One Dog at a Time (26 page)

He held my gaze. ‘No, Pen, you have not been here three months.’

I looked at him, confused; his English was normally perfect.

‘Yes, it is three months,’ I replied. I didn’t want to get in an argument.

He continued looking directly at me. ‘No. You have been here five years and still the people are scared.’

I looked away; I didn’t know what to say.

We hadn’t gone into Afghanistan because of the atrocities of the Taliban originally. We’d gone in because of one man and his orders to massacre thousands of innocent lives with the destruction of the Twin Towers. Now the mission had changed and it was about the people of Afghanistan and the suffering they were enduring. Taming the wild lands of Afghanistan would take time; everybody knew that. But maybe the international community was not pulling its weight as much as it should be.

I desperately wanted to promise Harry that one day the nightmare that was the Taliban would be gone, but right at that moment I couldn’t. I couldn’t promise anything that
involved
any politician from whatever country keeping their resolve. That was well above my pay scale.

‘Sorry,’ was all I could muster.

I turned and continued the chilly walk across the desert.

As we patrolled back towards the compound along a track that divided two ploughed fields I was acutely aware that it would be the last time I ever set foot outside the town of Now Zad. Even if I did ever come back to Afghanistan, I doubted very much that I would find myself based back in the compound.

Today’s failed patrol just about summed up our wasted three months here, but I wasn’t looking at the bigger picture, I supposed. The benefits of our holding the compound at Now Zad wouldn’t really be seen for another two years when, thanks to our success in clearing the Taliban away from the Sangin valley, the turbines of the strategically vital Kajacki Dam would be installed in the summer of 2008.

But right now the refusal of the Barakzai schoolteacher to accept the teaching supplies felt like a kick in the teeth.

I sat looking south-west across the dried mud tops of the buildings, enjoying the last glimpses of the late-afternoon sun as it descended behind the distant mountains.

I didn’t even register the barbed wire no more than two feet in front of me. Instead I was walking on those mountain ridges with Nowzad happily strolling by my side as we explored the uncharted Afghan peaks. Every now and again we would stop to stare at the glorious views laid out before us, I would reach down and pat him as he quizzically cocked his head to one side as a new smell or noise caught on the wind.

He was a good dog – he would have been totally misunderstood back in the UK. His scarred and pitted face with his grossly chopped ears would have frightened even the hardiest of dog lovers. But if you looked beyond that at the brown-tinted eyes you would see a dog that was happy just being by your side.

‘Penny Dai, Penny Dai,’ the calling from below me in the compound caught me by surprise.

‘I am up here, Rosi,’ I called back.

He spoke fast and with much waving of his arms. I had no idea what he was saying.

Over the last weeks of talking with Rosi the only worthwhile bits of Pashtu I had picked up were ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’. I guessed that what Rosi meant was he still had not found a vehicle. The look of shame in his eyes was plain to see. I shook my head in sympathy with his plight.

‘I know, Rosi,’ I said, patting him on the arm. I knew he had no idea what I was saying but I felt he needed to hear me say something in return.

‘You can’t find a truck for me – all the money in the world won’t get the dogs to Kandahar.’

Whether that’s what he was saying or not, I knew it was true. With just days to go now I had resigned myself to the fact that the dogs were not going to the rescue. I felt so hopeless. Rosi sat down next to me obviously satisfied with my answer. Neither of us needed to say anything.

In silence we looked west again to the distant hills, the sun now an orange faded memory behind the darkened mountainside. I tried to picture myself and Nowzad back up on the ridge line but this time the image just wouldn’t come.

My moment of hopeful reflection had passed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Taxi

DUSHKA LOOKED AT
me with a puzzled expression, his head held at a slightly skew-whiff angle, his hacked-off ears pulled back.

I think I understood his confusion. This was probably the first time anybody had made a real fuss of him.

