The Last Kestrel

by Jill McGivering

  Hasina looked at the pouches of swollen skin round his eyes, his cheeks. His beard was matted at his chin. Just a few weeks ago, their lives had been peaceful and whole. She had lived in a good house on land she loved like her own child. Now her family was in danger, her world destroyed. What had become of them? What had they done to deserve this?

  ‘There is one way,’ he said. He leaned forward and lowered his voice.

  She trembled, sensing what he was about to say.

  ‘If your son tried again. If he made a true sacrifice in the name of Allah. A sacrifice that would prove his loyalty.’ He patted her hand. ‘Maybe then, we could all be safe from harm.’

  Karam’s mouth was smiling but his eyes had turned hard and distant and made her afraid.

  17

  Dillon was lying on his back, dozing, his knees bent, a T-shirt across his face. Moss was propped up against the wall beside him, staring at a battered paperback book.

  Ellen sipped at a bottle of warm water and stared out over the sleepy camp, puzzling about Najib’s secretive meeting with Karam. Najib had seemed so afraid. He must realize what a risk he’d taken, an army translator sneaking out to see a local Afghan leader. She opened her notebook and bounced her pen on a blank page, willing answers.

  The Sergeant Major strode across the compound towards them and gathered a group round him. Dillon, Moss and the others in their section scrambled to wake up and pay attention.

  ‘Listen up.’ His voice was effortlessly commanding. ‘Increase in threat.’ He stabbed his forefinger at them to underline each point, as if he preferred movement to words. ‘Nonspecific intelligence. Increased risk of attack.’

  The young faces turned to him were impassive.

  ‘High alert. Got that?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The Sergeant Major looked at his watch, barely visible on a forearm cluttered with tattoos.

  ‘Fifteen hundred hours local,’ he said. ‘Sections B and C assemble at the gate for patrol briefing.’ He looked round the group and pointed at Ellen. ‘You. You’re coming too. Major’s orders.’ Sunburnt faces turned to stare at her.

  The lads heaved themselves to their feet and gathered their kit. Ellen heaved on her flak jacket again, feeling the weight settle into the bruises along her shoulders. They assembled. The Sergeant Major spread a recent satellite map across the sand, small black squares, shadows and lines on thin white paper.

  ‘Three-vehicle convoy.’ He traced their route across the map with a stick. ‘Here, then along here.’

  Ellen looked at the route, down the hillside to the river, across the bridge and out towards the south-east, into open desert. A broad loop into nothingness. Of course. Now she knew where they were heading. She thought of the map she’d viewed with Mack on the ops room table. He was keeping his word, taking her out to the patch of desert where Jalil had been shot. She looked up at the Sergeant Major.

  ‘Patrol objective. To show presence in the area.’ The Sergeant Major was looking round the faces. He avoided catching her eye. He wasn’t a man who showed emotion but she felt he was particularly stony-faced. ‘Latest reports suggest enemy in the vicinity.’

  The men loaded up the Snatches and checked comms. Ellen was waiting with Moss and Dillon, getting ready to climb into the first Snatch, when Mack strode across and beckoned her out of line.

  ‘Second vehicle,’ he said to her, pointing to the vehicle behind. ‘Safer.’

  She hesitated. She wanted to say something about the patrol. To ask: is this a responsible decision? Don’t risk lives for me, to help me to lay my own ghost to rest.

  His eyes when they met hers were stern. ‘That’s an order.’ He turned and walked smartly to the final Snatch himself.

  She sat in a corner against the metal back door of the second Snatch in line, inhaling the sickly mix of oil and diesel. It lumbered off, rocking and pitching. The soldiers ignored her. The descent to the river was steep. Her body, corseted in the flak jacket, bounced off the metalwork, and her helmet clipped the roof struts. Through the square of bombproof glass, she watched the bonnet of the next vehicle as it rolled through thick dust. Mack must be inside, perhaps in the front seat beside the driver. She couldn’t make out his face. She felt a surge of gratitude towards him. She realized how much she wanted to see the place where Jalil had died. To sink onto her knees in the sand and sift it for traces of his blood, just as Hasina had pressed herself into the corn for her son. It was irrational. Ridiculous. But she wanted to tell his mother, his sister, that she’d made the journey there to say goodbye to him. To know that, despite everything, she’d risked her own life to do so. It was a small redemption.

