The Last Kestrel

by Jill McGivering

  He inclined his head politely and walked round the front of the vehicle to the driver’s door. He revved the engine and drove, bumping, past her down the track, his eyes forward, his belongings swaying and knocking in the back.

  She stood at the roadside, enveloped in the dry brown dust that the tyres were beating into rising clouds. It made her eyes sting as she stared after him. The vehicle began, slowly, to lose its form, merging into the blur of dirt all around it. The rough assault of the engine slowly faded as it pulled further away into the desert. She watched the dust-cloud shrink, until, finally, all that was left was an echo and a thick tail of quietly settling earth.

  She sank to the ground and sat propped up against her rucksack, her legs crumpled under her. He had gone. She had survived. She ran her filthy hands over her face, tracing her nose, her cheekbones, her jaw. She was alive.

  She closed her eyes and let her shoulders sag. She wanted to erase Karam. To dismiss everything he’d said. It was malice. His way of trying to destroy the Commander who’d allowed a bomb to fall on his family.

  But as she turned over what he’d said, the allegations he’d made, she felt a profound unease. Mack was a maverick, that was true. He was a man who disregarded rules and would do anything to safeguard his men. What if, just possibly, Karam’s story were true? She sat in the dust for a long time, her head in her hands, too exhausted to go on.

  The sun was starting to lose its power when she finally pulled herself to her feet, shouldered her pack and started to walk back. Her limbs were heavy, her thoughts confused. There must be a way she could prove for herself that Karam was wrong. It was too late to ask Jalil. Najib had already disappeared. Karam claimed that Mack had struck a deal secretly and independently, without the army’s knowledge. So who else was there to ask? She was worried too about Aref. If he didn’t get help quickly, his chances of survival were poor.

  She took Karam’s advice and left the corn and other planted fields behind, striking out instead across the arid piece of wasteland, dull with low-lying scrub and coarse grass. It was a vacancy. No sign of boots or animals or any attempt to cultivate. She was walking quickly, her head down, deep in thought, when she sensed movement ahead. She looked up.

  A large dog was trotting towards her, picking its way along the natural contour of the desert. It made a small detour through the scrub as it advanced and paused to lower its snout and snap, its ears pricked. She heard the clash of its teeth and its low growl as it foraged. Then it lifted its wolfish head and resumed its trot. She stopped and stood silently, watching its progress. The light was thickening, making the dog’s saliva glisten where it hung in ribbons from its half-open jaw.

  The air was still. She couldn’t tell if the dog had caught her smell yet or seen her. She looked around, wondering how to hide and seeing only scrub. She shrank, inch by inch, bending down into a crouch, the weight of her pack pulling her backwards, her fingers groping in the dust around her for a stone. Her eyes stayed always on the dog.

  It was coming steadily closer. The dog was near enough now for her to make out its ribs through matted grey fur and hear the rattle of its breath. It was powerful and thickset, its body ridged with muscle. She sensed meanness in it, and danger.

  It stopped abruptly. She held her breath. It raised its snout and sniffed the air. It shuddered, then swung its head and looked directly at her across the open ground. Its eyes were bulging. Her fingers closed round two small pebbles and she tested their weight. Running was useless. Her crouch, low on her heels, put her at eye-level with the dog. Its look was feral, as if hunger or sickness had maddened it.

  She turned her shoulder to the dog and dipped her head. She tried to look away, to avoid challenging it, but her eyes, afraid, slid back. It was stock-still, drool cascading from its jaws, its eyes on hers. Neither of them moved. She could hear its low panting and the wheeze in its chest. It swallowed and flicked its thick tongue.

  With her sideways glance, she could read the strain in the dog. It was alert, its limbs tense, watching her and considering. Its tail twitched. Under the dirty fur, its ribcage swelled and shrank rhythmically. She tried to slow her own breathing, to appear calm and persuade it to forget her, to turn its snout and trot away.

  The dog burst suddenly into motion, catching her by surprise. In a second, it went from tense stillness to catapulting across the earth towards her. Despite the heaviness of its limbs and its wretchedness, she was struck by its grace as it ran flying towards her. It was pounding the scrub, its feet raising dust. She lifted her hand and hurled the pebbles, one by one, and watched them bounce useless in the dirt around it. She froze. She had no means of defending herself.

