A telegraph pole that had probably once supplied one of the only phonelines in Now Zad had somehow fallen over and was leaning precariously against the mud wall ahead of me. I would have to duck under it to look around the corner if I didn’t want to make myself a prime target by standing in the middle of the alley. The only thing holding it in place was a length of telegraph wire. Any sudden movement and it looked as if it would fall further. I had no choice, however. I needed to see around the corner, so I ducked under the telegraph pole trying not to catch the radio antenna that protruded from my backpack as I crouched low.
Looking down the alleyway I saw a knot of around 15 Afghans formed in a circle in the largest of the alleys that approached our compound from the west. With their distinct dark green tatty camouflage uniforms I could see that most were ANA and the rest were made up of the ANP that shared our compound. They were wearing the light blue flowing robes that they wore only on ‘official business’.
They had obviously left the compound without permission as I hadn’t been warned in the patrol brief to look out for any friendlies. As we hadn’t been out that long they must have left only recently. They had clearly left their common sense back in the compound too, because none of them was carrying a weapon. Not the smartest of ideas in Now Zad.
I was motioning for Dave to join me when I suddenly heard frenzied barking coming from where the crowd was gathered. I looked back and saw the crowd of Afghans was now jeering and shouting louder than ever. Then, as the men moved around excitedly, I caught a glimpse of two very angry dogs inside the closed circle.
I realised immediately what I was witnessing. ‘Fucking hell,’ I muttered.
It had been bad enough seeing the ANP dog being restrained a week or so earlier.
I had never imagined they would hold a dogfight here in Now Zad as well.
I saw one dog hit the dirt alley floor with a sickening thud. Its larger opponent landed next to it. Its jaws were spread wide to attack the dog that attempted to pick itself up from the littered alley floor. Teeth clashed as both dogs went for each other’s throat, their one main weak point, as both dogs had bloodied stumps where their ears had once been.
It takes a lot to rattle me. I had learned a long time ago to walk away from a fight. But it’s an entirely different matter when it comes to witnessing animal cruelty. Animals can’t stand up for themselves. I had seen enough. I had come to Afghanistan to help people get back on their feet, not promote this kind of barbaric behaviour. After the episode with the ANP dog I was not about to take the diplomatic approach again.
Without a second thought I started moving in the direction of the screaming throng. I could now see that one of the dogs was definitely bigger than the other. The larger one was a huge dog as big as a mastiff, the other more like an Alsatian. Through the silhouettes of the Afghans stood huddled in the circle, I could make out that most of the spectators were using long, solid sticks to push and beat the dogs. The scene that was playing out in front of me was far worse than any I had viewed on the Internet.
I try my best to respect and understand other cultures before I pass judgement, but these dogs were given no choice: fight or be beaten. I snapped.
The Afghans were so engrossed in the spectacle that they hadn’t noticed my approach. The dogs were lunging at each other now. The larger dog had the upper hand and easily overpowered the smaller one, knocking it to the ground. The smaller dog clearly looked winded as its larger opponent, jaws wide ready for the inevitable attack, charged forward. The Afghans were shouting louder.
I burst through the circle with such force that two of the ANA soldiers just managed to catch themselves with their hands before they hit the floor face first.
‘What the hell is going on?’ I screamed as I emerged into the middle of the circle.
It was probably pointless. I had no translator. But I hoped the anger in my voice would cross the language barrier.
As one the men turned in my direction, the wide-eyed hatred immediately evident on their tanned faces. The distraction gave the two dogs their chance. They both bolted through the gap I had created and ran off.
The Afghans now surged towards me shouting angrily. I had no idea what they were saying although I guessed they were pretty annoyed that I had disrupted their sport.
They stopped just a few yards from me to allow the most senior Afghan policeman present to step forward. He pushed me in the chest as he spat incomprehensible words in my direction. I was close enough to taste the stench of his breath. I needed some space.
