The Apache Longbow hissed above the dreary glebe, leaving war-weary soldiers at Eagle Camp slumbering with one eye open. Two weeks had passed since the Iranian Artesh had been stripped naked by dissipating fog, strafed by a squadron of F-16s down from Bagram airfield, and bullied into a retreat by the 112th battalion, United States Army.
Jinny didn’t know how to retreat. She squatted at the chopper door, tethered by a strap, night vision goggles engaged, and stared into mother nature’s closet. Overhead, four blades diced, whipped, and peppered the bleak morning mist. Steep slopes of the Hindu Kush blurred by, but their peaks’ jagged cusps— silhouetted incisors visible from the platform—exhaled a north wind and wailed, “Go home, Yankees; go home.” The enemy was an army of ghosts.
“Standby.” A light flashed green. Bernie Oliver coaxed the cyclic and collective-pitch levers to comply with his command, and the chopper floated to the ground as effortlessly as a leaf from an old, scarred, sycamore tree, or a dove from the weather vane atop the barn. Jinny unhooked and followed Staley and Broshinsky as they leapt to the ground. She landed like a cat and counted her team as they jumped, one by one, hunched forward, and followed her in a double-time, wedged formation fifty yards into the darkness. They knelt and waited.
Slapping at the sky, the Longbow levitated noisily upward, circled once, and fled the thin air to a level “safe-zone” in the Korari valley below. All but pounding hearts fell silent. For thirty minutes the squad played dead. Then on signal—tail-end up first like wary cattle—the soldiers climbed to their feet and found themselves surrounded by an expansive field of frosted poppy plants.
“Imagine these in bloom, whispered Arno Janssens,” Jinny’s recycled spotter.
“Do you have poppies in New Haven, Janssens?”
“No, no, but I remind of my trip back to Geluwe in ‘92. Have you knowd of it? Geluwe? It’s in Belgium. We went back by ship the year after Vater retired from Simkins.”
“Simkins?”
“Ya, a pulp and paper company over in East Haven.” Janssens fell silent, then added, “From concrete to cobbled streets to a poppy field: may not life’s journey end here.” He stepped closer to Jinny. “Vater’s home is no longer der. It vas bombed in de var. I saw poppies in Flanders Field. Do you know it?”
Jinny brightened up. “You mean the poem?”
“Ya, de poem, too. I could tell it good back den. Crimson poppies. Cool breezes. Very peaceful. And I tells you, Sergeant, except for barbed vire fences, I seed no evidence of the horrors that befalled my grossfater during da big var.”
Jinny nodded, unseen. “Thermal imaging makes these green-stemmed bulbs look other-worldly, like aliens bulking up until they mature, catch the wind, sail the earth, and destroy the human race.”
“Ya, you got right de part about destroying de human race, Sergeant,” replied Arno in a brusk staccato. He uprooted a plant and sniffed, “Sie haben keinen Guruch.”
“You speak German, too? What did you just say?”
“I said, ‘they has no smell.’” Arno Janssens’ piercing black eyes moved methodically like an owl’s–always alert, but he’d come into the world devoid of a volume control.
“Shhhh.” Lieutenant Staley extended his right arm and simulated the cranking of an ice-cream freezer with a circular motion. Prepare to move. Jinny rendered thumbs up and passed on the command. Sergeant Broshinsky, in the rear, acted as sweep. Staley signaled all to form a wedge and move forward.
Jinny re-positioned her scrim-net scarf, elbowed plants out of the way, and rapidly counted her steps as they scurried forward. “. . . nineteen, one hundred and twenty.” She logged the stat in her brain. On signal, everyone dropped to a knee. Jinny cradled her M-24, waited, and listened. Arno, similarly camouflaged, caught up and knelt within whispering distance.
“Even wid these goggles, I can’t see a blinking ding.”
“It’ll be light soon,” replied Jinny. “Look for white tails.”
“Pardon?”
