by Holly Hart
"What are we doing up here anyway?" Tommy says, moodily thumbing the shot selector on his dented and dusty M4 carbine. "We're sitting ducks out here waiting for some Taliban fucker to light us up."
"Lighten up, Tommy," I say, grunting, struggling unsuccessfully to find a comfortable place to lie on the rocky mountainside, "can't you be more like Jake? He never grumbles – look at him, he’s happy as Larry lying there in the sun."
"He's a dog, Mike – he doesn't even know he's in a war zone. Look it him, the dozy bastard," Tommy says grumpily.
I watch through eyes lidded against the harsh sun and throat choking dust kicked up by the venomous wind off this cursed mountain range as, for once, Tommy cracks a smile.
"I mean, what the hell was Delta thinking sending us up here? We’re special forces operators, not fucking babysitters!"
"Well that's your first mistake, buddy," I say, wiggling my ass into a dent left behind by some long-ago dried out irrigation ditch, and sighing in relief. "Whoever said Delta thinks?"
"It's dumb, though." Tommy grumbles, chucking a rock down the mountainside which holds both our gazes until it skitters too far down, and out of sight.
We don't talk to each other again until the sounds of the small piece of tumbling volcanic stone hitting the cliffside stop echoing through the valley. "Of course it is," I agree, to nobody in particular. "Wait – what's dumb this time?"
"Aren't you listening to me, Mike?" Tommy asks, shooting me a grumpy glare. "Not really," I reply nonchalantly, reaching out and grabbing a handful of Jake's short, dusty fur to give him a hard scratch. Soldiers are all the same – they love to complain. And that’s no different, even when the soldier in particular is a hardcore motherfucker – a Delta operator like Tommy.
And like me.
Jake's a seven-year-old German Shepherd, and apart from Tommy, he's my best friend out in this dusty hellhole. Luckily for me, he doesn't moan nearly as much as the New Yorker I met in basic who's resting a few paces below me against the sandbags – and when he does, either it's because he's hungry, or because he's got a stone in his paw – both things that, unlike orders, I can actually fucking do something about!
Tommy's not one to quit, though, and keeps going. "Well think about it, Mike. You're a dog handler, right?"
"Right." I reply, absentmindedly scratching under Jake's collar as he languidly stretches beside me. "What gave it away?" I grin, pointedly glancing at the eighty-pound dog lying by my side.
"Oh shut up." Tommy grins, chucking a small piece of gravel at me the bounces off my helmet and lands on Jake, who just turns and looks at me with sad, doleful eyes as if to tell me I should bite my best friend. "What I'm saying is, shouldn't you and Jake be out there sniffing for car bombs?"
"It's too hot. And like you said, buddy –we’re special forces, not regular grunts," I say, grabbing the knife attached to the side arm holster on my right leg and using it to scratch an itch that has, like clockwork, appeared under the leather of my left boot. "Ahhhh," I groan, stabbing the blade of a knife into the soft, sandy soil by my side once I'm done.
"Still, man, I just don't get why the army sent us here," Tommy says with an annoyed grimace on his face.
"I told you, Tommy – it's the army. How long have you been in?" I ask.
He shoots me a funny look, like he thinks I’m messing with him or something.
"You know how long, you idiot. We went to basic together – what's it been, three years ago now? Why do you ask?"
"So you've been in the Army long enough to know that there's no point questioning why we do anything, or why they send us anywhere. Just do what I do – lie back and enjoy the ride," I say, shifting my ass slightly as another sharp stone somehow rides its way up my backside.
"Yeah, you're probably right," Tommy replies with a concentrated frown on his face. He settles back down, and we don't say anything for a while, just enjoying the day’s warmth as the sound of cicadas competes with an otherwise comfortable silence.
I don't get to chill out like this very often, because Tommy's got a big mouth.
It's not that I don't like it, but sometimes I wonder if a different man on a different hill might tell him to shut up every now and again. I wouldn't do that though, not just because I’m a decent guy, but because I suppose since Jake doesn't – or can't – say a word, things balance out.
