In Honour Bound

Chapter 22

While it was still dark, in the quiet of his quarters, Pyotr Medev dressed.

For once he ignored the brief elasticated pants and the cotton vest that were habitual to him. He pulled over his body the combination thermal wool garment favoured by the pilots when winter is coming, when they fly high in the mountains. He selected a pair of heavy knit socks. In place of a starched shirt, he took from a drawer the sweat top that carried on the chest the crest of Eight Nine Two. He left on the hanger in the wardrobe his uniform tunic top and the matching trousers with the blue piping on the seam line, he struggled into his one-piece flying suit and pulled the zipper from waist to neck.

From another drawer he lifted his flying cap. From the bottom of the wardrobe he picked out his soft leather flying boots, ponderous but lightweight, and dust covered.

He blew the dust from his boots, sat on his unmade bed to draw them onto his feet. He felt a warmth and a sense of comfort now that he was dressed for flying. He looked around his room, it did not concern him that he might not see the room again. The room had been his home for a year. A small bare room with little of ornament and less of decoration. An anonymous room, and easy for a new man to slip into the bed of a flier who had no need of it because a bodybag was taking him home.

Before he left the room he reached out to the bedside table and took from it the leather-cased photograph of his wife. He took her photograph from behind the glass and held it near to the light and close to his face, and saw the slight smile on the lips and the careworn eyes and the blonde hair that had been prepared for the photographer. From the bedside table he took, also, the cellophane folder that contained his military identity card. He placed the photograph of his wife into the folder, covering the card.

He went to the door. He switched off the light, he closed the door quietly behind him. He walked away down the corridor.

The memories of the previous evening swam over him as he walked the bright strip-light length of the corridor.

Start at the beginning, start with Rostov, quivering in jelly nerves, telling the story of the loss of the pilot's, Vladdy's, helicopter. Move on from the beginning to the grounding of the squadron, what remained of it, on the express and personal order of the Frontal Aviation commander. Continue the road, listening to the report of the Antonov's spotter who said that a large caravan had moved immediately after the airborne attack from the valley and high into the mountains to the west. Finish at the end, finish with the scathing anger of the Frontal Aviation commander and Pyotr Medev face to face across the desk of the commander's office.

'The squadron is grounded because it has proved unable to carry out the duties assigned to it, because it has repeatedly provided false information on the capabilities of the enemy. I will not stand aside and see young pilots butchered for a piece of rock that means little to the strategy of our operations. The caravan will be interdicted from Kabul when it is further down the line, out of our responsibility. For fuck's sake, Medev, don't you understand anything? Your squadron has been slaughtered, it's barely operational…I'll tell you what I'm going to do, I am relieving you of your command and I don't give a shit whether you like it or you don't like it. At the end of the week you're going home. Get out of this office, Medev, before you say things that will have a permanent effect on your record, on your career. The valley is not worth the loss of another helicopter, certainly not worth the loss of another pilot…'

Seven doors down, on the left side of the corridor, was the room of Captain Rostov. Medev went inside without the courtesy of a preliminary knock. He switched on the light. Rostov was sitting up in bed, blinking at the ceiling light. He wore florid red and orange and blue pyjamas. Without speaking, Medev went to the wardrobe, rifled out of it a winter anorak with synthetic fur lining and a roll neck sweater, and the severely polished boots, and thick socks and wet weather trouser overalls. He threw the clothes and the boots onto Rostov's bed, across his legs. He thought that if Rostov had protested he would have hit him, bloodied his mouth. He saw the tin of talcum beside Rostov's basin, and the bottle of aftershave lotion, and the canister of underarm deodorant spray.

'Five minutes. In the operations room.' Medev said.

Medev went out of the sleeping quarters building, into the small hours' darkness. He saw the bright perimeter lights. He saw a cruising jeep of MilPol. He saw the tanks, nose down, behind their bulldozed earthworks. He saw the helicopters in their revetments with the gaping spaces between them.

'What area do you want?' The question from the corporal in the Meteorological section.

'The north of Laghman province, area Delta.'

He scribbled down into his notebook the information he was given. Wind speeds were strong, temperature was dropping, forecast of rain showers in the valleys and snow falls on the mountains.