They waited, and then waited some more, shivering in the shadows. Thirty minutes passed before daylight exposed the intrepid Americans to a lone eagle circling in the lighted sky high overhead. The squad remained hunkered down while four sets of glasses surveilled the rugged terrain, waited, watched, and listened for other signs of life. On orders, Jinny and Arno crawled like lizards to an exposed rise and continued glassing the mountain. Jinny had long since trained her imagination to stand at ease while on duty, but her tuned senses remained on full alert, ready to advance or take aim and fire. “Remember to keep your head down today and whisper, Arno. Just whisper.”
Headsets went live. “Listen up,” sniped Lieutenant Staley. “Ollie reported that he drew fire at five hundred feet after the drop this morning. He identified maybe three different muzzle blasts coming from above and to the right of our position. He estimated the bogie to be four hundred yards up-slope, but it was pretty dark–hard to get a reading. Let’s advance, shake the bushes, and see what flies out. Is everybody okay?”
“Halt! Jinny, bogey at two o’clock,” whispered Arno. He’s just above de escarpment and left off the trees. I seed the glint off his scope. I makes it four hundred yards.”
“Okay, everybody stays put; keep your heads down,” ordered Lieutenant Staley. “I mean, everybody stay put.”
“Copy that.” Jinny’s calloused elbows steadied her rifle like the legs of a tripod while Arno wiggled away from a rock wedged against his crotch and scoped the distant slope.
“Range 457 point 2 meters . . . angular mils .255 . . . vindage 2 knots, south to north . . . no, better add a click. Temperature, cold. “
“Hang on.” Jinny dialed in the target. The squad waited. “There he is. I see him. I . . . see . . . him. Yes, he’s looking right at me. Now he’s gone.”
Silence. Nothing.
“He’s back. Hold still, you seedy pumpkin.” From a great distance the enemy’s head looked like a watermelon, balanced on a Kansas fence post, soon to be exploded by a well-aimed round from Jinny’s Weatherby RC-338. She took a deep breath, let a little escape through pursed lips, stopped breathing, and squeezed off a round.
“Bogie’s down,” whispered Arno. Jinny always hit where she aimed but never felt exhilaration at striking a human target. Her hands, knees, feet, and elbows had become calloused by combat—but not her heart.
“Okay everybody, they know where we are; advance and stay low,” ordered the lieutenant. “Are you still behind me, Broshinsky?”
“Got your back, Sir,” he replied through his headset. Uncannily agile, Jinny also never lagged behind. She was too fleet of foot to be designated as sweep; that was Sergeant Broshinsky job. Bullets splashed the mud around them like handfuls of pea-gravel flung into a quiet pond by an all-star pitcher. The squad ran thirty-five yards flat-out, uphill, fully exposed to enemy fire, and lunged for cover. Jinny laid out like an outfielder diving for a foul ball and landed hard, sparing only her rifle from damage. Patriot blood pumped anxiously through her arteries, and she started to pray.
Through each headset again came the rapid riposte, “Go, go, go.”
Jinny braced her elbows, came to her knees, sprang to her feet, and repeated, “Go-go-go,” as she bounded ahead, mumbling, “God bless America and save the children of Afghanistan.” The longitude and latitude of the poppy field were quickly logged into Jinny’s remarkable memory, but Arno’s faculties were all focused on just trying to keep up. His Bushnell spotting scope bounced rhythmically but failed to keep pace with his heart beat; and he had difficulty keeping pace with Jinny, especially when jumping from rock to rock.
“Hey, Sergeant O’Deer . . . what you take me for, an elk?”
“No, just a dear. Come on, come on, Arno, give me your hand.” She paused—as she often had back home for Curly—not wanting her spotter to get a flat tire—a sprained ankle. The squad made their way up a metamorphic outcropping toward a known enemy stronghold. Black slate proved a slippery test of tenacity and coordination as they climbed, crawled, pawed and finally crouched to rest. Rocks and fissure, discomfited by millennia of earthquakes and erosion, captured the attention of every soldier, even those not interested in geology. Predatory winds wailed, Halloween–like, through the cracks, crevices and caves which punctuated the mountainside. Everybody knew Boo stood for booby trap!
