One Dog at a Time

by Farthing, Pen

  The signal came back from the loadmaster – one minute to touchdown. Mase and I stood up, coping with the bucking movements of the helo by holding on to the webbing straps hanging from the ceiling of the airframe, our legs planted firmly apart, our knees slightly bent as if riding a giant surfboard. The medical crew was still seated, waiting for the casualty to be brought on board.

  As the jolt confirmed that we had landed both of us were already running down the ramp dragging the three mail sacks out into the stinging miserable hurricane of wet mud and rain that the downdraught from the rotors was churning up. Even with our goggles on and scarves pulled up around our mouths we fought to see where we were going as we tried to get a safe distance from the back of the cab. Partially obscured by the storm of soggy mud I caught a glimpse of four crouched figures struggling to carry a body in a sleeping bag back up the ramp.

  I assumed that was Marine Smith on his way to the hospital.

  Within seconds the four figures were back on solid ground, huddled next to me and Mase 30 yards from the helo. It was just the right spot to be hit full blast with the stones and mud as the Chinook launched back into the overcast sky. I winced as I took a stone direct on my upper left arm.

  As the noise and hurtling debris subsided I pulled down my mud-coated goggles. They were completely useless now. I couldn’t see anything out of them.

  A fist punched me on the arm, right on the spot the rock had just hit. I winced again. ‘Welcome back, Sarge, how was the R & R?’

  I recognised the voice. As he took off the goggles and scarf, his gringo moustache, even bushier than normal, confirmed to me that it was Dave. His dark unwashed hair seemed to have grown even longer than I had expected it would.

  ‘Yeah, hoofing mate, still missed this place though,’ I lied as we all stood up and shook hands. ‘How have you guys been?’

  I didn’t need to ask about Richie directly; he knew what I meant.

  ‘Yeah, better, the lads are dealing with it okay,’ he replied. ‘It was a hard few days at first.’

  I looked around the desert; the familiar 4x4 with John driving was just screeching to a halt. The mountains at either side of the town were completely enveloped in low cloud. It was now drizzling steadily.

  I turned back to Dave, but he already knew what I was going to ask.

  ‘Don’t worry, the dogs are doing good, they are still in the compound. Jena has put on a bit of weight though.’

  ‘I still don’t have a plan to get them out,’ I replied as we dumped the mail sacks on the back of the flat-bed truck. Dave didn’t respond. The chill wind from the north was cooling me down quite rapidly now that the exhilaration of the helicopter ride was over.

  ‘Hey John, are you still driving this thing?’ I extended my hand through the open passenger window of the truck so I could shake his. It was good to see familiar faces again.

  ‘Don’t trust anybody else with my baby,’ he laughed, ‘You should know that!’

  I jumped into the cab next to him for the short ride back to the compound with the rest of the lads riding shotgun on the back of the flat bed. I looked down at what had, only minutes ago, been my clean washed uniform. It was now wet and covered in mud. I knew that it would stay that way for several weeks to come.

  As I stared out of the window I realised what had been puzzling me about the desert floor: it was the wrong colour. Instead of the dull cracked yellow of the last few months there was now a thin carpet of green vegetation extending as far as the eye could see.

  ‘Wow, when did that happen?’ I asked, pointing out the front of the cab windscreen.

  ‘Day after it first rained, overnight and just like that, boom, we got grass,’ John replied, not taking his eyes from the potholed track.

  The compound, on the other hand, hadn’t changed one bit. Everything looked exactly as I’d left it when I’d last driven through the metal gates. Except, that was, for the water that had now been unable to run off through the thickset walls of the compound and was now pooled in vast puddles over every depression in the ground.

  ‘Nice, wish I had bought my wellingtons back with me,’ I said as John drove the truck through a particularly deep puddle to arrive outside the ops room.

  I reported straight to the nerve centre to inform the boss I was back. The surprised look on his face told me that he hadn’t expected me back till the next scheduled resupply flight in another few days.

