The Reluctant Hero

  On the far side, Bektour turned a corner and the metalled road surface came to a sudden end. The car began to roll along a pot-holed track.

  ‘Lock your doors,’ he instructed solemnly, as he fastened his own. ‘This is what we call the Kremlin. We don’t really want to be here.’

  The state of the buildings on all sides was pitiful.

  ‘It’s an illegal settlement,’ Bektour continued, weaving his way along the track. ‘It’s so violent here that even Karabayev hasn’t dared try to bulldoze it. There’d be blood running in the gutters – if there were any gutters. Anyway, it provides cheap labour to the factories. Easier to turn a blind eye. That’s what you can do when you’re setting up the eternal empire. Leave everything for tomorrow.’

  The track meandered through an extraordinary confection of huts, hovels, shacks and assorted ill-defined constructions that someone called home. All were of only one storey. Some were ancient, built with walls of thick mud with cracks as large as a man’s wrist running from their window openings; others were built more stoutly, from industrial brick, often set like forts behind walls or barriers that had been thrown together from corrugated iron or plywood.

  ‘Reminds me of Fort Apache,’ Martha whispered, ‘after the Indians arrived.’

  The most prolific building material seemed to be tattered sheets of plastic, in hues of black, blue and garish yellow. Many windows had no glass and were filled with cardboard, and there was no indication of any communal facilities, no running water, no drainage, not even a shop. The only sign of a power supply appeared to be an illicit electricity cable that had escaped from an abandoned warehouse and snaked away through the community in a tangle of wires. The tracks and alleyways that branched off in many directions were built of nothing more than frozen mud, on which seemed to live little but rubbish and yapping dogs. Absurdly, most of the better, brick-built houses sprouted satellite dishes on their roofs and had securely locked metal gates on their outside walls. There was a hierarchy, even here.

  There were a few people about, who cast suspicious scowls at this unknown vehicle. Strangers clearly weren’t welcome here, or safe. They passed two young women, arm in arm, who despite the conditions were dressed in bright clothes and high heels, heading off for what Harry assumed must be the nearest bus stop or taxi rank and a night shift in the city centre. A pack of young children scampered across the track in front of them, some barefooted even on the frozen mud. They stopped as they saw the car bouncing over the potholes. Suddenly stones rained down upon the Lada’s roof and windscreen, before the children disappeared, taunting, up an alleyway. Every inch of this place seemed to hold a sense of menace.

  ‘Why are we here?’ Martha asked, a little frightened.

  ‘You don’t find any policemen in the Kremlin,’ Bektour replied. ‘Anyone in a uniform here disappears faster than free cigarettes.’

  Harry tugged the anorak more tightly around him. It was bright red; he was mortified to discover it bore the logo of Manchester United. He’d always been an Arsenal man.

  ‘And this way we can avoid the roadblocks,’ Bektour continued. ‘I can take you on. To the mountains.’

  ‘We need supplies,’ Harry said. ‘Anything that will keep us warm. Food. Better clothing.’

  ‘That won’t be easy,’ Bektour replied. ‘We’ll find nothing here.’

  ‘Do what you can, whatever you can,’ responded Harry.

  They continued weaving their way slowly along the lanes of the Kremlin. Harry hadn’t seen anything as dismal and threatening as this since West Africa, yet, eventually, with a thump of gratitude from the front axle, they left the heart of this other world and climbed back onto a ribbon of concrete, a road that led them out through the outskirts of the community. Here there were signs of more productive lives – a vehicle-repair shop, with mechanics in oiled clothes crawling beneath broken cars, a small mosque set back behind a high brick wall, a scrap metal yard, its rusting waste spilling out onto the road, and, a hundred yards ahead, its small window protected by a metal grille, a shop.

  ‘Let’s stop here,’ Bektour suggested. ‘Get what we can.’

  ‘Whatever we can,’ Harry said, unnecessarily, his voice betraying an edge of concern.

  Bektour pulled off the concrete roadway and parked beneath the branches of a bare oak tree. Martha thrust all her remaining currency into his hand. ‘Food, clothes, anything to keep us dry and warm,’ Harry repeated, his words a hollow echo. The shop appeared pitifully small.

