War Torn

Across the cookhouse, Asma was eating alone because Jean was saying goodbye to Iain Kila. Her friend arrived breathlessly and grabbed the last meal.‘Won’t you see him in the morning?’ asked Asma.‘They’re leaving at 0400. So I kissed him goodbye. In a sangar.’Asma raised her eyebrows.‘Just a minute. Last time I asked you if you liked him you said yuck, yuck, yuck.’Jean blushed. ‘Well, I still think he’s a bit yuck. But they’re going away to this flimsy camp made out of barbed wire for a whole week. And right after we’ve shot the local warlord. So I thought I should kiss him in case he doesn’t come back.’Asma shrugged and said nothing.‘You’re not saying goodbye to Gordon, then?’‘Nope.’‘He came in here earlier. He was looking around for you, I’m sure.’Asma stabbed her food with her fork.‘He can look all he likes. I’m still fucking angry with him.’Jean caught her eye.‘Asma. You’re angry with the British Army for shooting your bonny blue-eyed boy and you’re taking it out on Gordon. And why on earth did you have to bring farmhouses and polo into it?’Asma put down her fork and sighed.‘I shouldn’t have said that. I really had a go at him just because he’s posh. So I expect he thinks I’m jealous.’‘Are you?’‘I wouldn’t want his big house and all his fields and horses. What would I do with them? I can’t even imagine going home and meeting his mum. For drinks in the drawing room. I just couldn’t do it, Jean.’‘You’re prejudiced,’ said Jean.‘I am not.’‘Has he invited you home to meet his mum?’‘Well . . . yes.’‘Asma, you’re a sad cow. He’s got over his prejudice. You just can’t get over yours.’But Asma shook her head.‘I don’t buy into their crap. I don’t buy into who they are or how they think. I know he was a bit wahabi and probably a Pashtun nationalist and you thought it was suspicious the way he rubbished the local shrine, but you can say what you like about Asad, he probably had more in common with me than Gordon does.’In the night, when she woke up and heard the first men up preparing for their departure, Asma felt a small twinge of guilt and regret. She turned over. She tried to go back to sleep.Then she remembered that Asad was dead and she felt a renewed surge of anger. Someone who had never met him and didn’t understand his cause had ordered his death and the SAS had appeared from nowhere and shot him and had now evaporated back to Hereford.Probably the suspicious officers, Gordon Weeks among them, would offer a different interpretation but she knew that, in the meetings with Asad, human relationships nurtured on the carpet over cups of sweet tea had triumphed briefly over weapons. And what had they done? Shot him.She had not been inside a mosque for many years and she looked on Islam with the cold distance of a divorcee. She was a member of the British Army. No one had coerced her into joining. But the British Army had killed Asad. For the second time on this tour she had the uncomfortable feeling that she had personally shot her Moslem brother.She did not open her eyes but lay in bed listening for the sound of the departing convoy.

Chapter Forty-eight