He went to the operations room. Rostov stood there, awkward and comical in his overall trousers and anorak, he wore a fur hat on his head, he was wiping the condensation from his spectacles. Medev ignored him.

'XJ LIMA, what state?' He asked the question of the night operations clerk.

'Fuelled and armed.'

Medev gestured with his head for Rostov to follow. Medev walked ahead dissuading conversation. Twice Rostov had managed to reach his shoulder, twice he had seen the bleak face of the Major, and had dropped back. They went to the munitions depot. Medev shook some life into a sleeping man, half spinning him from his chair.

'I want distress flares and a Very launcher pistol.'

'They come in tens, the flares, packs.'

'Ten packs.'

They carried the flares between them, and the Very pistol, to the helicopter revetments. The courage to ask came slowly to Rostov. It came finally.

'Where are we going?' A timid voice.

'To find him.' A cold and grudging reply.

'But the squadron's grounded…'

'Then I am disobeying the order, and regretfully you will be a party to that disobedience.'

'What am I to do? I'm not a flier…' Fear in Rostov, but the greater fear was of challenging his major.

'You'll fire the flares.'

'Then there is no one for the machine gun.'

'The rockets will be sufficient.'

Rostov thought he saw a madness in Medev's eyes. He did not possess the courage to refuse and walk away.

Medev looked up at the gunship, XJ LIMA. He saw the bruises in the paintwork from previous ground fire hits. He saw the smears on the cockpit canopy where bullets had been deflected. He hunted one man. He was sorry he had to take Rostov, but without flares the combat was unequal. It should have been Medev alone against this one man, but Rostov did not outweigh the balance, Rostov equalled the scales. He saw in his mind the vague outline shape of a man who carried a missile launcher on his shoulder, the vague outline shape from a magnified photograph.

It was his only thought as he opened the cockpit hatch of the helicopter XJ LIMA.

They shook Barney's hand with a limp correctness, as if they had seen such a gesture of formality on an old American film and regarded it as the proper usage of manners. He walked down the line of the mujahidin of Ahmad Khan and took each hand that was outstretched and murmured a word of farewell. Behind the men were piled the baggage pieces that they would soon load on their backs and carry away. He would go north and east towards the passes, they would go south down the length of the valley. By the time the snows came to the valley's floor, they would have moved to the villages at the mouth of the valley where they could survive the winter. The destruction of five helicopters in their valley had won for Barney no display of overt affection. He wondered if, when they came back to the valley in the spring and they found the helicopter wreckage that had been snow-covered and was now revealed again, whether they would then remember him.

He came to where Ahmad Khan stood, a little distanced from the line of his men.

Close to Ahmad Khan was the cairn of stones that marked the resting place of Maxie Schumack…New Yorker far from home, veteran of Khe Sanh and Kabul and Desert One and buried where there's no running from. Thanks for the memory, kiddo, thanks for the memory of the humble grave of a mighty man. Barney shook the hand of Ahmad Khan.

The mocking sweet smile of Ahmad Khan. 'Did you achieve in our valley what you came to achieve? Or are you like all the foreigners that have come to Afghanistan? Perhaps you have stamped your foot on rock. Perhaps you have left no imprint.'

Barney looked into the cavern-brown eyes of the schoolteacher. He saw what he believed was a nobility. He saw the clear gaze of the eyes, he saw their certainty.

'I have learned something that is my own. Perhaps that is my achievement. Goodbye, Ahmad Khan.'

'Goodbye, Barney Crispin.'

He walked away from Ahmad Khan, away from Maxie Schumack's grave, away from the line of men.

When he reached Mia Fiori he took her hand.

They went together, away along the dirt path in the slow growing light of the morning. The rifle hung from Barney's shoulder and the Redeye launcher with the last of the missile tubes rested beside his neck. As they walked Mia Fiori twice looked back, turned her head to stare behind her into the depths of the valley.

Barney never looked back, he had said in his arrogance that he would never look back on the valley where he had killed five helicopters.

