Dushka sat tall and proud as one of the marines roughed his head.
‘What are we going to do when the helo comes in?’ John asked, looking across towards the dogs.
‘I hope they’ll run off,’ I said as I looked southward, just making out two black dots in the light blue sky.
‘Get your gear ready,’ I yelled as I lobbed a smoke grenade out into the desert to indicate where the helo was to land. The other was just dropping off an under-slung pallet of stores for us.
Dushka and Patches broke off from their pampering session and looked across in the direction of the cloud of smoke. Watching the dogs as I walked back towards the safety of the 4x4, I could see them reacting to the low hum of the approaching aircraft.
As the noise steadily built it was too much for them. The two dogs ran just like a pair of startled gazelles.
John and I were hunched down, leaning against each other as the helicopter pilot completely ignored my smoke grenade and landed face on to us. I swore under my breath as we were pelted by stones and lumps of soft desert mud. Once again I was really glad that the 4x4 wasn’t mine. Between us and the helo pilots we were doing a grand job in trashing it.
When the dust settled and the helos disappeared back to the safety of Bastion, I stood looking in mild disbelief at the pallet lying on the desert floor in front of me.
‘John,’ I yelled as he loaded the postal sacks into the back of the 4x4. He hadn’t looked at the pallet yet.
‘What’s up?’ he yelled back as he continued throwing the sacks on to the flat bed.
‘How’s your electrical wiring skills?’
‘What are you on about?’ John had stopped throwing the sacks now and was stood looking at the pallet with a confused expression.
‘Strip lighting.’ I turned to face John. ‘Why have they sent us a pallet of strip lighting? There isn’t even any electricity here.’
We both turned and looked in the direction of the departed Chinook. The pilot had obviously been given the wrong load. The fresh rations and ammunition that we really needed were obviously still sat on the pan at Bastion, or worse, at another out station.
As we drove back to the DC, still cursing whoever it was who had cocked up, we kept a lookout for Dushka and Patches. But like our rations and ammunition, they were nowhere to be seen.
‘I think you will find there are two Ps in happy, Cheffy Boy,’ I said to Steve as innocently as I could while sipping my warming cup of tea.
‘Oh shit, I haven’t, have I?’ he said, looking horrified and stopping what he was doing at the stove.
Somehow Steve had found the ingredients to rustle up a birthday cake for one of the lads. He’d done a grand job, decorating it with blue icing he’d laid on through a rolled-up newspaper and finishing it off with a large Happy Birthday in thick red creamy letters.
Steve was reading the writing for the second time when the penny dropped and he realised I had got him. ‘Bugger off, Sarge, and go and do something useful like burn the shit,’ he said.
‘Too late, Chef. Already burnt it as we came in this morning while you were still snoozing away.’
I drained my tea and headed off clutching the mail that had come in the resupply. Unusually among the mail from Lisa and my mum were several letters from people whose writing I didn’t recognise. I selected one and ripped open the envelope. I pulled out a card. It had a Christmas scene on the front. There was a Labrador and her two young puppies sitting looking at a snow-covered church. There were three kittens in the picture, too.
I read the neatly written message inside:
To you all,
Thank you lads for the great job you do, also for finding the time to help the abandoned dogs. Cheque enclosed.
All the very best
From
Colchester
As I lifted the card a cheque fell on to my lap. It was made out in my name for £20.
I quickly opened the other hand-written letters; all were along the same lines.
I counted the cheques; in all I now had donations totalling nearly £100.
My mum’s story to the local paper had attracted some attention after all.
As the warmest place in the compound, the galley had become a magnet for everyone during the cold weather, including the ANP.
Rosi in particular would hang around the door attempting unconvincingly to ‘borrow’ ingredients while Steve’s back was turned. Every time he got caught red-handed he would throw his hands up innocently, provoking gusts of laughter from the lads.
I had tried to pressure Rosi for news of how the commander was getting along arranging the vehicle for the dogs, but always he would point at the sky and shake his head. I didn’t know what he was really trying to say but the gist of it was easy to glean. He wasn’t having much luck. Which didn’t help me as everything now rested on the commander coming good on his promise.
By now Jena’s pups had begun scampering around the run, annoying the hell out of RPG in particular as they bit his long ears while he was lying in the sun. Nowzad and AK on the other hand never minded being bothered by the pups. Nowzad would let them paw at him through the fencing grille while AK didn’t react at all when they tried to clamber all over her. It was as if she was practising for motherhood of her own. I hoped she and RPG hadn’t been getting it on too well. We didn’t need any more puppies roaming the compound.
Tali’s pups were older and much more interested in trying to explore the outside world. We had moved them into the old building and sealed the door, barricading it up with rocks and wooden supports. Tali could easily jump up to the open window to come and go as she pleased but importantly we didn’t have to worry about the pups escaping.
In the morning I would open the door to the room and enjoy watching the comic ritual as the little pups slowly stumbled towards the open doorway, sniffing quietly at the sudden rush of new smells bursting in.