I had tried my best to ignore him. Leaving Nowzad, RPG, Tali, Jena or AK was going to be heart-wrenching enough. I didn’t need to get attached to another dog in the days before leaving. But of course it wasn’t that easy.

Often I’d seen Dushka curled up next to Patches outside the compound wall at night. I’d look at both dogs lying out in the open waste ground, a thin layer of frost coating their thick coats as they slept, knowing there was nothing I could do for them.

But as I fed him some scraps tonight I couldn’t help but make a fuss of him.

Dushka responded to my playful rubbing of his head by pushing his head into the folds of my jacket. I responded by whispering quietly in his missing right ear. Dushka had to be the biggest dog I had ever encountered this close, but he was also the softest dog too. Even Beamer boy would trail a poor second behind Dushka in the softness stakes.

I couldn’t imagine the life these dogs had endured. But as I gave him what was probably the first bit of compassion
he’d
ever been shown I wondered whether I’d done the right thing for him and the other dogs. I’d given them a totally unfounded trust in humans. When I was gone that might not be the best thing for them.

The following morning dawned grey and overcast, a light drizzle complementing the bitterly cold easterly wind. After the morning meeting I walked to the galley to collect the leftovers from the night before. I was greeted by the usual sight of an escaped Jena waiting patiently at the head of the breakfast queue. I shook my head, made a fuss of her then reminded her that she breakfasted over in her run.

‘You are meant to be a responsible parent these days,’ I said.

She happily followed me and the smell of yesterday’s sausages back to the run. The others were waiting in their respective kennels, all unusually subdued, probably due to the dramatic drop in morning temperature. Jena was a persistent offender at escaping and we had now become accustomed to her doing the Houdini thing every day.

I fed the dogs their breakfast and tried to make a fuss of each in turn. For some of the dogs, this would be the last time I would ever feed them.

I reluctantly left the dog runs to grab Dave and John; we had one thing left to do.

‘This compound will have to do, ’ I said as I surveyed the abandoned old compound we were stood in one more time.

I kicked the desert floor in frustration. I was in agony emotionally. I looked across at Dave and John. Their faces were drawn and tired. I knew they felt the same as me.

Time had run out and had left us with no other option.

Our time in Now Zad had come to a close. In just under two hours Lima Company of 42 Commando would relieve us. The boss had turned a blind eye to our small dog-welfare operation. I couldn’t count on the incoming officer
to
be as accommodating. And besides, I didn’t know anybody in the arriving group who was even remotely interested in dogs.

Even if there was, I wouldn’t be in the compound during the handover operation. I would be out in the desert arranging the positioning of the escorting convoy that would be taking us overland back to Bastion.

Dave and John too would have their own responsibilities during the handover, so there would be nobody to look after the dogs. The dogs would have to leave the Now Zad compound when we did.

‘What about water?’ Dave asked.

‘There are some buckets over there,’ John said, pointing to a few old rotten buckets that had been discarded in one corner of the compound next to a long ago disused diesel generator.

I slowly turned through 360 degrees and surveyed the 100-foot-square compound.

The 15-foot-high mud walls that made up the four sides of the compound were cracked and crumbling slowly from the bottom up. Just a lone metalled double gate in the north wall provided access in and out.

Just one corner sprouted a small patch of dried grass and the remainder was barren desert mud. Except for the generator there was nothing else to be seen. What it had been used for would remain a mystery.

I walked over towards the corner furthest from where I had been standing; a piece of dull metal had caught my eye in the sun.

‘Oh, fantastic,’ I called over to the other two who were carrying out a check of the other barren corners.

Lying on the floor, no more than a foot in front of me, was the brownish green warhead of a foot-long rocket-propelled grenade. It had failed to explode.

‘Some unexploded ordnance over here,’ I said as the other two strolled over.

‘Nice,’ Dave said, recognising the weatherbeaten casing immediately.

I knelt down and studied the ground around the warhead. I could clearly see the indent in the softened mud where the grenade had impacted.

