His ears had suffered the same fate as Nowzad’s; there were tufts of hair sticking out from where they should have been. His slight stump of a tail would wag madly from side to side as he ate.
I had been in the sangar overlooking the gate when I glimpsed him, playing along with a small white dog that was the spitting image of Tali. The white dog stood only as high as the larger dog’s belly but that didn’t faze it. The pair were play-fighting with each other as they tussled on the muddy ground. Every now and again the white dog would stand up. When he did so his coat looked like a patchwork quilt of dried mud stains and white hair.
They were the friendliest of the dogs that still gathered outside the gate, but I had no intention of adding them to the dog pound. We had more than enough to contend with. But I thought it wouldn’t hurt to name them. So, the big beast dog became Dushka, which was the next size up in Russian weaponry after RPG and AK. Predictably I called the other one Patches.
With Dushka still moving along with us like a professional marine, we had patrolled a few hundred yards from the compound.
Most of the alleys and buildings around us were beyond repair. Those that remained standing were just broken shells, shadows of their former glory.
I signalled to Steve to look in the direction I was pointing. Just one house stood untouched. With its white painted walls, it looked like a high-quality piece of construction, for this area, anyway. Where the wall had been chipped by shrapnel there was solid brickwork underneath. The metal-rimmed windows and second-floor balcony suggested somebody with money and influence had once lived there. But as I carefully patrolled along the small low fence that marked the property’s boundary it soon became clear that the front of the building was just an illusion.
The rear of the house was no longer there. In its place sat a crater surrounded by large chunks of mud, which had landed in random clumps in an ever-increasing circle from the centre of the impact.
I shook my head at Steve and he just hunched his shoulders back at me. The chaos and destruction that an aerial bombardment can cause was numbing.
This must have been the scene of a significant fight as the further we moved along the patrol line eastwards towards Taliban central, the more craters and ruined buildings we found. Windows, where there had been any in the first place, were just shattered frames. Along with our patrolling dog we were walking through a ghost town.
The boss called a halt over the radio so I took the opportunity to look into the nearest building. The door was missing and the mud wall was peppered with bullet holes. I turned and looked 180 degrees away from the building. Standing proud and defiant was the top of the hill. Somebody had obviously had reason to place some well-aimed shots towards this building. From the size of the holes it looked like rounds from a sniper’s rifle.
We were trying to build up a picture of the Taliban’s recent movements so every now and again we stopped the patrol to check buildings for the tell-tale spent bullet cartridges scattered by open windows with a view towards the compound or the hill.
With the lads on watch outside the building I ventured slowly inside what was left of a single-storey building, the muzzle of my gun leading the way through the door; the butt of the rifle sitting firmly in my shoulder. Self-preservation was all I had on my mind.
The whitewashed room was almost bare. An upturned chair lay over by the far corner. Strangely a picture of a beautiful wooden Swiss villa high in an Alpine pasture hung on the wall, a slight tear in one corner. Looking closer I saw that it was an official poster advert for the Swiss tourist board.
It wasn’t the first time I had seen this. We’d come across several former shops and residences that displayed similar pictures. I made a mental note to ask Harry what was the fascination with Swiss mountain chalets.
I progressed through the building, stepping around a pile of rubble from the rear outer wall that had collapsed inwards. There was no sign that anybody had been here since it was abandoned.
I entered a room towards the rear of the bombed building; the walls had been painted an immaculate white. A large brightly coloured carpet covered the floor. A table with a red tablecloth stood along the back wall. The only ornament was a small two-inch-high vibrantly decorated case sat squarely in the heart of the table. Curious to see what it was but wary of booby traps I cautiously approached the table. It struck me that it looked as if it was a makeshift altar of some description. I carefully lifted the red cloth to check under the table but it was just a hiding place for several flat square red cushions, the sort you would kneel on in church.
I stood upright and carefully lifted the square lid of the case. Inside was a plain hardbound red-jacketed book. It was a copy of the Koran. I delicately lifted the cover of the book and flicked through a few pages. I had no idea what I was looking at – the swirling lettering made no sense to me – but I had no doubt as to what it was. Why else would anybody have left it?
It belonged to this house.
I carefully closed the book and the protective case. I hoped the owners of this house would one day be able to return.
As the patrol moved further away from the DC we entered the habitable areas. Steve had yet to experience the delights of the hordes of maddening children as they demanded pens, sweets and anything else that wasn’t secured to your person.
‘We must be able to give them something?’ he yelled back as we turned a corner through a rickety old wooden gate where three youngsters stood watching our progress. The older girl was dressed in long blue trousers and a flowing blue top, her head and shoulders covered by a bright pink shawl. The young lad’s hair was cropped short and in his faded off-white baggy shirt he held his hand out towards Steve in what had become a familiar gesture.
I threw Steve some boiled sweets. ‘Give them those and walk away quickly.’
I knew what Steve was feeling; we had all been there. It was that powerless feeling you got when confronted by a group of totally innocent kids of not being able to do more. A group of kids that hadn’t asked to grow up in the midst of a war they knew nothing about.
