I watch for the fall of shot and see the impact before I hear it. A ragged brown column of dirt flies into the air a hundred yards beyond the vehicles. I see their brake lights flash. I signal to H and see him furiously adjusting the trajectory. Manny drops another round into the tube and the two of them crouch with their ears covered as a burst of flame leaps out. Another geyser of earth flies up ahead of the vehicles, this time on the opposite side. A third round lands directly ahead of them. H can fire for effect now. A fourth lands almost between them, and a fifth forces the lead vehicle from the track. A sixth destroys it. A seventh falls into a cluster of fleeing men. The driver of the final vehicle has figured out the deadly game and veers off at right angles to our fire. We cannot track it, so I signal for H to cease fire. There is so much smoke in the courtyard I can hardly see him.
A yell goes up from Momen, who’s gesturing frantically to the area behind the fort. I run to him. A group of men equipped with RPGs is ascending the slope above him. Manny and H struggle to turn the mortar around and line it up on them, and fire a ranging shot which explodes far above. They’re too close to us for the minimum range of the mortar, so Manny struggles under the tripod to superelevate it until it’s nearly vertical. There’s another deafening explosion as they fire again, and a fountain of rocks bursts from the slope nearby. Another falls beside the attackers, spreading its lethal shrapnel in their midst. I point to another flicker of movement in the rocks, yell out the range and watch another two explosions erupt from the slope. Then the mortar falls silent as the final round is fired, and H and Manny run up to the rear turrets, emerging like wild apparitions from the smoke, filthy and glistening with sweat.
Manny stays behind while H and I run to the front. The PK has stopped firing. The Afghan guard lies beside it with his arm pinned under him. His neck, where a round has passed through it, resembles a bloody rag.
‘Check on him,’ shouts H, pointing to Sher Del in the opposite tower. Sher Del, warrior that he is, looks almost at ease. He looks at me and grins wildly. The left side of his face is drenched in blood but he doesn’t seem to notice. But the lapse in fire from the other turret has allowed a pocket of men beneath the lip of the open ground to reorganise themselves, and I don’t know who hears it first, but I see the telltale plume of smoke simultaneously with H’s cry.
‘Incoming!’
The whole fort seems to shudder with the impact as if it’s about to collapse. We hear a clamour of shouts from below and see shapes running towards the doors, which the RPG has blasted from their hinges. H fires quick bursts into the running men, who are making a suicidal bid for the entrance, and together with Sher Del we cut them down in their tracks. Then along the perimeter of the open ground I see bursts of dust blossoming out of the ground where H is firing to discourage a repeat effort. Then he runs up to us.
‘PK’s out of ammo. We can’t let that happen too often. Fuckers aren’t giving up.’ He looks at us and slaps Sher Del heartily on the back. ‘Reckon it’s time to go before they rush us. Warn the others and get them down.’
The idea that we’re about to leave fills me with an unlikely sense of calm. It’s as if he’s suggested that it’s time for us all to go home, and I can’t wait to share the news with the others that it’s time to move. But as I’m running to the far turret, where Manny and Aref are crouching, a puff of smoke catches my eye from high up on the slope beyond the rear of the fort. It shouldn’t be there.
I know I’m yelling for them to take cover, but I can’t seem to hear my own voice, and the whole of time seems to be stretching out again as if I can’t get things to happen fast enough. I dive to the ground along the parapet and cover my ears and head with my forearms and distinctly see Manny turn towards me. The whole turret seems to disappear in a burst of smoke and I feel a shower of debris as if I’m suddenly being pecked to death by a flock of crazed birds. When I look up, there’s a gaping space where the turret used to be.
I throw myself off the parapet onto the stairs and run down to the room into which Manny has fallen. The roof has absorbed the force of his fall and he’s struggling to his feet, dazed and gripping his head. Aref has been blown into the courtyard, and either the blast or the fall has killed him outright. His clothes have been partially stripped from his body by the blast, and I involuntarily register how white the skin of his chest seems in comparison to that of his face.
We have to leave. We are being killed and will soon be overrun. I help Manny to the car, then run to the missiles. It seems a lifetime since we were calmly examining them in the sunshine a few hours ago. I’m aware, as if a quiet matter-of-fact voice is telling me so, that it’s cooler and darker in the room. I take the grenade from my pocket. It’s a dark-green egg-shaped Soviet-made RGD-5. I unscrew the fuze, see that’s it’s a UZRGM and wonder if it really is the ten-second version, though it hardly matters now. There’s a strip of black tape still hanging from the detcord, so I use it to bind the detonator end to the cord, then look back into the courtyard to see where everybody is.
The doors to the G are all open. Manny’s already inside. Momen and the other Afghan guard are lifting Aref’s body into the back. Sher Del runs up, hauls the others in and pulls the door closed. A round from beyond the gates somehow finds the windscreen of the G and richochets from the armoured glass with a whizzing sound like a party firework.
I call to H to start the engine and briefly contemplate the stretch of open ground I have to cover in order to reach the G. Then I pull the safety ring on the grenade and release my grip on the fuse handle. It springs onto the ground. I run.
I can’t hear the engine because my ears are ringing so loudly, though it’s the first time I’m aware of it. I slam the door closed and see the rev counter leap as I test the accelerator. Sher Del grabs my shoulder from behind and I turn to him and it’s then I see that his earlobe has been shot away.
‘Besyaar khub jang mikonid!’ he says. A huge grin reaches across his face. ‘You fight really well!’
The empty pickup is in front of us with the brakes off, so that as it emerges it will roll to the edge of the flat ground and draw the enemy’s fire. They won’t know we aren’t in it, at first. And we’re glad we’re not, because as the G surges forward and pushes the pickup onto the open ground we see the rear window of the cab grow cloudy with bullet holes as the rounds tear into it, scattering fragments of its interior into the air.
Then as we gather speed I throw the G to the right, feeling the power of the engine surge as the pickup rolls away from us, and we circle under the foot of the turret, and suddenly it’s as if a team of people are hammering at the doors and windows with all their might. The windows emit a high-pitched crack but the rounds that hit the doors make a deep thud like stone into mud. The spare wheel on the rear door bursts with a violent hiss of air. Then as we climb the slope that leads to the track beyond the rear of the fort, the back window finally shatters and collapses inwards, torn from the frame of the car by repeated impacts. An AK-round thumps into the seat behind me like the blow of a sledgehammer but is stopped by the layers of Kevlar stitched inside.
My hand scrambles for the diff-lock switches as we reach the crest of the shoulder, and as I make the turn the wheels judder against the loose surface of the ground. There’s a succession of loud thuds against the roof, and the skyline lurches up like the view from a fighter plane going into a dive, and our weapons clatter forward onto the dashboard. It’s steeper than I thought, and the G pitches down as if it’s not going to stop, and H braces his hand against the windscreen and curses.
‘La illaha ill’allah,’ cries Sher Del. There is no God but God.