Kara Kush

  The third day, as they were skirting an outcrop of black rock, along a wide ledge of ice, twenty men, without a sound, disappeared into a fissure which opened up ahead of them suddenly at the same moment that the whole ledge on which they stood collapsed. With a rumbling like rolling thunder, thousands of tons of ice came sliding down the slope above them, like a diabolical mechanism, something from a nightmare, and slowly, with uncanny finality, sealed their grave.

  The men and women of the Commando struggled on, tears freezing on their faces, so numbed by the disaster that they did not know if they felt fear or horror more strongly, shaken by uncontrollable shivering, some seeing evil spirits or – in Qasim’s case – the leering faces of fat, well-fed Russians, in big warm fur caps, looking down from the sky.

  On the third and fourth days they had no food at all to eat. Water was thawed from the ice, after what seemed an age: the pressure in the butane gas cylinder had almost gone. Every half-hour they had to stop and exercise, rubbing their swollen eyes to get the small muscles to work again, reeling from snow-blindness, retching from mountain-sickness. Then they plodded on again.

  They moved in pairs now, a stronger helping a weaker one, until they found that it needed three people, and then four, to maintain any kind of progress. Those who had the strength spoke encouragingly to others; people who had any power left in their arms pummelled those who lay down and asked to be left to die. Several seemed to have a sort of fever, a trip-hammer thumping in the back of their heads, noses bleeding. They were all chewing anything made of soft leather, to get some nourishment, or, at least, some sense of eating.

  On the morning of the fourth day, a whole dasta, five of the Nuristanis, holding onto one another, fell over a yawning precipice onto jagged ice-rocks, three hundred feet below the trail. The survivors looked over at them, helplessly: were almost relieved to see that there was nothing that they could attempt to do. The men were undoubtedly dead, smashed on the ice.

  ‘Haraka, haraka. Bala, bala. Move, move. Upwards, upwards.’ Every step, every breath, was torture now.

  Just before mid-morning, struggling to the top of a bank of snow, Captain Azambai, limping from a wound where a boulder had hit him as it rolled down the mountain just after the high pass, looked over the ridge. There, beyond a rolling, downward incline, he saw, unbelieving, a screen of small trees, then some larger ones, then, rising from the snow and ice, a mountain, and a valley carpeted in green.

  They had conquered the Hindu Kush.

  BOOK 10

  The Wolves of Turkestan

  ‘One of the immediate tasks of Soviet power in Central Asia is to establish proper relations with the peoples of Turkestan, to prove to them by deed the sincerity of our desire to uproot all vestiges of imperialism.

  – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

  Letter to Comrades

  Communists of Turkestan.

  1 Like lice on a dinner plate …

  The North Slope of Kara Dagh Mountain

  Afghan Turkestan

  JULY 16

  ‘Nishanchi – Sharpshooter!’

  ‘Bayim – Sir?’

  ‘What do you make of that?’

  Lieutenant Ghalib handed the man on watch his field glasses, and pointed at the group of darkish dots struggling down the icy slopes of the Black Mountain.

  The clumsy figures, moving slowly even on the steep incline, looked like things he had once seen weaving about on a microscope slide. There seemed to be about thirty of them, straggling in a line abreast, some alone, some bunched together. They could not be wolves or bears: they were men all right.

  The Nishanchi handed back the glasses. ‘They may be hostile, Nikolais, efendim.’

  The group was within a mile or so of the high, outcropping crags where the main body of the Turkestani former soldiers were bivouacked, on a reconnaissance mission, two thousand metres up on the Black Mountain.

  Survivors of a Russian air crash? The remnant of some mountaineering expedition? The rebel patrol was small, and if this was a trick, it could be wiped out.

  Lieutenant Ghalib ran to the foxhole in the snow where his commander, Major Yildiz Han, lay fast asleep. He had been up all night; the unit always kept one third on alert, the remainder resting or out on patrol, ceaselessly prowling in the permafrost. The enemy might be anywhere: anywhere, that is, except on the slopes of the impossible Kara Dagh, Black Mountain, opposite, where nobody could survive for long.