I looked across at a group of older men who were stood watching our progress. They were laughing.
‘Harry, can you ask them what is so funny, please?’
Harry stopped and turned to look at the men, who were all dressed in long blue robes and had full black beards that nestled on to the top of their chests.
‘I don’t need to ask,’ he replied. ‘They are laughing at our new friend.’
Harry had turned the opposite way and was pointing at Dushka, who was sat on his rear legs waiting patiently for the marine next to him to start moving again.
I had forgotten Dushka was still casually trotting alongside us. I imagined for the local people it was indeed a funny sight.
We turned on to a larger street that even had the odd battered 4x4 truck parked haphazardly along its side.
From behind us I could hear the noise of an approaching truck. We had orders to stop and search all vehicles, which for me was an added bonus. I had another motive, of course.
Over the net I informed the boss of my intention to carry out a search. The patrol went to ground and held position while we blocked the road as the truck lurched into our street. The driver had no choice but to come to a reluctant stop as he faced several heavily armed marines.
By the state of the truck I assumed we had just stopped the Afghan equivalent of a UK boy racer. The truck had a single front cab that had been painted with pictures of what appeared to be a brightly decorated mosque set among imaginary mountains.
From the bumper hung hundreds of shiny metal heart-shaped discs on chains and, to cap it off, the driver’s name was printed on the bottom of the windscreen. It was a safe guess that this driver was fiercely proud of his vehicle.
As Harry talked with the driver two of my lads checked out the cargo bed of the truck. There among neatly stacked household furniture were two skinny goats tied loosely to the side of the truck by rotten stri
ng.
‘Where is he going, Harry?’ I asked as I walked back around to the front of the vehicle.
‘He says he is moving his family to Lashkar Gar,’ Harry replied.
‘Why is that?’
After a quick exchange Harry replied, ‘Too dangerous here with British and the Taliban.’
‘Has he seen any Talibs?’ I asked, even though I knew the answer would be no.
‘Harry, please ask him if he wants to work for me for one trip. I will pay well.’
Harry translated to the driver, but again I had figured out the answer before he responded from the raised shoulders and waved arms.
‘No, Penny Dai, he says it will be too dangerous.’
I had been asking the drivers – and there hadn’t been many of them – whom we had seen over the last few patrols and it was the same answer all the time. Nobody was willing to help me, even if I was paying in American dollars.
I waved the driver goodbye as we continued with the patrol, feeling slightly deflated. There had to be somebody who would drive the dogs to Kandahar for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Down the Drain
‘WELL, WHERE THE hell are they?’ I shouted across at Dave as he double-checked the small run.
‘I don’t bloody know,’ he replied in desperation.
We had casually walked over to feed the dogs after breakfast. For once we had loads of time on our hands and we’d been looking forward to being greeted by an eagerly waiting Tali and her pups. To our horror we’d arrived to find the filthy box that should have been home to six puppies was empty.
‘Oh shit.’
Nowzad and the rest of the gang were barking and jumping up against the HESCO fencing in anticipation of feeding time. They were going to be disappointed. We had to find these puppies first.
‘Reckon the ANP took them?’ I said as we both ran back to the gate that Tali had crawled under over two weeks ago.
The earth was undisturbed where I had filled in the gap from her burrowing. If she had left the compound it had not been that way.
‘No, they wouldn’t have done,’ Dave said, looking at me questioningly. ‘Would they?’
The truth was I didn’t know for sure. I didn’t think the new ANP crew would get involved in something like this. They seemed to be fitting in well and knew from our talks over tea that I was looking after the dogs. I hoped they hadn’t betrayed my trust.
As I tried to clear my head it struck me that Tali might have just wanted some peace. So many of the lads had been coming over to see her and Jena and the two sets of puppies that maybe she’d decided she’d had enough. So she had gone off to find somewhere quiet. But where?
‘Where the hell would she have gone?’ I asked out loud as Dave and I both jogged back around to the living areas.
The dogs were tolerated within the compound because they were out of sight and out of mind. I couldn’t have Tali popping up under the boss’s feet.
‘Tom, have you seen Tali?’ I asked as we passed him on his short walk to take up his watch.
‘No, sorry,’ he replied as he continued on his way.
‘Crap.’
The story was the same when we asked around the compound.
It was beginning to become clear to me. Tali and her puppies were gone. For a moment a wave of slight relief washed over me; maybe it was better this way. After all, we had our hands full looking after Nowzad, RPG, AK, Jena and her eight puppies. Maybe it was for the best that Tali had decided to leave.
‘Maybe we will find her later?’ Dave said. ‘We still have to feed the others.’
‘Yeah, you’re right. Come on,’ I replied.
As we turned to walk back across the slowly thawing compound, we passed Harry chatting away happily to Rosi outside the ANP sleeping room. It was still too early and cold for the other members of the ANP to be up.
‘Have you seen Tali, the white dog, the one with the puppies, Harry?’ I asked hopefully.
‘No, I haven’t see the dogs,’ he replied.
Without me having to ask, Harry turned and spoke to Rosi, whose face immediately lit up, his big beaming smile just too infectious for us not to smile back.