He set a fierce hard speed up the water gullies of the side valley. It was as if his sole goal was to be clear of the valley and the memories of the valley. She did not complain, she did not ask to be allowed to rest or to drink from the water that he carried. They climbed towards the snow peaks at the side of the valley, they scrambled on the rocks and the smooth stones where the first ice sheen had formed. When he heard her breath behind him, sagging, panting, he took her hand tight in his own and dragged her after him. In his mind were the instructions that Ahmad Khan had given him for the route to the passes that would take him to Pakistan.

He never looked back. When they had reached the roof of the valley, when they had flopped gasping for the rare air, he did not turn to look back and down into the valley, to search for one last time to find the wreckage specks of the helicopters he had killed.

'Did you find nothing there that you valued?'

For answer he reached to her and took her head in his hands and kissed the wetness of the rain and snow spray from her lips, and buried his head against her, and held her head and kissed her again.

'Did you find nothing else that you valued?'

He stood up, he took her hand tight in his own. He saw ahead of him the scape of the plateau stretching eastwards between the mountain summits. He felt the winds buffet against him, felt her stagger against the blast force of the wind. He held her hand, led her forward onto the plateau where snow patches had formed, away from the valley.

Rossiter awoke. He rubbed at his face, cleared the sleep haze from his eyes. He looked at the mattress across the floor from him. The boy had not come back in the night. It was the second night since he had found the boy gone. He had given the little bugger food and water, even some rupees, and that was the thanks. The creature had scarpered when Rossiter had taken the bundle down to the Dreamland. Left nothing of an explanation. In your pocket and dependent one moment, gone the next and leaving you to whistle for a reason. The boy had been allowed to edge too close to Barney Crispin, that was Howard Rossiter's opinion, that's what made him so bloody cocky. Only a bed of bloody nails for your pains when these people were allowed to edge too close.

He had little to look forward to. Another day alone in the bungalow. At dusk he would go into Chitral for his shopping and the contact with the night manager of the Dreamland. It was raining against the windows above his mattress.

He wondered when Barney Crispin would come, if he would come. He felt a greater sense of despair than he had ever known before. A piss wet day waited for him, and not even the wretched boy to talk with. And he must wait. That was the fate of Howard Rossiter and his kind, to sit with their hands under their arses and to wait.

He flew due north. He climbed to clear the mountains ahead of him. With his tanks fully loaded he possessed a flying range of 475 kilometres. He would not waste fuel by skirting the direct route to area Delta and flying the winding river beds. The calculations he made on his knee told him that he would have an hour over the valley, an hour to find his one man.

The wind came from the north, came into the teeth of the helicopter's flight path.

One hand hard on the stick to hold the big bird stable, with his wrist wrenched as the power of the gusts caught at the airframe and beat on the bulk of the cockpit canopy and the machine-gun bubble. Rostov would be sick, sick as a pig dog in the big hold behind the pilot's cockpit. He'd be strapped down in a webbing seat, puking his guts and shouting that he didn't volunteer to come, and no bastard hearing him. With his free hand Medev traced clear pencil lines on the map, directed himself to the place where the contour lines ran in tandem rails, where the valley was overstamped 'area Delta'.

The static burst in his ears, then the distort call of the radio.

'…XJ LIMA come in. XJ LIMA come in. XJ LIMA come in…

A quiet mirthless smile on Medev's face.

'XJ LIMA…Medev…this is the Frontal Aviation commander, Jalalabad base. You have disobeyed an instruction. You are in violation of orders. You are to return to your base immediately…'

Stupid fart. He'd have the Political Officer standing behind him with his book and pencil ready, ready for the Court Martial evidence. Now the shit was spinning he'd have brought in the Political Officer, and put out the signals orderlies and the clerks. Wouldn't want them to hear the Frontal Aviation commander being given two fingers over the radio set.

'You know my destination, you know the range of the helicopter. From that you will know when I am returning.'

A hollow chuckle in Medev's mouth. His fingers slipped down, flicked off the radio switch.

One man, one man only had dragged him to this flagrant breach of orders. High above the mountain peaks, sometimes blinded in cloud, sometimes seeing the snake river lines beneath him, he gave up the logical and consequential thoughts that on any other day and in any other place would have dominated him. Alone in the cockpit of the big bird, alone behind the wind-beaten canopy, he never doubted that he would find the one man, the one man only.

It was a bare landscape. A landscape of small rock and broken gravel and stunted weed. No trees and no scrub bushes had survived the age old ferocity of the wind, and no great rocks here. They went fast onto the plateau.