  There was nowhere to hide. The dog was now just yards away, its jaw spraying flecks of saliva. In a moment, it would be upon her. She pulled her pack in front of her and brought her hands to her face, pressing her palms into her eyes and nose, bracing herself for the impact, for the moment it crashed into her, for the dull weight forcing her backwards, for hot sour breath in her face and the tearing teeth.

  An intense burst of light. The brightness turned the fingers at her face into pink flares. A wave of noise followed, striking her in the head, the ribs, knocking her to one side. The explosion sucked the air from her chest. She gasped, stunned, fighting for breath. Her hands flew to her ears and she pressed her palms against them, her eyes screwed shut. The echo of the blast burst in her head. Her ears were buzzing with pain and shock, making her dizzy.

  As the pumping of blood in her head began to subside, she became aware of the silence pressing in all around her. She concentrated on breathing. Her body came slowly back to her. Her legs, bent under her, were juddering. She eased her hands from her ears. No sound rushed in. She steadied herself, opened her eyes and dared to look.

  The dog’s head was lying a few feet from her. It was on its side, fixing her with staring eyes. Its mouth was open, its long dark tongue limp across sharp yellowed teeth. Beneath it, the severed neck was a mess of spurting blood, darkening the scrub and sand in slowing pulses. The rest of its body, the legs, the stomach, had been torn into fragments and lay, scattered, across a distance of several feet. The air reeked of the explosion and of singed flesh and fur.

  She felt sick. The dog’s flesh was already stiffening. The pools of blood were congealing on the ground. As she watched, its head blackened and buzzed with gathering flies. Her eyes moved slowly across the dirt, taking in the small fragments of twisted metal all around. Her legs started to shake under her, making her whole body tremble. A mine. She put her arms round her pack and clasped it. God help me. I’m in a minefield.

  Panic fluttered inside her. She wanted to get to her feet and run, to sprint across the earth and escape, whatever the danger. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe deeply. Stop it, she told herself. Whatever I do, I must keep still. As long as I don’t move, I’m safe. She stayed, petrified, her hands locked round her rucksack. She tried to think.

  Once she managed to regain control of her breathing, she opened her eyes. The blast had knocked her sideways onto one thigh. She eased her weight back onto her feet and hung in a crouch. The sand around her looked unbroken. It was covered with a thin crust and dotted with scrub. Maybe there was just that one mine and that was it? She shook her head. It was possible but unlikely. Mines were usually laid in clusters. She peered out at the fragments of charred metal. There was no way of telling their age. The mines might have been laid recently, in the last year or two, planted as defences by the Taliban. Or they could have been lying here, hidden, for many years, left over from any one of the recent conflicts. Mines, she knew, were patient weapons. They could lie in wait for decades to find their victim.

  The muscles along her thighs and calves were already aching. She eased herself slowly to her feet, careful to keep her balance, and rubbed her legs. Perhaps someone had heard the explosion. Someone might come. She cursed softly. Of course. This was why Hasina, who knew the ground, had carefully taken her a
longer route. This was why Karam had sent her in this direction. What a fool she’d been to listen to him. Allah will decide, he’d said. Was this what he’d meant? She remembered his thin smile.

  She sank back to her haunches. There were thin scratch marks in the dirt around her where she’d groped with her fingers for a stone to throw at the dog. She sifted through these loose surface grains with her fingertips, feeling lightly for metal. It took more pressure than that, she knew, to detonate a mine; nevertheless it was dangerous, slow progress. Working laboriously, inch by inch, straining to keep her senses keen, she finally cleared an area of about a square foot around her and lowered herself to a sitting position, her arms circling her knees. She pulled her scarf over her head to shield her face and neck from the sun, opened up her rucksack and dug out her sat phone. She barely had to twist her body to find a signal. She stared at the phone for a minute or two before she dialled, trying to delay the humiliation of making the call, struggling to come up with another way of saving herself. There was none.