Cautiously I reached down and picked it up by the safe end. Dave and John automatically took a step back each.

‘And where are you putting that?’ they said as I turned and carefully walked towards the open gate.

‘We can’t have the engineers blowing anything up if the dogs are in here, can we?’ I said as I studied the ground in front of me. The last thing I wanted to do was trip over with an RPG in my hand to break my fall.

Our only option was to move both sets of puppies along with Jena and Tali into this deserted compound that lay across from our occupied one. We had never seen anybody using it since we had arrived.

As the ANP detachment was staying in the DC for at least another month I had brokered a deal with Rosi to feed the puppies for the remainder of his stay.

I had already put a pile of ration packs to one side for him to use. I had to trust him; he had promised that he would not let any locals take the puppies. When the time came to leave he would leave the compound gate open. I knew it wouldn’t be long before they succumbed to starvation, but at least this way they would have a chance to put on a bit of weight and have a fighting chance to fend for themselves in the streets and alleys of Now Zad.

Nowzad, RPG and AK would find it the hardest. I knew they would try and get back in; hell, I had fed them two meals a day, more or less, for the last three months. For them it would be a hard habit to break. I realised now that I should have kicked them out earlier. Leaving it until the last minute was a big mistake.

For days now I had sat and anguished over this situation,
delaying
the inevitable until the last moment. Until now I had truly believed that the ANP commander was going to fulfil his side of the bargain. He had arranged a truck to take the dogs from Lashkar Gar to Kandahar, but he just could not find anybody to take the dogs on the first part of the journey of just 60 kilometres.

I knew the journey would be through some of the most loyal of Taliban areas, but I had, probably foolishly, clung to the hope that we could still find a driver. After all we’d been through, I really should have known better.

I walked out the open gate and waved the unexploded grenade at the nearest sangar. The marine on watch just waved back. I warily placed it well away from the compound entrance and walked back in. I could tell the engineers about it later.

‘It will have to do, fellas; we don’t have time for anything else,’ I shouted over to Dave and John, who were stood talking quietly to each other, their rifles hanging limply by their sides. I recognised the look of calm resignation on their faces. ‘We can use that old corrugated iron to make a shelter for each set of puppies in opposite corners,’ I added.

I looked around the completely empty square compound one more time. ‘Come on, let’s go get Tali and Jena; we don’t have much time left.’

At least the compound would shelter the pups from the worst of the bitter wind and rain – not that I could draw any comfort from that thought.

I waited for Dave and John to walk over to me and then turned for the gate.

The sound of Tin Tin shouting excitedly caught us all by surprise. We looked up to see his silhouetted figure balancing on top of the compound wall looking down on us. He was shouting something but I didn’t know what.

‘What’s up, Tin Tin?’ I shouted back.

I knew he couldn’t understand me.

‘Listen.’ Dave motioned for us to shut up.

It was then we realised that he was repeating just one word over and over.

‘Taxi.’

‘Is that a bullet hole?’ I asked Dave, still slightly out of breath from the sprint around to the gate. We were with an extremely happy-looking Rosi.

‘Yeah, that looks like a bullet hole to me, all right,’ he replied as we stared at the dirt-splattered windscreen of the battered white minivan. The van had suddenly arrived at the compound gate accompanied by the ANP commander and Abdul la Tip.

It was being driven by a poorly dressed middle-aged local. The dashboard of the van was decorated with sun-faded plastic flowers and the front bumper was dented and broken from less than careful driving. The driver’s dark eyes were nervously darting from one marine to another as he drove along the uneven track into the compound. He was clearly uneasy and I suppose I couldn’t really blame him.

The commander gave me his best smile as he approached me. Abdul la Tip was close behind as the commander spoke to me while clasping my right hand with both of his.

‘The commander has got you a taxi my friend,’ Abdul la Tip translated.

