Prince of Afghanistan Read online

  2

  I feel even more scared because I can’t hear. I have no idea if we are making a noise or if we are being followed. Prince stops. I grab him by the collar and force him to come with me. We keep to the dark side of the slope in an attempt to avoid the rising sun which is bathing the other side. It would be easier to walk along the top of the ridge, but our silhouettes would stand out against the morning light.

  Finally I stop, too weary to go on. The adrenalin rush has faded, leaving me feeling exhausted and hollow. I signal Prince to sit. I can’t see anyone following us but it’s dark on this western side and the Taliban wear black, so they could be anywhere. Images of the chopper exploding and of Casey’s death whirl through my mind. The realisation that I’ve killed two men unnerves me, even though they would have gladly killed me. My hands are trembling. I suck in a few deep breaths. I have to concentrate and figure a way out of this mess.

  There’s no doubt that the Americans will send reconnaissance planes and drones in to check if anyone has survived the inferno but all they’ll see is the charred wreck of the second helicopter. They’ll think no one has survived – and that means there’s no hope of a rescue. I’m on my own – well, not quite; I’ve got Prince.

  Somehow I have to make my way back through enemy territory. How can I do that without being seen? And how can I reach the closest allied base? The quickest route back is probably across the ridge and over the mountain range beyond.

  I begin to feel stinging sensations in my torso, and my left shoulder is sore. Prince licks gently at his wound. I need a refuge, somewhere for us both to recover before starting the journey home.

  I’m weighing up my options when I’m jolted by the sight of silhouettes outlined against the harsh morning light – three Taliban carrying rifles and marching along the top of the ridge. I push Prince down onto his stomach and drop to the ground with him. Even if we stay where we are, on the dark side of the slope, the sun will soon make us easy to spot. I look back and see that the fires have faded and the compound is hidden in a thick black smoke.

  It’s a relief when the figures on the ridge grow smaller and vanish down the other side of the hill. They won’t expect what we’ll do next. We’ll double back and retrace our steps. We have just enough time to reach the pine forest before the sun rises too high. I give Prince a reassuring pat on his head and tell him what a good boy he is. There’s something puzzled about his look. I yell into his ear. He doesn’t react. I think he’s deaf like me. I stand up and motion him to follow. I do it again. He still doesn’t move. I’m suddenly angry. I’m trying to save my own life and already he’s becoming a burden. I grab his collar hard and pull but he sits staring at the ground. I pull again and he looks up, fearful; as if he’s paralysed with shock. I curse him and yank him up with all the strength I’ve got. Pulling tightly on the collar, I make him walk until he realises he has to obey me. I let go of him and he trots obediently beside me.

  We give a wide berth to the smouldering remains of the helicopter. A hundred metres further on is Casey’s body. I stop, shocked by the sight of how lifeless and exposed to the elements it is. There’s a sudden movement beside me and Prince runs to Casey. He sniffs at the body and scrapes his paw on Casey’s leg as if trying to wake him. When that doesn’t work, he frantically licks his face as if trying to give him life. The sight devastates me. I join Prince, who looks at me as if he thinks I can wake his master up. I feel like crying but there’s nothing I can do for Casey. So long, mate, I hear myself say. Then I grab the reluctant Prince by the collar and drag him down the ridge.

  We pause before the slope that leads to the pines. It’s a kilometre hike down the hillside we came up. I’m hoping the billowing smoke in the compound will make seeing us difficult. It’s a risk, but there’s no alternative.

  I tap Prince on the neck. He looks up at me and frowns, as if he too knows the dangers. He may be deaf but he seems focused on what we’re doing. I bend over like a hunchback, hoping to be as inconspicuous as possible, and march down the slope. It’s slow going and my left shoulder throbs with pain. Sometimes I look back to see if we’re being followed but all I see are the compound walls and a dark fog of smoke, its bitter stink pinching my nose.

  I’m grateful for one thing – that we are moving downhill. Still, it’s difficult to negotiate it because the shale and stones are loose on the ground and it’s impossible to rush without slipping and falling. The sun begins to shine on the top of the slope, the band of light trailing us. My shadow is hurrying ahead of me on the dead earth. Faster, faster, I tell myself. Prince is following his own shadow, which is several steps in front of him.