The step leading into the room was probably at least six inches high. They would balance precariously on the edge, all six pups lining up as if waiting for somebody to help them down. But as they all pushed and jostled forwards, their leader, the polar bear puppy, would usually lose her balance and perform a quick head over heels tumble to the desert floor. Immediately she would jump to her feet before giving the ‘come on, it’s clear’ sign to the rest of the litter so they could all follow.
They would then ‘bomb burst’ in every direction, sending me rushing madly after them as Tali sat unimpressed in the corner watching it all. The whole performance never failed to put a smile on my face.
*
I had told Lisa the good news about the potential help the ANP were going to give us.
‘Thank God for that,’ she had replied, the relief clearly evident in her voice. ‘The rescue truck is ready and waiting to collect the dogs from Kandahar.’
‘As soon as I know when I’ll be calling you,’ I had replied.
But I knew we weren’t out of the woods yet. The ANP commander had to fulfil his side of the deal.
It had now been almost a week since the meal and still Rosi shook his head at me when I questioned him about that elusive truck.
Rosi was a real character. Most days he would come to the doorway of the galley and talk for what seemed like hours, attempting to copy our English. We would carry on talking as if he fully understood us, much to everyone’s amusement.
‘How are you today, Rosi?’ we would ask as he arrived at the galley door.
‘Yes,’ was his emphatic reply as he stood sockless in his scuffed black leather shoes, his dirty blanket pulled tightly around his head and shoulders.
We all enjoyed watching Rosi, with his sunbeaten face screwed up into a beaming smile, his large chubby hands gesturing wildly in front of him as he tried to communicate with us.
‘We hate the rain,’ I would say to him.
‘Yes,’ he would reply, raising his eyebrows as high as he could.
‘What about you, Rosi – do you like the rain?’ Da
ve would ask.
‘Yes,’ he’d say. There would then be a pause. ‘No.’
Then Rosi would point to the overcast sky and say a word that to us sounded like ‘barram’. Together we would repeat it, sending Rosi into a fit of mad clapping and laughter.
‘I think we just learned the Pashtu for rain,’ I would say.
Rosi had the ability to keep everyone amused most of the time with his comical antics. It was especially funny watching him chase a flighty chicken around the compound that he had accidentally let loose from the dinner pot. Seeing his light blue robes flowing behind him like a superhero cape as he tried desperately to lunge for the poor chicken was utterly hilarious.
‘What is the Pashtu for crazy?’ I asked Harry, who was stood laughing with us.
‘Lewanay,’ was his reply.
The compound was soon echoing to a chorus of lewanay as Rosi tripped over a bush in the pursuit of his dinner.
When he finally cornered the chicken in a mud alcove, Rosi held the chicken above his head like the captain of a team winning the World Cup. He marched back to the ANP quarters shouting ‘lewanay’ all the way.
We all enjoyed Rosi’s company. Already I had started to wonder what was going to become of him when we had left.
With less than six days until our planned handover of the compound the boss had called a meeting of the senior ranks to discuss what we could achieve in the last week. The room had fallen silent so I had done what I normally do and spoken up.
‘Boss, if we go back to the trashed school in Now Zad we could salvage those schoolbooks that are still usable and deliver them to the Barakzai school,’ I said.
I could hear a few heavy huffs from those who weren’t thinking along the same lines.
‘Why?’ the boss asked, sensing my keenness for the idea.
‘The Barakzai kids were practically begging us to get their school up and running; we haven’t exactly managed to do anything else to reconstruct the town,’ I replied, being careful not to overstep the mark.
The boss conferred with the company 2IC before nodding, ‘It’s all yours, let me have your plan tonight.’
Well chuffed with myself I stayed in the small briefing room and worked out a plan, first to get into the Now Zad school then to get the books back to the compound and on to Barakzai.
I knew it would have to be quick. I didn’t want to put anybody in harm’s way unnecessarily. It was to be a snatch-and-grab op.
All the usual suspects had volunteered for the patrol, including Steve the chef. I think he had been particularly keen to do something for the children of the area after seeing their lives up close during the previous patrol.
As the advanced group secured the perimeter of the school, my team drove straight into the school compound as if on a bank raid.
‘Five minutes, team,’ I had yelled. ‘Grab what you can!’
With the back of the truck full of books we returned from the patrol to the safety of our compound and immediately began the process of sorting out what we had bagged.
Within half an hour we had several piles of undamaged books covering a range of subjects mainly aimed at primary school kids, including books about animals, maths, English/ Pashtu dictionaries and, strangely, some covering the geography of America.
We were soon setting off to deliver the books to the village school in Barakzai. As we headed out, I felt good, like I was finally doing something positive. But that feeling soon dissipated.
Arriving at the village we headed for the elder we’d spoken to during the previous patrol. With Harry translating, he told me how the Taliban had come in to see him after our last visit. In no uncertain terms, they threatened them with violence if he accepted any support or help from us.
He told us that the only sensible thing he could do to protect his people was to reject the books. Unless, that was, we stayed there to protect them.
As Harry translated his words for me I had a terrible sinking feeling.
Again I had been fooled into thinking everything would be so simple and fit nicely into place. Afghanistan had proved me wrong again.
As we headed back to our vehicles, Harry was walking slowly in front of me. I grabbed his arm. He stopped and turned to face me; his usual smile was missing.
