Steven Pressfield - The Afgan Campaign

Fear these wenches, for A’shaara binds them as pitilessly as an eagle’s claw holds a dove.

My whip tears discs of flesh from my poor mare’s flanks; my heels pound the cage of her ribs. We have been suckered. Baz has played us false.

Flag and I tear along the riverfront road, racing back for Shinar and our camp. Three bridges span the stream below Bal Teghrib. All are jammed with pilgrims and wedding-goers. Across the river sprawls the great flat of the parade field and beyond it the stone massif of the citadel. Already we see regiments entering in formation. How can we get round? We’ll never make it over the bridges, and the river is too deep to ford. Our horses will burst their hearts if we swim them and, besides, the far bank is end-to-end with security barricades; the King’s Guards will intercept us in our frenzied state and may even shoot us down. We have no choice but to gallop the mile and a half to the first upstream ford. When our animals finally mount out on the far bank, we can feel their knees coming unstrung.

The road approaching Bactra City from the west forks at a great copse of tamarisk that houses the shantytowns of the city’s poorest. The south branch becomes the River Road, yokes to the terminus of the southern highway, and enters the town through the Drapsaca Gate. This bottleneck will be crammed with people. We spur left, up the rising slope toward the fortress. My mare is fatiguing but she’s still ten lengths ahead of Flag. I can see the approaches to the western gate; they’re backed up a mile. I rein, letting Flag catch up. “Through there!” We leap the wall at a low point.

We enter a maze of city lanes. Every artery is choked with revelers. We swim against a tide of thousands, all decked in their plumage. They are so happy. I hate them all. We pound into their mass like riot troops into a front of rebels. Where is our camp? We’re lost. Not even urchins who’ve lived in this labyrinth all their lives can tell us. We keep pounding. Uphill is all I know. The camp is on high ground.

I know I’m going combat-stupid. When I wipe the sweat from my face, my hand comes away bloody. I have bitten through my lip and don’t even know it.

Checkpoints seal off street after street. “Don’t stop!” bawls Flag. Can we imagine explaining our haste to some barricade-manning corporal?

In my mind I conjure our camp’s captain-Stephanos’s friend who swore to shield Shinar and Ghilla. If by screaming I could make him hear, I would bellow such that the city walls would topple. If by desperation alone I could make him know the peril in which our women stand, my skull would explode with the force of my extremity.

I whip Snow uphill with furious violence, then realize I’m beating my own right leg. I have flayed the flesh to hash.

Somehow we find the camp. I see it ahead. Deserted, save a skeleton watch. Everyone has vacated for the nuptials. Blood is coming from my mare’s nostrils. She is moments from caving beneath me. Behind, Flag has already loosed his exhausted mount; he trundles on foot.

Into the camp. No one’s on guard. They’re all gone. Only women remain. My mare stumbles. I leap clear. With my weight off her back, she recovers. I drag her by the reins.

“Flag…”

“I’m all right.” He huffs beside me, chest working like a bellows.

We hear screams ahead. Already I know the worst has happened. We plunge on like the doomed. I recognize the horse pens and the lane of our tent. At its head, women cluster, shrieking in woe. They tear their cheeks; blood sheets down their faces. There’s our captain. He cries something but I can’t hear. His expression is one of abjection. He holds his hands out before him. I see two corporals, our guards. One clutches a half-pike, dirty with blood. The other gapes at me in a state of consternation.

I tear round the corner into the lane. The bodies of Baz and the two cousins sprawl in the dust. A mob of gawkers surrounds them. The crowd sees us. Their eyes dart toward the tent.

I cling to hope. Maybe the corporals have cut the murderers off. Maybe they intercepted them before they got to Shinar and the baby. I see Ghilla, clutching her own infant. I plunge into the tent with Flag one step behind. Soldiers and grooms pack the interior.

Overturned is the army chest that had served as a dressing table. A woman’s body lies where the carpet has been thrown back, as if by a struggle. The earth is painted with blood.

One look at Shinar tells me she no longer breathes. There is nothing I can do for her. The sensation is like combat. I turn at once to the infant Elias. A corporal whose name I don’t know holds the child. Everyone backs away. A path opens from me to the baby. I take him. His swaddling wrapper is soaked like a sponge. The corporal has tugged a shade-flap over the child’s face. The package is so small. Like a parcel you get in the post. I take my tiny son in both hands.

Men tell me later that I appear to be out of my head. On the contrary. I am vividly, preternaturally lucid. I know with absolute certainty that more enemy are coming. This is how the Afghan fights. He hits you once, and when you think you’re safe he hits you again.

I am bawling orders. We have to move, get clear. The grooms stare at me as if I have gone mad.

Outside, a boy holds my mare. The beast is spent. If I make her take my weight, she’ll cave underneath me. I start off afoot, carrying my little son in the crook of my left arm, beneath the square of my cavalry shield. I can hear the captain behind me. “Someone stick with him.”

Flag.

My mate overhauls me. His face drips sweat. Dust coats his dress uniform, from our dash from the Afghan camp. The wedding. I realize that I, too, wear formal kit. It seems ridiculous. “Where are we going?” Flag bawls.

He thinks I’ve gone stupid. He’ll stay with me. Protect me. But he thinks I’ve gone combat-stupid.

I set off up the hill. The camp squats at the base of Bal Teghrib’s western shoulder. Above it twines a dry watercourse, drainage for the slope, and beyond that, a shantytown. Lanes twist in a labyrinth whose course is dictated by how floodwater sluices off the hill. Every street is deeply rutted. Deserted. The whole town has emptied for the wedding of Alexander and Roxane.

I labor up the slope. Flag pants at my shoulder. He wants to know where we’re going.

“I’ll know,” I say, “when I see it.”

What happens when you get combat-stupid is the simplest tasks become excruciatingly difficult. Sense deserts you. Limbs turn to lead. You have to summon all your resources simply to remain in the present. Hearing changes; you go deaf and dumb. Your mate can be shouting from two feet away, but you can’t hear him. In action sometimes, a man will become possessed with accomplishing some pointless, even deranged task, like evacuating to safety a mate already dead, instead of continuing to support the mission in progress. Such individuals must be taken in hand by their mates or squad leaders. Flag should punch me now, I know it. But he hasn’t the heart.

I know Shinar is dead. I know the child in my arms has been butchered. But I can’t stop myself from seeking desperately to protect them. A part of me believes, or wishes to, that if I can only exert myself vigorously enough, beseech heaven fervently enough, offer my own life in place of this infant’s, that the gods will hear me and restore animation to this poor bundle in my arms.

I lead Flag up lanes toward the citadel. The way is a warren of wattle-and-daub shanties and mud-brick hovels. Over my left shoulder rides my cavalry pelta. Beneath this, I shelter my baby. The Macedonian cavalry plate is not a full shield but a smallish wedge of oak and oxhide, faced with bronze. It’s handy. With a rearward toss, you can sling it across your back or, shrugging forward, propel it atop your shoulder and upper arm. In this position, the block protects against lance thrusts and saber blows of right-handed opponents while leaving your left arm free to handle the reins.