  The block of trees comes into view – in there, somewhere, I hope is a hiding place. As we near the treeline I notice that Prince is limping; he’s trying not to put weight on his front right leg. There is no time to stop and examine it; we have to get to the plantation. I silently urge Prince on. Despite being in pain he keeps up with me, as if he too knows that once we find a haven we can rest.

  We reach the edge of the pine trees. I look back to make sure I haven’t been seen. The sun is overhead now, already baking the soil. In the distance black smoke is still pouring into the bright blue sky.

  In the shade of the forest it’s cooler. I make for the far western side, where the map I studied for the raid showed a creek. The treetops block out most of the glare, so we walk through shadows and light until we come to the creek on the edge of the trees. It’s barely two metres wide but is flowing swiftly with meltwater from the snow-capped mountains.

  I sink to the ground. Prince limps to the edge of the creek and eagerly laps up the water. The fur on his right flank is matted with blood and insects are feasting on the wound. The sight makes me catch my breath. I crawl over to him and wave away the insects. Poor, poor boy, I say, forgetting he is deaf. I set about cleaning him up as quickly as possible so the wound doesn’t fester.

  As I’m squeezing and soaking my handkerchief in the chilly water I catch a reflection of myself and am shocked to see that my forehead is smeared with blood. For a moment I think I’ve been shot, but looking closer, I notice that a small piece of my right ear has been torn or shot off and parts of it have blown onto my face. I glance down at my armour and see that it’s been shredded by shrapnel; but an examination of my body will have to wait until I fix up Casey’s dog.

  I pause before starting, realising that I may have stroked and patted Prince but he doesn’t know me well. Like all handlers, Casey didn’t like his dog socialising too much with the other soldiers because it might weaken the bond between the two of them. As gently as possible I wash the drying blood from Prince’s smooth black fur. He shivers when the freezing cold cloth touches his skin and shudders in pain when I brush across something hard. I wipe away the remaining blood and notice a slice of metal stuck in his flank. I motion him to stand still and closely examine the object poking out of the flesh. The only thing to do is to pull it out in one clean yank. It will cause less pain if I do it quickly. I hold the exposed piece of metal between my thumb and index finger, silently count to three and pull. Prince leaps into the air in agony, but I’ve managed to remove a piece of shrapnel the size of a dollar coin. I stroke him and soothe him, realising he has probably yelped. Good boy, good boy, I say, glancing around to make sure there is no one who heard the yowl. I toss the metal piece into the water and clean the wound. I’m frustrated because it continues to bleed, then I remember the small plastic bottle of Quick Clot powder in my kit. I rub it onto the wound as softly as I can, but even so Prince’s eyes blink in pain.

  When I finish, I feel Prince licking my hand, as if apologising for his outburst. I check his front leg. There’s no wound but when I stroke it just above the knee his tongue darts in and out as if he is trying to override the agony. It seems he has strained a muscle, which will probably slow him down, but I can’t worry about it now. I have to attend to myself.

  With great effort, because of the pain in my shoulder, I re
move my body armour. It looks as if it’s been put through a mincer. Shrapnel pieces have savaged it. Without the armour I would be dead. I examine my radio and GPS system. Both have been ripped apart and are useless. I take off my shirt and I’m horrified by the sight of my torso, which is a latticework of cuts and yellow and black bruises. Worse are the three bumps in my rib cage. Pieces of metal must have ripped through the armour and pierced my skin. I feel them. They’re too deeply embedded for me to do anything about them – only a surgeon can remove them.