The wind had picked up and it felt much fresher again now that we were out of the village and on our way back to the compound.
I looked directly at him as I spoke.
‘I am sorry Harry.’ I paused. ‘We have been here three months and achieved nothing for you or your people, have we?’
He held my gaze. ‘No, Pen, you have not been here three months.’
I looked at him, confused; his English was normally perfect.
‘Yes, it is three months,’ I replied. I didn’t want to get in an argument.
He continued looking directly at me. ‘No. You have been here five years and still the people are scared.’
I looked away; I didn’t know what to say.
We hadn’t gone into Afghanistan because of the atrocities of the Taliban originally. We’d gone in because of one man and his orders to massacre thousands of innocent lives with the destruction of the Twin Towers. Now the mission had changed and it was about the people of Afghanistan and the suffering they were enduring. Taming the wild lands of Afghanistan would take time; everybody knew that. But maybe the international community was not pulling its weight as much as it should be.
I desperately wanted to promise Harry that one day the nightmare that was the Taliban would be gone, but right at that moment I couldn’t. I couldn’t promise anything that involved any politician from whatever country keeping their resolve. That was well above my pay scale.
‘Sorry,’ was all I could muster.
I turned and continued the chilly walk across the desert.
As we patrolled back towards the compound along a track that divided two ploughed fields I was acutely aware that it would be the last time I ever set foot outside the town of Now Zad. Even if I did ever come back to Afghanistan, I doubted very much that I would find myself based back in the compound.
Today’s failed patrol just about summed up our wasted three months here, but I wasn’t looking at the bigger picture, I supposed. The benefits of our holding the compound at Now Zad wouldn’t really be seen for another two years when, thanks to our success in clearing the Taliban away from the Sangin valley, the turbines of the strategically vital Kajacki Dam would be installed in the summer of 2008.
But right now the refusal of the Barakzai schoolteacher to accept the teaching supplies felt like a kick in the teeth.
I sat looking south-west across the dried mud tops of the buildings, enjoying the last glimpses of the late-afternoon sun as it descended behind the distant mountains.
I didn’t even register the barbed wire no more than two feet in front of me. Instead I was walking on those mountain ridges with Nowzad happily strolling by my side as we explored the uncharted Afghan peaks. Every now and again we would stop to stare at the glorious views laid out before us, I would reach down and pat him as he quizzically cocked his head to one side as a new smell or noise caught on the wind.
He was a good dog – he would have been totally misunderstood back in the UK. His scarred and pitted face with his grossly chopped ears would have frightened even the hardiest of dog lovers. But if you looked beyond that at the brown-tinted eyes you would see a dog that was happy just being by your side.
‘Penny Dai, Penny Dai,’ the calling from below me in the compound caught me by surprise.
‘I am up here, Rosi,’ I called back.
He spoke fast and with much waving of his arms. I had no idea what he was saying.
Over the last weeks of talking with Rosi the only worthwhile bits of Pashtu I had picked up were ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’. I guessed that what Rosi meant was he still had not found a vehicle. The look of shame in his eyes was plain to see. I shook my head in sympathy with his plight.
‘I know, Rosi,�
�� I said, patting him on the arm. I knew he had no idea what I was saying but I felt he needed to hear me say something in return.
‘You can’t find a truck for me – all the money in the world won’t get the dogs to Kandahar.’
Whether that’s what he was saying or not, I knew it was true. With just days to go now I had resigned myself to the fact that the dogs were not going to the rescue. I felt so hopeless. Rosi sat down next to me obviously satisfied with my answer. Neither of us needed to say anything.
In silence we looked west again to the distant hills, the sun now an orange faded memory behind the darkened mountainside. I tried to picture myself and Nowzad back up on the ridge line but this time the image just wouldn’t come.
My moment of hopeful reflection had passed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Taxi
DUSHKA LOOKED AT me with a puzzled expression, his head held at a slightly skew-whiff angle, his hacked-off ears pulled back.
I think I understood his confusion. This was probably the first time anybody had made a real fuss of him.
I had tried my best to ignore him. Leaving Nowzad, RPG, Tali, Jena or AK was going to be heart-wrenching enough. I didn’t need to get attached to another dog in the days before leaving. But of course it wasn’t that easy.
Often I’d seen Dushka curled up next to Patches outside the compound wall at night. I’d look at both dogs lying out in the open waste ground, a thin layer of frost coating their thick coats as they slept, knowing there was nothing I could do for them.
But as I fed him some scraps tonight I couldn’t help but make a fuss of him.
Dushka responded to my playful rubbing of his head by pushing his head into the folds of my jacket. I responded by whispering quietly in his missing right ear. Dushka had to be the biggest dog I had ever encountered this close, but he was also the softest dog too. Even Beamer boy would trail a poor second behind Dushka in the softness stakes.
I couldn’t imagine the life these dogs had endured. But as I gave him what was probably the first bit of compassion he’d ever been shown I wondered whether I’d done the right thing for him and the other dogs. I’d given them a totally unfounded trust in humans. When I was gone that might not be the best thing for them.
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