Because there was no cover, Barney pushed their pace. She was strong, Mia Fiori. He was not a man who willingly praised others. He would shout her praises, because he loved her, because she was strong, because she did not fight the pace he set.

He saw no hiding place on the plateau. He had no way of knowing at what altitude they walked. He knew they would be close to the altitude ceiling of the Mi-24, he had no way of knowing whether this plateau was above or below the helicopter's ceiling. It was hard to breathe on the plateau. Breathing was like the punching of a sponge. He struggled to win the flow of air down into his lungs. He wondered how Mia Fiori could manage. He was a shield for her body against the wind.

It was the ceiling of the world, the roof of the hemisphere. Around the plateau were the great mountains, the chimney stacks of the roof. The Hindu Kush and the Karakorams and the Himalayas were the mountain ranges to the west and the north and the east.

He thought that he had never loved a woman before in the way that he loved Mia Fiori.

The winds struck him, staggered him as he dropped his shoulder to take the charge of the gale winds. There had been girls at home, girls in the back of his car, girls on their parents' sofa, girls to escort to the Regiment's cocktail parties, girls to take to the Aqua Club under the Qurm Heights in Oman. There had never been a woman who was widowed, a woman who took her holiday in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan, a woman who could climb without protest and rest up on the side gullies of a battlefield valley. There had never been a woman like Mia Fiori.

All the time that they walked he held tight on her hand, and she was close behind his back, and the horizon for her eyes would be his backpack and his slung rifle and the Redeye missile launcher low on his shoulder.

They could follow the path. The path was tramped with hoof and sandal prints. Piebald with snow, the path was still clear' for them to see, curving into the emptiness of the plateau.

Barney shouted at the wind gusts.

'I love you, Mia Fiori.'

The answering shout, fleeing away from his ears on the wind, a smaller voice. 'I love you, Barney Crispin.'

'There has to be something for us, beyond this path.'

'There will be something.' Fierce and vibrant and sure.

Barney's head was ducked onto his chest, his chin hugged his throat, the winds whipped his cap and his hair strands.

'Before I came here I had nothing.'

'I, too, I had nothing.'

'Together we will make something, together we will never be alone.'

'After the place we have been, I think it is a crime to be happy.'

'Only for ourselves have we achieved anything.'

'If we have made ourselves happy is that sufficient achievement?'

'Mia Fiori, I love you, and I am happy, and I do not know the answer.'

He felt the strong grip of her fingers in his. He felt the brush of her leg against him as his stride faltered in the face of the gale gusts. He felt the wet in his boots and the dirt in the crevices of his body and the louse scabs on the flanks of his chest.

On across the plateau. On away from the valley. He stayed true to his promise, never to look back, never to turn and look back at the roofs of the far walls of the valley.

He flew up the valley fast and low. A speed of a hundred kilometres, an altitude of fifty metres. He flew the pattern of a coil, a coil of wire that has been released and is now spread out, so that the view of the baffles on the engine exhaust vents would always be minimised. The pattern was wasteful on fuel. He had saved the tanks while coming over the mountains, flying the direct route, now he turned the coin and was extravagant with his fuel. Over the radio he talked softly, calmly to Rostov. A pattern of flying was established, a pattern also of firing the Very flares from the fuselage hatch. He had Rostov in the hatchway secured by a hold strap to his waist. On each circle of the coil he saw the newest of the flares that Rostov had fired, falling prettily into a grey morning sky. He saw the deserted villages, he saw the wreckage of three helicopters.

He came to Atinam where the bomb craters were clearly formed in the flat stepped fields, where the devastation of the houses was complete, where there was the wreckage of two more helicopters. He had passed over the place where the pilot, Vladdy, lay broken in the rocks, he had passed over the place where the jackals hid before returning to feast on the body of the gunner who was trapped in the seat of the machine gun canopy.

The man would know, the man would understand. Medev believed that if his man, his one man only, was in the valley, that he would stand and present himself and fire. When one helicopter came, one helicopter alone, to search out the valley then the man would know. He would understand that this was the challenge of single-handed combat. Medev had come without the support of the Antonov reconnaissance aircraft and without the gunships flying behind him. Pyotr Medev believed that if the man were on the valley floor or on the valley walls that he would stand and take his chance and back his skill against the helicopter and the flares.