Inevitably, Tommy’s Bronx accent breaks the silence. "Yeaaah," he drawls. "But it's such a waste, you know? Why spend all that money training you and Jake up just to stick you out here in the sticks?"
"I know," I agree, for Tommy's peace of mind rather than anything else. "But what you gonna do about it – go the the captain and complain?" I ask. "You sign up for your four years and the army gets to tell you what to do – that's the deal, isn’t it. Anyway, they’ve probably got a reason. What did they say in the briefing again? It’s some kind of weapons smuggling hotspot, isn’t it?"
Tommy doesn’t answer, and retreats into silence again.
I can't tell whether he's turning over what I just said, or whether he's just moved on to a completely different topic. His mind works like that – it gets stuck on a problem and can't let it go, like Jake with a bone. And, just like Jake, when he gets all the meat off it he moves straight on to the next shiny topic. So to distract myself from the inevitable, like I have every day for almost three months now, my mind inevitably gets drawn back to the breathtakingly beautiful woman who haunts my dreams every night – Katie.
"How long have we got left?" Tommy asks, "I could do with some chow."
My belly rumbles in agreement. We've been at this watch post for hours, watching the mountains for any sign of Taliban movement, but just like yesterday, and the day before that, we haven't seen a thing. I check my watch.
"Still two hours, buddy. Hey," I ask, "did I ever tell you about that girl I met back at the base? Man, she was just about the most attractive, most flexible, dirtiest girl I’ve ever met. Seriously, buddy, I can’t get her off my mind!"
"Mike, " he grins, "you haven’t shut up about that broad since we got posted…"
I blush, realizing that in my infatuation, I’ve probably been a little more open than I would normally be. I’m usually a closed book, a typical tough guy – more than willing to bottle up my emotions, just in case someone notices I have them at all. With Katie, though, it’s different. I don’t know if it’s just because she’s the only woman who’s been in my bed since I deployed to this dusty hellhole, or whether she’s actually every bit as goddamn sexy as I think she is, but either way – she’s messing with my mind.
I toss a rock in the general direction of Tommy’s head, hoping it lands true. "Ah, shut up," I say, grimacing, "if you’d met her, you’d understand!"
"If I’d met her, " he says back to me with a shit-eating grin plastered all over his face, "she wouldn’t have ended up going back to your rack. I’m a certain kind of man, Mike, and it takes a certain kind of woman to appreciate me…"
"Hey," I parry back, raising my voice slightly, and making it sound ever so slightly stern – feeling an angry, almost protective need to make it clear that this girl was different. She was off limits. "Don’t talk about her like that, okay?"
When you’re out in the field for months at a time, with no women for miles – or at least none that speak English – finding a gem like Katie is a pretty big deal. And there’s no way I’m going to let Tommy disrespect her, no matter how good a friend he is. And, to his credit – or maybe because I’ve got 20 pounds and two inches on him, as well as a fearsome bar brawl record, he quickly decides the safer course is for him to back down.
But not without one last parting shot…
Hell, I should have expected it. Guys like Tommy and I – the kind of guys who make it through Delta’s fearsome selection course, we’re not always that tactful… And a barracks environment encourages…a ‘certain’ kind of humor, after all.
"So do you reckon by the time we get back to base," Tommy says in
an artificially raised, provocative tone of voice, ""she’ll be showing?"
I sigh. "Showing what, Tommy?"
"You know," he grins mischievously and rubs his stomach, "down there…"
It takes me a few seconds to grasp what he’s hinting at. "You think… Nah, surely not."
"So you were using a jonny, right? "
I suddenly try and cast my mind back to the alcohol-fuelled night that had led up to Katie ending up in my rack – but for a very different reason than I’ve been using for the rest of my tour. "Yeah…" I say weakly, "but she’d have been on the pill too, right?"
Tommy looks at me with a crowing smile. "You don’t know if you used a condom, do you?
Truth be told – no, I didn’t. And suddenly, I realize I’ve got a much more pressing reason than just boredom to get back to the base. I might be expecting a kid…
I don’t reply, not immediately, stunned into silence by the revelation – or realization, that Tommy’s provoked.