  Phil picked up on the second ring, giving his name in his usual gruff tone.

  ‘It’s Ellen,’ she said. ‘I need help.’

  Mack came in person to rescue her. She saw the dust rising from the convoy of vehicles all the way across the desert. They disappeared into the corn for some minutes as the track twisted and fell, then emerged again, larger and closer.

  The vehicles finally skidded to a halt and a soldier jumped down from the front seat of the lead Snatch. She recognized at once the broad shoulders and confident, commanding manner. Mack. She felt a flush of relief. Mack would get her out of this.

  He set the men from the first Snatch patrolling up and down the edge of the wasteland, then moved forward himself to the last line of safe ground and started shouting instructions to her.

  She focused all her energy on doing exactly what he said. Crouching on her knees and using her pen to push down into the earth in front of her at an angle, alert for the slightest change or hard resistance. If she found nothing, she marked the spot with a couple of pebbles or mound of dirt, then started on the next section of ground, alongside. When she’d finally cleared an area the width of her knees, she crawled forward onto it, breathed deeply and started all over again.

  Her body was hard to control. It was shaking from shock and the mental strain of staying constantly alert. Her hands were slick with sweat. She struggled to keep a tight grip on the slippery plastic pen. Mack’s commands were a constant commentary from the sidelines. Occasionally she stopped, wondering if she were making progress at all, if she’d ever make safety, if she should just take her chances, get up and run and, as Karam had said, let Allah decide. Then all she heard, cutting through her lethargy, was his wry encouragement. ‘Come on. We haven’t got all day.’ Or: ‘Get a move on. Dinner’s nearly ready.’ Somehow he kept her focused.

  When she jumped over the final strip to join him, she was close to collapse. He put his hands out to receive her and she thrust herself forwards, bumping up against him. He caught and steadied her, his broad hands cupping her elbows. His body was muscular and solid and warm and, as she inhaled him, her eyes closed, her face inches from his chest, she smelt safety.

  The soldiers, milling round them, stood watching. Dillon was amongst them.

  ‘Blimey, sir,’ he said. ‘What it takes to get a date round here.’

  23

  Hasina was outside. She wanted to be left alone. She had the strengthening sun on her face, the smell of the earth, the grass. A fly landed on her chin, buzzed, walked, flew again. She didn’t move.

  Palwasha was tending her. She forced Hasina’s head into her lap and put a cup of hot, sweet tea to her lips. She and Karam were talking about her over her head, as if she were deaf.

  ‘Shock,’ Palwasha was saying. Now she was forcing the cup back to her lips. The tea was scalding but a comfort as it slid down her throat. Palwasha was rocking her, her knees moving like an earthquake, swaying her head and shoulders. ‘Not even an Imam at the burial,’ she was saying now. ‘Just the foreigners standing round and the Afghan traitors with their prayers.’

  Abdul’s burial, she thought. Had it really happened? And when? She had lost all sense of time. Her own Abdul. Her eyes closed, lulled on Palwasha’s lap.

  The noise of crying woke her. Gasping. She couldn’t breathe. Her body was shaking, jerking in convulsions. Strong arms, Palwasha, struggled to hold her still, to contain her. Her eyes were emptying themselves into the cloth at her face. Her nose was running. Drowning. She let out a scream. The sound of it shocked her. Look at me, she thought, making such a noise. Palwasha was bending over her, murmuring. Bringing her down again, to stillness, to quietness again. Her eyes were streaming, her breath coming in gulps. Her legs were banging against the ground. The hard dirt. Her ankle bones knocking.

  ‘Hush,’ Palwasha was saying, her face down close in a whisper. ‘Hush.’

  Her eyes closed and she whimpered, letting go of every muscle, every fibre that had held her in the form of a person. Water. Spilling into Palwasha’s lap. Soaking into the dust beneath. Darkness.

  Afternoon. Shade. She opened an eye. Her head was resting on soft cloth. In front of her, a piece of wood, lit by the sun. A line of ants, crawling. A table, put on its side. A screen, shielding her from the heat. Who had done that? Her neck, when she tried to move her head, was stiff and sore. Her eyes encrusted.