Most caves were shallow; some had hosted small campfires; all were foreboding until cleared. Jinny rested on a narrow shelf below one of these, her back against a steep declivity, and listened to gurgling water. It wasn’t unusual for the squad to pause by small springs and watch them pulse and fall toward the slotted gully where they co-mingled before racing toward the Kabul River, currently overflowing its banks.
Jinny watched water fall twenty feet to where squad members silently took turns capturing it in their Camelbak bladders—part of the infantry’s hydration system. The bladders–fashioned from plastic connected to lengths of hose and fitted into insulated bags–were attached to team members’ rucksacks. A draw-hose was positioned near each soldier’s shoulder strap.
“Incoming.”
Whirring brassy humming-birds hit on each other as they torpedoed an otherwise tranquil ten minutes. The hot lead zipped and whanged, forcing the squad to flatten like sourdough pancakes. From far up-slope, gunfire arced to the ground below the squad, but each volley was followed by a small correction in trajectory. An urgent command crackled through Jinny’s headset. It was Sergeant Broshinsky’s voice.
“O’Dwyer. Janssens. Stay low and move laterally twenty meters left. I think you’ll be able to see the bogie’s nest about four hundred meters north at eleven o’clock of that position. All I saw was muzzle blast. Fix the problem before the problem fixes on us.”
“Roger that, Sergeant Broshinsky.”
Jinny and her spotter wormed through the rocks to the new position and pretended to be invisible, that is, until Arno raised a mirror attached to a collapsing rod. The sun, now high in the sky, negated the tool’s effectiveness and instantly gave away his position. Peering through his scope he witnessed a small puff of smoke way off in the distance. “Down.” Too late. Jinny had already ducked. A round struck the ground between Arno’s spread feet,followed by a boom that echoed in his ears. “Dat vas vay too close.”
Jinny chose not to correct Sergeant Broshinsky’s calculation. The shot had come from nearly five meters away. “I wonder where that bogey learned to shoot.”
“I Hope dat it vasn’t Fort Benning,” bleated Arno.
Bullets showered down, keeping Jinny and her spotter flat on the ground for about twenty minutes. Unbeknownst to them, Sergeant Broshinsky tried to draw fire in his direction so Jinny could get off a clean shot. They heard the report of a rifle and rolled to the left. Scope adjustments were called out and clicked in. Surreptitiously taking aim, Jinny squeezed off one round. The human target flopped forward, fell head over heels and landed out of sight.
“He’s down. Vot a shot! Five hundred twenty meters,” squealed Arno.
“Quiet. He wasn’t alone,” Jinny ordered. No high fives. For her, taking human life was never a cause for celebration.
Staley set in motion a plan to outflank the enemy and ordered Jinny and Arno to stay put. Within the five minutes, headsets came to life again. No static. A mild, firm voice ordered, “O’Dwyer! Fall back thirty meters. Stay low. Janssens, you stay put, shut up, and keep your eyes open.”
Strange, Jinny pondered. Why fall back? She turned and—back flat and head down—zig-zagged down-slope, trailed by, here a whang, there a whang, everywhere a whang-whang, and dived under the foliage of a solitary cannabis plant the size of a small pine tree. Jinny heaved a sigh of relief, followed up by a few other indigestibles
“Thank you, Lord.”
Jinny hunkered down and listened, still puzzled by the order to fall back. The din of rifle fire had given way to reverential silence, and then . . . to muffled bleating. Children. Jinny held her breath. Cautiously pealing back a sagging branch at her right, she peered from under the cannabis leaves, and her life changed forever. Astonished at the sight, her mouth fell open and her dark brows piqued in disbelief. Jinny bowed her head and spoke into her headset. “Either my eyes are playing tricks on me, or my imagination is kicking into high gear, uninvited!”
But no. Two rag-tag, dark-haired little boys, faces smeared—forsaken and shaking like hungry eaglets who’d fallen from a feathered nest—huddled together within the cavity of a shaded overhang. Only from precisely where Jinny lay could she have seen them.
“Sergeant. Broshinsky. Come on back. This is Jinny.” No answer. “Arno, Bro isn’t responding, can you see him?”
“Not till the shooting stops.”
“The shooting has stopped, Arno.”
