Death in the Desert

by Jim Eldridge

  Mitch began to run towards the building, but Benny grabbed hold of him. ‘No!’ he snapped.

  ‘Gaz is in there!’ shouted Mitch.

  ‘If he is, he’s dead,’ said Benny curtly.

  People from the other houses in the village were running towards the explosion, screaming and yelling in panic. Mitch noticed more young men appearing from one of the buildings, wearing the same long straggly beards and carrying automatic rifles.

  ‘There!’ he said, pointing urgently.

  Mitch headed for the house at a run, Two Moons and Benny following him, while Tug dropped to a crouch, ready to lay down covering fire at the first sign of trouble.

  The door of the second house was ajar, and Mitch threw himself through it.

  Gaz was sitting tied to a chair, bound with thick ropes. A relieved grin crossed his face at the sight of his team.

  Mitch set to work freeing Gaz, while Two Moons and Benny guarded the door. ‘Anyone else here?’ he asked.

  ‘No, they’ve all legged it. What was that? An air attack?’

  ‘I think someone accidentally blew themselves up,’ said Two Moons.

  There was a burst of gunfire from outside, and Benny shouted, ‘We’ve got company!’

  ‘I’ll take it!’ yelled Two Moons, and he ran off with Benny while Mitch released the last of the ropes that bound Gaz to the chair.

  When Gaz was free, the two ran outside. A gun battle was in progress, with Benny and Two Moons firing from the cover of the house, and Tug in a position near the burning wreckage of the explosion.

  Mitch let off a burst with his own gun. One of the young men dropped his rifle and crumpled to the ground. Others lay near the wrecked building. There were now only two men left standing.

  ‘That’s Al Muhadeen,’ Gaz shouted above the noise of the gunfire, pointing at one of the pair.

  Tug called out something in Pushtu. Mitch didn’t understand the words, but he got the impression Tug was giving them a chance to surrender. Instead, both of them fired at Tug, who dived for cover behind a nearby rock. As bullets bounced and ricocheted all around him, the rest of Delta Unit directed a hail of bullets at the two men. When Benny saw Gaz with Mitch he shouted out, ‘Time to go!’

  The soldiers headed for the track that would take them out of the village. Mitch, Tug and Two Moons ran backwards at speed, keeping their guns trained on the village in case of a surprise attack, while Benny hurried Gaz along. They weren’t followed and the only sounds coming from the village were wails and screams of distress and the crackling of the burning building.

  11

  The convoy was on the move again, across flat sandy tracks: Nelson and Omari in the first vehicle; Benny and Tug in the second; and Two Moons at the wheel of the third, with Gaz and Mitch. This was the first time Mitch and Two Moons had had a chance to talk properly to Gaz since the rescue. Nelson had decided to put as much distance as possible between them and the village as fast as they could.

  ‘What happened to you, Gaz?’ Mitch asked. ‘I thought you jumped out of the vehicle when we did. I saw you!’

  ‘I did,’ admitted Gaz sheepishly. ‘But the strap of my rifle got caught on the steering wheel. By the time I’d managed to free myself it was too late: the vehicle had gone over the edge and was rolling over and over. I thought I was a gonner, going over a mountain in that thing.’ He rubbed the side of his head. ‘I must have hit my head and sort of knocked myself out. Anyway, the thing stopped rolling and I was groggy. Next thing, I’m being dragged out and over the rocks. Bang! Someone hit me on the head and that was it. Lights out.’ He shrugged. ‘After that, it was just a case of waiting for the chance to get away. Or for you lot to come and rescue me.’

  Two Moons shook his head. ‘I still can’t get over that building blowing up like that. If we’d been any closer it would have been lights out for the lot of us.’

  ‘Why did it blow up?’ asked Mitch.

  ‘That was their ammo store,’ said Gaz. ‘Bullets, and loads of home-made explosives. It’s where they dumped me when they first got me to the village. My guess is they were planning to carry out some kind of bombing campaign. Or maybe they were just making improvised explosive devices there. I bet one of those idiots dropped a cigarette end or something, a bit too close to the IEDs.’

  ‘Who were they?’ asked Two Moons. ‘Omari says that their leader was from the UK.’