  ‘Bimbashi bay!’ Ghalib tugged at the collar of the Major’s wolfskin coat, sticking out from the top of his sleeping bag, ‘Wake, Bayim!’

  The major was alert in a second, feeling for his revolver, deep inside his fur pocket to keep it from freezing solid.

  ‘Report, Ghalib!’ He struggled to his feet.

  ‘Reporting, sir! Party of men approaching at approximately eight hundred metres.’

  ‘Good God! Alert the men.’

  Ghalib gave the order to Chavush Chelik. ‘Sergeant, alert all men for possible hostiles, eight hundred metres at eleven o’clock.’ Chelik saluted and was off at a trot.

  ‘Where exactly are they, Ghalib?’

  ‘That’s just it, sir. They’re coming down Kara Dagh.’

  ‘North slope? Buyuk Tenri, Great God, that’s impossible! Nobody could mount an attack from there. The lowest pass is at four thousand feet.’

  ‘Bayim, take the glasses.’

  ‘I’ve got mine here.’

  The commander pulled his blanket over him like a cape and gasped as the icy air knifed his lungs. After the fug of the foxhole, this was always a shock; one never got used to it. His breath froze in the air, and the crystalline snow crackled underfoot.

  Sergeant Mahmut Demir was already at the advanced observation point with the artillery telescope. He came to attention when he saw the major.

  ‘Amazing! Like lice on a dinner plate, Bimbashi efendi!’

  Yes, that was just what they looked like. The greyish figures, some of them crawling on all fours now, were still advancing, making for the lower ground just in front of, and below, the strong-point.

  Did they know that they were being watched? By the look of them, they would not even care. People in that condition were as good as dead. They were moving as if by a common will, part of a single organism, which told them one thing: if they moved, they lived, if they stopped, they died. The watchers could almost sense that will, like an invisible clock which had been wound up and was forcing the common body, like a clock’s hands, to move, move, move.

  People were usually found at a later stage than this. Lying, frozen to death, the snow drifts covering them, gently offering nature’s murder, then her burial. Nature, thought the major, who rears and comforts us, and is trying to kill us at the same time.

  But were they Russians?

  ‘We could pick them off from here, sir.’ Sergeant Demir’s people came from Soviet Turkestan. His whole family had been wiped out by the Russians, for resisting Ruslashtirma, ‘Russification’ as the Turks called it, in the USSR three decades ago. And that was after the famine, in which a million had died.

  The major looked at the crawling figures, then up to the birchwood flagpole which stood on the heights behind them. Sergeant Chelik, a stickler for tradition, had just raised it, uncaring, now that action might be near, whether a Russian scout came that way or not.

  The war flag, the banner of the three yak tails, was the sanjak: the battle ensign of the ancient chiefs. The tails hung from a cross, the emblem of conquest which had made the Crusaders, when they heard of it, believe that Gengiz Khan was their imagined Christian ally, Prester John, sweeping from the East to save them.

  ‘Chelik. Get the rifles out, but keep them in the hot-box.’ The firing mechanisms would freeze unless the guns were kept warm when they were not being fired. On the other hand, they had to be kept ready. Hence the hot-box: a wooden chest, lined with hay and with heated bricks to provide a constant warmth. What some people, in more comfortable lands, knew as a slow cooker, usi
ng it in their quiet winters for the evening stew.

  ‘Prepare to fire on command, Chelik.’

  The figures were likely to be lost deserters or else a Russian trap. The Russians were wily, and they had been trying to trap and destroy the Yildiz Group for two years now.

  ‘Fire at will at any hostile movement, Chelik.’

  ‘Major bay. Perhaps they are a Nikolai unit, decimated by the Muhjahidin?’

  ‘I don’t think so. There aren’t any Muhjahidin on the mountain: and, if things are so bad on the other side of the Hindu Kush that Nikolais have to struggle over the high passes to get back to Russia, then the war is over.’

  The major looked again. Most of them were still crawling, but more slowly, as if the sight of the screen of trees had actually eroded their will, made them less, not more, able to carry on. Paradoxical, but he had seen that happen, too.

