Rostov shrugged. 'There are no decoy flares on the base. I've requisitioned Kabul for them, I don't know how long they'll be in coming.'
'After tomorrow we won't need decoy flares.'
Medev strode out.
Barney and Ahmad Khan walked away from the village, beyond the fields and into the groves of mulberry and walnut.
They sat in the shade. It was colder that late afternoon. The sun was already beyond the valley wall. Barney's blanket was on his back with the corners gathered at his chest.
He had slept, he had eaten, he had washed again and rinsed an old foulness from his mouth. He was fresh. The chill meant the and of the summer. The coming of winter meant snow on the high passes that were the trail to Pakistan.
Ahmad Khan spat the last of the mulberry fruit from his mouth, wiped his lips with the sleeve of his jacket.
'In the years they have been here, the Soviets have learned the pattern of our weather, and of our movement of weapons and ammunition. They know that through this valley we transport much of what we will need when the winter comes. So, they will try to prevent the caravans coming through the valley, of course.' A slow, serious smile from Ahmad Khan. 'And now you have come here with your missile and you have made me a problem.'
Barney gazed into the deep mahogany of his eyes.
'Because of the missile launcher, will the Soviets counterattack with such force that the route for the caravans is blocked? Or because of the launcher will the skies be empty of Soviet helicopters? This is my problem, to know which is the truth.'
'You have to find that truth for yourself, Ahmad Khan.'
'You will not tell me that your missile will destroy the helicopters when they come?'
Barney spoke softly. 'There are two helicopters in the valley. Before I came there were none.'
'You will not claim that without your missile we cannot hold the valley?'
'I make no claim. You alone can decide.'
'And what do you want in Atinam?'
'The opportunity to kill helicopters.'
'Will the missile protect us, or will it bring upon us a retribution we cannot survive? You make another problem for me.'
'For you to answer.'
'What will you do when you have exhausted your missiles?'
'Go back to my home.' His head jerked up to face Ahmad Khan. 'When I have fired them, there is nothing more I can do here.'
'Most men would tell me of their commitment to the Afghan Resistance.'
'I am not most men.'
'If I do not help you, what will you do?'
'Go back down the valley, and fire the missiles until I have a helicopter I can strip,' Barney said.
'And if I expel you from the valley?'
'Then you give life to the helicopters.'
There was spittle in Ahmad Khan's mouth as he laughed, a grating laugh. Their hands met, gripped and held. There was not friendship. Only a contract, an understanding.
They talked until it was dark, and on after the shadows had vanished in the night fall. They planned the battle. They talked of the siting of two DShK machine guns that could fire eighty rounds a minute, of ball and tracer. They talked of the concentration of automatic rifle fire.
As they walked back to the village, Ahmad Khan took Barney's hand. It was without embarrassment, without affectation. 'I asked a question which you did not answer. Will the missile protect us or will it bring disaster?'
'Wait till the helicopters come,' Barney said. 'And listen to them scream.'
'And after you have brought down one helicopter that is not destroyed, you will leave us?'
'You won't be crying when I do.'
Late into the night Barney sat with Schumack. Behind the closed inner door there was the woman. Barney had not spoken to her that evening. She had gone to her cell of a room before he had finished the meal he had taken with Ahmad Khan and his lieutenants. More refinements now for the defence of the village, more specific positioning for the heavy machine guns. Schumack had much to offer, a bedrock of experience that reached far beyond Barney's. Once Gul Bahdur came to the door of their house and peered in and saw the American and the Englishman close to the fire and bent over a diagram, and closed the door without sound and went away, and Barney had not seen the unhappiness on the boy's face, the child who believes his friendship has been usurped.
'I'll be beside you when they come,' Schumack said, and yawned. 'Without me you'll get your arse kicked.'
'Probably,' Barney said.
For an hour the man who wore the red waistcoat and the man who had the limp from the bullet scar behind his kneecap were huddled on either side of Ahmad Khan and in front of the slow guttering fire.
He was a stranger, he was an unbeliever, he was an adventurer — a foreigner who offered nothing to the long-term defence of the valley. He was the parasite on the sheep's neck. The American was different, the American asked for only bread and bullets and the American was the known enemy of the Soviets. The woman was different because she gave her help to the children and the women, and if there were to be a battle she would treat the wounded amongst the fighters. The foreigner they set apart from the American and the woman.
'He has no feeling for the struggle of the Resistance, only for the mission that is his own.'
'You cannot know whether his missile will protect us, or devastate us.'
Ahmad Khan heard them through. The man in the red waistcoat and the man with the limp were allowed their say until their argument had run its course. They lapsed to silence. When Ahmad Khan gave his decision they would not dispute it.
'He said there were two killed helicopters in the valley, when before there had been none. He said that when the helicopters came back to the valley that I would hear their screams. He will stay.'
Barney washed in the pool below the bridge as the sun sidled on the rim of the valley's west wall. He had slept well. He had heaved his shirt off his shoulders and knelt beside the ice cold water to cup the wetness over his body, over his face, over his hair. The cockerel, the pride of the village, had wakened him. The water dripped from his hair, ran round his ears, fell from his face, dribbled on his chest. The pool ripples fled away from him as he scooped and scooped again at the water. His chest was white except for the patches of the scarlet louse sores. He was a disciplined man and had not scratched them. Bloody near impossible to ignore them.
There was a great beauty in the stillness of that morning, the haze of the sun between the jagged upper crags of the rock face, the droplets of water in the first frosts of autumn, the shadows drawn out amongst the trees.
'Will you fight today, with your missile?'
Barney started up, the water tumbling from his hands. She stood on the path above the pool. She carried a handful of clothing. She wore the blouse of yesterday, unbuttoned at the throat, and the long sweeping skirt that flicked at the buckles of her sandals. She pushed the hair from across her eyes. There was a mockery in her question, there was the tease that fighting was the game of boys not yet grown to adulthood.
'If the helicopters come, yes.'
'You have come across the world to find a place to fight?' A half-laughing voice, a face that showed no amusement.
'As have you come, half across the world.'
'I came to help people, not to interfere.'
'Perhaps they'll pin a medal on you, when you go home,' Barney said.
She came past him, down to the water. At the edge of the pool she dropped the clothing she had brought. A brassiere, a pair of sparse pants, woollen socks. She hitched up her skirt and squatted and started to scrub with her hands at the garments.