted, ‘Zhawlan, idiot. We can’t take prisoners now!’
But the Russian, bent almost double behind Aslam, was gabbling. ‘Gospodin, sir, zhalosty, mercy …’ He grabbed The Eagle’s hand and started to kiss it as the sound of battle, trumpets, klaxons, grew ever louder.
‘Aslam. Get back to your post!’
The boy plucked at Adam’s sleeve. ‘Eagle, listen. This man says we can get in there through a new sewage pipe. He wants to desert to us. Call off the others and we can try it.’
Call them off? And risk a trap? Anyway he had only two signal flares.
The Russian was jabbering again: ‘Tovarish, comrade, I am a soratneek, a comrade in arms …’ This was like a low budget film, The Eagle thought. A veritable hail of bullets was coming straight at the rock before them, spraying ever more thickly as m
ore and more guns opened up – and one of the enemy wanted to join them! He and Aslam, two-fifths of their fighting force, were crouching here talking to a Russian, while the other three guerrillas were keeping up the attack and might be killed at any moment.
On impulse The Eagle reached for his waistband and handed the Russian a Makarov pistol. The man took it eagerly and thanked Adam, bowing several times. Then, beckoning the two partisans to follow him, he moved off, holding the pistol at the ready. The firing had stopped for a moment: the Russians could obviously not see anything moving. Perhaps there was nobody left to move.
The Russian signalled to them, urgently, that they should move forward and to the left. Aslam Jan gripped The Eagle’s shoulder in caution, nervous that their new ally should be so immediately trusted with a gun. In the dim moonlight The Eagle nudged Aslam and pulled the Russian back, gesturing for his weapon. The man handed back his gun without protest. The Eagle smiled, pushed an eight-round magazine into the empty butt and gave it back to the Russian. Aslam gaped. The Eagle was a real leader, a leader you could trust. Who else could have thought, on the spur of the moment, of such a perfect test?
The Eagle had arranged that if he fired a blue flare his group were to withdraw and regroup in a shallow gully some thirty metres to the west. Moments later, as the eerie blue of the flare died away, they assembled. The other three looked despondent, believing that the attack had been aborted. Covered in dust and leaves from crawling through the brushwood, oil from their still-hot weapons streaking their faces and arms, they cursed in whispers. As more flares burst, they saw the Russian and covered him with their guns.
To Aslam The Eagle said: ‘Now, where did you find this man, and how did you know what he was saying?’ The Eagle tried to see what the Russian looked like, and failed. All he could tell was that he was small and wiry and seemed to be continually bobbing about. There just wasn’t enough light to inspect his face.
‘He speaks Dari well enough. He just bounded up to me. He had wanted to desert for some time and all this confusion gave him the chance. Lots of others feel the same way, he says. Anyway, he’s determined to desert. They still call people preents, he says, Russian for prince, as a sign of respect – and they’re supposed to be communists!’ Aslam Jan sounded delighted both with his first prisoner and with his assessment of Russian psychology. The Russian insisted on shaking hands all round, then on embracing his captors, or allies, or whatever they were.
‘What’s your name?’ was all The Eagle could think of saying, at first.
Still crouched, the Russian gave him a snappy salute, and said, in passable Dari, ‘Zelikov, Roman, humbly reporting komondon!’ He started to say something else.
‘Silence and obey, Zelikov!’
‘Thank you, preents.’
‘Chup sho – silence!’
‘Da, da, preents.’
Surely, thought Adam, the Russians would send patrols soon, to investigate the attackers’ strength. Out here would become more unhealthy. So why not try to get into the camp through the drain as this impossible Russian was suggesting?
‘Zelikov!’
‘Preents?’
‘Take me through the pipe into the camp.’
There was no point in risking the others. He told them, ‘Back to your original firing stations. Red flare means all is well, enter the camp. No flare or message in one hour means disperse, reach home before dawn. In the event of my not returning, the butcher, Hoshnak Qassab, is my successor. Obey him implicitly.’
‘I entrust you to God,’ said Qasim.
‘With faith in God. Let’s go.’ As they crept forward they could hear the sounds from the camp louder than ever. Extra searchlights were in action and were panning from side to side, though not to much effect. The engines of armoured personnel-carriers were being revved. A distorted voice came so incessantly from the loudspeakers that it could only be a recording of an endless-loop tape: ‘Dushman! Dushman! Dushman! Ataka! Ataka!’ Bandit attack.
What exactly could the Russian tactics be, on a near-dark night, milling around inside a lighted camp surrounded by rocks, scrub and grass in which their opponents could hide and through which they could melt away if the Russians emerged? Presumably it was a standard military reaction. There had to be a formal answer to every problem. The Russians believed in the formula response to everything. They would, Adam thought, be better off sitting tight in their cosy defended positions, holding fire until they saw their attackers’ next move. Another thought struck him. Perhaps the Russians were scared stiff.