  Or they could be acting a part.

  ‘The rangefinder measures them at six hundred metres now, bayim.’ Sergeant Demir put the tiny optical instrument back in his warm inside pocket.

  The major shrugged. ‘My guess is that they will never make it to the trees. But let’s watch them for a little longer.’

  The Turks were the only highly trained guerrilla band operating in the frozen mountains of the Baghlan area, south of the Oxus which formed the Soviet border. Major Yildiz had collected them from a crack unit of the Afghan Army, all Turkestanis, shortly after the large-scale desertions began under the communist government, just before the Russians moved in. A professional soldier, Yildiz was not politically-minded, but he considered the Red coups to be banditry, not politics. There had been no elections, no campaigning, no consulting the people. On the contrary, helpless civilians had been shot, strategic points taken, fawning puppets of Moscow installed in power. Treason, to Yildiz, was what the men of the Kabul gang, as he called them, were engaged in.

  When, even before the invasion, the Afghan Chief of Staff, General Abdul-Karim Mustaghani, had refused to acknowledge the communist regime and had taken to the mountains, Yildiz had made up his mind. The general had mustered his troops north of the Hindu Kush, and Yildiz, answering his call, organized himself independently, choosing the Baghlan area, the far north, as his own area of operations. The major and other rebel commanders had been very successful. Over one million Tajiks in the north of Afghanistan were in revolt, battling against eight hundred Soviet tanks and clouds of aircraft.

  Yildiz was in command of Resistance for this area in the mountains, where Soviet mountain and arctic forces, hastily summoned from the Finland border, were reported to be operating.

  Yildiz and his men watched the approaching figures for an hour. During that time, they covered only two hundred yards. They were moving even more slowly now, and – five hundred yards from the soldiers, they had apparently not seen them yet.

  They wore no identifiable uniforms, no badges. Only furs.

  ‘There aren’t enough of us, to risk an attack on them if they’re armed; and if they are not and they stop moving, they’ll all be frozen to death before we can either kill or rescue them,’ said the lieutenant.

  Kill or rescue. Which was it to be? Should he flip a coin? Major Yildiz Han would have to make a decision soon. If it was a trap, the newcomers would have grenades, ready to throw and to blow up their rescuers as they ran to them. They could, just might, be Russians, dropped by a helicopter out of the Turks’ line of vision, who had worked their way along the ridges to appear here, giving just the impression of a stranded band that they did now.

  ‘Bayim.’ It was the lieutenant. ‘If this is a trick, are the Nikolais not taking too great a risk? If the roles were reversed, they would shoot us without any enquiry. Exposed as they are now, we could kill all of them as soon as we liked. I don’t think that anyone would take such a tactical decision.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right, Ghalib.’

  ‘What do you say, Demir?’ Take a second opinion and then make a command decision. Command was what officers were for.

  ‘Major bay. On reflection, I wish to volunteer to go forward and see whether they make any treacherous move. We could also send small parties, well dispersed, to approach those of them who are walking or lying singly. In that way we would risk less casualties if they have grenades.’

  ‘Yes, I can see no sign of any weapons. As you say, it would have to be grenades. Very well, sergeant. Go and look at one who seems really feeble. We’ll watch you through our glasses. If there is a false move, keep your head down. We’ll kill the lot immediately. Dig into the snow if you hear a shot.’

  ‘Bayim!’

  The burly sergeant saluted, tightened the buckle of the massive belt over his fur-lined white parka, clipped five Soviet Army stick grenades to it, and ran forward into the snow, zigzagging like a fox.

  The grey figures had not seen him yet. Major Han took a rifle from the hot-box and wrapped it in a blanket. He tried to squint through the optical sight. It was already frozen, covered in ice. He gave it back to the armourer. ‘Light a fire with some plastic explosive and keep this warm. If anyone attacks Demir, I want to get him first.’

  In each of the foxholes, little bits of plastic were already flickering. The men did not need orders to warm their guns: there were so few options in their lives that they carried on, automatically, doing what they could. In this way, they worked as individuals. But their discipline was such that any independent action was only in anticipation of an order. Nobody would fire without one, or unless his superior was killed, and no order could be given. This training was what had made the Turkish troops the most successful, man for man, of all the nationalities in the Korean war.

