Gerald Seymour: Holding the Zero

Aziz could see, when he raised the elevation on his ’scope sight, broke the search at the level of the plateau, a small knot of people – men and a woman in a pink blouse – sitting on the distant ridge, beyond the range of the Dragunov. *** He tried, and tried without success, to control the clutter of his thoughts.

The view through the ’scope’s lens, over the rocks, grass, slopes, shadows, bracken, bushes and a jutting slab of stone, threw up the faces. A shepherd gazed at the peace around him… A lieutenant paused in the sunshine as he emerged from the darkness of a bunker… The officer was going into the command post… But the faces were of the dead.

He was responsible. Was he evil? Psychopathic? Could he shelter behind the comfort of the excuse that he served a cause? He had not known them. He had killed men whose names he did not know. Was it wrong? There was no-one to tell him, no-one to give him an answer. Not his grandfather, or the people who had helped him. No message from good old George, smoking himself to bloody death. No-one could say to Gus Peake whether he had done wrong and he didn’t know himself.

He saw the pale features of Omar and then they were blocked from him by the fluttered wingspan of the boldest crows. Then he saw the beak rise and fall on the face, and others came and fought around the boy’s head.

He tilted the sight savagely and the view ravaged over the valley wall and the plateau, up to the ridge beyond. There were soldiers in combat uniform there, and a small slightly built man in olive fatigues who stood apart.

He knew again that he had much for which to be grateful to the boy. The faces were gone, and the guilt at their deaths had been put aside.

‘Come on, sir. I think you are hurt worse than I am… And you have travelled with a reputation, while I have only silver spoons. I think the reputation must make it harder for you. Be quick, because soon the sun is in my lens. Hurry it…’

Rybinsky had the sandwiches and passed them round, but Sarah watched the crows at the body and refused. Joe ate and shared his water bottle with the Russian.

Rybinsky, between mouthfuls, said, ‘They are here, I know that because the body is here. The body is the glove of the challenge. I have two to one against the foreigner from the Mossad on the hill, I am prepared to take other bets. Sarah, I give you evens on the Iraqi, I think that is fair. What do you want, Joe, Augustus or the Iraqi? The odds I offer are good. The Mossad wagered fifty American dollars.’

‘You are a pervert, Rybinsky,’ Sarah said.

‘I am merely a man who enjoys an entertainment. Joe?’

Joe thought for a moment, as if he weighed the form. ‘Twenty on the Iraqi.’

Sarah grimaced. ‘I feel ashamed of myself and disgusted by you but twenty-five on our man at two to one against, yes?’

Their hands met; the bets were sealed.

Rybinsky frowned. ‘What confuses me, why is he here? Why is the foreigner here -for what? I am here to make money, Sarah is here because she has compassion, and she can smoke grass, Joe is here because his inflated wage is tax-free and he lessens a little the chance of children being maimed. The Mossad on the hill is here because Iraq is the enemy of his country. We all have the best of reasons for being here, except him. Why is he here? I do not understand.’

Joe took a sandwich and offered his water. He said grimly as he gulped, ‘If either of you sees him, makes a gesture, points, identifies or distracts him, I’ll kill you – with my own hands.’

It had been a long journey for the commander. He had travelled by car on the metalled road, then by jeep up rough tracks, then on foot. That he had embarked on the journey was a record of his nervous anxiety. He recognized the vulnerability of his own situation.

The man had been in his hand, had slipped through his fingers. If the man escaped him, it might be whispered by the many who hated him that the escape had been facilitated. The many who had cause to loathe him could whisper that the loyalty to the regime of Commander Yusuf should be questioned. If his loyalty were to be investigated, his life was threatened. Suspicion was sufficient for the taking of a life, and those of a family. He thought, in his extreme anxiety, of the men searching a room, stripping the possessions of two sweet small children.

‘Who will win?’

Perhaps the officer hated him. Perhaps – and he would not know it – he had interrogated the father, brother, cousin or friend of the officer and was loathed.

‘It is not in our hands,’ the officer said quietly. ‘It is in God’s hands.’

He had known where he would find him, and was not disappointed.

Willet saw the solitary figure on the bench and the wreath of smoke blowing from his face. He strode forward, along the embankment, through the crowds who pressed around him and scuttled for their trains and buses home.

He thought that what he had done that day was what was owed to Augustus Henderson Peake. He had phoned those individuals who had helped Peake, and told them where he was and why they were, in all likelihood, responsible for his death.

A cigarette was thrown away; another was lit.

‘Ah, the telephone freak – the man with the conscience. I’ve been hearing what you’ve been up to.’

‘I came because I wanted you to know that I hold you in contempt.’

‘That’s trite.’

‘Listen to me – he was decent and honourable. He may have been immature and ill-equipped, but he didn’t deserve the open doors that will kill him for nothing.’

‘Trite and romantic.’

‘He was sent to his death, and you knew that was the way it would end,’ Willet barked.

‘I think, from within your little army shell, that you have learned surprisingly little of human nature.’

‘I know about exploitation and manipulation.’

There was a small smile, that of an older man forced to explain the obvious to a juvenile. ‘Hear me out. We deal in the commodity of grown men who make their own choices. Around the world, in the darker corners, at any day of the week, there are a hundred men like Peake. They work for aid agencies, they are businessmen, tourists, journalists, academics, whatever. They paddle around, and if they come back they are debriefed. They are volunteers. We’re not nannies and he’s not a victim. He is an adult, and he is grateful to me – not that he knows it – because I gave him a chance of personal fulfilment.’

A tired grin, and the cigarette was tossed towards the clutch of pigeons.

‘I think you’ve shortchanged him, Captain Willet, and have not recognized the dream in us all, and the utter thrilling excitement, which so few of us are ever fortunate enough to feel. I believe that Augustus Peake would find you rather dull company… Ah, my last one.’

The empty packet was thrown skilfully into the rubbish bin, and the cigarette was lit.

‘You know so little. Did his grandfather tell you about blood spilled a half-century ago? Were you told that men died in a mountain village so that his grandfather would live? No? There was a debt handed down, grandfather to grandson, and an obligation that it be, someday and somehow, repaid. If you think it was exploitation and manipulation you are merely naive. Before he left, he sat where you sit and thanked me for the chance given him – you wouldn’t understand.’

George wandered away, as though further explanations were no longer necessary, leaving Ken Willet behind him, bruised.

At that moment, Aziz thought of the future. The future – if he waited for the darkness and climbed back the way he had come – was his family being made to pay for the bullet or the rope, and was his body in the hands of the torturers, and was his life. The future was also – if under the darkness he went down to the river then up the far side and out of Iraqi territory – the existence without dignity or pride of the rootless exile. In the future, he would never walk with great men. This would be the last opportunity.