  ‘Nice haircut, Sergeant,’ he smiled as I removed my combat helmet. I had to admit I had had it cut slightly too short during R & R. I now looked like the new boy of the compound as most lads hadn’t had a haircut in over two months.

  We exchanged pleasantries about my R & R before getting stuck into the situation report so I could get up to speed on the events of the last ten days.

  I listened intently as he explained how Marine Watson had died. The company had been ambushed by the Taliban two days on the trot as they mounted patrols towards the north of Now Zad. On the second occasion Richie was in the passenger seat of the WMIC that I sometimes commanded. He had been shot as the cavalry were responding to the request for fire support.

  The lad who had just broken his pelvis had been riding top cover in a WMIC as part of a night patrol to resupply an observation post that had been in operation for a few days out in the desert. Even wearing the night vision goggles that intensify the ambient light the driver had still failed to see the edge of a steep-sided wadi. Marine Smith had been lucky not to have been more seriously injured as the vehicle tyres lost their grip in the wet mud and the wagon rolled down the bank.

  The boss had almost finished getting me back up to speed when the Taliban decided to welcome me back to the compound.

  ‘Hope you haven’t forgotten what to do,’ were his parting words as I charged out of the ops room. Checking on the dogs would have to wait.

  I sprinted to take up my place in the sangar. Only 24 hours ago I had been drinking beer in a posh hotel. I was now wet through in a crammed sangar listening to gunfire reverberate around the mountain walls as the Taliban reminded me that nothing had changed.

  Hutch was manning the gun to my right. I hadn’t managed to chat to him yet. He just shouted across as he engaged a target in the far distance. ‘Welcome back, Sarge.’

  I looked out on to the dull rain-soaked town of Now Zad. It wasn’t funny but I had to smile. Despite the rain and the new grass it was like I had never left.

  I dumped my day sack by my bed and retrieved the special dog chews I had bought back in the UK from a side pouch. I quickly called in to see if any of my lads were off duty in their compound. I found the open windows in the accommodation areas decorated with sparkly tinsel and Christmas banners that were now dripping from the continuing downpour.

  There was even a small spruce tree in the corner of the room that looked as if it had seen better days. I had no idea where that had come from.

  Most of my lads were around the sangars or asleep in their racks. I spoke briefly to the few who were getting on with personal admin. I deliberately avoided raising the subject of Richie. If the lads wanted to talk to me about it they would. But for now no one did. I tried to wind them all up with tales of my R & R and the amount of alcohol and good food I’d stuffed down my neck while at home.

  As I headed back out to see the dogs across the compound it was hard to avoid the puddles of water forming in every dip in the ground. Arriving at the run I stared inside, but no dogs ran out to greet me. There was a new corrugated shelter that I imagined Dave or John must have built. Peering inside I saw two dogs curled up together, Jena and RPG.

  I figured that Nowzad must be in the mortar shelter that now had a plastic waterproof covering fixed over it. I quietly untied the gate and slipped through the gap.

  I stood in the water that had collected at the lower part of the run by the gate and rustled the chewies out of my soaked pocket. ‘Is nobody pleased to see me then?’ I shouted into the corrugated shelter.

  RPG and Jena b
oth raised their heads immediately to see where the noise had come from. At the same time, a familiar nose pointed out into the rain from the depths of the mortar shelter.

  They recognised me instantly and I was soon covered in muddy paw prints as all three dogs jumped up and down around me in the mud. Jena’s little yelps of excitement told me she had missed me.

  ‘Yes, yes, I have missed you all too,’ I said, as I placed one of the chewies first into Nowzad’s mouth then gave one each to RPG and Jena. It always surprised me that even though they were street dogs they were as gentle as anything taking the treats from my hand.

  ‘Calm down, Jena, I don’t think you need the excitement by the look of you.’

  Jena was now looking quite plump. We were definitely going to be the proud owners of some pups pretty soon.

  The dogs calmed down as they took the chewies away to their own little corners around the muddy run. I stared and watched over them while they ate before making a fuss of Nowzad to distract him from the fact that Jena was still taking her time with her chewie.