  Gaz gave a wry laugh. ‘Leader?’ he scoffed. ‘He was a lunatic who thought he was a cross between Che Guevara and Robin Hood. He’d gathered this group of young guys from the nearby villages, convinced them that they had to strike a blow for freedom. Amateurs!’

  ‘He may have been an amateur but they got you away pretty neatly,’ Mitch pointed out.

  ‘True,’ Gaz admitted. ‘He’d had training, you could see that. But he had no real strategy.’

  ‘What did they want you for?’ asked Two Moons.

  ‘You saw the set-up in the room?’ asked Gaz.

  Two Moons shook his head. ‘No, I was too busy dealing with the bad guys.’

  ‘I did,’ said Mitch. ‘Camera. Lights. Just your average home-movie kit.’

  ‘They had a generator which gave them electricity for an hour or so a day,’ said Gaz. ‘They wanted to film me appealing for the Brits and Yanks to leave the country. They also wanted me to apologise for all the wrongs we’ve done.’

  ‘So how much footage did they get?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Gaz. ‘I refused to give them the answers they wanted. So they beat me up a little. And threatened to do terrible things to me if I didn’t comply. That was all they really got on camera: me getting beaten up.’ He sighed. ‘Pity I didn’t get my hands on the tape. Someone might still post it on YouTube.’

  Mitch smiled as he reached into his pocket and produced a video cassette. ‘No, they won’t,’ he said. ‘I took it out of the camera just before we left.’

  ‘Well done, pal!’ said Gaz, chuckling. ‘At least I’ll have a memento of this mission!’

  12

  The convoy continued on its journey. Mitch was now at the wheel of the third vehicle, with Two Moons in the passenger seat and Gaz in the back. They were more alert than ever for sudden attacks, from rocks and boulders, or from more modern weapons. Travelling over this sandy terrain was slow.

  ‘I sure would hate to be doing this as a sightseeing trip,’ grunted Two Moons. ‘Twenty miles an hour, and the same scenery the whole way. Sand and rocks.’

  ‘The beauty of the desert,’ said Mitch. ‘That’s what everyone says.’

  ‘Those people don’t have to sit in a tin can bumping along at this speed,’ Two Moons complained. ‘If you can call the pace we’re going at “speed”.’

  ‘Maybe we should have used camels,’ said Gaz. ‘They travel over this sort of country easy.’

  ‘You ever ridden a camel?’ asked Mitch.

  ‘Yep,’ replied Gaz. ‘In Morocco.’ He grinned. ‘The thing spat in my face and wouldn’t get up when I wanted to go, or slow down when I wanted to stop. Stupid creatures. Give me a tin can like this any time.’

  Ahead of them they could see a village, much larger than the previous one. Mitch estimated there were about a hundred houses, all of them single storey. They could see that the other two vehicles had already pulled up in what looked like a village square, and the men had got out. Mitch eased the vehicle alongside the others, and they joined the rest of Delta Unit.

  ‘What’s going on, Colonel?’ asked Two Moons.

  ‘Pit stop,’ said Nelson. ‘Omari says he knows these people and it will be a safe place for a break. He suggests we make it an overnight stay rather than camping out in the desert.’

  They looked around them. The villagers had stayed indoors, but the men were all aware that they were being watched from the houses.

  ‘D’you reckon our cover story’s reached this place?’ asked Benny.

  ‘This is Afghanistan,’ said Omari. ‘Word spreads. I’m pretty sure they’ll kno
w why we’re here.’

  ‘And they don’t mind drug dealers?’ asked Mitch.

  Omari shrugged. ‘It’s business.’ Turning to Nelson, he added, ‘It’s customary to greet the headman of the village and introduce ourselves.’

  ‘Lead the way,’ said Nelson.

  They followed Omari to a house at one corner of the square. As they walked, Mitch kept a firm grip on his rifle and his eyes scanned the surrounding houses. He noticed that the rest of the men did the same.

  ‘Great building material, mud,’ commented Tug. ‘Keeps the house warm in winter, cool in summer. And bullets don’t go through it as easily as they do wood and steel.’

  ‘It still blows up,’ grunted Mitch, remembering what had happened in the last village.

