Free Fall (27 page)

I didn't notice any Arabs; I crawled back across. I signalled for Zenith and Moscow to join me, and together we walked through the ditch. We stopped several more times – every ten metres, as the captain had said – taking turns observing all the details of the mountain, but there didn't seem to be anything suspicious.

We were almost finished; it was my turn to explore again. All I could think about was when we would be back on base. Maybe Nosov's worries were exaggerated; our enemy wouldn't be able to move through the mountains fast enough to catch up with us and ambush us.

I went to the edge of the trail and began observing. Suddenly something appeared in my scope. It was a man, walking uphill, and he was carrying lots of ammo. I felt like someone had poured a bucket of ice water on me. The man was moving slowly and his phosphorescent figure, as I saw it through the night scope, gave the impression that he wasn't afraid of being discovered. I lowered my scope straight down a little. