Daniel was still sleeping. I picked up another book which had been defying me to read it. It looked more than a little bit weird, but hey: who knew? It was called The Spear of Destiny, and it purported to tell the tale of Longinus’s spear, which had pierced the side of Jesus on the cross and was some sort of holy relic for everybody who was anybody. Including Hitler. I had delayed reading it on two grounds. The first was that I didn’t want to think about crucifixion. But the fact that poor Alasdair had endured something very like that at the hands of the merciless Pathans was quietly digging at me. Come on, Corinna! I told myself. If Alasdair can have it done to him, you can at least read about it.
My other reason for avoiding the book was my aversion to the Führer. Surely the world had dragged over the inglorious career of Adolf Hitler sufficiently by now. On the History Channel, I knew, they spoke of little else. But as I got into the book I found myself enthralled, despite the excessive mysticism of the author, who was obviously a True Believer in psychic powers. I wasn’t, but I could suspend disbelief. Who knew that a fair whack of Hitler’s entire career had been devoted to finding the spear of Longinus? I speed-read to the end, and realised with a small shock that, assuming the spear in Vienna was the real thing, Hitler had achieved his quest.
I dragged myself out of my cogitations in time to ascend to the roof garden. I would cache myself in the Temple of Ceres and Daniel would bring his engineer to sit in the jasmine bower. Thus I could hear, and the engineer would not be constrained by a female listener.
In due course, the lift doors opened to disgorge Daniel, a tallish, muscular man, an esky and a middle-sized dog. Daniel settled his visitor – the aforementioned Russell, presumably – with a beer in hand. The dog looked up at Russell. ‘Yair, all right, Bill – go for a walk,’ said the man to his companion. The dog, possibly a blue heeler/greyhound cross, pottered off into the undergrowth. I knew where Horatio was, but hoped that Trudi was not still up here gardening. Lucifer would leap on that poor dog’s face and ride him like a bronco. But I heard no squeaks of feline excitement, which might be interpreted as ‘Ride ’em, cowboy!’, nor any shrieks of displeasure. Good. No cats. And, as a bonus, this dog looked perfectly capable of eating Mrs Pemberthy’s rotten little doggie, Traddles, should he be infesting the garden. Though that would not do Bill’s digestion any favours.
‘You wanted to ask me about Scottie,’ said Russell warily.
‘Geordie has been kidnapped,’ said Daniel, coming straight to the point.
‘Fucking hell,’ said Russell.
‘My thoughts precisely.’
Russell put a hand on his arm. ‘No, look, mate – this is serious. Chris said you’d been a soldier?’
Daniel nodded. ‘Israel Defense Forces.’
‘Right. Then you’ll know. What it does to you, I mean.’
‘I know,’ said Daniel.
‘Afghanistan’s a running fight against enemies you can’t see because, given the right situation, they’re everyone.’ Russell paused to take a sip of beer, then resumed. ‘And we’re fighting and dying and getting blown up, and for what? Fuck all. You know Kipling?’
‘I do,’ said Daniel.
‘“The Young British Soldier”?’
In reply, Daniel began to recite: ‘If your officer’s dead and the sergeants look white …’
‘Remember it’s ruin to run from a fight …’
‘So take open order, lie down, and sit tight, and wait for supports like a soldier.’
‘When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains …’ Russell’s voice was slow and quiet.
‘Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains …’ Daniel finished, ‘An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.’
‘All true. Today we’d call in Arty – air support or artillery. But it’s the same. The same war, too.’
‘That bad?’ said Daniel sombrely.
Russell popped the lid off another beer, leant back and sighed. ‘Yes. It’s that bad.’ Then, in a more animated tone, he said, ‘Look. I brought you a little present from the Battle of Maiwand.’
Daniel bent to peer at something small in the palm of Russell’s hand but I could not see what it was.
‘A homemade bullet?’ he guessed.
‘From 1880. A Jezail bullet. Made of all the bits of iron lying around and covered with lead. Acted like a fragmentation round. That’s what got Sherlock Holmes’s Dr Watson. Poor bugger must have been crippled.’
‘You’re a historian,’ said Daniel.
‘And this,’ said Russell, and Daniel bent forward once more.
‘It looks ancient,’ he observed. ‘The hinge from scale armour, perhaps? We have found such things in Israel. They usually come from … no, not Alexander?’
Russell thumped the beer bottle down for emphasis. ‘He was the last general to win at Maiwand, and he wasn’t conquering – he just wanted to get through. Everyone else who’s tried it over the centuries has been fucked. And so are we. Jeez, I’m glad we’re bringing the boys home! And the girls, of course. All of us.’
‘So the campaign has failed?’ asked Daniel gently.
‘It was always going to fail. Politics.’ Russell spat neatly into a bed of irises and I did not blame him. ‘Americans. Specifically, presidents. Not the poor grunts’ fault. But their money men have fucked the war over, and still are. Only thing we can hope for is to make all sides hate us so much that they unite to drive us out. Then we put a big wall around the Pashtun, and they’ll kill each other. Their longest period without feuds is twenty-six years – their golden age. You know the Pashtun word for “cousin” is also the word for “enemy”?’
‘That is an interesting language,’ said Daniel.
‘The only people who understand what Afghanistan’s like are people like your mob – the IDF – and the Vietnam vets. Same sort of war, really: an invisible, hostile enemy united only by their hatred of us. In Vietnam our lot were sappers, just like in Kipling. That’s what I do, or did. We build things, we blow things up. We were the tunnel rats in Vietnam. They always give the impossible jobs to the engineers.’
‘And the impossible just takes you a little longer.’ Daniel smiled and quoted Kipling again. ‘“It’s all one,” says the Sapper.’
‘But IEDs can break anyone’s nerve,’ said Russell. ‘Could be anything: a string, a wire, a rock, a cowpat. You can’t sit down, you can’t travel, you can’t relax, ever. Like you blokes and suicide bombers.’
Daniel nodded.
‘But we’ve got the dogs and we’ve got good mates, so we manage.’
‘I understand,’ said Daniel.
‘I’m all right,’ stated Russell, stretching his legs out in front of him. ‘Bill?’ A faint woof came back from the other side of the garden, where Bill had found something to engage his interest.
‘Good,’ said Daniel.
‘I mean, I’m all right, I’ve got mates, I’ve got a wife and a baby, I’ve got something to come home to – I’ve even got Bill. He’s a hero, got a medal to prove it. Found fifteen IEDs. Saved hundreds of lives. I’ve got the nightmares, of course; we’ve all got the nightmares. But I’m okay. Alasdair, though …’