  A tall man had come out of the house they were heading for. He was accompanied by other senior villagers, while several women watched the soldiers from just inside the house itself.

  ‘This is Parwaz Shah, the malik, or village headman,’ said Omari, doing the introductions.

  As the rest of Delta Unit nodded, Tug greeted him in Pushtu.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ said Omari. ‘You speak Pushtu well.’

  ‘I was in the mountains in Afghanistan before,’ said Tug.

  ‘Searching for Osama bin Laden?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t on a camping holiday,’ Tug replied with a grin.

  Omari spoke to Parwaz Shah, gesturing at the men of Delta Unit and their vehicles, and Shah nodded.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Mitch asked Tug.

  ‘He’s telling them that we’re here on business, and that we’re on our way to meet a man in the mountains to the north.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ asked Mitch.

  Omari nodded. ‘That’s enough for them to work out what they think is really going on. Anything less would be impolite, especially if we’re going to receive hospitality from them.’

  Now the introductions had been made, other villagers came forward, keen to look at the new arrivals. The children especially were bursting with curiosity. The Delta Unit soldiers smiled at the villagers.

  ‘Looks like the whole village has turned out to check us over,’ said Mitch.

  The children mostly smiled back at them, although a few looked at them suspiciously and hid behind their parents. The men wore traditional clothing. The children were all barefoot, and wore very little in the way of clothes. The women were mostly dressed in long shirts which hung down over their full-length skirts. All of them wore a shawl tied loosely around their heads.

  ‘I thought the women all wore the burqa?’ said Gaz. None were wearing the outfit that covers Muslim women from head to foot.

  ‘You’ll find that in the towns and bigger villages,’ explained Omari. ‘Here, the large shawl they wear draped over their heads – the hijab – is deemed sufficient. Unless they’re in an area under strict Taliban rule.’

  Two Moons had been looking out over the fields that extended from one side of the village.

  ‘What are they growing there?’ he asked. ‘It sure don’t look like poppies.’

  ‘It’s not,’ said Tug. ‘It’s wheat and rice.’

  ‘How come the war hasn’t touched this place?’ asked Nelson.

  ‘Oh, it’s touched them, all right,’ said Omari. ‘Two years ago they were accidentally bombed by Coalition planes. Someone gave out the wrong coordinates or something. Six villagers were killed, including four children.’

  ‘So maybe they’re looking for revenge while we’re here?’ murmured Mitch.

  ‘They’ve also had visits from the Taliban, who felt that they weren’t religious enough,’ said Omari. ‘The bodies of villagers from those visits are buried outside. Trust me, these people are no fans of the Taliban, either. Right now all they want to do is get on with their lives. But they will give us hospitality. Food, and a roof over our heads for the night. It’s the custom here.’ He smiled. ‘Of course, some kind of return gesture would be greatly appreciated. This is a very poor village. They’ve got a generator, but it only provides electricity very briefly each day. There’s no school here, so there are no books.’

  ‘So cash would be appreciated?’ asked Nelson.

  Omari nodded. ‘Cash is always appreciated,’ he said. He patted the pocket of his robe. ‘I’ll deal with it.’

  Two Moons leaned in to Mitch and muttered, ‘That guy’s walking around with a robe stuffed full of money. I wouldn’t feel safe doin’ that in the US, let alone here.’

  Mitch shrugged. ‘So far he’s got Gaz back for us, and we’re all still alive,’ he said. ‘I guess we have to trust he knows what he’s doing.’

  13

  The evening air was warm. Delta Unit sat outside, cross-legged on the ground, eating the meal the villagers had prepared for them. The food was excellent: fresh vegetables with rice, soup with flat nan bread, followed by yoghurt, and rounded off with almonds covered in sugar.

  Mitch noticed that Tug seemed agitated. He was constantly glancing around and he was obviously listening out for any unusual sounds.

  ‘Something make you uneasy about this, Tug?’ asked Mitch.

  ‘Just being in this country makes me uneasy,’ admitted the captain. He gestured at the village. ‘This is exactly the sort of village we were in when I was here before. A situation similar to this: behind enemy lines on a covert mission. And we were treated with hospitality and friendship just like we are being shown now.’ He grimaced bitterly. ‘And then they sold us out to the Taliban.’ He gave a deep sigh at the memory. ‘I was the only one of our unit who got out alive.’

