Steven Pressfield - The Afgan Campaign

The Headquarters lieutenant interviews me. This is in the same tent where he showed me Lucas’s notebook. He congratulates me and our company on our part in this glorious victory. I am to be decorated and promoted sergeant. Bonuses for all. Then he sets a document on the table before me. I am to read and sign it.

“You do read, Corporal?”

I regard him. “Barely.”

The scroll is a report of the action against Spitamenes. It is accurate within reason. Except at the finish, where it recounts the deaths of Lucas, Agathocles, and the journalist Costas. All are given heroic demises, in combat on the field.

“That isn’t how it happened,” I say.

The ice storm booms against the sailcloth of the tent. Coals in the brazier flare with the gale.

The lieutenant dismisses my statement. “All your mates have signed it.”

He shows me Flag’s mark, and Stephanos’s and the two lieutenants, and our officers all the way up to Bullock.

“Lucas and the others were killed,” I say, “days earlier, on the prairie. Run down by Afghan cavalry and butchered.”

“Please,” says the lieutenant. “Make your mark.”

Why, I ask, is it even necessary for me to sign? I’m only a corporal. Who cares what I say?

“Headquarters wants marks from all.”

If it hadn’t been so bitter cold, if I hadn’t been so exhausted, I might have scrawled my sign. Narik ta? What difference does it make? But the lieutenant’s manner puts my back up. With emotion I recount the capture of Spitamenes’ son on the steppe. I describe Agathocles’ insistence on delivering the prisoner to the column at once, and how Costas the correspondent and my friend Lucas volunteered to join the party that set off alone into the void. “The enemy caught them and massacred them. That’s what happened.”

“Will you sign, Corporal?”

“No.”

The lieutenant excuses himself. When he comes back, a captain accompanies him. This time they bring a secretary.

The captain is more affable than the lieutenant. Wine is brought, and bread and salt. We chat. It is discovered that we have friends in common. The captain, it seems, knew my brother Elias; he praises Elias’s valor and expresses grief at his untimely end.

“Look,” he says, “you and I know what happened to your friend Lucas. By Heracles, the brutes who did it deserve crucifixion!”

“Then let’s find them and give it to them.”

The captain’s concern, he says, is for the kin of the bereaved.

“What good will the truth do your friend’s mother and sister? Will it ease their suffering? How will they remember their beloved boy?”

“As he was,” I say.

“No. They’ll see him butchered. Is that what you want?”

He slides the paper across.

“Your friend was a hero, Corporal. Let his loved ones remember him that way.”

Now I’m getting really chapped. I slide the chair back and start to rise.

“Sit down,” commands the captain.

I stand up.

“Put your ass in that chair, damn you!”

I obey.

But I won’t sign.

Two Hyrcanian lancers man the portal. They escort me outside, to an unused supply tent. I am to wait there, speaking to no one. Dice and Boxer are called in to the captain’s tent. They finish and are sent off to the good part of the camp. It’s now the middle of the night. The ice storm lets up, succeeded by hyperborean cold.

At dawn I’m called back. It’s the same captain, alone this time. “All right,” he says. “It’s a cover story.”

He meets my eyes, as if to communicate that I’m special; he’s going to clue me in on the true noise.

“Headquarters believes it vital that no word of these atrocities reach the army’s ears.”

“Why not?”

“Twelve hundred Bactrians and Sogdians surrendered to us yesterday. Alexander wants to integrate them into the corps. These hundreds will bring in hundreds more. But if our fellows learn of what happened…”

I get it.

“This is about peace,” says the captain. “It’s about ending this bung-fucked war!”

I ask him about the post the Bactrians sent to our king. “Don’t the troops know from that?”

“That message was buried the instant it showed up. The only ones who know about it are the officers in this compound and a couple of your mates whom we told when we brought them in.”

On a side table sits a steaming pot of lentils and chicken. There’s wine and barley mooch. The captain asks if I’ve eaten. I’m not hungry, I say.

“What line are you defending, Corporal? By Zeus, why won’t you sign?”

I know I’m being mulish. What difference does one lousy ink-scratch make in the scheme of things?

“Listen to me, son. This order comes straight from Alexander. Don’t you love your king?”

I do.

But I won’t sign.

“Do you understand how important this is? We’re talking about men’s lives! If peace can be made this winter, we save an entire spring campaign.”

I understand.

“Do you imagine,” the captain asks, “that Command will let one pigheaded corporal stand in the way of shortening this war?”

“Are you threatening me, sir?”

“I’m begging you, man.”

I spend the morning frozen in the supply tent.

I understand Command’s predicament. I understand its solution. The phony report will be sent home to Macedon; it will be accepted without hesitation. Headquarters will publish it here throughout the army. No one who has signed it can then call it false. The Bactrians and Sogdians will be enrolled in the corps; they will bring in their cousins and brothers. It’s sound strategy. If I were a staff officer, I’d contrive it too.

But I still won’t sign.

One of the guards set over me is an Arcadian mercenary. Pole-mon is his name, a good fellow; I know him from the city-building at Kandahar. He sneaks me some stew and half a jar of wine. “What’s the bone?” he asks. Why am I being so stubborn?

I tell him about Lucas, how the truth meant everything to him.

“Mate, you don’t know how deep you’re in it. These fuckers aren’t dogging around.”

Yes, I say. “I’m sure they’ve got a story made up about me too.”

“Damn right they have. And I’ll sign it. We all will.”

Exhaustion has shattered me, but I can’t sleep. In my mind I see Lucas’s eyes. I can’t let him down. I steel myself for the worst that can be thrown at me. I will not prove false to my friend.

By midmorning the camp is boiling with action. Spitamenes’ trail has been picked up. Orders are being issued. Alexander’s brigades will push off by noon. Our company will rejoin its division. Everyone but me.

This is the keenest torture yet. I cannot be left behind!

I am kicked out of the supply tent, so its contents can be broken down into mule-loads for the march out. Back in the first tent, I can hear my mates outside, rigging up. I can’t stand it. New guards are posted over me. I’m supposed to sit and say nothing, but my jailers let up when Flag and Stephanos, mounted to move out, rein outside.

“Sign,” says Flag, with a look that communicates, “It’s all rubbish anyway.” Stephanos taps his skull, meaning don’t be such a hardhead.

I am taken away again. This time to the king’s precinct. Another tent, bigger, with compartments. I stew through midday. Where is my horse? Has she been taken care of? The portal opens; the captain from yesterday enters. This time he has a staff colonel with him. The colonel says he’s through pissing around. He slaps the document down and commands me to sign it.

I will not.

“Hell take you!” The colonel pounds the table. “Do you want to make me a murderer?”

I hold at attention.