  Every now and again she would stop eating and just stare at me as if I was about to disappear off again.

  ‘Just get eating, Jena. I’m not sure how long I can keep this nightmare dog occupied,’ I said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  AK

  I HAD TO be quick feeding the dogs today.

  We had a patrol planned and were then going straight into greeting a resupply flight. It wasn’t just any resupply flight either. It was the big one, our Christmas mail delivery.

  Bastion had informed us that there were 35 sacks of mail on the flight along with a few surprises. The compound was quietly buzzing with expectation. Even the rumour mill wasn’t giving anything away.

  I emptied the contents of the ration packets into the three bowls. It suddenly struck me that the dogs were not as enthusiastic as normal. Maybe it was the weather, which as well as being wet had turned extremely bitter with freezing cold northerly winds blowing in.

  Every day now we went through the same cycle. We would wake up to a frozen compound. It would slowly defrost until the mid-afternoon downpour began, then turn to ice again overnight. It was miserable. The plunge in the night-time temperature had been sudden and it was only getting colder. The mountains to the north were now a picture-postcard scene of white-capped peaks.

  The night-time sentry duties were becoming a severe endurance test. Getting out of the toasty warmth of a down sleeping bag at 0100 in the morning wasn’t easy. I had recorded minus ten on the thermometer on my watch only the night before.

  With the onset of the real Afghan winter, the unofficial dog rescue committee that was made up of me, Dave and John had come to the conclusion that the dogs needed more shelter from the elements, especially with Jena on the verge of having puppies.

  There was one small courtyard building next to the rear wall of the compound that was still disused. We’d given it a quick once over when we had first arrived and concluded that it didn’t look that stable as a structure, so it had remained an empty shell.

  With some imagination and a bit of effort, however, we decided it would be ideal for a two- or maybe three-run dog pound, especially as it contained three small storerooms that were built into the main back wall. The spaces would be ideal for the dogs to shelter from the freezing downpours. As we set about fixing them up, for added warmth we taped up three large cardboard boxes and cut a flap just big enough for a dog to enter through one of the ends. We placed a box in each of the rooms, lining the insides with the unused T-shirts from the failed rescue travel crates.

  The courtyard was over on the west side of the compound and well enough away from most of the lads as not to cause a nuisance if the dogs started barking as they sometimes did when the Now Zad pack wandered close by at night around the outer wall. I guessed that Nowzad missed his days of roaming wild after dark. I never really understood that. I figured having two square meals a day and somebody looking after him was a fair trade.

  Another morning of frenzied activity saw the new dog pound up and running. The work had kept John and me warm as the wind was blowing a bitter chill from the north most days now.

  Our plan was to eventually separate Jena from Nowzad and RPG. I had no idea how the two male dogs would react to her puppies when she had them.We had cut the fencing ready to split the run up and left it lying against the wall, for now leaving it as one big run.

  ‘What’s up with you guys?’ I asked as I held up a bowl of what they usually considered a gourmet meal. ‘Don’t you like your new accommodation or have you just gone off food?’

  I didn’t believe that last statement for a minute.

  Nowzad wasn’t looking at me, which had to be a total first during feeding time.

  ‘What the hell are you looking at, Nowzad?’ I asked him, turning to follow his gaze behind me. ‘Wow, where did you come from?’

  Behind me was a small mud alcove that didn’t seem to have much of a use. Until now it had been a place to ditch the empty ration packs when we didn’t have time to clear them away.

  Today, however, a small, funny-looking dog, a similar colour to RPG, was lying panting heavily on its side in among yesterday’s rubbish.

  I stopped arranging the dogs’ breakfasts and took a closer look. I could see she was a bitch. It wasn’t hard to see why she was in distress. Her neck was nearly double the thickness it should have been for an animal this little guy’s size.

  ‘What’s the matter, little buddy?’ I said as I reached out a hand. It didn’t move but the dog’s eyes followed my hand as she decided to give out a soft little growl in my direction. She didn’t seem to have much fight in her.

