One Dog at a Time (8 page)

It hadn’t been forced open. I closed it to make sure it wasn’t bent and sure enough it closed forming a smooth seal against the metal picket.

I scanned along the bottom of the run’s only fence. I had purposely dug it a half a foot or so into the ground so that Nowzad wouldn’t be able to dig his way out. The ground was still undisturbed, so he hadn’t got out that way.

The only other way of escape was over the top of the fence. But that was at least five foot high. I was sure Nowzad didn’t have the physical ability to clear it. I looked at it again; he couldn’t jump that high, could he?

Not that it mattered now anyway. Nowzad was gone.

The off-duty lads had been required to spend the battle hidden away in their small cells. Some had actually relished the opportunity for some enforced shut-eye; there was not a lot they could do so why waste the opportunity? Most were now coming out to form the queue that was snaking towards the barely warm curry that was still sitting where we’d left it. The chef hadn’t bothered to move it during the entire battle.

Although I was apprehensive about Nowzad I was also anxious about the lads. Nowzad still didn’t get on too well with strangers and the last thing I needed was him deciding to bite somebody as, scared and desperate, he roamed around the compound. This would have sealed his fate immediately.

How would he have reacted if the lads had tried to catch him? I just hoped he hadn’t done anything that we would both regret. Of all the dogs that I had watched roaming outside I had chosen to keep the fighting dog in the compound, although to be fair, hadn’t he chosen me? I quickened my pace as I realised I needed to find him; after all I couldn’t abandon him now.

As my mind went into overdrive, I was brought back to the compound by Dan, the lad who had given Nowzad his name, whom I just avoided bumping into as he ran out of the small mud archway that formed the entrance to the living area.

‘Sergeant, come and have a look at this,’ he spoke quickly. He looked slightly bewildered, his eyes wide.

‘What Dan? I’m looking for Nowzad,’ I replied. ‘Have you seen him?’

‘It is Nowzad.’

‘What?’

I followed him over to one of the old cell doorways. The glow from a small candle on a high home-made shelf partially lit the cramped room.

‘He’s in here,’ Dan said, pointing to one of the three military-issue beds that were squeezed into the small space.

I crouched down and looked under the bed. Sure enough, there was Nowzad, curled up in a small ball, legs tucked under his body, eyes wide and looking at directly at me. I reached under the bed and rubbed the soft stump of his right ear.

‘What happened?’

‘Halfway through the contact he just barged into the room,’ Dan explained. ‘We all shat ourselves wondering what he was going to do, but then he just looked at us and squeezed under the bed.’

I gave Dan a slightly disbelieving look.

‘Yeah, he did, and we haven’t been able to get him out since, not even with food.’

Nowzad had never been over this side of the compound, yet he had found his way to safety, just one room away from where I slept. I was fairly sure he’d have forced his way in there if my door had not been closed while I was in the sangar.

I coaxed him out with his favourite biscuits as he crawled out from under the bed. He even let Dan stroke his head as I led him out the door.

We must have looked an odd couple as we walked back across the darkened compound, one fully laden soldier holding out biscuit after biscuit for a dog with no ears.

‘It’s okay, mate, the fireworks are over now.’ I patted his head, which was just level with my knee as I led him back towards his run.

As we approached his makeshift home I marvelled at how he had managed to jump the fence. That could be the only explanation for his escape. As I opened the gate Nowzad pushed past my leg to get back in the run. I looked at the fence again and then at Nowzad. ‘How did you clear that fence, bud?’ Nowzad was no springer spaniel and I just couldn’t picture him scaling the fence like a spider dog.

Nowzad trotted over to the mortar shelter and disappeared into the dark hole. ‘I’ll get you somewhere safe, Nowzad, just give me time,’ I said, knowing full well he was no longer listening. Which was a good job as I didn’t like promising something I wasn’t sure I could deliver.

Now I really needed Lisa to come up with some good news.