  ‘So you don’t trust them?’

  Tug shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The headman here seems fine, but so did the last one. We never knew who ratted us out. It may have been him, it may not. It could have been someone else in the village who just didn’t like us. Or maybe someone in the village was Taliban. All I know is the Taliban came in and hit us. I was lucky there was a US helicopter patrol in the area around the same time. They got me out.’

  After they’d eaten, Nelson allocated the watch rota: Mitch and Two Moons, followed by Nelson and Benny, and finally Tug and Gaz. Mitch was glad to take first watch. He always had difficulty getting to sleep and with a later watch he would often fall asleep only minutes before he was due to wake up and go on duty.

  ‘I reckon the best place will be on one of those flat roofs,’ suggested Two Moons. ‘One of the houses near the vehicles. That way we’ll have a view over the desert and we can keep an eye on our transport.’

  ‘I was thinking the same,’ agreed Mitch.

  Through Omari, they asked permission to go up on the roof, then climbed up to the vantage point. The rest of the unit, along with Omari, disappeared into the houses around the square where beds had been prepared for them.

  Mitch and Two Moons sat just behind the low wall at the edge of the roof, rifles cradled in their laps.

  ‘Peaceful,’ commented Two Moons, looking out over the desert.

  ‘Only for the moment,’ said Mitch. ‘The calm before the storm.’

  ‘You think we’re going to pull this off? You think we’re going to get Omari to meet his uncle?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Mitch nodded. Then he added ruefully, ‘But whether we make it out again safely afterwards, that’s another matter.’

  Mitch felt himself being shaken awake.

  ‘Wake up! We’ve got company!’

  The urgency in Two Moons’ voice jolted Mitch wide awake as if he’d been doused with icy cold water. He always slept with his rifle beside him, and it was in his hands even before he had swung his feet off the wooden bed. Light was coming through the window.

  ‘Who’s coming?’ he demanded.

  ‘Taliban,’ said Two Moons. ‘Tug and Gaz spotted them. Gaz is still on the roof.’

  ‘They in vehicles?’

  Two Moons shook his head. ‘On foot.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Mitch.

  Two Moons hurried off and Mitc
h hastily pulled on his boots, then rushed after him. Outside in the square, Parwaz Shah, Nelson, Benny, Tug and Omari were talking urgently.

  Mitch ran to the Humvee where Two Moons was already unloading a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a mortar, and the grenades and shells for them.

  ‘We may not need these,’ Two Moons said, ‘but I’d rather have them ready than go out looking for them when the shooting starts.’

  The two men hauled the artillery up on to one of the flat roofs overlooking the desert where the Taliban fighters had appeared. Keeping down so they wouldn’t be spotted, they dragged the weapons across to the low wall. Mitch took a quick look out into the desert. He could see the approaching group of Taliban fighters. There were about fifteen men, walking in single file. All of them wore a mixture of black and white: the traditional baggy cotton trousers, flowing shirts and waistcoats, black turbans wrapped round their heads.

  Within two minutes everything was primed and ready.

  ‘OK, I’m set up,’ said Two Moons. ‘You’d better get below and see what’s happening.’

  Mitch went back down the brick steps to the square, where Omari was still engaged in a hurried and intense conversation with Shah. It was obvious that Shah was very frightened.

  Omari turned to the soldiers. ‘He says the Taliban are coming here because they think this village is backsliding. They’re coming to teach them a lesson and bring them into line.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘Killing those who offend them most,’ said Omari. ‘That’s what they did last time they came.’

  Nelson shook his head. ‘That ain’t happening on my watch.’ He looked at the rest of the unit. ‘You guys OK with that?’

  ‘Do you have to ask?’ retorted Mitch. He was already checking his rifle for ammo.

  ‘We can’t risk a gun battle inside the village,’ said Tug. ‘There are too many civilians.’

  ‘We’ll put up a defensive line,’ Nelson told them. ‘We’ll use the rooftops.’ He turned to Omari. ‘We need you to get the villagers away from the houses on this side of the village. I don’t want any civilian casualties.’