  ‘Water?’ Palwasha’s voice. Nearby. Palwasha’s cool hands, capable and alive, reached for her shoulders and pulled her upright. Everything ached; every knot of her spine squealed. She sat, lifeless as a doll, and stared. The wood grain of the table danced to and fro. Palwasha brought a wet cloth to her face and wiped her forehead, her eyes, her nose, her dry mouth. No strength to resist. The cloth chafed her, a cold, rasping tongue on her skin. She sat, her shoulders drooping, as Palwasha bustled. Food. A bowl of cool soup, ladled into her mouth, spoon by spoon. She spluttered as she tried to swallow. When did Palwasha make soup? Hasina tried to focus her thoughts. Abdul, she thought. My Abdul, cold and rotting in the ground. How can it be? Her lips crumpled and her mouth gave way, spilling the soup in rivulets down her chin.

  As she slept, she heard the dull engine of a vehicle. Coming here, to the house. It stopped and there was a slamming of car doors, footsteps, voices. Karam and then Palwasha. She fell back into sleep.

  When she woke again, it was late afternoon. Her body ached. Behind, in the house, people were moving. Palwasha’s voice, low and angry. The clatter of cups.

  After some time, Karam came out to her. He nodded down at her, his shoulders black against the sun.

  ‘Sister-in-law.’ His voice was tense. She didn’t move. He hesitated, then sat down beside her, his legs crossed. He is frightened,

  she thought. This man who thought himself so much stronger than my husband. He is afraid for his life.

  ‘We must leave,’ he said. His voice was low. He spoke to her slowly as if she were a child. ‘The foreigners won’t protect us. It’s too dangerous here.’

  Hasina thought again of Palwasha’s words: it was too dangerous for Karam to see his own brother buried. Such a man. She pursed her lips.

  ‘We will drive this evening for Nayullah,’ he was saying. ‘Then go north to Kabul. I have friends there. And I have money. I will try to get a message out, to the fighters. To say sorry to them for this mistake Abdul made.’

  Hasina listened. Her body was inert. She was too exhausted to move. But inside she was angry. Karam was a fool, a coward. So he’d rather make peace with these fighters and save his skin than avenge his own brother’s murder? Abdul, she thought. You were twice the man. Karam was rocking himself, his face agitated.

  ‘Palwasha has already packed our things to go,’ he said. ‘Can you travel?’ His voice was uncertain.

  Hasina slowly shook her head. ‘I cannot leave.’

  ‘The soldiers will let us leave.’ He nodded his head back to the gate where the foreign guard was sitting
in the shade, half asleep on a chair. ‘They won’t make trouble.’

  Hasina looked away. The sunlight was failing, bathing the edges of the upturned table in a golden haze. A good time of day, she thought. When the day’s work is almost done. A time for thinking. A time for prayer.

  ‘I cannot leave,’ she said again. She was shocked by her own defiance. ‘I won’t come with you. I cannot.’

  Karam shook his head, only partly listening. As his brother’s widow, she was under his protection now. It was unthinkable that she would refuse to obey him.

  ‘You must,’ he said. ‘We must save ourselves. We are all tainted now. It will be safer in Kabul. I have enough money for us all. Allah will protect us.’

  She turned and looked at him coldly. ‘I cannot leave,’ she said again. ‘I have lost my husband. I will not leave my son.’

  He sighed, examined his fingers, then got to his feet. After a few paces, he stopped. He came back and crouched by her, his face thoughtful.

  ‘Aref – you know where he is?’ he said. ‘You will see him?’ He handed her a bundle, heavy with clothing, tied up with a cotton sleeve. ‘Give him this from me.’

  She shrugged. Karam couldn’t be trusted.

  ‘He must fulfil his mission,’ he said.

  His eyes were compelling. He seemed to have a new confidence, a new reason to hope. This is the way he persuaded my son, she thought, with his passion and fine arguments. My poor son, who lacked the brains to defend himself.

  ‘He must,’ he said. ‘If the fighters find him, they will kill him for sure. Once for failing in his mission. And once for being the son of a traitor. You understand?’