CAMP RUSSELL, TARIN KOWT
As he looked out into the darkness, the young infantry soldier from outback Queensland could smell something out there, something peculiar. Perhaps being scared magnified the senses. Whatever it was, the smell carried to him on the breeze, and it made him all the more anxious.
A couple of minutes earlier, Joel’s Afghan counterpart had left him without a word, and now he sat in the wooden guard box overlooking the rear gate of the Australian military base alone. Perhaps Mohammed had gone to relieve himself? Maybe it was time for him to pray again?
Joel looked at the glowing hands of his watch. It was now approaching three in the morning. It was just his luck that he had pulled sentry duty the day before his birthday. The next day, 28 June 2010, he would be twenty-one. Right now he just wanted to get through to see the light of this day. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as the faintest sound came from the shadows. Eyes straining to penetrate the dark, Joel focused on the large concrete blocks designed to slow approaching cars, trying to discern what could have made that noise. A feral cat? There were plenty running around the base.
A crisp breeze cut though the sweltering night, drying the sweat on his face. The heat was almost unbearable at this time of year – summer, referred to by the Taliban as the fighting season. While the cool draught of air brought some respite from the searing heat, it also carried the smell to him again, a pungent odour. Joel shivered. Staring into the night, he could barely see the outline of the mountains behind the lush Mirabad Valley. Though only eight kilometres from the coalition base, Mirabad may as well have been a hundred: it was a different world out there. Hidden evils lay in wait for the unsuspecting at every turn. Rushed patrols, or those that had not been planned properly, never ended well. Joel had been part of a patrol that had been ambushed the week before. Two of his friends had been killed and at one point the section was almost overrun. When they finally returned to the base the section commander was relieved from his position, deemed not up to the task. It had been a shambles and the events had terrified Joel.
He looked over his shoulder for his fellow guard. Working with the Afghan partner force could be challenging at times, but for the most part it was rewarding. Mohammed was a decade older than Joel, a family man, and had been working with the Australian infantry platoon for the last two months. He was a fast learner and something of a practical joker. The Australians had warmed to him. He kept some of the other Afghans in check and had already been earmarked as a future commander.
‘Mohammed? Psst, Mohammed!’ Joel hissed through his teeth.
Another noise came from the direction of the concrete barricades in front of Joel’s position: the distinctive tap of metal on metal – definitely not a feral cat. Joel swallowed hard, wishing he had his night-vision goggles. But they were attached to the helmet he’d left perched out of reach on a pile of sandbags several metres away from where he sat behind the machine gun. The Kevlar helmet weighed a ton; after only a minute of wearing it he had a stabbing pain in the top of his head. Some long-forgotten colonel, sitting in an office in Canberra, had thought the helmet looked good in a glossy brochure and signed off on the deal; the Australian infantry had been wearing it now for a decade. Correction: should have been wearing it. He just hoped his complacency wouldn’t cost him too dear.
Squinting into the darkness, Joel thought he could make out shapes moving in and around the barbed-wire barricades, the second line of defence. Perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him now? If only he had on his NVGs. The lights of the camp behind him cast a shadow right in front of the guard box, creating an extra layer of darkness extending beyond the perimeter. Further on, past the road, it was pitch-black. Joel felt exposed with the light behind him and had the sudden realisation that he was silhouetted for anyone out there to see. In the daylight this area of the airfield looked flat and open for a thousand metres. However, on closer inspection, it was full of crevices and ditches, small creek beds and earthworks. These all combined to create a landscape where you could move around in the dark undetected. And something out there was definitely moving . . .
The stairs behind Joel creaked. Half jumping out of the wooden chair, he swung around.
‘Fuck, Mohammed, you scared the shit out of me. Where the hell have you been?!’
Mohammed arrived at the top of the stairs, holding his AK-47. Joel noticed he had the security gate keys in his front hand – the same hand which was holding the hand guard of his weapon.
‘What are you doing with those?’
Mohammed opened his mouth to speak but no words followed.
Joel looked at his face. ‘What’s wrong, mate?’
Before the Afghan could respond, Joel caught a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. He turned quickly and couldn’t believe his eyes. A group of Taliban, maybe thirty or more, came sprinting out of the darkness, their white and black robes flowing behind them as they ran towards the guard box.
‘Oh, shit! Shit – Mohammed!’
Smashing the alarm on the side of the desk with the palm of his left hand, Joel grabbed at the trigger of the machine gun with his right. The bolt flew forward and slammed into the breech with a loud clunk and then – nothing.
It had been unloaded earlier in the day to be cleaned and now the belt of rounds lay useless on the sandbag next to the gun.
‘NO!’ Joel spun around to face Mohammed. ‘Quick, lock the top of the stairs, lock them now!’ he ordered.
The alarm started to wail and Joel could hear shouts from the depths of the base behind him as soldiers automatically moved into their well-rehearsed drills. A voice came over Joel’s radio, the headset hanging to one side of his body armour. He looked at Mohammed who seemed to be frozen solid with fear. This was all happening so fast.
‘For Christ’s sake, lock the stairs, come on – lock them!’ Joel urged, gesturing frantically.
Mohammed was a statue, his eyes wide. Then he let out an involuntary sob. ‘I’m sorry,’ Joel heard him say in English as he squeezed the trigger.
The first round slammed into Joel’s body armour and the force sent him crashing back off the chair and onto the floor. In an instant the second and third rounds followed, smashing into the wood beside Joel. The last round made a loud cracking noise as it ricocheted off a nail and zipped around the guard box.
• • •
Mohammed gazed at the Australian infantrymen lying barely conscious on the floor, bleeding profusely from a large cut on his head sustained as he fell off the chair. Satisfied that his role was complete, the Afghan felt as though an enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Turning, he half slid and half ran to the bottom of the steep stairs. Dropping his rifle on the ground, he sprinted through the gate he had opened only minutes before.
Standing at the wide-open perimeter gate was Ahmed Defari, the local Taliban commander. As Mohammed disappeared into the night, Defari lifted his radio to his lips and gave a quick set of instructions. Thirty kilometres down the valley, the two Pakistani thugs from the border regions who were stationed in Mohammed’s home released Mohammed’s terrified wife, two-year-old daughter and six-year-old son. The couple’s eldest child was Rashid, a cheeky nine-year-old and the village favourite. He now lay dead on the dusty floor; his throat had been cut with the rusty blade of an old kitchen knife. The cost to Mohammed would have been much greater if he had not complied with Defari’s demands.