He was sick in disappointment as he cruised in a loop over Atinam.

Where was the bastard? Come out, you bastard…

He saw the rubbish heap where the body of the pilot, Alexei, had been discarded. He saw the scar marks where the rockets had taken the helicopter of the pilot, Sergei, close to the river trickle…come out, you bastard. He heard in his headset the plea of Rostov that enough was enough, that the search was unsuccessful. He climbed to three hundred metres.

When he went back, south down the valley, he abandoned the circle coil pattern. He flew straight, over the river line with Rostov blasting the flares forward and above, and all the time he nudged the stick right and left so that the helicopter's motion was that of a pitching boat in a cross swell. The flares guarded his upper hemisphere, the regular fast tilt of the undercarriage would prevent a clear sight of the engine exhaust vents needed by a missile marksman.

Come out, you bastard.

Not a shot was fired at him. He gazed until his eyes ached down into the shadow gullies and the ravines and the deserted villages and the autumn orchards. He saw a single shepherd who sat proud on a rock beneath him near to a grazing herd. He saw dogs that ran wild. He came to the southern end of the valley.

Rostov yelled into Medev's headset. 'You've done enough, Major. You don't have to do any more…'

'Keep the flares going.'

He banked the helicopter, turned north again. He pulled the stick back to the warmth of his groin, flew the helicopter up and up and up towards the roof of the valley.

'He is too much of a coward to show himself.'

'The man who has killed five pilots, five helicopters, he is not a coward.'

The winds bundled against them, the helicopter sagged in the thin air, dropped and fell, yawed back to its station. As if a sledgehammer beat against the walls and canopy of his cockpit.

'They'll flay us when we get back.'

'If you don't keep the flares going, you won't get back. From where did he kill Viktor? From the top of the valley. Keep the flares going.'

And Rostov had sunk back to silence. A flare of brilliant green arched up forward of his vision. He was above the valley and he nudged the helicopter away from the chisel cut below and took a course on the east side of the valley and a kilometre from the cliff edge. Again he flew north. With his left hand he hung to the stick, feeling the pull strength of the winds, with his right hand he made the pencil calculations of speed and minutes and fuel capacity and range from the north end of the valley back to the music at Jalalabad. It was a chance. At this altitude, in this gale wind, the engines gulped the fuel. He had not flown that morning from the base at Jalalabad to ignore any chance. He flew one hundred metres over the bare, weather-savaged ground that bordered the valley's cliff walls.

Another flare burst in a cascade of yellow light ahead of him. So tired, his eyes. So tired, the wrist that held the flying stick. Another flare, and another…and the fuel gauge needle sliding on the dial, and the ache in his eyes and the pain in his wrist.

Rostov saw them, Rostov made the sighting. A shrill voice in Medev's ear.

'Starboard, out there, two of them…'

The helicopter swung right, banked, hovered. In front of Medev was a wide plateau reaching to a mountain break. His gaze swept the smoothed flat surface. A rain squall, snow flurry, splashed on the screen of his canopy. He snapped down with his finger onto the wiper switch. The arm passed over the screen, cleaned it. He saw them. He saw the outline of the missile. They were in the open, past low cloud, short of low cloud. He had wanted a battle, and they were without cover. He flew the helicopter forward, low down over the floor of the plateau.

'Listen very carefully to me, Rostov, no flares until I say, nothing until I say…'

He estimated they were a little more than 3,500 metres ahead of him, and they had no place to hide from his rockets, not while they were short of the low cloud belt that was ahead of them, across their path.

Only the sounds of the wind and the strike of their footfall on the stones and the pounding of their breathing.

He felt the grip of her fingers tighten. He felt the nails of her fingers cut into his hand. She stopped, he pulled. She had stopped, she would not move.

'We can't rest, we can't stop…'

Again Barney pulled at her. His eyes were watering from the wind's cold. He saw ahead of him a tooth gap in the mountains, the end of the plateau.

As if she were anchored she took the force of his pull. He turned to her. Her arm was outstretched and pointing back along their trail. There was despair, there was an agony. He followed her arm, he wiped his eyes.

