Gerald Seymour - Holding the Zero

The bullet would run for more than one and a half seconds. Its trajectory curve would take it to an apex of a fraction more than four feet above the aim point before the sliding fall. The flight, to Gus, was endless.

The target, the officer, at the door of the command post had turned and was issuing an instruction, jabbing with a finger for emphasis. Then he stood as if frozen.

Omar piped, ‘Miss. One metre to the right. Hit the wall. Miss.’

Gus slid the bolt back, eased out the wasted bullet. They were all rooted to the ground.

It was what he had been told. Men stood statue still in the seconds after a bullet had been fired and had missed them. But that moment would pass. It would pass before he had the chance to breathe in, breathe out, and use the respiratory pause. He locked the aim. His mind made the adjustment on intuition and instinct. He fired a second shot. A soldier dived to the ground. A second cowered, another fell to his knees, as if the ice of the tableau had melted. The officer’s jabbing finger was retracted and he seemed to be twisting his hips to turn for safety.

Gus saw him spin, one arm whipped high in the air. He saw the shock on his target’s face and watched him pirouette, fall. The officer was on his back and his legs kicked in the air. No-one came to his aid, and across the open ground came the faint whinnying cry of his scream.

He slid back the bolt, ejected the cartridge case. He tried to steady the post-shoot shake in his hands. He loathed himself for his failure to make a good, clean kill and started to analyse the first total failure and the second partial failure, as he had been instructed. And with the analysis came the calm… He had asked too much of the boy, he had not allowed enough for the wind, he had not reckoned on the pace of the officer’s walk, and he would think about it some more in the evening.

Gus said evenly, ‘The old stalkers in Scotland knew it. They’d have a guest fire at a stag and miss, and the stag always stays exactly still for two or three seconds. Then it runs. But, if it is winged, it runs immediately, until the wound kills it. I was lucky with that second shot.’

The machine-gun had opened up behind him and to his right, the tracer rounds arced across the dead ground, scattering little chasing patterns. The view through the ’scope was a blurred, fluid mess as he searched to find the position on the roof of the command post. And behind him he heard the whooping roar as the line of men began their charge.

A soldier yelled his name, waved frantically for him.

Major Karim Aziz was walking the dog alongside the edge of the high wire fence.

He heard his name and ran towards the soldier. The dog at his heel, he was led to the communications bunker.

The brigadier was already there, the general bursting in a minute after him.

He stood at the central map table and listened. The words that came blurted over the loudspeakers, high on the wall, were interspersed with break-up and howl.

‘… The captain is hit… Yes, Corporal Ahmad wore the captain’s coat, but was not shot at… Captain Kifaar is hit, is not dead, but they cannot bring a medical orderly to him. There is a general attack. We are waiting for Lieutenant Muhammad to take the place of Captain Kifaar in the command post.’

The Victory City at Quadir Beg broke across the transmission – their water tanker was late. When could they expect it?

The Victory City at Keshdan reported the failure of the single-stage air filtration system of a BMP. Could a qualified engineer accompany the next resupply column with a replacement?

‘Get those arseholes off the air,’ the general shouted.

‘… There is heavy shooting from the front… There are casualties… Lieutenant Muhammad has now reached the command post… They are led by a woman. She is with their forward force. The machine-gun fires at her, no hit yet, she is protected… The medical orderly has not come to the command post to treat Captain Kifaar. The captain is close to death. Are units advancing to help us? In God’s name, send us help.’

Aziz asked quietly, ‘Please, is it possible to know the circumstances of Captain Kifaar’s wounding? It would be useful for me.’

The question was relayed.

‘… A very long shot, twice. The second shot hit him. We must have help. They are near to us… No-one knows where the shot came from. Is help on its way?’

Over the loudspeaker came the sounds, staccato, of the firing. But Aziz had been given the answer he had expected and seemed not to hear the deep, distorted terror of the men under fire.

Gus had hit a man who ran to the nearest of the personnel carriers. He had missed another who made a snaky crawl to follow him but had put the next shot right through the gunport of the command post. A fuel drum, close to the earth walls for the personnel carriers, had caught fire and the deep red blaze of the incendiary threw a lowering pall of smoke across much of the village, which ebbed towards the fence. Between gusts of wind, gaps appeared in the grey-black wall of the smoke, and he caught fleeting glimpses of the machine-gun crew on the roof.

It was a scene of hell. Against him the boy was shivering with excitement.

She was at the front of the long, straggling line approaching the fence. She had no fear.

Suddenly, as if a man had punched him, came the realization of her vulnerability. He saw her turn and face the line of crouched men behind her, and give an imperious wave that they should follow.

Gus saw the machine-gun traverse towards her, then the smoke drifted and thickened.

The tracers poked through the cloud, firing at random, searching for her. Haquim was behind her, running awkwardly over the rough ground and hugging the metal box to his chest. The hellish cauldron was a small pocket of life and death, in which she stood and demanded that the peshmerga follow.

‘Watch for the fall,’ Gus snapped.

The wind was stronger: it tugged at the grass and wafted the smoke. He waited for the chance. She was a hundred yards from the fence. He had gone to eight clicks on the windage turret, but the wall of smoke was solid and he could not see through it. The tracers swarmed around her.

The smoke dissipated without warning.

He was gazing through the ’scope at the machine-gun crew. Three choices: the man who called the aim and was crouched at the back, puffing at a cigarette clamped between his lips; the one who fed the belt and whose helmet strap was undone and hung loosely against his cheek; or the one who pulled the trigger?

‘She’s hit,’ the boy gasped. ‘She has fallen.’

Gus fired, once, twice, a third shot. The smoke closed around his view of the target. He heaved back the bolt, squeezed the trigger again, and again, heard the empty scrape of the action and knew that his magazine was empty.

‘You have them, Mr Gus.’

He choked. ‘Does it matter?’

There was a stillness around him, as if the pace and clamour of the world had stopped.

It was the silence of remembrance.

‘The witch is down.’

Around Aziz there was a growl of pleasure, and the brigadier slapped his clenched fist into the other palm.

The operations officer lifted the microphone to his mouth and yelled at it, ‘Are the BMPs now engaged? Come on, man, what is happening there?’

The voice came back at them, echoed down on them. ‘They cannot reach them. There is a marksman. There is very great difficulty… Our machine-gun, the main defence, they are all dead, it is the marksman… Is help coming? Wait…’

Aziz felt a detached distaste for such confusion. It had no part in the warfare he practised. The chaotic noise was alien to him. He was at ease with himself, he had learned what he had wanted to know. He had no sympathy for the beleaguered soldiers: they were only a testing ground for his enemy. He yearned to be alone with his Dragunov and his dog, on a hillside, pitting himself against a worthwhile adversary.