  The afternoon light was beginning to fade as Bektour disappeared inside. Harry and Martha sat back, in silence, nursing their anxieties, which was why they failed to notice the group of young men approaching the car from the rear until the moment they were deafened by a fierce pummelling on the roof, and by that time it was too late. The driver’s door was wrenched open – Bektour had forgotten to lock it – and a jeering face forced its way inside. Harry couldn’t understand what was said but knew it screamed of trouble. The face belonged to a scruffy youth whose front tooth was broken, whose cheek bore a vivid recent scar and whose eyes were fixed hungrily on Martha, molesting her. Other faces were pressed to the windows, threatening worse. Five of them. Too many for Harry.

  ‘Harry?’ Martha cried in alarm, but all he could do was squeeze her hand.

  Suddenly there was a shout from outside. The thug was already clambering over the front seat, but as he heard the cry he stiffened, stopped, then ducked back in alarm, his head banging fiercely against the door pillar. Then he was outside once more, his hand clamped over his forehead trying to staunch a flow of fresh blood, not looking back, running in the footsteps of the others as they fled towards the heart of the Kremlin. For, a short distance down the road, their boots pounding on the roadway as they drew closer, were two heavily armed policemen.

  When she saw them, Martha clutched at Harry’s hand ever tighter. ‘No, it’s not possible. Is God asleep?’ she whimpered in despair.

  The two policemen had slowed, clearly having no intention of pursuing the men into the depths of the Kremlin, but they would inspect the car, ask questions, ones that could barely be understood, let alone answered. Harry’s disguise would be discovered, they would be undone. They had been saved, only to be hurled down from a still greater height. If this was any example of a divine sense of humour, Harry decided it was uncommonly dark.

  That was the point when Bektour emerged from the shop. He was carrying a small bag of purchases, and he was shouting. Harry could make out only fragments of what was being said. Bektour was hurling abuse after the retreating thugs, then conversing in a quieter voice with the policemen. Harry thought he heard mention of a sister and her boyfriend. Bektour was trying to head them off.

  ‘I think you’d better kiss me,’ Harry said to Martha.

  As the two officers approached, they found Martha and Harry in each other’s arms. Bektour made some comment, the policemen began laughing, exchanging ribaldry as Bektour threw his purchases into the front seat.

  ‘Spasibo! Spasibo! Thank you. I think we’ve overstayed our welcome here,’ Bektour called out to the officers, waving his gratitude. And, trying not to appear in too great a hurry, he started the car and pulled away. The policemen waved back. Only then did Martha and Harry tear themselves apart.

  ‘Show a little more enthusiasm next time, dammit,’ she said. She sat back and sighed, smoothing down her coat as the policemen disappeared from sight.

  They drove on in silence. Then Harry stretched forward to the front seat and took the bag of provisions.

  ‘That’s all they had,’ Bektour said in pre-emptive apology. ‘It was such a small place. Little more than a cigarette kiosk.’

  Inside the flimsy plastic bag were several bars of chocolate, three cigarette lighters, and a large bag of hazelnuts. But no clothing. Harry struggled not to betray his distress. All they had to face the task of escaping across some of the highest mountains in the world was the contents of this plastic bag, the clothes they wore an
d the gym kit from a teenager’s rucksack. It wasn’t enough. He looked up to the mountains that lay ahead. The skies had cleared and the sinking sun had begun to set the tops of the peaks ablaze, yet the brilliance of the passing colour only served to emphasize how enduringly grey and forbidding the rest of the countryside remained. The night would be ferociously cold.

  They drove for a few more miles, leaving the lights of the city behind them, climbing gently, the windows misting, but the road grew steadily poorer, more narrow, the way increasingly choked by snow. Eventually the car began sliding, its wheels scrabbling for grip, not finding enough. It became apparent they could go no further.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Bektour said.

  Harry laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘Bektour, such words are pointless. You’ve been as fine a friend as a man could ever hope to have. And all for a stranger.’