‘Yes, yes,’ he said excitedly as he pointed to a small mud tunnel that disappeared under the track across the ANP garden, no more than ten feet from where we stood.
‘What?’ I asked as Dave and I moved towards the darkened hole.
‘Rosi says that he saw the mother taking her puppies in there this morning,’ Harry translated after consulting Rosi.
‘Really?’
I bent down to look at the tunnel properly. It was no more than half a foot in diameter, but within a few inches the tunnel was shrouded in darkness. The path was over eight feet wide and I quickly moved over to the other side where in theory the tunnel should reappear. I could only assume it was used as drainage for the area of the ANP accommodation which flooded every time we had a downpour. The tunnel would allow the water to drain away into the garden.
Except that where I should be seeing a tunnel exit I could only see a sea of solid mud that had blocked the hole a long time ago. It explained why the immediate area outside the ANP building flooded every time it rained.
‘Better come and have a look at this, Pen,’ Dave said. He was by now kneeling in the wet mud by the tunnel entrance. ‘Tali, you stupid dog, what are you doing in there?’ He lifted his head up, his torch firmly in his right hand.
‘No, don’t tell me she really is in there?’ I said, but I knew she was.
‘Yup, probably about four feet in as well.’
That put her somewhere firmly in the middle underneath the stone and mud path.
Rosi was grinning like a Cheshire cat. He was happy that he had been able to help us. We would never have thought to look in the partially hidden tunnel in a million years.
I looked north towards the snow-capped mountains. The dark rain clouds were gathering pace again. We had been forecast rain and they normally didn’t disappoint.
‘Looks like all the puppies, too,’ Dave said grimly. ‘You know it is going to rain don’t you?’
‘Yeah and this area will flood again.’
I was about to turn and get some help from the lads who were off duty, but Rosi was already stood in front of us with a shovel he had obviously borrowed from the ANP garden. ‘Yes,’ he said smiling.
I smiled back. ‘Yes.’
I looked at Dave, who was smiling at Rosi too. ‘Yes,’ I repeated. It was time to do some digging.
We knew that we could entice Tali to leave the tunnel. A simple open packet of pork and dumplings would do the trick, but it wouldn’t get the puppies out. They were too far towards the back of the tunnel to be reached even by lying on the ground and extending our arms in as far as they would go. Tali had well and truly hidden them.
My earlier thought that she had moved her pups because she was fed up with the constant attention that came her way as one and all in the compound attempted to see the new arrivals had turned out to be correct.
The sight of me and Rosi taking turns in slowly digging at the sealed end of the tunnel started to draw attention from the lads as they came on and off sentry duty. Those who were going on rest immediately volunteered their services to help with the dig. It was not a straightforward case of just digging a hole and pulling the puppies out. We didn’t know exactly where they were in the tunnel under the path. As we were standing on the path, we had to be careful not to collapse the tunnel, thereby burying the puppies alive. So we started at the sealed end and were slowly and very carefully working our way back towards where the puppies were.
The earth was still soft from the constant rains, which made the digging fairly simple. However, I was still glad when I had finished my brief spell on the shovel and the digging tool was snatched from my hand by the young Abdul la Tip. I wasn’t quite sure whether he was a volunteer himself or had been volunteered by the commander, who now seemed to be officiating from the comfort of the
mattress that had been laid out on one of the metal beds by the doorway.
I had to smile.
Even with an open packet of pork dumplings wafting down from the drainage entrance Tali was refusing to come out. The lads were trying to dig as carefully as possible but Tali was obviously still spooked. She must have been if food wasn’t getting her to take the bait.
‘We’re through,’ John shouted.
In the gathering gloom he was already on his hands and knees shining his torch into the fist-sized hole he’d dug.
Everybody stood back as John stretched his arm into the hole up to the shoulder.
‘Got one,’ he yelled.
As he stood up the grey-white puppy appeared in his hand. While John took the puppy over to the box that Abdul was carefully holding I knelt down to retrieve the next one. I looked inside the darkened tunnel and could just make out the white form of Tali huddled against the remaining five puppies. It was reminiscent of when I had first seen her in the cave by the gate.
I reached in and carefully grabbed the large white fluffy pup. I thought Tali might bite me as I stole her puppy away but she left me be and I pulled the still sleeping pup from the tunnel.
Rosi wanted a turn. He clumsily dropped to his knees and reached in the hole, pressing his head to the ground so he could get in far enough. I smiled as he removed the small runt-like pup, carefully placing it in the waiting box with the other rescued but still dozing pups.
As the last of the litter was pulled out safely by John, Tali appeared out of the tunnel as if by magic. She followed us as we took the box back to the puppy run, dancing madly around our legs as we walked.
‘Better stick her in a run of some type I guess,’ Dave suggested as we walked. ‘Otherwise she will only move the pups again.’
‘Yeah, I think you’re right,’ I replied. ‘What have you got planned for the next hour or so?’ I asked as the first drops of rain splattered on the almost dried desert floor.
One Dog at a Time Page 23