CHAPTER FIVE

Rocket-Propelled Grenade

I WAS IN
the middle of carrying out my morning rounds, when I noticed a marine with a faded-yellow truck over by Nowzad’s run. I knew it was John – he was the only person who drove a vehicle within the compound. Although he was only a young marine, he had shown he was keen and reliable and had been given the task of coordinating and gathering all of our intelligence reports. Unfortunately he had also been volunteered for dropping off each day’s allocation of washing and drinking water to the sangars. Rather than delivering the jerry cans around by hand, John had used his initiative and taken to using the old Toyota pickup truck we had inherited from the ANA when we took over the compound for the daily water deliveries. It made the job a lot easier.

‘All right, mate, how’s the water boy today?’ I said mockingly, as I approached the run.

‘Doing just great, cheers Sergeant,’ he replied, his dark hair already growing down around his ears. The regimental sergeant major would have had a fit had he been here.

‘I brought Nowzad this,’ he said, holding out an old red satin cushion decorated with a faded gold leaf design that, had it been clean, would not have been out of place on a settee back home.

‘Where did you get that from?’

‘Found it loafing,’ he replied with a knowing smile.

I smiled back. I wasn’t going to ask too many questions. Nowzad was about to be given his first ever dog bed.

I opened the gate and walked over to Nowzad’s normal spot under the cam net. As soon as I placed the cushion down Nowzad sniffed it suspiciously a few times before stepping on to it and then plonking himself down into a tight ball.

‘Good choice, John. I think he likes it.’

We left Nowzad to spend the remainder of the day curled up on his cushion, watching a very slow world go by through the fencing of his run.

A few of the lads were now regularly visiting Nowzad during their downtime. I figured they enjoyed the normality of feeding him biscuits even though they took care to stay on the safe side of the run. Nowzad still didn’t let anybody but me get near him without letting out an evil-sounding growl and none were brave enough to find out if he meant it or not.

Keeping him in the run would be safer for everybody. So far he hadn’t attempted to jump the fence again and I reckoned he wouldn’t until the next firefight we were drawn into. All of the lads knew to avoid him if he was out. I’d thought about getting him a collar but I would have to wait for Lisa to post one to me.

To be truthful I was still slightly wary of him and wasn’t sure how much he actually trusted me. He might still bite me if I attempted to tie anything around his neck. Added to this, I was always keeping an eye out in case the ANP decided to try and use him for another fight even though they had been warned by the OC that those sorts of activities would not be tolerated within our compound.

Nowzad looked chilled enough about being left in his run but whenever I entered to feed him, he would try to squeeze out of the gate. He made it every now and again, haring off on a tour of the entire inner perimeter of the compound, sniffing, scratching and marking his territory as I tried to coax him back in. Food was usually the key to persuading
him
back into the run. An open bag of pork and dumplings wafted under his nose worked every time.

Since my conversation with Lisa, I’d been wondering whether my cunning plan to save Nowzad was a good idea or not. At the moment I was leaning towards the latter.

Who was going to want to rehome a former fighting dog? How could they, even if they wanted to? Nowzad knew no house rules, he hadn’t been socialised. But he was quiet enough during the day – surely I could spend what few minutes I had each day at least trying to socialise him? After all, he hadn’t exactly been well treated in his experiences with humans so far, had he? So he deserved a shot at a decent dog’s life. Deep down, though, I knew Nowzad would be a nightmare for any prospective owners.

I delayed making any decisions; I would wait and see what Lisa found out. Maybe I just wasn’t brave enough to face up to reality. It was the coward’s way of delaying the inevitable.

The onset of winter was becoming more apparent; it was getting a lot cooler in the evenings and we guessed that it wasn’t far off hitting zero degrees during the early hours of the morning. I was now pulling on my duvet jacket more or less as soon as the sun dropped below the western compound wall.

I had been in Afghanistan a little over seven weeks and we were entering the Rest and Recuperation period, the time when the lads were allowed to go back home to the UK for ten days. With a few lads already back home, sentry duties were coming around quicker than ever for those of us who were left behind. Even the chef and our mechanic were coming along to make up the numbers on patrol, although they didn’t mind getting out and about.