The trumpeters, following their orders, had fallen silent. In a way it was a relief. The noise those sixty men made, none of them ever having blown a trumpet in his life, had a disturbing effect. Though you knew they were on your side you still felt disorientated.
They would start up their hellish clamour again after ten minutes, keep it going for two minutes, and then rest; then continue in that way until the order was countermanded. If that kept the Russians bewildered and their guns and attention directed outwards, and if the sewage pipe entrance to the camp was possible, miracles might yet be achieved.
Adam and Zelikov crawled on their bellies through the scrub towards the brick wall of the ablutions block. Evidently the pipe discharged from there. Flares of every size, colour and power, were shooting up into the sky, some bursting randomly like a fireworks display that had got out of hand; others dropping sedately on parachutes. The Russians were either afraid of the dark, or in a panic. Flares like that, especially the star shells, were almost always used singly, tactically, for giving orders, as The Eagle planned to use his. The way the Russians were using theirs was a mixed blessing, as The Eagle realized when he saw that Tirandaz had taken advantage of the illumination so prodigally provided by the Red Army to cripple their aerial. The bracket supporting it now hung at a crazy angle and one of the VHF dishes was hanging by its edge and reflecting the green, red and purple lights in the sky, like the fascia of some one-armed bandit from an amusement arcade.
Good. The Russians in there must be without radio now.
Only a few yards to go. Zelikov and the guerrilla chief climbed into a concrete pipe, two yards in diameter, jutting out from the brick wall. Inside it was almost dry but it stank, and they retched at first as they made their way some ten yards through the darkness, until the Russian pointed to a metal manhole cover just above them with light showing around its edges and accessible by a line of handgrips.
‘No guard, inspection place. Here workshop, gospodin preents!’
Just like that. The way in. All that elaborate defence system of barbed wire and machine-gun posts and here was an unguarded door inviting visitors. Unbelievable! But was it unguarded? The Eagle decided to gamble.
They climbed up the handholds and Adam slowly pushed the manhole cover up. They clambered out and found themselves in a lofty workshop-cum-generator room with humming dynamos all around. The place was brightly lit, and smelt of diesel oil. And there wasn’t a guard to be seen.
Zelikov was tugging at his sleeve. ‘Kill dinamos, preents?’
The Eagle took in the crouching figure now, his obsequious manner, frightened face and pug nose, a comic-looking little man with a dirt-streaked face and close-cropped head. If they crippled the dynamos and put the lights out of action, how would they see their way round the camp? No, better to risk the light.
‘No, Zelikov. We’ll go to find the Commandant. Where is he?’
Zelikov stabbed the air with his gun. ‘Commandant very bad, shoot us, za-za-za!’
Adam dug into him with the Kalashnikov’s butt. ‘We go find Commandant, Zud buro! Quick march!’
The Russian looked at him for a second, then he shrugged and started to lope along a gallery and down a catwalk which led to the main door of the place.
There was nobody immediately outside and, as luck would have it, the moment they emerged onto the asphalted compound’s parade-ground the buglers started again. They sounded nearer than before and The Eag
le could now see the scene from the defenders’ viewpoint. It certainly felt as if the camp was being attacked by hordes of demons. The buglers’ musical talents had not developed and, in their enthusiasm, they were now varying their repertoire by howling like jackals.
Zelikov was bounding ahead again like a rabbit. Adam started across the compound after him.
There were large shadows between the pools of light cast by the arc lamps and the two men skipped from one to another. Anxious to give themselves enough light to supply the guns, the Russians had left on all the arc lights. Adam and his prisoner – or comrade – were ignored, if they were seen at all, by the armourers, who were hastily carting crates of machine-gun magazines in heavy trolleys to the loaders. The latter served the gunners who, crouching behind their steel shields, were firing as if their lives depended on it. Seeing all this, The Eagle doubted that they had yet hit a single one of his sixty maniacs from the Paghman Caves. An Afghan frontier marksman reckoned that it took between one and two rounds to kill a man. These Russian gunners were firing a total of some eighteen thousand rounds a minute. The whole place reeked of cordite: a blue haze of gunsmoke rose towards the floodlights.
Zelikov was pointing to a metal ladder which led from the tarmac to the armoured command post above them. The two of them climbed up and into the heavily protected hut-like room. In it, three men were standing looking with night-glasses through slits in the steel plates which served as windows. As Adam and Zelikov entered, the heavy steel doors banged shut behind them.
One of the Russians looked around, casually, as if expecting a runner with a message. Then he gave a cry and the other two officers turned to see what he was staring at. A pair of binoculars fell to the floor with a thud as two of the Russians reached for their sidearms. They were ten feet away from Adam. Using the butt of his assault rifle The Eagle smashed at their right hands, one after the other in a single arc, sending the two guns rattling together to the ground. Zelikov picked them up.