  Louis Palmer at first thought that the big man in the white snow smock and Kalpak wolfskin hat, who wriggled up to him on the frozen ground, must be another member of the expedition. But who? No, it must be a Russian: clean-shaven, with grey eyes, slightly slanting ones. Well, without a weapon, with no strength left, he was a dead man. An American, fighting with the rebels, a mercenary, a bandit, as the Russians had always claimed. Who would believe that he was a volunteer?

  The newcomer turned Palmer over where he lay on the ground, satisfied himself that he was not armed, looked around at the other staggering figures of the Commando, and picked the American up. Carrying Palmer across his shoulders, Sergeant Demir strode back to Major Han.

  The survivors of the Sher-Qala Commando had reached safety in Afghan Turkestan.

  2 Guerrilla City

  Kurt Burj ‘Wolf Redoubt’

  Reed Forest

  Afghan Turkestan

  JULY 17

  Old, she was feeling, very, very old and weary: an old woman – there was no other word for it. Noor half sat, half lay on the bunk and very slowly looked around, at first without much interest. There was a hanging kerosene lamp on a ceiling hook; racks for rifles, rough-hewn wooden walls. A long table stood in the middle of the hut. The windows were shuttered, but a cold breeze was coming through them, stirring the long bead curtains. It seemed to be nighttime.

  She was lying on a Turkoman rug, with a straw-stuffed pillow covered in coarse cotton material, at the head of the bed. Beside it, sitting on a stool and holding a jug and bowl, was Karima, gaunt but attentive.

  ‘Noorjan, have something to drink.’

  She swallowed the soup. It was warm, with a flavour of meat and herbs. Then she remembered the mountains, the ice, the journey across Kara Dagh.

  ‘Where are we, Karima?’ She felt a little better now.

  ‘Mistress, we are with the Wolves.’

  ‘Wolves?’

  ‘The Wolves of Turkestan. Turkoman guerrillas, from our Royal Army.’

  ‘Beyond the mountains?’

  ‘Beyond the mountains. In Turkestan.’

  ‘Are we safe?’

  ‘We are safe, mistress. This is a halting-place in a wooden town hidden by huge reeds. It is called Kurt Burj, “Wolf Castle”.’

  Adam. Where was he? She was still terr
ibly thirsty, but so weak that she wanted to lie back and sleep. She asked, hesitantly, ‘How are the others?’

  ‘We have lost many men …’

  ‘Where is The Eagle?’

  ‘He is with us. I’ll tell him that you are awake.’

  At that moment Adam, with Qasim and Zelikov, threw open the door and walked into the hut.

  The Eagle was wearing a long silk Turkestani robe, multicoloured and padded, and still had a week’s growth of beard. There were black shadows under his eyes.

  ‘Noorjan.’ He just stood there, looking.

  ‘Are you all right, Adam?’

  ‘Yes, I’m all right.’

  Karima shooed him out of the hut: ‘The mistress needs rest, komondon. Leave her alone now. I shall look after her.’

  Adam left the hut. The major and Sergeant Demir were waiting outside in the moonlight.

  ‘They are well, komondon?’

  ‘Not well, but recovering, thank you, major.’

  They walked through the trees in the forest clearing to a second hut, cunningly camouflaged against air surveillance. The whole camp was protected by living creepers, growing like a roof among the poplar and other trees which grew thickly in this part of the Oxus River plains.

  The Wolves’ base had been hacked out of the taiga: thick undergrowth above which creeper-clad trees towered. The place was some two thousand metres lower than the heights of the Black Mountain. The Eagle and the survivors of his band had been brought here, in darkness, tied like sacks of grain across the saddles of the Mongolian ponies which the rebels used for mountain travel. They had then slept for eighteen hours.

  ‘The Russians think that there are only tigers and wild boar in this taiga,’ said the major, ‘and they only have patches of it on their own side of the river, but ours is all of seven miles square, and crawling with bandits – us!’