We would patrol through the deserted labyrinth of open alleyways that were littered with rubbish and rubble, always staying within the immediate vicinity of the compound. We were still waiting patiently for the elders to attempt a peaceful settlement with the local Taliban commander.

We normally arrived back in the DC having failed to meet a single local, which was disappointing for me. I wanted to try and interact with the people of Afghanistan. I had to admit my attempts to forge a relationship with the ANP had failed miserably, although I laid the blame completely at their feet. I couldn’t pretend I felt anything but animosity towards them after witnessing their treatment of Nowzad and the other fighting dog.

But there were other, ordinary Afghans out there. From the northern sangars we would watch the still populated part of northern Now Zad during the daytime. There, far enough away from the compound to remain safe from any fallout from our battles with the Taliban, locals, looking like small ants in the distance, would go about their daily business. Lone figures would appear from one alley and then disappear down another. Fathers and sons would stroll together, their white turbans standing out against the dull yellow of everything around them, as I struggled to imagine what their daily lives entailed. I really did want to help these people but being part of ISAF would always prevent me from finding out what it was really like to be a part of their society. I had read somewhere that the United Nations put the average life expectancy of an Afghanistan national at only 43 years old and that over a third of Afghan women died during pregnancy. All this could be prevented through education, one of the things the Taliban detested.

But I wasn’t sure that one person alone was going to make much difference. By joining the Royal Marines, making a difference was what I had come to Afghanistan to do and at the moment I felt fairly useless. I guess I had to think that we were just a small piece of the new tapestry that depicted Afghanistan’s rebirth.

I had picked up the 0200 watch again and by 0140 was dressed and walking across the quiet deserted compound. The alarm was set 20 minutes earlier these days to allow me time to let Nowzad out.

With nobody about at this early hour, I could let him have the run of the compound. He would spend the first few minutes chasing me around, always trying to prod me with his right front paw. I enjoyed running around with him in the mini-dust cloud that formed around us. For those rare minutes he would be like any other socialised dog the world over and for me all thoughts of being in the most dangerous place on earth vanished. We were just a man and his dog, enjoying each other’s company and having fun.

I had been informed during the late-night scheduled radio report with the main Unit HQ back in Camp Bastion that two of my lads, who had been sent to bolster the troops temporarily in the nearby town of Kajacki, had been seriously injured when their Land Rover crashed. The Taliban had not been involved. It was just an accident.

None of us wanted to be injured but, if the fates decided otherwise, then I knew that we would all prefer to suffer our injuries as a result of a fierce battle, preferably as the hero of the moment, than as the result of a stupid vehicle accident.

The news had set me thinking back to early September. I remembered standing in a rugby club back in Plymouth with my troop on our last night out on the town before we deployed. I had gathered the lads around in a huddle, all of us holding full pints of beer.

‘Here’s to kicking the Taliban arse and
all
of us coming home war heroes,’ I’d shouted as we toasted each other with a clash of pint glasses, spilling beer down our arms in the process. It sounded a cliché but these were my young lads and it seemed the right thing to do at the time. But now I wished I hadn’t said it. Maybe I had tempted fate.

The limited information we had received over the radio about the two lads didn’t sound good and it would be a while before a full report made its way to us. For now, everything was just speculation.

I wondered if I had been there whether I could have
prevented
it. But I hadn’t been in Kajacki, I was in Now Zad, and common sense told me it was too late for that now, what was done was done.

There was nothing I could do until more information came in. I needed a few minutes to decide how to break the news to the rest of the troop. Seeing Nowzad would give me space to think.

The night was bitterly cold. As I walked over to Nowzad’s run I pulled up the collar on my jacket.

A movement in the shadows to my left stopped me in my tracks.

The figure in the darkness, whatever it was, stopped too.

