Gerald Seymour - The Unknown Soldier

They were ahead of him and she was behind him, and far beyond her were the last wisps of two columns of smoke. Caleb did not look back, did not wave, did not – at the last moment when his voice would have carried to her – shout his farewell.

He rode away, followed the guide and the boy into the sand that stretched to a far horizon. All that mattered to him, he thought, was that he was close now to his family, to their love.

She stood. She shaded her eyes. Riding away from her were three ant-sized dots almost swallowed by the desert.

She watched them as they diminished, disappeared into the far haze.

The smoke had gone from the downed aircraft and the destroyed vehicle. Her dream of him was downed too. She was glad that he had not spoken to her. There had been no contact between them when he had gone. She had not wanted to hear his voice, see his face: she had feared they would break her resolve. He had not looked back – it was as if he did not acknowledge that he had come into her life, had passed her in the night.

She walked to her Land Rover. The quiet of the place, its beauty and emptiness, washed over her. She took from the Land Rover the two towels she had packed, a spare blouse she had brought, and a bright red blanket she had thought she might need in the night's cold but which she had not used. She carried them back to the dune she had watched him from.

The haze had thickened round them.

She made the arrowhead so that it pointed to him, and the tiny specks on either side of him. There was no wind. The sand was still.

She bent the blanket for the point, blood scarlet on the sand. At each end, to lengthen the arrowhead, she laid the towels. He had gone into the haze, was swallowed in it, but she marked the route he had taken. Beyond the point, as if to sharpen it, she rolled her blouse, put it on the sand.

She marked him.

Beth would never again hear his voice, see him, feel the touch of him. She would not have justified her betrayal of him as having been for the greater good of humanity: she marked him as a piece of personal vengeance. Planes would come, or helicopters, and they would see the arrow she had fashioned. They would hunt him till they killed him… Love was dead.

As an afterthought, she stripped off her blouse – exposed the whiteness of her skin to the sun's beat – and that, too, she rolled tightly and used it to make the point of the arrowhead more distinct, more exact.

She walked down off the high ground, left the arrow behind her.

She passed the abandoned tube, the emptied box and the dropped manual. She saw the insect column that carried away the slivers ol flesh from his wound. At the Land Rover, she threw a scarf over her shoulders, and gunned the engine.

The sun hammered at him, and the pain surged. Sometimes his eyes were closed and sometimes they could see nothing more than the reins in his hand and the fur of the Beautiful One's neck. The heat was without mercy, and Caleb did not know for how long he had ridden alone.

He stopped, dragged on the rein and whispered to the Beautiful One what he had heard the boy say. They had been in front of him, but were no longer there. He looked to his right and left, and saw only the expanse of the sand and the gentle rise of the dunes. He gasped, forced himself to turn further, to look behind.

Their camels knelt. They stood in front of them and the father's arm was round his son's shoulders. Caleb did not know whether it was for protection or if it was to comfort the boy. He could not see them clearly, was not able to read them, because the tiredness and pain played tricks with his sight.

He realized their intention. .

He would have gone on, reeling in his dreams and his fantasies, burned by the sun, half dead and half alive, and would not have known that they had fallen back, had left him. Now, they were a hundred yards, less, from him. In an hour he would not have been able to see them.

He realized they wanted no more part of him.

T need you,' Caleb shouted.

They would head for their village. The guide would spin a story.

The boy would go to a desert grave rather than gainsay his father's lie. Back in their village they would tell of the deaths from the eye in the sky, and of the demand of the wounded traveller, without a name and without a home, that he go on alone. They would return to their village and no man would be able to contradict their story.

His shout burst over the sand: 'I need you to take me to my family.'

For answer, the guide pointed far ahead, far beyond Caleb, towards the haze and the horizon.

'Do you want money? I can give you money.' His fingers scrabbled at the belt at his waist. He loosened the fastening and held up the pouch. 'I will pay you to lead me.'

They gave no sign that they had heard him. He saw them straddle the saddles, then the camels rose. The guide pulled at his camel's head and moved away at a right angle to the route they had led Caleb on. The boy followed him. The money in the pouch would buy a well for the village, pickup trucks for the villagers, was wealth to a degree they could not have dreamed of. As they went away, they did not look at him. Caleb threw the pouch towards them.

He threw it high. It arched in flight and the neck fell open. The coins glittered as they dropped.

'I will get there without you.'

Gold coins lay on the sand, were scattered round the pouch.

They walked under the raised bar, through the gap in the coiled razor wire.

The bags were hooked on their shoulders and Marty carried his picture.

From the tail ramp of the aircraft, George called, 'Come on, guys, you're busting the take-off schedule.'

But they did not hurry. The place was a part of them, where they had lived and where they had killed. Behind them was the emptiness of the compound. Dumped boxes of cardboard and plastic bags bulged with rubbish. Torn-up paper scraps hung from the barbs of the wire. She reached out and took his free hand. They went together.

Marty felt a shyness but did not pull away his hand. They went at their own pace, as if the schedule for take-off was not important to them.

At the bottom of the ramp, watched by George and his people, Lizzy-Jo grinned, then tilted up her head, and kissed his cheek – there were cat-calls and whistles through fingers, and feet stamped applause. Marty blushed. They went on up the ramp and into the gloom of the stowage area. Two coffins were being brought back to Bagram, one loaded and one empty, except for boxed spares and maintenance toolkits. Marty blushed because he thought he had failed. First Lady was in her coffin, but Carnival Girl was out in the desert, broken and lost. While the camp was torn apart, and he had packed his bag, Lizzy-Jo had lectured him on the success of the mission. One more chance to hurt the man who had brought down Carnival Girl was all he could have asked for, but it was denied him.

Marty edged up the side of the fuselage, over the legs and knees of George's people, past the coffins and satellite kit, the stowed tents and cookhouse gear, and they found little canvas seats where their feet would be against the wheels of the Ground Control trailer. They were near to the bulkhead, close to the hatch door to the cockpit. He settled, fastened the restraining harness. He was not thinking of Lizzy-Jo and a future, but of Carnival Girl who was down and mourned and alone…

The Texan drawl cut through his thoughts. 'Good to see you, folks.'

He was far away, where Carnival Girl was, in the sand. He looked up and scratched in his clouded memory.

'You don't remember me? I brought you in here – you look rough.

You not slept? How did it go?'

'It went OK,' Marty said.

Lizzy-Jo cut in. 'He flew well, way beyond the limits. We lost one but we got good kills – we got Al Qaeda kills.'