Harry Parker - Anatomy of a Soldier

Aktar looked down at me and thought about the boy: Latif would be useful if he survived. But he needed praise. Not like the others, who understood already. Latif was preoccupied with his family and cared too much about what they thought. Like so many in this land, he was too concerned with honour.

Well, at least the boy was doing his will. He was expendable, like the one last season. That boy had been useful while he lasted. If Latif survived, he might learn to forget and give himself to the cause.

He looked down at me again, his deep eyes shadowed in his hard face. A loose end from his black turban was wrapped around his neck. My display read 12:08.57. I am a digital watch. Made in Thailand. I’m water-resistant and my stainless-steel back rested against the fine black hairs of his wrist.

He crossed his arms and peered at the junction. He could see them moving up the track, waving their detectors. He knew more of them would be hidden in the ditches. There was a group near the two empty dwellings by the road. He had also laid a bomb there but it hadn’t detonated. Maybe the trigger was broken or a wire had come loose. Then a man walked right past where it was buried. Why wouldn’t it go off?

At least Latif could trigger the one by the water pump. He saw another infidel in the ditch behind a machine gun. They would be watching him.

The phone buzzed in his pocket. He reached to get it, read the message and looked towards their camp. More infidels were moving down the Nalay road. The farmers had started to leave the fields. Having seen us on the bike, they knew what was coming.

Family and tribe and politics would be our undoing. And he thought about his father returning to their house in the mountains. It was the only time he remembered seeing him. He had hidden behind his mother. His father’s cloak had snow on it and he’d leant his gun next to the door. Aktar couldn’t decide which to stare at: his father or the rusty rifle propped against the wall.

And then he had gone. He never saw his father again but a man had come to speak to his mother and she had sobbed. He hadn’t known what to do, so he went to play with his friends. That was a different war, but it was the same fight. Maybe his mother was now dead too. It didn’t matter.

One of the infidels on the road had lifted his weapon and was pointing it at him. He knew they wouldn’t shoot: he was unarmed. He smiled at their rules. The soldiers were constrained as long as they weren’t threatened, but they could also bring death suddenly in the night. It was so hypocritical.

He glanced at me again — 12:21.23 — and then held the handles of the bike. He looked over at the crossroads. They were getting closer to the water pump. He prayed they wouldn’t find the bomb. He’d been careful making it and used his best materials.

Something glinted. The infidels were moving in the field where Latif would be. The boy could be replaced but he hoped they wouldn’t find the wire. And then he noticed men nearer to him and he was surprised they were so close, lying on top of a building and watching him. He was scared when he saw their foreshortened barrels and the radio aerials.

Then he calmed himself. They wouldn’t attack him if he wasn’t a threat.

It was nearly time. He would like to see the infidels being sent to hell, but once the bomb went off they would be jumpy. Their rules always changed and bent once they were attacked.

I was over the red petrol tank and he twisted the key. He kicked down and the engine started. His fingers released the lever in front of me and the rear wheel skidded around. The wind sang around me as we rode away. He rocked the handlebars from side to side to avoid potholes and the suspension sucked and hissed below me as the wheel mapped the rough track. His turban flapped out behind us.

In a gap between houses he caught a glimpse of the junction, then it flashed into view again with the truck. They were nearly there. Go on, Latif, he thought.

Suddenly he heard it over the sound of the bike and the dust cloud rose above the bushes we sped past. He muttered, ‘God is greatest,’ and hoped that it had damaged them. He was thankful for how good the new equipment was from across the border. He wondered if Hassan would be pleased.

We rode on and turned down beside a wall onto a single track and his tendons tensed next to my strap as he pulled the lever. We stopped. He let the engine idle and twisted his wrist to glance at me. I displayed 12:32.02. He waited for gunshots or shouts but it was quiet. And then the boy Latif came around the corner, breathing hard. He stopped, put his hands on his knees and looked down at his trainers.

Aktar smiled at the boy.

‘Well done, Latif,’ he said. ‘Listen, one of their helicopters is coming. That means we have really hurt them.’ He checked me again and thought how quickly the helicopter had arrived.

‘I saw it,’ Latif said, looking up. His face was pale. His top lip had the fuzz of first hair. ‘I saw that I hurt them.’ He glanced back down the track. ‘Can we go now?’

‘Have you still the battery?’ Aktar held out the arm I was on and the boy passed him a battery.

‘They nearly found me,’ Latif said. ‘I was almost discovered.’

‘You did well. It was God’s will. Tell me later,’ Aktar said. ‘Get on, the others are waiting.’ He looked down at the battery in his hand and then threw it into a ditch.

We rode away. Latif’s arms were clasped around Aktar’s waist and the wind and the engine noise rushed around us. We stopped and Aktar stepped from the bike to feel around under a pile of dried poppy stalks beside the road. Their ends scratched against my face. He pulled out a radio and the weapon that I was so used to being next to. He handed the gun to Latif and switched on the radio.

‘Paugi, Paugi, are you there?’ he said into it and looked at the boy. ‘Do not worry, Latif. They will not follow us this far.’

‘Hello, Aktar, is that you?’ the radio crackled faintly.

‘Yes, we are leaving the funeral now. You should leave too,’ he said, then held the radio to his ear so I was by his neck.

‘Yes, I am leaving too. I saw the cloud. It looked successful.’ The voice was excited.

‘Yes, God gives victory to the holy warriors.’

*

When Aktar next glanced at me, it was dark and my face reflected the blue flame of a stove. We were in a room with tiled walls and men sitting all around him, cross-legged or relaxed on mattresses. He told them that it was time to change lookout, pointed at one of them and ordered him to go.

‘But it’s Latif’s turn,’ the man said. He wore his woollen hat far back on his wide forehead.

‘Not tonight. You go.’

‘I’m always doing it, Aktar,’ he said, and the other men laughed.

The boy was in the corner, grinning nervously as they congratulated him again.

The men went to sleep and Aktar took me off and rubbed his wrist where my strap had left a sticky indent. He placed me next to the rifle and lay down on the mat.

The first time he had seen me was when Hassan had taken me from the lifeless wrist of my previous owner and handed me to him. It had taken Aktar a while to understand how I worked, but he had needed to know if he was to command.

He checked me one last time, pressing my light button so I glowed 21:47.34 at him.

The men’s breathing whistled around the room. He stared at the ceiling and thought of his trip into the mountains last winter and how proud he was that the council had picked him. The hardships in the training camp had changed him. Everything he learnt had set him apart from these men: they looked up to him now. He took pride in that, and hoped Hassan knew everything he had achieved with them.