Gerald Seymour - Holding the Zero

In the early evening, a cloud passing over the face of a full moon casting a shadow, Commander Yusuf reached the headquarters of Fifth Army.

He had the right to be tired, but fatigue was not apparent in this slight, wire-framed man. He had been driven, with his escort, from Basra where he had been engaged on pressing business, but the business in Basra took second place to the developments in the north. It was said of him that, above all, he was a family man, and liked nothing better than to be with his grandchildren, to indulge them, sit them on his knee and tell them stories, stroke their hair with neat-boned fingers.

The title ‘Commander’ was self-given. He had no rank in the echelons of the army, nor the need of it. His authority ranged over the lowliest, most humble of soldiers in the slit trenches facing the Kuwaiti border, and over the most senior generals of the High Command. He was a man who hunted for signs of dissent against the regime he served, who searched night and day for evidence of treason. There were few of any status in uniform, from bottom to top, who would not have shivered at his arrival in the camp where they were based.

Commander Yusuf saw himself as a shield behind which the regime and, above all, the President could feel secure. The work of that shield was torture. The same fingers that caressed and smoothed the hair of his grandchildren were equally adept in the arts of inflicting crude pain on those who were assumed to be enemies of the state. He was always busy. His work left little time for him to enjoy the youth of his grandchildren. He was rarely at home. His life was lived at pace because the twin threats of dissent and treason were ever present. Before he had been in Basra he had been in Karbala, before Karbala he had been in Ar Ramadi, before Ar Ramadi he had been in Ba’qubah. Because he would be among the first hoisted up under any conveniently close lamp-post if the regime fell, he devoted his waking hours to the search for dissenters and traitors.

He had the appearance of a junior functionary, the look of a man who organized railway timetables or administered a minor section of a hospital, as he carried his briefcase from his car and walked to that part of the compound that housed the section of the Estikhabarat. It was said of him, in bitterness, that where he came the birds no longer sang.

He sat alone in a far corner of the mess. He had turned the high-backed chair round so that he faced the drawn curtains of the window and the wall.

An orderly had brought Major Karim Aziz a plate of bread and cheese, an apple, a glass of milk, and had asked if he wished to drink whisky. He had declined. He shared the bread and cheese with his dog, and gave it the apple core. He was sipping the milk when Scout growled. Then Aziz heard low voices and the shuffle of feet on the carpet behind him.

He shunned company because the earlier elation was gone and he thought himself a man who had been cheated. The force of the peshmerga was in flight. The former brigade position at the crossroads was reoccupied. At first light, the next morning, units of Fifth Army would move back into Tarjil, and by the afternoon probing patrols would have reached the Victory City of Darbantaq. By the end of the next day the narrow corridor would have been emptied of the saboteurs. The chance to hunt the sniper – one to one, skill to skill, eye to eye, bullet to bullet – was lost to him.

The growl had become a snarl.

He stared at the curtain and the wall and imagined the man tramping back towards the distant mountains, walking in a ragged column bowed by defeat. He would be gone in the morning. There was no work for him in Tarjil or at the Victory City. And then the future hit him. The future was…

The snarl was a yelp of pain.

He started up in his seat and his sudden movement, as he twisted to look behind him, knocked the table and spilled the milk. A small man, older than himself, with flecked, cropped grey hair and a complexion of extraordinary smoothness, was crouched by the back legs of the chair. Aziz had not heard his approach. The narrow, fleshless fingers of one hand held the skin at the nape of the dog’s neck, while the other played gently over the fur on its head. His uniform of drab olive green had no rank insignia on the shoulders and no ribbons on the chest. In his breast pocket was a neat line of ballpoint pens, as though he were a bureaucrat, but he held the dog with expert power so that it did not dare to struggle, and stroked its head as if it were a child. Four men stood behind him, sweat staining their armpits and blood spattered on their tunics and trousers.

The dog quivered.

‘I am Commander Yusuf, and I am honoured to meet the sniper who has delivered to us this misguided peasant woman. I almost feel sympathy for her because she is not more, not less, than a plaything for others. It must be comforting to be able to shoot with such accuracy even when the target is a person of so little worth.’

‘Would you let go of my dog?’

‘I call her “worthless” – do I offend you? I assure you that offence is not intended.

There are some here who believe she was of importance, but I do not share that opinion.

It is the mark of our Arab society that some of our heroic forces feel demeaned by fighting against saboteurs led by a woman. It is an affront to their dignity and manhood that a woman should better them in combat.’

‘You are hurting my dog. Please, let go of it.’

‘They call her a witch. It is understandable. A witch has supernatural powers. Our heroic forces wish to offer her such powers as an excuse for their own failure, and their own treachery. She will be a victim, and it will give me no pleasure to hang her, but that will be necessary to satisfy the simple minds of our soldiers. I need to know from her only the extent of the treachery of officers who betrayed their trust. Then she hangs. The officers, Major Aziz, concern me.’

He listened to the purring voice. He had never met the man before, nor seen him, but had heard the name. It was whispered in the corridors of the Baghdad Military College, at the headquarters of the armies, and in the command posts of divisions and regiments. It was said, in the whispers, that none who faced him in the cells, whatever their courage, could resist the persuasiveness of his interrogation techniques.

‘I have no interest in those who betray their trust. I am a soldier, I do my duty. Would you, please, release my dog?’

‘I watch, Major Aziz, for the trail made by the belly of a snake and I follow the slime of that trail. The trail leads me, always, to the nest of the snakes. When the nest has been found, it is best to pour petrol into its hole and set fire to the petrol. The snake is a creature of treachery. It is discovered where least expected, then it must be followed, then killed… I am honoured to meet a man who knows where his duty lies.’

As he stood, the hand released the nape of the dog’s neck. The dog, coiled like a spring, hurled itself at the man’s ankle and bit hard. Commander Yusuf did not flinch, did not cry out. He seemed to watch the dog for a moment as it worried at his ankle. The strength of his kick was sufficient to break the hold of the dog’s teeth and propel it against the wall below the drawn curtains, where it fell back gasping.

‘Why should your dog regard me as a threat, Major Aziz, when all I offer it is kindness?’

The brigadier was on the floor of his cell, crumpled, finished with perhaps for an hour.

The door was left open so that he could hear everything from the adjacent cell. He could not see through the open door because his eyes were closed by swelling, nor could he feel the rough concrete on which he lay because his fingers were numbed by the pain from the extraction of his nails. He was the Boot, a man credited with brutal strength and fortitude.