For Barney there was a first instinctive moment for preservation. His head spun, fast, the full circle. He saw the expanse of the plateau, he saw the shallow fall of the sides of the plateau. There was nowhere to run. He had no cover. It was a knife thrust in his side. There was no place of safety from the helicopter. The wind purged his back, stumbled him a yard forward and into Mia Fiori. He had thought he had achieved something, he had achieved nothing. He had achieved a place on a killing ground of open plateau, without cover, without the possibility of defence.

The helicopter hovered a kilometre from Barney and Mia Fiori. It was low and he could see the dust arc under its belly. It had no need to advance and to be hazarded. He saw the dim shape of the rocket pods under the stub wings. Mia Fiori clung to him.

'What are you going to do?'

'He is different to all of the others. He knows I can do nothing.'

'You have to do something.'

'To fire I must see the engine exhaust vents, I can't see them.'

'Then we are going to die here, you have to do something…'

What was the point of a gesture?

Taking the Redeye into Afghanistan had been a gesture…killing the helicopters in the valley had been a gesture…and the support of Howard Rossiter had been a gesture…and the journey of Gul Bahdur who had walked back with the launcher to Peshawar after thirteen men had died, that had been a gesture.

He prised Mia Fiori from his arm. He set the Redeye on his shoulder. He aimed a little above the helicopter. He waited for the flash spurts of the rockets. He saw the helicopter hovering above the dirt cloud. It was only a bastard gesture.

Why doesn't he fire his rockets, why doesn't he finish it? He engaged the battery coolant. A low whine in his ear. Just the low whine because there was no target.

Barney fired the Redeye.

The last firing of eight Redeyes. No longer fire and forget. No longer the running stampede in the moment after the second flash flame of ignition. Nowhere to run, nothing to forget. For a fraction of time the missile seemed to run true to its aim, then it careered away to the left, a joking ball of brilliance that climbed and then fell and then curved in a death throe, that died on the hard stone scree of the plateau.

He dropped the launcher and the empty missile tube to the ground. He pressed Mia Fiori down to her knees. His rifle was at his shoulder…another gesture.

He saw the light spits as the first rockets were fired.

Nowhere to run to, nowhere to turn to.

The howl of the rockets hitting the ground around him. He stooped to cover Mia Fiori. He felt the scream of pain in his shoulder. He was tossed and moving and falling. He fell on his side, on his wound. He felt the blood wet on his hand when his fingers reached for his shoulder. He heard the thunder of the rocket strike close to him.

She crouched now above him, she threw her blanket away from her shoulders. She wrenched for the buttons of her blouse. She was crying, croaking her tears. She heaved her blouse over her head.

She stood. She waved the blouse high above her. A grey white blouse, a grey white surrender flag.

He had been as far inside the hold of the helicopter as the strap clipped to his waist would permit. Rostov had knelt against the armoured bulkhead behind the pilot's cockpit from the moment he had seen the man standing with the missile launcher at his shoulder.

'What happened?' Rostov called plaintively into the face microphone of his helmet.

'While you were shitting yourself?' The dry quiet reply in Rostov's ears. 'He fired, he had no target, the missile destroyed itself.'

'Why did he fire?'

'To show he was not what you called him, not a coward.'

'I heard the rockets.'

'He is wounded, I think. I don't think he is dead. A woman is with him, she has surrendered for them.'

Excitement surging in Rostov. 'Well done, Major, well done…a prisoner, that's a triumph…'

'Perhaps, Captain Rostov.'

The pain was an open river in his shoulder. With his head bent he could see the rent hole in the blanket where the rocket shrapnel had passed, he could see the torn thread of his shirt, and the pink mush flesh of the wound.

The dust was in his eyes, the spurting grit was in his face and in the wound at his shoulder. Fifty yards from Barney the helicopter landed. Beside his face were Mia Fiori's sandals and bare ankles and skirt hem. He saw the bareness of her back, goosed by the wind, he saw her hair blowing on her shoulders, he saw the blouse high above her head and outstretched by the gale gusts. He lay on his rifle, he had no chance to manoeuvre, to aim it. In front of Barney the roar of the rotors sagged in a spent force.

