Gerald Seymour - Holding the Zero

‘Cut him into pieces, send him home. Charge them, his family, two thousand dinars for the fuel.’

His soft footfall slithered away down the corridor.

Major Karim Aziz tracked relentlessly after the dog, whistling every few minutes for it to wait for him. He thought that the man, this stranger who had come into his country and given him this ecstatic opportunity of triumph, sweated because the dog had a strong scent to follow.

And the man was tiring, and limping.

The sun was scorching hot above him, but was starting its slide. His own shadow was no longer at his feet but lay behind him. The escarpment, towards which the dog led him, would give the opportunity for him to shoot. Far behind him, in their wide line, the soldiers followed. Each time he whistled the dog sat and waited for him to reach it. Then he fondled the fur at the nape of its neck, whispered sweet things to it, and let it bound away on the trail.

When he stepped over slight seeping springs that would have been small torrents in winter and dried out in full summer, he saw the bootprints of the man, and the slighter prints of the child guide, who did not concern him. A man not near to exhaustion would still have been on the balls of his feet, but the prints were heavy, and one was favoured.

He had not seen them yet, but he would have the chance to shoot when, riddled with the heat and tiredness, they scaled the crevice gullies of the escarpment. The man and his guide would be at the foot of the escarpment an hour before the fall of day, and then the chance would be given him. Before dusk, he would have the man in his sights.

The message was transmitted to Baghdad, to the al-Rashid barracks.

Commander Yusuf knew only of key personnel in the armed forces when their files were handed to him and he started to probe their lives.

Who among the best marksmen serving in the army was considered supreme? Who had the ambition to crawl into the nest of snakes? Who could, with devious cunning, live a double life?

There was a profile in his mind of this marksman rated as the best. He did not yet have the paunch of middle age, he was vainly conceited and would boast of his shooting skill.

He sought out the company of high-ranking officers and enjoyed the privilege their company brought him. He was married into a powerful tribal group that provided access to the elite… From his long experience of smelling out traitors, the commander always believed that he could paint their portraits.

He settled in his chair and closed his eyes, and thought of the love of small children, and did not notice that outside the window, in the compound, the shadows lengthened and that the room around him darkened, and he waited comfortably for the answers to be sent back to him.

The sun’s orb – bloody and red – teetered on the ridge of the escarpment.

When they reached the base of it, where the rock faces rose up from the rough slope of trees and bushes, Gus pleaded, ‘Can’t we stop? Can’t we rest?’

The boy peered past him, then snatched at his smock and pulled him into the deep shadow of a crevice.

‘Can’t we stop – if not to rest, just for water?’

‘We have to climb, Mr Gus, we cannot climb in darkness – no, I can, you cannot.’

‘I have to rest. My heel…’

‘Climb.’

‘Omar, I am not a bloody goat. I don’t spend my bloody life on bloody hills. I need rest and water.’

Gus looked into Omar’s face. The eyes gazed away over his shoulder. He heard the faint whistle, the distant kestrel, and he saw the savagely cut frown on the boy’s forehead.

He turned, took the line of the boy’s sight down through the rocks and trees and bushes, and saw the small glimmer of white. He raised the rifle and peered into the telescopic sight, but his shoulders shook with exhaustion and it was hard for him to focus on it and recognize it. The reticule lines in the sight were blurred. For a moment, before the shudder in his body jerked the aim away, he saw a sitting spaniel. It was a dog like Billings had had, always at his heel; a dog like the gentry used for picking up shot pheasants in the fields around the vicarage. Far below the dog, at three times the range of his rifle, was a slow-moving line of soldiers. The soldiers did not threaten him. He tried again to aim the rifle and find the dog but could not hold the stock steady – and he failed again even when he leaned against a warm stone face for support.

‘How long?’

‘The dog has followed us since we left the tunnel, near to the road.’

‘All bloody day, then.’

‘It has followed us and behind it is a hunter. He whistles for it to stop, so that it does not come close to us.’

‘Why didn’t you bloody well say?’

‘What would you have done, Mr Gus?’

‘I’d have shot it.’

‘You could not shoot the sky,’ Omar snapped at him. ‘Get on, climb. Climb fast.’

The boy had led them to a point where a fissure split open the escarpment wall, and the angle of the sun above the ridge created a darkness in the cranny. Gus understood the boy’s skill in spotting the fissure from a great distance and leading them to it without detour and a search. There was a hundred feet to climb and the angle of it allowed him to crawl up. Stunted tree roots and heathers in the fissure made good holds and good boot rests… He remembered what the Israeli had said, a long time ago, a lifetime. The hunter was a sniper, the sniper was Major Karim Aziz, who travelled with a reputation. He remembered how he had waited in the roof at the town and watched for him. He had forgotten the man until he had seen the dog. It was a lifetime back to when the Israeli had warned him of the sniper, as far back as his home and his work and the friendly firing on Stickledown Range. The past, the sniper, surged back into Gus Peake’s life. His mind was rambling. The past was before he had killed Meda, and before he had kissed her. The voice of the boy drilled into him.

‘You have to go over open rock. I cover you with shooting.’

At the top of the fissure was a smooth stone with lichen patches. He would be silhouetted, without the protection of the recess when he went over it, before he reached the safety of the ridge.

He heard the whistle. He did not know how he had been so stupid as to think it was a kestrel.

‘Hurry. Be quick, Mr Gus.’

There was a blast of firing, on rapid, below him. He reached up, caught at the top of the stone, the lichen making his grip slip, and he sagged, then grabbed again, heaved himself up and over and into the light of the low sun. The boy was firing to distract the man who travelled with a reputation. His boot scrabbled to find a fresh foothold, his rucksack snagged – and he was over. He lay for a moment on smooth wind-scorched grass, and the panic caught him. The boy had exposed himself to draw the attention of the hunter. He wriggled round, lay on his stomach with the weight of the rucksack and the rifle pinioning his shoulders and reached out, over the rim, to catch the boy’s hand.

Far back in the rocks, trees and bushes, caught by the last of the sun, he saw the flash of the glass of a ’scope. The boy had his hand. At that moment, the sniper would have a clear view of his head and Omar’s back. He pulled the boy towards safety.

The boy shook. The weight of the boy was in his hand. The crack rang in his ears. He dragged at the boy’s wrist. He heard the thump.

Gus pulled Omar over the ridge, the boy screamed, and then the quiet fell around them.

AUGUSTUS HENDERSON PEAKE

8. (Conclusions after interview with Dr Rupert Helps, consultant psychiatrist at Centre for War Studies, RMA Sandhurst, conducted by self and Ms Manning – transcripts attached.)

IRAQI ARMED FORCES: (From briefing given to AHP by Dr Frederick Williams, Senior Lecturer, as recalled by Helps.) Because of centralized command amp; control systems, the Iraqis will be slow to respond to initial attacks. Once initial surprise has been lost, the Kurdish irregular forces will face a tough experienced enemy that will quickly roll up their advance. A fighting retreat will put AHP in maximum danger of death or – worse – capture. It would provide grave embarrassment to Her Majesty’s Government should AHP be taken alive and subjected to a show trial.