"This doesn’t prove anything…"
"You think they bother shipping the pill out to this dusty shithole?" Tommy asks, "especially since," he modifies his voice to mimic the Army rulebook, "fraternization is highly discouraged, and you may be demoted for engaging in sexual conduct on an active military base…"
"But there are other reasons to use the pill, aren’t there?" I ask plaintively, "mood regulation, and... hell, I dunno." This was well beyond my area of expertise. Finding and defusing bombs while being shot at? No problem. The intricacies of the female reproductive system? Now that’s something that gives me pause for thought.
"For your sake, buddy," Tommy laughs, "I hope so. Hey, if she is preggers, can I be the godfather?"
I toss another, bigger rock at him and slump down into the dirt clutching my rifle, with my mind desperately trying to figure out whether Tommy’s just trying to needle me, or whether he’s right.
Could I really have got Katie pregnant?
"Holy shit, Tommy." I shout angrily. "Smaller rocks, okay?" I look down at him, and I see the terrified look on his face. "I didn't throw it!" he shouts up, his panicked voice a few octaves higher than normal.
"Shit, get down," I scream, realizing in that instant that we must be taking incoming fire.
I throw myself onto my belly, getting a mouthful of red mountain dust in the process, and grab Jake's collar as I wriggle over to Tommy to crouch behind the sandbags. Jake knows what to do, he's wriggling along himself, keeping his head low. He's a good dog. "Call it in!" I scream to Tommy, knowing that he’s got the medium-range radio.
"Okay, okay," he calls back, and his voice is lower now, more professional – and I can tell his training is kicking in, he's falling back on routines. All around us we can hear the cracks of bullets impacting against the rocky shale, and the wheezing hiss of more poorly aimed ammunition whizzing over our heads. Some of the bullets, though, are coming uncomfortably close, and Jake’s trembling with fear. We've been shot at before, the pair of us, but not like this – not so close, not so much.
"Echo Company, Echo Company, come in," I hear Tommy scream into the receiver to my left. I cling on to the M4 carbine clipped to my bullet-proof vest like it's my ticket out of here, releasing the magazine an inch or two to check it’s fully loaded.
I know it is, but it's a ritual, a routine, a way of taking my mind off the fact that there are men firing at me, men that want to kill me – and my dog.
I put my hand on Jake's back, pressing it in so that he doesn't panic and stand-up. "There boy," I say in a soothing tone of voice. "Help's on its way." He can't understand what I'm saying, but we've been together since I graduated Boot Camp, and he knows me better than I know myself. My low voice seems to soothe him, and it's nice to have someone to concentrate on, so I keep going. I can feel him trembling, the uncontrollable, terrified movements reverberating up through my arm.
"Echo Company, Echo Company, come in," I hear Tommy repeat into the handset beside me.
"What's going on?" I ask calmly, feeling adrenaline flooding through my sysem and calming me down, preparing me for the inevitable fight, "aren't they answering?"
"I'm just getting static," he says as the bullets keep pinging into the soil around us. I clap him on the shoulder to let him know that I'm moving behind him. "Keep trying," I say loudly. "I'm going to lay down some fire." I move towards the squad machine gun mounted at the front of the watch post, knowing that from this altitude I should be able to lay down fire into the whole valley. I reach it, flick off the safety and fire blind downhill, the gun's thunderous kick back luckily being absorbed into its tripod, rather than my arms.
"Echo Company, Echo Company, this is Echo Foxtrot, come in. We're taking fire from down in the valley, and I think there might be a flanking action. Echo Company, repeat, we're taking fire from all sides."
"Any luck?" I pant, feeding in another ammunition belt. "Maybe, I dunno," he says, pointing down at the green metal of the radio housing, and I notice that at some point it’s been winged by a bullet. "I think there's a chance they might be receiving this, but I'm definitely not getting anything back."
I lay down another round of weapons fire. "Come here," I bark at Tommy, feeling a natural, comfortable aura of authority beginning to emanate from me ever more strongly the longer this fight goes on. "When I stop firing, I need you to fire your entire magazine. I don't care what you hit, just do it – on automatic, okay?"
He runs the short distance that separates us crouching down, and nods.