  They reached the river bank. The driver was revving up, ready to take a run at the steel platform that led onto the bridge. The engine’s vibrations shuddered through the seat. The air was ripe with petrol fumes. There was a crash of metal as they hit the bridge and clattered across the surface. Through the window, the bank receded. The third vehicle was still parked there, watching, waiting its turn.

  From here, it was open desert. The third vehicle caught up and they set off again, the engines spurting and spitting as the vehicles struggled up banks of sand. The view from the back window was a brown blur of dust and stones and endlessly stretching sand. Whatever tracks they were following were barely visible.

  She gripped the roof strap tightly and tried to focus her thoughts on Jalil, imagining him taking the same journey. Had he been frightened, wondering if he’d succeed in slipping away from the men, as he’d planned, to carry out his clandestine meeting? Did he have any idea, as he sat cramped inside the Snatch, that he was already so close to death?

  Shouting. A lad on top cover, his feet right next to her, was shouting. His screech gave away his alarm. Something sighted. Enemy? She couldn’t make out the words. The radios were crackling but the sound was too fractured for her to hear. She pressed her face against the window. A sudden blinding flash lit the desert. Luminous red and yellow rods stabbed her vision. A fraction of a second later, a bang so loud she felt the throb of it more than heard it.

  The vehicle accelerated, turned sharply, throwing her against the back door. An acrid smell reached her. Explosives. Or smoke. She put her hand on the metal handle, looked down at the ground speeding under them. The inside of the vehicle was sharp with panic.

  The soldiers’ radios were screaming. A mush of barked orders. Their own vehicle was intact. Everything around her looked normal. The soldiers were scrabbling, groping under seats. But they were OK. Alive. No one hurt. They hadn’t been hit. She pressed her face against the glass again. One of the other vehicles had taken it.

  The Snatch swerved suddenly, pitching her off the seat onto the floor. She fought to get up. They were veering off to the side, bouncing over rough ground. She was cursing, banging knees, elbows, weighed down by her flak jacket, trying to pull herself back on the seat. She tasted bile. What the hell was going on?

  The Snatch swung in an arc and jolted to a sudden halt. Her forehead, in its helmet, smacked against the window. She got herself back onto the metal seat and stared out. They were pointing back across the desert, across track marks. The other Snatch was there in the sand, smoke pouring from under it, a black streamer unravelling across the desert.

  Someone was lying on his back in the sand. Another soldier was crouching beside him. A stout figure. Arms were moving, pulling out a first-aid kit. The blunt white of dressings flashed in the sun like bone.

  Now the soldiers with her were snapping open the back door and jumping out, medical kits in their hands, joining the rush across to the smoking vehicle. She climbed out too and leaned back against the vehicle, sun in her eyes, feeling light sand blow across her face. The air reeked of burning fuel, hot metal, scorched cloth. She shook herself and ran, keeping her head down, towards the vehicle, wondering who it was on the ground and who else was injured.

  Hancock. His boyish face was streaming blood, running from his forehead, his nostrils. O
ne of his eyes was a pulpy mess. The blood was bright and viscous, thickening and congealing like egg yolk as it dried. Mack was crouching beside him, wrapping gauze round his face. There was dust and dirt on Hancock’s skin, blown into the cuts and wounds, and now sealed into the bandage. The eye, a soft, twitching mess, was being rapidly parcelled and hidden from view. Mack’s expression was utterly focused, his hands capable. As he worked, Hancock’s legs were quivering where they lay on the sand, his knees jerking in spasms.

  At the back of the Snatch, she found a second casualty. Moss, his face pale and sweaty, was leaning his weight against the wheel hub. Frank was bending over him, cutting the fabric from his leg. His skin glistened in the sun. The angle of his leg was wrong. His trousers were black with blood. Flies were buzzing on the wet patches, round the skin beneath. When the material came away, the bone was revealed, jutting out cleanly through the flesh. Startlingly white in a bed of blood and torn skin and muscle.