He saw the mightiness of the big bird, saw its power and weight and grandeur. Protruding from the fuselage hatch was a white owl face with pebble spectacles, rimmed by a flying helmet, and in front of the face was an aimed Very pistol. His mind clouded and was confused because the helicopter carried no forward machine gunner, the gun compartment was empty. The helicopter sat squat on its wheels. The cockpit hatch opened, swung away, broke the lines of camouflage painting. He saw the pilot pull off his helmet and then appear in the hatch, and jump down and land loosely and easily on the ground. He carried no weapon.

A stocky blond man, with sharp military cut hair and a browned face, walking with the confidence that no threat existed. Barney saw the markings on the shoulder flags of the flying suit, saw the man's ranking.

The pilot walked briskly to Barney and the girl and when he had reached them he bent down and picked up the girl's blanket and smacked it with his hand to clear it of dust, and without speaking he held it up and then wrapped it over the shoulders of Mia Fiori, covering her. He smiled, a curt small and sad smile at her. He knelt beside Barney. He took Barney's right hand. Right hand on right hand. He gazed into Barney's face, as if by the meeting of their eyes he might find an answer.

'Pyotr Medev…' The pilot pointed to his chest.

'Barney Crispin.'

'One…?' He struggled for the simple word in English.

They had no language. They met on the roof of the world, they could not speak to each other. It was a strong face that Barney stared into, made weak only by the lack of the common language.

'I was alone, I was one man.' Barney raised a single finger.

It seemed the answer Pyotr Medev had expected. He looked from Barney's face to Barney's wound, his face was caught in a grimace, something of sympathy.

The pilot stood and then walked quickly back to the helicopter, and all the time the owl face with the Very pistol covered Barney and Mia Fiori. The pilot climbed to his hatch and reached inside.

The pilot, Pyotr Medev, returned carrying a brown cloth field dressing and a roll of bandages. He gave them into the hands of Mia Fiori.

Again he held Barney's hand, a terrible glimpse of anguish on his face. Barney peered back into the torment of the eyes. He thought he understood. Barney's hand was dropped, fell back to the ground. The Major nodded to Mia Fiori as if his control was regained. He went to the discarded Redeye launcher. Again the sad smile. He picked it up. He carried the Redeye launcher under his arm as he walked back to the gunship.

When the helicopter took off Mia Fiori covered Barney and his wound with her body, saving him from the dirt storm.

A hundred feet above them the helicopter's nose dipped as if in salute and Barney struggled to his feet, stood like a soldier and waved a farewell.

Later, when it was gone, when it was no longer a throbbing speck going west over the plateau, she started to dress Barney's wound.

Later, when the ringing of the helicopter's engines was no longer in their ears, she supported him as they went, snail pace, towards the mountain break to the east, towards a blowing blizzard of snow.

All the pilots of Pyotr Medev's squadron had gathered to watch their Major land at the Jalalabad base. They had distanced themselves from the Frontal Aviation commander and the Political Officer who was at his side, and the MilPol jeep with the idling engine.

To give an estimated landing time he had broken his radio silence just the once. All the pilots were there, hushed since the first sighting of the Mi-24, coming high and fast and silhouetted against the mountains that were across the Kabul river. The pilots watched as the helicopter was brought down surely, carefully, without bravado or exhibition.

The engines were cut. They saw Rostov at the fuselage hatch, hesitating, unwilling to take the responsibility of being the first to drop his boots onto the concrete apron.

Medev climbed down from the pilot's cockpit hatch. He carried something in his hand, a piece of brown painted equipment, he climbed with the heaviness of a man gripped by exhaustion. He looked around him. He looked into the face of the Frontal Aviation commander.

He walked to the Frontal Aviation commander, handed him the launcher and optical sight of the Redeye missile system. He bobbed his head in respect. He walked past the commander, and the Political Officer, and the pilots of his squadron, walked towards the prefabricated block, which housed his quarters and his bed.

Two days after he was wounded, in a storm flurry of snow, they heard the cry of his name. A sharp clear desperate voice calling to them.

On the beaten path, shadows in the driven snow, were Gul Bahdur and the mule that Barney called Maggie.

When the boy found them they were sitting, they were frozen cold and wrapped together for warmth.