The Afgan Campaign

6

The column reaches Artacoana, principal city of Areia, on the 127th day out of Tripolis. Hell itself could not be uglier than the lower town, along the dry river, but the upper city, the Citadel, is surprisingly smart and civilized. Women are permitted on the streets, though bundled from sole to crown. You can hear them giggling behind their veils. Parks are everywhere. Tamarisk groves provide shade, their branches weeping a kind of sugary stuff the locals call amassa. You can eat it all day and your belly’s as empty as when you started. Cloudbursts drench the town late in the afternoon, draining through the soil in moments, leaving it as parched and sterile as it was before. Persians, installed by Alexander, administer the city. Alexander himself has pushed on north and east with the army, pursuing the pretender Bessus. Our king will invade Afghanistan from the north before winter closes the passes.

Artacoana is famous for its shoe factories. The whole south side smells like a tannery. You can get extraordinary boots, bags, and saddles for next to nothing. Lucas and I get fitted for ankle-toppers the first morning; the bootmaker promises the finished pairs for late the next day. To our joy, he delivers. As the cobbler fits us, a commotion erupts in the lane. Boys and women race past in alarm. On their heels appear two Mack dispatch riders, pounding hard for the upper city. A soldier’s instinct, sensing trouble, is to rally to his unit. We come out into the street, Lucas and I, in time to see, straggling in from the desert, a ragged column of Macedonian infantry. That they have no cavalry escort means something terrible has happened.

We find Flag and Tollo on the track back to camp. Stephanos is with them. A massacre has occurred, we are told, two days south of the city. Rebels led by the traitor Satibarzanes and his cavalry commander Spitamenes (called for his cunning “the Desert Wolf”) have ambushed a company of 90 Macks, including 6 °Companions, and 120 mercenaries, slaughtering all except the party we saw straggling in from the desert. Two pursuit columns will be mounted to avenge this. Lucas and I are drafted into the second.

The first party takes off at once. They are the chase column. It’s their job to pick up the foe’s trail and track him. Our chore in the second column is to load up and follow, bringing armor, rations, and the heavy kit. It is something to watch Flag and Tollo, and particularly Stephanos, rack the gear and rig it. God help the foe when these men catch up with him.

Our pursuit column is a quarter-brigade, about four hundred, half Macks and half Achaeans. Its commander is Amyntas Aeropus, called Bullock. The company has never trained or fought together. We have not even drilled. Tollo splits our sixty-four in half, with Flag commanding one section, Stephanos the other. Lucas and I are under the poet. Every man is mounted (my mate and I on asses) and leads one laden mule. We tag the first column’s trail till dusk. Fallback riders meet us and guide us on in the dark. My new boots still haven’t been stitched closed. I stuff my played-out road-beaters into a pannier and ride barefoot.

We overhaul the chase column two hours before dawn. Time for a feed and a couple hours’ rest. Both elements press on all next day. The country south of Artacoana is desert valleys; one range of hills succeeds another. Toward nightfall of the second day scout riders come galloping in. Captains are called to assemble. The column is split into three-one blocking force circling southeast, a second assault force southwest (that’s us), the third to set up a base camp with covering positions and follow when summoned.

We set off on foot into the dark. No one tells Lucas or me anything. No orders are issued and we are too embarrassed to ask. I have nothing but my worn-out clompers; my soles by now are a chewed-up mess.

The last scout trots back an hour before dawn. Finally Tollo calls our sections together. We assemble in a draw beneath a basalt ridge; the moon is just setting. We can make out a desert river, a hundred feet across and an inch deep, shining like a ribbon out beyond the ridge’s shoulder. Apparently it twines past a village that is out of sight around the hill. The enemy has taken refuge in the village. His horses have been spotted. He does not know we are here.

Tollo sketches the village in the dirt. It will be a cordon operation. The columns will ring the site and go in at first light.

I am thinking: Can I do this? Can I stand up to the foe face-to-face? What will I do when he bolts, in rage or terror, straight at me?

“Prisoners?” asks one of the sergeants I don’t know.

Tollo regards him. “What do you think?”

The caucus breaks up. Still no one has given Lucas and me a word. Here comes Stephanos.

“You’ll take the women.”

He indicates a Mack corporal called Barrel. We are to stick with him. In a second Stephanos is gone, arming. Barrel is about forty, with one milky eye and arms like iron bands. Six others form up with him, four Macks and two Achaeans. They are stowing their spears and gathering ropes, which they work skillfully and swiftly into nooses. No one gives us orders or shows us what to do. The others keep their swords, so we keep ours.

Lucas catches up to Barrel as we start out.

“What do we do with the women?”

The corporal stops.

“Well,” he says, “you ain’t gonna propose to ’em.”