“I’m with him, Sergeant,” barked Lieutenant Staley. “Alvarez is trying to stop the bleeding. Your Sergeant is unconscious. What do you need?” Jinny forgot what she needed. More disturbed, the Lieutenant cackled, “For crying out loud, Alvarez, I’ll press the wound; get an IV into him; listen up everybody; this can’t be happening; he’s gone. Do you copy that, O’Dwyer? Broshinsky’s dead.”
Jinny rolled onto her back and shuddered. Struggling to control her emotions, she managed a garbled plea. “Lieutenant Staley, Sir, I have eyes on two small children. I think they’re abandoned. What should I do?”
“What do you mean, you think? Either they’re alone or they aren’t. Maintain your position. Do not approach. This may be a trap.”
“Copy that.” Jinny leaned forward, rested her forehead on the dirt and wept like a baby.
Lieutenant Staley palmed the sat-radio and punched in a numbered sequence while Alvarado rolled Broshinsky’s body onto
the body bag, snugged it around him, and zipped it closed. “Spicy chicken, this is Bando one-one, request breach and clear. I have one KIA. I’ve lost my sergeant. Spicy Chicken do you copy?”
“I copy you, Bando one-one. I’m in the air headed home; had to take evasive action; running on fumes. Again; over?
I thought you were on the ground in our sector. “Hold on a minute, Ollie.” Staley’s brain registered CHECK-MATE in capitals. He muffled his mic and opened all the stops. “O’Dwyer, hold your position, we’re coming.”
Bernie Oliver sensed the distress on the ground. “Sorry, Sir, but I’m on a short leash; returning to base. I’m trying to coordinate your ETA at secondary pickup zone with Zulu Zulu; Can you give me an ETA?
“Negative.”
“Do you need those coordinates called out?”
“Great jumping Jehoshaphat, Ollie. Aren’t you listening to me? I’ve got one man dead, and two kids just dropped in my lap.””
“I’m doing my best, Sir. Suggest you get your men down off that slope; bogies at your six. Skirt the poppy field. Please hold, Lieutenant Staley.” Pause. “There are two Hummers, maybe forty miles east on the Grand Trunk Road below your location. They can touch down at alternate drop site 7 at 1100 hours and are being re-routed as we speak. That’s the best I can do, Sir. I’ve got just enough fuel to leg it home, I hope.”
Staley gritted his teeth and replied, “Copy that. God speed. We’ll fall back and hold. I don’t know how long it will take to get down there. Tell them if we don’t’ arrive by 1100 hours to wait. Out.”
On edge, squad survivors fashioned a litter for their dead sergeant and slowly worked their way down to Jinny’s position. Staley exploded. “O’Dwyer, why in tarnation did you fall back? It’s not like you, even though you are a woman.”
Jinny chilled. “I’ll tell you straight-out Lieutenant, I responded to a direct order, Sir, but I did not recognize the voice.”
“Obviously,” Staley barked while staring at the body bag. “Arno, yes you! You and Alvarez approach the youngsters; and don’t get blown up.” The children didn’t speak, didn’t move, and didn’t resist.
“All clear, Sir. No surprises, except the older kid was clutching a sharp stick in his hand,” reported Alvarez.
Arno and Alvarez each scooped up a frightened child in his arms and returned to the squad, where they knelt by the cannabis bush next to Jinny. “These kids are either tongue-tied or they don’t speak English,” muttered Alvarez as they set the children at Jinny’s knees.
Two tattered little bumpkins tightly buttoned their lips and refused drinks from a Camelbak. Then they changed their minds. Two sets of large, chocolate brown well-springs of life fixed on Jinny. She stared deeply, first into one paired pool, and then the other and saw only herself. Her features softened into a smile as she remembered a traumatized little girl, a sleepwalker, lost in a Kansas cornfield in the middle of a night so very long ago. She remembered the rustling sound of a heavy, warm jacket pushing between the sturdy stalks and the tall man who sighed and knelt in the wet furrow. She sensed again the relief in Caleb’s voice as he whispered, “Come to Papa, little lamb. ‘And when he cometh . . . he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.’” [Luke 15: 6.]