  ‘It was always the way in old Ta’argistan. Perhaps we shall be able to remember such things once again. Before it gets too late.’

  ‘Some revolutions take a lifetime. Others arrive in a weekend. There is always hope.’

  ‘I’m the impatient type.’

  ‘Good.’

  As they sat in the back seat of the car, they began a tally of their clothing. Martha had her cheap boots that were little more than trainers, a pair of trousers and the thin bright green coat in which she would have flown back home, plus the cheap anorak she had bought that morning.

  ‘And this,’ Harry said, pulling from the gym bag a sweat shirt that brought with it a strong smell of stale male sweat.

  ‘Is that really necessary?’ she asked, examining the stains and trying to ignore the smell.

  ‘Yes. These, too,’ Harry instructed, producing a pair of desperately underwashed gym socks. ‘As gloves. The cold is our greatest enemy out there. Next to Amir Beg, of course.’

  ‘But he’s behind us.’

  ‘He’ll be ahead of us by morning.’

  She struggled into the clothes, looking like a clumsily stuffed rag doll, while Harry brought out the rest of the contents of the bag. ‘I need to put on these shorts,’ he announced. ‘You may wish to cover your eyes,’ he said as he began to unbutton his uniform trousers.

  ‘Do I have to?’ she whispered. But there was no coquettish smile, she was beginning to understand what lay ahead of them.

  Harry slipped off the guard’s boots with a sigh of relief; already his toes were raw, but when he tried to replace them with the trainers he found in the bag, he discovered the new footwear was impossibly small. Ta’argis were so much smaller. So the boots would stay. After he had finished rearranging himself, he forced them back on his feet. Even the effort of putting them on made him wince.

  Their other supplies were now packed into the empty rucksack and it was zipped closed. Then Bektour stripped off the sweater he was wearing, leaving him clad only in a T-shirt. ‘Here, take this,’ he said, handing it across.

  ‘No,’ exclaimed Martha, ‘you’ve already done too much—’

  But Harry’s hand was reaching out to accept this last gift. He knew, as did Bektour, how priceless it might be. ‘Another debt we owe you. Thank you.’ He thrust it at Martha. ‘Wrap it around your head. You’ll need it.’

  As soon as she had opened the door she understood what he meant. She’d never been a wimp, but this was different from anything she had ever experienced. She shuddered as freezing air began attacking every inch of exposed skin. She tied the sweater tightly around her head, then pushed her hands deep inside the old socks. They helped Bektour turn the car round, manhandling it across the ice. They said their farewells. Moments later the car began slipping downhill. Harry and Martha watched it until it had vanished from sight.

  ‘Come on, girl,’ Harry said, ‘a nice warm bed is waiting for us on the other side of those mountains.’

  It was a remark that should have called for a riposte of some sort, but as she looked up she found she had to bend her neck to an impossible angle before she could see the tops of the mountains. For the first time she began to comprehend the reality of what lay ahead. She said nothing as they began walking into the rapidly fading light.

  It had been Harry’s intention to walk through the night, it was safer that way, hidden from prying eyes, and although they had no torch the moonlight reflecting back from the snow would be strong enough for them to see. Yet as soon as they set off they found their progress slow; where there was ice their footwear slipped, and where there was soft snow they sank into it up to their calves. The day had already wrung the last drops of strength from them, and although Martha uttered not a word of complaint, she was clearly exhausted. Harry felt no better. They had to stop.

  The blanket of snow that covered the landscape around them hid most of its features, but about an hour after darkness they stumbled across a small shelter, a shepherd’s retreat used in summer, when the pasture was rich and green and the sun so hot that the stones on the tracks would burn their feet. It was a pathetic construction of old scraps of wood panel, with a single sheet of plywood leaning up against the opening where a door should be. Sheets of plastic were tied over branches to form a roof. Inside, Harry pulled out a cigarette lighter: the interior was bare, apart from a couple of armfuls of old straw that had been thrown or blown into one corner.

  ‘Welcome to the best room in the house,’ Harry muttered.