  ‘What the fuck is she doing here?’ Someone had turned to her, waving his arms, shouting. ‘Get her back in the fucking vehicle.’

  Hancock was moaning and coughing. His head was bandaged now from his forehead to his nostrils. Blood was running down under the gauze into his mouth. Mack was forcing him to sit up, supporting him from behind in his arms. Hancock was choking, coughing. A sticky trail of blood and spittle dropped to his chest. Mack prised his mouth open, used a finger to hook out blood.

  A soldier headed towards her, blocking her view. His arms were outstretched, his chest pushed forward, as if he were herding cattle. He put his hands hard on her shoulders and turned her, drove her back towards the other vehicle. He lifted her to get her up into the back and slammed the door.

  She sat on the metal bench seat, staring out at the tableau of soldiers. The figures were moving feverishly. Arms waving, faces pallid with shock. The third Snatch had started to circle them, its guns trained outwards. She drank water, pressing back the memory of the soft pulp of Hancock’s eye. They wouldn’t save his sight and whatever had pierced the eye might have penetrated further, into the brain.

  She thought of the way he’d sat silently just a few days earlier, grey with fear, as the lads had waited for the offensive to start. Of the way he’d horsed around with Moss when they reached the compound, giddy with relief that he’d made it through alive. She shook her head. He was just a kid. She thought of his family in England and the telephone call to come. Finally, the distant throb of a helicopter swelled. It sank onto the desert, blowing up a sandstorm as it landed, then lifted again with the casualties, evacuating them to base.

  18

  ‘You cannot report that. Not yet.’

  Mack’s face was pale. His voice was steady but she saw the distress in his eyes. They were back in the compound.

  ‘Casualties. There’s a procedure. We need permission from London and that’ll take twenty-four hours. At least. Maybe fortyeight.’ He spoke quickly, his tone detached.

  ‘Of course, Mack.’

  He ran a hand across his forehead. He looked stricken. She wanted to reach out to him, to say something wise or comforting. But there was nothing to say. He wouldn’t even look her in the eye.

  ‘I know the drill,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  He was staring past her, his mind elsewhere. The soldiers were traipsing in through the gates in small groups as each Snatch unloaded outside. Their backs were bowed under kit. No one spoke. She watched them discharge their packs sideways onto the ground, dropping them from a shoulder. An uneasy silence hung over them all.

  Mack hadn’t moved. He seemed to have forgotten she was there. She wondered if, in his head, he were running through the procedures to come. There would be a chain of calls that would end with sympathetic military voices talking to the families in England. There’d be reports to write too. He’d need to explain the reason for the patrol.

  She remembered what he’d said before. I’m not risking my men’s lives on some fool errand. She leaned towards him and put her hand lightly on his arm. The army cotton was coarse-grained against her fingertips. The heat of his skin leached through. Awkward, she lifted her hand away again.

  He turned and looked at her and for a long moment neither of them spoke. All she could think of was Hancock and Moss and their injuries. Moss had a family, Dillon had said. She felt sickened by it all; by the war and the endless violence and the random nature of the suffering. The patrol had been in her name. Was this something else she should feel responsible for?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  Mack roused himself. He shook his head and raised a hand, commanding, as if to stop her thoughts. Her face must have shown her anguish.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said, then turned on his heel and walked towards the house.

  The day’s warmth was draining rapidly. The sun was already falling, the shadows cast by the high mud walls darkening and cooling the sand.

  Dillon, his face hard, was bending over Hancock and Moss’s kit, stuffing sleeping bags, books, roll mats, mess tins into their rucksacks. He worked methodically, without a word. A young soldier from another section came to help. They slung the packs over their shoulders and carried them out to the gate. The sand was ironed flat where the roll mats had been. She sat on her own sleeping bag, her knees drawn up, and considered the empty spaces. She wanted to sit still but her hands were too full of tension, drumming an agitated tattoo on the sand.