I took a step forward but the crescent moon was only a small slither of light in the night sky and I couldn’t make out any details in the shadows. Until, that is, I suddenly saw it running at me.

‘What are you doing out?’ I said, assuming that the dark shape was Nowzad. It was probably only a matter of time again before he escaped.

But as it moved in closer I saw that it wasn’t Nowzad. It was another dog, too thin and leggy to be him.

The dog didn’t seem able to run in a straight line, it darted from one side to the other, as it crossed the 30 yards between us in a series of zigzags. He threw himself down on the dusty ground in front of me, his legs splayed out, two glistening beady eyes eagerly watching me. He wasn’t a fighting dog. For a start he wasn’t big enough, and he was still in possession of a pair of long, floppy ears.

The memory of the time I’d watched the skinny young dog play through the viewfinder of the night sight suddenly came back to me. The way the dog had moved that night was identical to the movements of the dog that now sat in front of me. ‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?’

I reached my right hand out. The dog immediately spun twice on the spot, kicking up a dust cloud. When I took a step towards him, the dog charged full pace towards me,
before
at the last moment twisting 90 degrees to the left and charging off around the snatch wagon that was parked by the rear gate.

‘Playful little bugger aren’t you?’

I walked around to the front of the sand-coloured snatch wagon. The windows of the vehicle wore protective metal grilles, a relic of the Northern Ireland days of Orange marches and protests.

The dog’s long thin snout appeared from under the wagon. As quick as a flash he shot out and ran around me before diving back under the wagon again. A moment later he was out again, charging at me then stopping short and then quickly heading off to the side. He reminded me of Beamer, back home.

‘Mad as a bag of rabbits,’ I said to myself. ‘So how have you got in?’ I asked the mad little dog.

I looked towards the gate. I shook my head and smiled. Little bugger. The dog had dug his way between two of the big rocks I had buried in the trench, leaving just enough of a gap to slip underneath.

I chased the erratic dog around the parked wagon for a minute. He played me a dummy move and sent me to the right as he turned and went left, always keeping just in front of me.

The young dog was clearly enjoying the interaction, his legs never quite seeming to work in unison but always managing to get him where he wanted to go. As the dog played, all around the wagon slowly dispersing dust clouds hung in the air. I looked at my watch. I’d been playing with the dog for nearly ten minutes. I was using up Nowzad’s free time.

‘Sorry buddy – got to go and see one of your pals.’

As I walked over to Nowzad’s run, the small dog followed.

Without really thinking, I let Nowzad out. He charged out and headed straight for the small dog, who had suddenly stopped in his tracks, frozen to the spot.

‘Oh shit, carnage,’ I thought out loud.

For a moment I told myself I had made a huge mistake letting Nowzad loose within sight of another male dog. He was a veteran fighting dog, after all. But, to my relief, another of his basic, canine instincts kicked in.

When Nowzad came to a halt next to the other dog he simply started sniffing the new arrival in the compound. Rather than running away, the smaller dog simply sniffed back. Amazingly they were playing together within moments.

I let them play for a minute or two then waited for Nowzad to go for his evening wee, hovering with the plastic bag I had ready to scoop the small pile he usually deposited by the rear gate.

As usual, Nowzad didn’t want to go back into his run when playtime ended – I couldn’t blame him really as he didn’t get that much time outside – and the small dog just sat watching me chase Nowzad round and round in circles. After a good struggle I managed to coax and push him back through the gate to the run.

With the gate locked and a very unhappy Nowzad on the other side, I turned round to the young dog that was still waiting patiently.

‘You get a reprieve,’ I told him. ‘I haven’t got time to get you out the gate now.’

I was already late. Dutchy was cool about me sorting Nowzad out but I couldn’t push my luck.

I walked away from the young dog but as I looked over my shoulder I saw it was following me. I stopped and suddenly jumped towards it. Just as I thought, it still wanted to play. It spun around twice on the spot, shot off in a random direction, did a mini-lap of the area and then flopped back down in front of me with its legs splayed open again.