‘Back off buddy,’ I said, using the palm of my free left hand to shove him back for all I was worth.
He tripped over his own feet and landed in a heap on the floor, the dust from the floor of the alley creating a small plume either side of him. Any other time it would have been comical but I wasn’t laughing. I had also just upset the rules of diplomacy, as I had just decked their commander, but I wasn’t thinking straight.
‘Don’t touch me again,’ I said, pointing my forefinger at him and raising my rifle from its position at my right side.
I had a horrible feeling that this was about to get nasty.
The Afghans were shouting and screaming as they pushed towards me, pointing in the direction that the dogs had fled. I stepped back to create some distance between me and the crowd as the policeman picked himself up. As I did so, I realised I was being forced back against the wall of the alley. I screamed obscenities at the police commander, who was yelling what I assumed were obscenities back at me.
I was thinking that there was no way I could get out of this situation when all of a sudden Dave pushed into the throng to stand alongside me. ‘Nice one, Pen,’ he said. ‘Time to leave.’ He grabbed my arm and led me back towards the patrol.
I could see our lads had closed ranks into the alley. The Afghans soon cottoned on to the fact that, rather than securing the area around us as they would normally be doing, the patrol was facing them.
The lads didn’t need to raise their weapons; the assembled Afghans got the message loud and clear but remained staring at us, faces twisted in anger. Dave motioned for the lead marine to start moving away from the mini-riot I had just started.
As we moved off, I looked back towards the Afghans, and especially the policeman who had just pushed me in the chest. He stood motionless but as vocal as before, his curses and shouting resonating around the alley walls. The temptation to go back and smash him into tomorrow was unbelievably strong. I was shaking with rage.
I wanted to go back into the crowd but Dave had sensed what I was thinking and continued to drag me away, into the safety of the departing patrol. Before I rounded the corner I turned once more and pointed at them and then in the direction of the compound. They knew what I meant. I wasn’t going to just stand by and watch the dogs fight. No matter what somebody else’s culture allowed.
The derelict building stood towards the western end of our compound, across a large open area away from any of the occupied buildings. The ANP sometimes used it for cooking, usually when they had missed the opportunity, for whatever reason, to prepare their meal during daylight hours. Cooking at night in the open air would provide the Taliban with an opportunity too good to miss.
The building was in a poor state. It had no windows or doors and the stench of waste wafting from the main door was extremely unpleasant. Dust poured continuously from the cracked and unpainted walls.
Since Kilo Company had arrived in the compound we had given the building only a cursory glance. I’d decided to take a closer look today partly because it offered the prospect of some shade from the blazing midday sun.
The temperature dropped a few degrees as soon as I crossed the threshold into the main hall. The cool air was a welcome relief now, but the Afghan winter was fast approaching. I didn’t hold much hope that the thick mud walls would hold much heat. Not that we had heating systems anyway.
The hallway was small with two doorless openings that led off either side into
larger rooms. Each room had one small window that allowed the thinnest of shards of brilliant afternoon sun into the room. As I scanned the room I couldn’t make out much detail.
I pulled my torch from its housing on my webbing belt and put it to use.
There was no furniture, just the odd dirty cooking utensil and discarded food wrappers, nothing of any value left on the floor.
I noticed, though, some old paper lying on the floor with five or more shaped blocks lying on top of each other. Out of curiosity I bent down to take a closer look. I picked one up. The object was hardened mud roughly shaped into a square tile, but at least ten times as thick as the conventional wall tile I was used to back home. In the middle of the tile was an imprint of four long leaves radiating outwards as if to form the points of a compass. I turned the heavy tile over in my hand. Why would anybody take so much time and effort to fashion this instead of concentrating on the more important issues of the day, I asked myself? Survival seemed to be a hard enough job.
I walked another three steps into the gloom. On my left, hidden from the main doorway, was a small alcove. On closer inspection it revealed itself as a doorway to a smaller storeroom.