"Got it Mike."
I pull the trigger back again, watch the yard long eruptions of flame jumping from the barrel, the odd streak of light as a tracer round shoots off into the valley. "On three," I shout, seeing the ammunition belt is almost empty.
"One."
"Two."
I fire the last few rounds one-handed, grabbing my carbine with the other.
"Three!" I scream, picking up my weapon and nestling it in my shoulder all in one motion, feeling the hard, warm metal against my chin as I rest my head on the stock of the rifle. Beside me, Tommy is standing up, firing his rifle on full automatic. I'm not shooting, not yet at least – I need to take a look at what we're facing.
I scan the rocky mountain side below us, not using my scope yet, just looking for movement – and I see it. The valley below us is crawling with activity, dozens of men only a few hundred yards away from us now, mostly crouching down to avoid getting hit, or running for cover.
"What do you see?" I hear Tommy scream over the din his rifle's making. I don't reply, just look right and left.
I was right, there are Taliban coming from each direction, not so many as from down in the valley directly below, but far too many for just Tommy and I to fight, no matter how good we are. I know Tommy is coming to the end of this magazine, so I rest my chin back down my weapon, line my eye up with the scope, and take careful aim. I don't have much time.
Around me, everything slows to a crawl. The explosions, the bullet impacts, the screams from the injured below, I don't notice any of it. I line up a target in the scope, time my movements with my breathing, and pull the trigger. The man falls to the ground, deathly injured. I know that Tommy's stopped firing, I can't hear anything to the right of me. I haven't got long. I swivel my rifle to the right, picking out the insurgent closest to our pitiful little outpost, I exhale, I fire, he drops, I drop, clutching my arrival to my chest and leaning back against the sandbags, the world suddenly returning to full speed.
"Are you fucking crazy?" Tommy screams. "You get down when I stop firing, okay? We're going to make it out of this."
His bravado can't change the truth, I know we're not. "How many did you see?" he asks, "I couldn't see what I was shooting at – too much dust."
"Too many," I gasp. "If they don't come soon, we don't stand a chance." I reach out for my side arm, gripping the stock firmly in my hand. It feels like an old friend.
"Don't let them take me alive, okay?" I say, completely seriously.<
br />
I don't mind dying, I've known that that was more than likely to happen ever since I arrived in this godforsaken country – but being taken alive by the Taliban would be a fate worse than death.
Tommy looks serious, I don't like seeing him like this, he's usually a boisterous, effervescent ball of life.
"Okay, brother. You'll do the same for me?" he asks quietly, and yet, strangely enough I can hear him perfectly over the cacophony of the raging battle. I nod, I don't need to say anything else. And then, a humming sound fills the air.
"You hear that?" Tommy screams in elation. "I think it's the god damn air force!"
"I can't hear a thing," I shout back, clicking a new magazine into my M4. It's true, but that doesn't mean a plane's not overhead, it's just that I've gone partially deaf from firing hundreds of fucking bullets into this valley.
"You ready to do that routine again?" I shout over the din. Tommy nods. "Let's mix it up this time." I say, grinning with morbid humor, unclipping two grenades from my belt and tossing one to Tommy.
"I like your style," he grins back, and we pull the pins at the same time, count to five, and then lob them as far as we can downhill.
"I'm running low," Tommy warns, but we need to keep up the covering fire and force the Taliban to stop approaching, at least until we get some help, so I just acknowledge the statement with a grunt.
"I'm out," Tommy informs me next, dropping to his knees to reload and shelter. My machine gun is too, so I switch to the carbine. I'm not aiming my shots now, not really, just firing madly downhill. I can see the barrel of my gun actually steaming, burning off whatever little vapor there is in this dry air. I see a glint in the distance, sun shining of something, but I don't have the time to look up – it could be a plane, or it could just be a vulture prowling for its next meal. After today, it's not going to struggle.
I'm out," I echo, dropping to my knees. Like a well choreographed dance routine, Tommy rises just as I fall, and it's my turn to reload. I grab the magazine from my waist, I eject the last one, I slammed the new one home, I pull back the slide, I get ready to stand.