  To get a better look at her, I shifted my position until I was looking down on to the dog and the back of its head. ‘Okay, buddy,’ I said, ‘I can see why you aren’t moving too much.’

  There was a nasty-looking wound at the base of the dog’s enlarged neck. The area around the bloodied patch was a matted clump of bloodstained hair and broken skin. As I looked closer I realised that I was actually studying two small puncture wounds about half an inch apart. I was no expert but it looked decidedly like a snake bite to me. Afghanistan has around 270 varieties of snake, of which about 50 are poisonous. I imagined that was why the neck was swollen so badly. I reached out my hand again gently and slowly towards the dog’s head. Again she didn’t move, just growled steadily back at me.

  ‘Okay, I’ll get you something for this but I don’t know if it will work.’

  I stood up and turned to face Nowzad. ‘Sorry buddy, but breakfast will have to wait.’

  I quickly ran over to the store. I spied the cardboard box I was looking for immediately and emptied the contents on to the floor. I could pack them away later.

  When I returned the little dog was still lying on her side, panting heavily. She hadn’t moved. I pulled on my leather combat gloves and gently reached my hands either side of the dog and under her back. I tried my best to support her swollen neck as I lifted her carefully into the box. Because of the cold, I had my thick combat jacket on. As I cradled her I hoped the little dog wouldn’t be able to bite through that. Luckily her attempts at growling were fairly pathetic.

  The dog was about half the size of RPG, but her legs were nowhere near as gangly as his. I placed the box carefully down under the shelter of the discarded corrugated tin, covering the injured dog over with an old T-shirt before I went to find the doctor.

  As I walked across the yard, aware of the time, I couldn’t quite figure out why I was suddenly the focal point for all the waifs and strays of Now Zad. Why had the little dog found her way into the compound? How did she know I would try to do something to help her?

  There was no way Dave or John would believe that I hadn’t brought the dog in from outside, I thought to myself.

  I walked into the medical room. The doctor was doing a stocktake.

  ‘Doc, you got a minute?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, what’s u
p? Are those warts playing up again?’ He made sure he shouted so that his medical assistant, who was quietly reading a book, looked up.

  ‘Ha ha, nice one, Doc, cheers for that.’ He knew I didn’t have warts but it would be good for the rumour mill. It was his way of getting back for those early-morning wake-up calls. ‘Doc, hypothetically, suppose a little baby was bitten by a snake. What medicine would you recommend?’ I asked.

  ‘A snake bite? Well, it would be some form of anti-venom depending on the snake involved,’ he said, looking up at me.

  ‘If you had no idea what type of snake?’

  The doc looked up and gave me a knowing look.

  ‘This small baby of yours, it wouldn’t be a dog by any chance?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied with a sheepish grin.

  ‘Okay, antiseptic cream over the bite area and then one of these pills twice daily for three days,’ he said, reaching for a packet on one of the higher shelves in the crammed medical centre. ‘I can’t vouch that it will work though,’ he added.

  ‘No worries, if it doesn’t I’ll try it on the warts,’ I yelled as I rushed out the door.

  I knew I would have to administer the cream and attempt to get the dog to eat the tablet all in the space of a few minutes. I didn’t think I had to worry too much about the little dog putting up a fight. She looked knackered.

  The Christmas mail drop was big. As the Chinook flew away we were left with a large under-slung pallet and nearer 40 sacks of Christmas mail lying in the damp air of the desert LS.

  John and I, along with our small working party of four lads, stood transfixed as we worked out what the hell we were going to do with all that mail.

  Big cardboard boxes, far too heavy for even two men to lift comfortably, were strapped down tightly to the base of the wooden pallet.

  On closer inspection of the pallet boxes, I discovered one marked for the attention of the chef at Now Zad.

  ‘That’ll be me or Dutchy then,’ I said. We really were hoping that a new chef would have arrived by Christmas, but that was not to be.