Secretly a part of me was hoping that this old building would reveal something of the compound’s past, although somebody, I was sure, would have been through this building long before me.
I wasn’t expecting the low menacing growl that came from the back of the small room though. That caught me totally off guard.
I lowered the beam towards the floor and the source of the growl. Two large red eyes were reflected in the torch beam. Another growl from the dark and the eyes didn’t turn away.
I took a step back and allowed the torch beam to fill the room. As it did so I saw a dog, curled up in the corner of the storeroom. I recognised it immediately. It was the Alsatian-looking dog from the dogfight I had witnessed in the alley a couple of days earlier.
‘Oh shit,’ I said. It seemed appropriate.
The dog growled again but didn’t move.
What the hell was he doing in here and, more to the point, who let him in? I asked myself. My dog-proof gate was working well.
‘The ANP let you in here, didn’t they?’ I said to the dog in a low whisper. As it was a fairly good-sized dog it had just enough space on the dirty dust-covered floor to curl up tightly. Its rear legs were cocked to one side tight against its body.
He lifted his head towards the light from the torch to check out the intruder who had disturbed his simple retreat. I could see that the dog had the face of an Alsatian except where the big brown ears should have been. There he had two stumps. The right-hand one was still covered in dried blood. His back was covered in short light brown hair, but his front legs halfway up to the knee joint were covered in white hair, as if he was wearing socks.
The dog just stared at me.
‘Okay, so I am not on the menu,’ I said to him, a sense of relief washing over me.
Food is the language of all animals. ‘Fancy some cardboard biscuits?’ I asked him as I lowered the torch to the ground so the dog could clearly see me. I crouched down and reached into my top pocket for the biscuits that I carried around with me at all times. The term ‘biscuits’ was a loose description; they really did look and taste like stale cardboard. But we had all learned that with the Taliban liable to attack at any time, you didn’t want to get stuck in a sangar for hours on end with nothing to snack on, even if you did need to drink a litre of water with each bite.
I reached my left hand out towards the dog, holding the biscuit between my forefinger and thumb, just in case I was suddenly back on the menu. I had seen his teeth in action. I didn’t fancy a viewing close up.
He growled again. It was a deep rumbling sound, like some nightmarish beast that had just woken up. I flinched. I reached a little further forward, but still a good foot away from the dog.
‘Nice and easy, Pen,’ I muttered to myself as I reached closer. I was hoping its bark was worse than its bite.
‘Good boy, I’m not going to hurt you,’ I said softly. ‘They taste nice – really!’
I flicked the brown biscuit towards the dog’s nose. This time he flinched. He looked at the biscuit and then sniffed it suspiciously. I doubt he had ever come across biscuits before in Now Zad. He moved his head and attempted to pick the biscuit up with his teeth.
‘Good boy – more of them where that came from.’
I was glad to see the dog was more interested in the biscuits than in me.
I pulled another one from the green packet and pushed it towards the dog, but as my hand got close to where the first biscuit had landed he gave a snappy bark and lunged his big head forward without warning.
I reacted too quickly and shot backwards, landing on my backside.
The dog hadn’t moved its body, just his head. The message was crystal-clear though.
‘Okay. I get it, your space. That’s fine Mr Angry Dog,’ I said, flipping the biscuit at him and standing up slowly.
The dog didn’t bother sniffing the treat this time. Instead he strained his neck forward until he could grab the biscuit with his teeth and slowly started to chew.
‘All right buddy, I’ll get you some water. You’ll need it after eating them.’
I knew I couldn’t leave the dog to his own devices within the compound. I didn’t want to think about what the ANP had planned for the poor bugger.
But with the compound now dog-proof, he wouldn’t be able to leave even if he wanted to. I was going to have to get the dog out. But common sense already told me that I wasn’t going to attempt anything until he trusted me. I certainly wasn’t going to try to drag him outside.