  The worst pain is in my left shoulder. Only by twisting my head as far as possible can I see the tip of a piece of metal sticking out of it, the wound leaking blood. I have to remove it before it works its way further in and causes the wound to fester. My knife is razor-sharp but I can only sterilise it by washing it in the water. I find a stick the width of a cricket stump, put it in my mouth and bite down hard on it. Then I dig the knife blade into the flesh next to the metal fragment. The pain is almost unbearable. Blood pours from the wound. I feel myself wanting to pass out. Get it out! Do it now! I tell myself. I push the blade in further and prod at the shrapnel underneath it, until it begins to emerge from my flesh. I grab tightly and pull. The process is so agonising that my teeth snap the stick in two. But I’ve done it. I stare at the piece of metal, wet with blood and bits of flesh. I’ve been lucky; if the bullet had been a few centimetres to the right, it would probably have killed me. Prince picks up one piece of the stick and offers it to me as if he thinks I want it. In a daze of pain, all I can do is shake my head and he drops it. I wash the wound clean, dry it and sprinkle it with the Quick Clot. I have some bandages in my med kit and plaster one over the gash.

  I swallow a morphine tablet to ease the pain and try to focus on my next step. Prince stares at me. His black eyes seem impenetrable, it’s impossible to tell what he feels. Is he worried? Afraid? Grieving for Casey? Does he know I’m a friend and will he obey me? I feel flies feeding off the blood on my forehead. I kneel down on the creek bank and dip my head under the water, then drop my head in the water again only to hear my ears ‘pop’, the way they do adjusting to air pressure in a plane. I lift my head out and, for a moment, I hear a strange noise, which makes no sense, then I realise it’s the sound of the bubbling water heading downhill. I laugh and look across at Prince, who is frowning as if he’s puzzled by my behaviour. Hey, boy, I can hear! I say, amazed at how loud I sound.

  Relieved, I drink from my water canteen and examine my rations. There is precious little, as I took enough only for an in-and-out mission. There are some strips of beef jerky, a muesli bar and pieces of dry chicken. I go to eat the muesli bar when I see Prince staring intently at me. He must be hungry too. I give him three strips of beef jerky. He gulps them down while I chew on the muesli bar and study the small map I’ve brought with me. It seems we’re some 110 kilometres from base. By following the valley system I can make it back in three or four days – that’s if Prince and I stay healthy – but it will be dangerous because all along the way there are villages that are loyal to the Taliban, and even if they’re not, the locals will be too afraid to offer me shelter. To avoid the villages I’ll have to move higher up and follow the contours of the hills and mountains. It means the trip could take an extra two or three days. It’ll be safer to travel at night – there’s less likelihood of being seen and I can avoid the boiling heat of the days. I check my guns. I’ve got 210 rounds in my M4, six magazines of thirty rounds each and a Glock pistol with two magazines. Strapped to my left leg is the first-aid kit containing field dressings, blood-clotting powder and painkillers.

  Suddenly there’s a crack, like a bullet. I duck, drag Prince down with me and peer through the trees to where the noise came from. A few hundred metres away a bearded man in a loose-fitting brown jacket, billowing white trousers and green turban is chopping a fallen log watched by a young boy, probably his son.

  Over the next hour I see the boy carry the chopped wood to a small cart attached to a patient donkey. Sometimes he drops the wood as if it’s too heavy or he’s just clumsy. It’s only after a time that I notice that the boy’s left arm is a stump at the wrist.

  The father and son work silently until, after filling the cart, they stroll out of the forest. The son begins to sing in a soft voice as they head down into the valley, the song fading away. I sigh with relief. Prince and I are alone again but I’ll have to stay alert until night comes, when I’ll set out. If I get too comfortable I will fall asleep, so I sit up against a fallen log and put two large sharp stones under my backside.

  The events of the past few hours have been so wild and bloody that I haven’t had time to think about them, but now the full horror of Casey’s death hits me. It’s impossible to believe he’s gone. There was that amazing energy he had. When everyone else was beat and just wanted to rest in the shade, he’d be urging us on to the next rise. When he ate, it was with the quickness of a starving animal, and when we were hoping just to get through the day without stepping on landmines or being shot at he’d be yakking on about how, after serving in Afghanistan, he was going to start a macadamia farm (Yeah, we’d joke, a nut farm for a nutcase). But more than his irrepressible life force was a sense of duty and purpose that seemed much stronger than mine.

  Before my tour, we had last seen each other when I was fifteen and he was nineteen. I had only been in Afghanistan for three days when I accidentally saw his name on a rollcall sheet. I had heard that he’d signed up a few years before but I didn’t know he was a dog handler and had been in the country for several months.