  ‘It’s . . .’ She was about to declare it freezing, using plenty of colourful adjectives for elaboration, but it would have been pointless. Even inside the shelter, the simple act of breathing left wisps of frost hanging in the air. ‘It’s charming, Harry,’ she declared. ‘How romantic of you. I have to admit I’d fancied the idea of a dirty weekend with you but not quite . . . this dirty.’

  ‘A couple of hours. Then we carry on.’

  ‘Chance of a fire?’

  He shook his head. ‘One spark and the entire structure will burn. Tell the whole country where we are.’

  They scraped the straw together to form a crude mattress, but only after Martha had inspected it closely for any trace of life. They sat side by side, munching chocolate and nuts.

  ‘We must try to get some sleep,’ Harry said.

  Martha looked at the straw. Some of the strands were moving in the draught. She shook her head. ‘Not possible.’

  ‘Martha, you’d be surprised what’s possible. Comfort’s a little like pain. It’s a state of mind. Stay positive.’

  ‘I don’t even have a blanket.’

  ‘You have me.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to do, I suppose.’

  ‘I could always start making a speech. Sleep is all but guaranteed.’

  ‘I’ll try the more conventional route, if you don’t mind,’ she said, nestling into his arms. ‘By the way, you smell like an old sweatshirt.’

  He held her tight, trying to cover as much of her body with his as he could.

  ‘We’ll make it all right, won’t we?’ she whispered.

  ‘Course we will.’

  ‘Men lie when they get a girl in their arms.’

  ‘Trust me.’

  ‘You know, one day I’d like to.’

  She forced herself closer to him in the straw, sharing the heat of their bodies. It wasn’t as she had imagined it might be.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A couple of hours, Harry had said, yet daylight was seeping through the cracks and holes in their shelter when he woke. His abused body had demanded rest, even on the earth floor of an open igloo. When his eyes cleared themselves of sleep, he discovered Martha looking at him from close quarters.

  ‘Been awake long?’ he asked, stirring.

  ‘Forever.’ Her eyes were tired, her teeth trembling, chattering. She hadn’t been able to sleep, to shut herself off from the cold. Not the best way to start their day.

  He groaned as he moved. Every muscle was stiff and truculent, every movement sent out a blast of complaint from his ribs. At least the cold would have closed the wound on his ear, he ref
lected, preventing it from bleeding further, so why did it still hurt like hell?

  As he watched his breath form vapour trails just beyond the tip of his nose, Harry’s mind wandered to what lay ahead of them. The border with Afghanistan was approximately thirty miles away as the crow flew. That sounded encouraging. Thirty miles was nothing compared with what they had made him do at Hereford, little more than a day’s gentle yomp, even in full gear. Except that neither of them bore the slightest resemblance to crows. Picking their way along snowcovered trails, through ravines and valleys, up the sides of mountains, would require much more of them than thirty miles. Anyway, the border was nothing more than a line on a map that had been dreamed up in some imperial outpost and bore no resemblance to the realities on the ground. Even when they had reached it they would still be a long way from safety, with many more miles to make through the mountain wilderness of Afghanistan before they found anything that resembled help.

  Long before that they would somehow have to find a pass through the mountains, which would take them up to twelve thousand feet. At that height even the trees had trouble surviving. During the night, whatever warmth the air had drawn from the day would be sucked back out and they would be attacked by temperatures of minus twenty. That was before the wind got up, forcing the cold into them, like a hammer driving nails. They couldn’t withstand those sorts of temperatures for long, not in their ludicrously inadequate clothing.

  Yet there was one consideration more powerful than all the others. Amir Beg.

  Harry should have killed him, he was clear about that now. It had been an unforgiveable lapse to let him live, a moment of pathetic weakness, for now Beg would do everything within his considerable powers to capture them. If the mountains didn’t get them, he would. He’d stop at nothing to get at Harry, and his appetite for revenge would consume Martha, too. That was why they had to take this route, because it was the shortest. With every hour that passed, the obstacles would grow more difficult, their strength less reliable, and the pursuit more desperate. They had to get out very soon, or they wouldn’t get out at all.