‘I am eternally grateful, Commander,’ I replied, smiling like the Cheshire cat from
Alice in Wonderland
, ‘very last-minute but very grateful.’

Klaus, our resident Dutch reconstruction adviser, and Harry the Terp had strolled over to see all the commotion. The grins on their faces told me they both realised what was happening. They both knew how much it meant to us to be able to get the dogs to safety.

I grabbed Harry’s hand as we both smiled like small kids.

‘Harry, can you tell the driver that we will get the dogs travel crates?’ I didn’t wait for the reply but along with Dave and John darted off to grab the crates that we had built a long time ago for this very moment.

I didn’t hear the brief exchange but as I arrived back with RPG and AK’s crate I twigged that something was not right. Harry, the driver and the commander were all engaged in a heated debate. Finally they broke off and Harry turned to face me.

‘The driver will not take the crates. It is too dangerous for him. If he is stopped the Taliban will know it is for Westerners. He will only take the dogs as we would carry them.’

‘You mean, just free in the back?’ I asked.

‘No, Penny Dai, the dogs must be tied up,’ Harry replied.

I looked at the driver and then at the still unemotional eyes of the commander. There was no time for debate.

‘John: go find some heavy-duty string from the store and Dave, can you go and get that tin box by the living compound? We can use it to put Tali’s pups in.’

‘We will need to rig something up to stop them scampering out,’ Dave shouted as he turned and ran off.

‘Harry, can you ask the commander for the birdcage that I know he has?’

I didn’t have time to be polite about it. I had spotted it during our brief peek in the ANP quarters when we had first arrived over three months ago.

‘Yes, but you must hurry; the driver does not like being here.’

‘Tell him I am hurrying.’

I knew the journey would take several days. The plan had always been that a local would get the dogs to Lash and then the police would assist in transporting the dogs to a meeting point nearer Kandahar. I couldn’t do anything about the fact that there would be two different change-over points, both run potentially by Afghans who didn’t actually like dogs.

With the dogs not being in cages I had no idea how they would handle them. And what about Nowzad? He didn’t really like anybody else apart from me and then I still
had
to be careful. Hell, he still gave Dave and John the evil eye.

As we carried on with the preparations to put the dogs in the van, an even bigger problem was beginning to form in my head. Looking at the cramped van, I could see that there simply wasn’t room for all the male dogs.

I would have to make a choice. There was no way Dushka and Nowzad or even Patches could all go in the same small six-seat wagon. It would be carnage. Two of them would have to be left behind.

Instinctively I knew immediately it would have to be Dushka and Patches. Even though deep down I knew Dushka was more sociable with people, I knew that I could not leave Nowzad to remain here now. Not after the last three months.

Time didn’t allow me the luxury of pondering it any further. I would be able to do that later during the seven- or eight-hour drive back to Bastion.

Already, however, I could see that if this worked maybe I could get the driver to do the journey again and to collect Dushka and Patches later. It was a big if, I knew.

We had to get the other dogs ready for the taxi; I wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip through my fingers. John arrived with the string and coaxed Tali over. She had no idea what was about to happen and with her tail wagging she crawled over to us expecting a fuss.

‘Sorry, Tali, but it is for the best, okay?’ I said as I lifted and rolled her on to her back. She didn’t resist and meekly gave in as we bound her front and rear legs together.

I carefully picked her up and carried her to the waiting van. I placed her down on the front rear seat. She casually propped herself up and stared at me with a puzzled look. I rubbed her ears.

Dave had arrived back with the old metal Afghan suitcase that had been outside the living area for months. He had ripped the lid off and using some old flexible metal wire had
quickly
fashioned a covering that would stop the puppies getting out.

Carefully he placed Tali’s pups one by one into the metal box before gently pushing their heads down as he secured the wire to criss-cross the top. Immediately the large light brown puppy with the darker colouring along the top of its nose poked its head up through the mesh. Dave gently pushed it back down and pulled the wire even tighter.