I backed out of the storeroom and into the bright glare of the mid-afternoon sunshine. I walked over to the water storage area and picked up one of the jerry cans, designated for washing water. It felt a quarter full. Back in the building I had noticed a large silver bowl lying on the floor in the room that the ANP sometimes used for their cooking. It had been used on an open flame in the past and whatever had been cooked in it was baked to the inside. The outside was charred black from the naked flame.
I gave it a quick rinse around and wiped as much of the old baked food from the inside of the bowl as I could just using my fingers. I filled it as full as possible with water and carried it carefully back into the gloom where the grumpy dog was lying. He was exactly as I had left him. This time I was a little more cautious as I placed the bowl down. I wasn’t ending up on my arse again.
The dog didn’t move. I nudged the bowl forward. No growls.
‘Good lad, see: I’m on your side,’ I said in the friendliest voice I could muster.
Checking my watch I realised I didn’t have much time left before the orders brief at 1600 hours so I emptied the remainder of the biscuit packet by the bowl. ‘Later buddy – enjoy the biscuits.’
I left him chewing happily on the biscuits, a question turning over and over in my mind as I walked to the briefing. How was I going to get an Afghan fighting dog out of the building without losing an arm?
I was dreaming of home when the bleeping of my watch alarm snapped me awake.
It was 0130 hours, time to start the day again. I had zipped myself into my sleeping bag only two hours before. As I unzipped the bag I felt the chill of the cool night air and quickly dressed in my fleece and pulled my boots on. Fortunately, it was only a short walk across the compound to reach the relative warmth of the ops room and the radio watch that beckoned.
As I walked across the small open area of ground I noticed a lone figure sitting oblivious to the cold, bathed in the glow of the silvery moon. It was the fighting dog, the shape of his earless head silhouetted distinctively against the mud wall behind him. I stopped to look at him for a moment. Without warning he pushed off his rear legs with an unsteady jerk and wandered towards me.
For a second I thought about running, but I told myself not to be stupid and stood still as the dog approached. The dog moved up
alongside me, its head brushed against my legs as he sniffed my combat trousers.
I realised I was holding my breath.
I reached my right hand down towards the dog’s head. It suddenly struck me that he had probably never been stroked before. But it was too late and my hand was next to his muzzle.
I kept my hand extended to let the dog sniff it. He inhaled deeply a few times, made a small ‘Ophmm’ noise then unexpectedly sat down next to me.
I pushed my luck. I gently stroked him on the head, making sure I avoided what was left of his ears. He didn’t flinch but pushed his head back against my hand. I rubbed his head harder, giving him a good scratch. As I did so he let out a low growling noise, but this time much softer and definitely less aggressive than anything I had heard from him in his hideaway. It reminded me of the little growls of appreciation that Fizz or Beamer would make, so I guessed I was doing okay.
I looked at my watch again: 0156 hours. I was due to be relieving Dutchy, the other troop sergeant, on the radio in just a few minutes’ time. I guessed he wouldn’t mind if I was a little late and anyway he was probably still in the middle of a game of poker with the signaller on the other radio, although they played only for boiled sweets. I doubted if we had more than $200 between us in the compound. Money was no longer part of our daily lives.
I stood in the bright glow of the Afghan moonlight for a few more moments, sharing the cool night air with the dog as he enjoyed being made a fuss of for the first time in his very lonely and unloved life.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Dog Warden
THE NEXT FEW days passed slowly; nothing was happening on the Taliban front and our patrolling had been restricted due to a lack of air support. Other operations in Helmand province were taking priority.
The downtime had provided us with an opportunity to make some improvements to our very basic facilities. Today we were building the shower area.
With no running water in Now Zad, or indeed most places in Helmand, we had come equipped with solar showers, large black plastic water bottles that, once filled, were laid out in the sun to absorb the heat for a few hours. They were then hung up on something strong enough to support them, allowing two men to grab a quick shower while the bag emptied via a small tap with a sprinkler head.
One Dog at a Time Page 5