  After finding out he was in the same camp, I snuck into his sleeping quarters while he was having a shower and nailed his boots to the floor. I waited in the shadows of the room and watched him dress and then try to put on his boots. He pulled and pulled but couldn’t lift them. He looked so puzzled that I burst out laughing. He looked up at me as I stood, oh so casually leaning against the door frame. For a moment he didn’t recognise me and then when he did he grinned and said, I should have realised it was you, Mark. You did this to me twice back home and who would have done it to me a third time but you, smart-alec Hollis.

  Our four years of separation disappeared in a moment. We hugged and laughed. He was as fit and solid as I had known him. He even seemed taller. There was something about his maturity and weather-beaten face that made me seem like a kid. But then he had always seemed the responsible adult and me the slacker.

  Over the next few months in Afghanistan we became as close as we had been back in Emerald Creek when we hunted together and his parents fed me. We lived in the Snowy Mountains, in a place nicknamed Burning Mountain. The town had boomed for fifty years but when the coalmine closed, many people left to find work, including Casey. I learned that he had ended up in Far North Queensland where his father worked in the tin mines. Casey didn’t want to be a miner and signed up for army service. One day when we were on patrol I asked him why. It’s my duty to fight against terrorism, he said, with an earnestness that was impossible to question.

  I’d tease Casey about his closeness to Prince, asking when they were going to get married. They even showered and slept together. I called him the Black Prince, not only because of his colouring but his eyes. They’re totally black and when he stares at you they seem to bore right through you. He doesn’t seem to have pupils or irises. He looks like, like really totally evil, does your Black Prince, I’d josh Casey. You thinking of eating me, boy? I’d ask the dog. Sometimes I’d call him El Diablo after the Doberman in the movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and pretending to be a fearful Chihuahua I’d shiver when I was near him, saying in a mock Hispanic accent, Don’t kill me, El Diablo! Casey would take it all in good part and stroke Prince, murmuring, The Taliban are scared of El Diablo, aren’t they? And the dog would nuzzle his leg as if he understood the praise. Sometimes Casey would become serious and say, He’s not a dog, he’s a soldier. Equal to if not better than you and me, Mark.

  It was not only his eyes that made
Prince different but the fact that he is a Doberman pinscher. Most if not all the other war dogs are German Shepherds, Belgian Malinois or Retriever crosses. Before Casey began training to be a dog handler, he wanted a Labrador. He had one when he was living on Burning Mountain and I remember it as being smelly, warm-hearted and smart.

  The first time I went out on patrol with Casey I was astonished by Prince’s ability. He found three explosive devices along just one road. His reward was an unusually shaped square ball that he loved to chase and catch. That night, as we were resting in an almond grove and Prince gnawed happily on the ball, Casey told me just how difficult the early days with Prince had been. When Casey began the handler program, Prince was the only dog offered to him, because the other handlers had rejected him.

  In the beginning Prince showed no affection even when patted, and he wasn’t enthusiastic about chasing balls, when once he had been. It seemed as if he’d never bond with Casey. His tail was a stump and it was impossible to know if he was wagging it, so a handler had no idea if he was enjoying his work. It was as if he had become bored by the whole thing, and if he was losing interest in the training process he’d be thrown off the course. Casey despaired, staying awake at night feeling a failure. It was as if I didn’t have what it took to be a dog handler, he said.

  One day he forgot to bring his regular ball and accidentally found an old tennis ball in a clump of grass near the training paddocks. It was tattered, with half of its surface eaten away by snails. He called out to Prince to chase it and threw the ball as long and as high as he could. Prince went after it without any enthusiasm. When it hit the ground it bounced and Prince did a halfhearted leap at it, but because of the uneven surface the ball jumped off in the opposite direction, causing him to twist in mid-air. His jaws snapped shut but he failed to catch it. He threw himself at it on the next bounce, but again, the ball flew off in a direction he didn’t expect. On the fourth bounce he caught it and instead of giving it back to Casey, ran around him in smaller and smaller circles until he stopped and dropped the ball at Casey’s feet. Boy, oh boy, was he excited, Casey said, his eyes shining with happiness at the memory.