  Dillon came back and sat on a stone a short distance from her, lying back against the wall, his long legs sprawling. He took a cigarette from a pack lying near him, lit it and inhaled deeply.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ She heard the shake in her voice. ‘Really.’

  He acted as if he hadn’t heard. He drew again on his cigarette, his eyes blank, staring ahead at nothing. The acrid smell of cheap smoke drifted across to her. She hadn’t seen him smoke before.

  ‘Maybe the injuries look worse than they are,’ she said.

  ‘What do you know?’ He kept his eyes on the vacant air in front of him.

  She let it go. He continued to ignore her, smoked his cigarette. A thought hit her. I should have been in that Snatch. If it hadn’t been for Mack’s intervention, I might be in a helicopter now, surrounded by medics. The skin along her hairline contracted.

  Dillon twisted away from her, his cigarette in an unsteady hand.

  ‘What did they see? Before the blast.’ She watched his face, knowing he was listening. ‘I heard them shout.’

  ‘A lad.’ Dillon wouldn’t look at her. ‘Running. Must’ve planted it.’

  She tried to make sense of that. They’d been driving across a vast tract of desert. How could anyone have known a patrol was planned or which route it was taking? They’d been following no more than a goat track.

  ‘How could they know?’ she said.

  Dillon drew on his cigarette, making the stub glow red, then crushed it into the sand, spraying sparks. ‘Maybe they just got lucky,’ he said. ‘Or maybe someone dicked.’ His voice was cold.

  ‘Informed?’ She shook her head. ‘Come on.’

  Dillon pulled out a second cigarette and lit it. ‘Why were we there at all? The enemy’s all over that heap of sand, everyone knows that. Why did we go?’ Dillon shifted and turned at last to look at her directly. His stare was hostile.

  ‘Jalil,’ she said. Her cheeks were hot. ‘It was where…’

  ‘I know.’ He scowled at her. ‘I went the first time, remember?’ He blew out a volley of smoke. ‘Frankly, ma’am,’ he said, ‘the things the boys are saying about you right now. Well, they’re not very nice.’

  Ellen couldn’t speak. She thought of Jalil and the blackening of his name after his death. He hadn’t deserved it. Maybe she did.

  No one tried to stop her when she left the compound. Either they’re too much in shock, she thought as she stepped through the metal gate into the empty street beyond, or they no longer feel the same need to keep me safe. She tightened the strap of her helmet t
o stop it slopping from side to side and strode out down the dusty road. It was already after five. The anger had faded from the sun and the stark white light of a desert day was mellowing to yellow. The corn rose before her, rich and illuminated. She veered away from the path to the bombed house and struck out instead through a jumble of deserted outlying houses.

  After several twists in the road, the graveyard opened up in front of her, a cluster of jumbled monuments climbing the hillside to the left. She stopped abruptly. A man was standing with his back to her, midway up the hill, his arms outstretched, his palms upwards. The low incantation of his prayer drifted down to her, his deep voice rising and falling in rhythmical waves of sound. She stood and listened. The graves in front of him were small and freshly dug and still unmarked by a headstone.

  He missed the burial, she thought. The burial of his own children. His head, topped by its embroidered Afghan cap, was bowed. She walked to a boulder by the side of the road and leaned against it to wait, noting the heaviness in his body as he knelt and then prostrated himself, forehead to the earth.

  When he finished praying, he stood silently for some time, looking down at the earth. His hands rose to his face and wiped it. He turned quickly, his eyes on the ground. She was now clearly visible to him, below on the path, but he didn’t raise his eyes to look at her. She had the impression he had known all along that she was waiting there, even when his back was turned. He picked his way briskly through the graveyard, descending between the rows of crooked gravestones to the path. She stood, her hand on her heart, blocking his way.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She bowed her head to him. ‘What happened to your children was wrong.’

  Karam stared at her, his eyes hard. ‘That is for Allah in His Wisdom to judge,’ he said. ‘Not you.’

  Ellen unfastened her helmet and took it off, setting it on the rock beside her and drawing her cotton scarf up from around her neck to cover her head. Her hair was clammy with sweat. ‘Karam-jan, may I speak to you?’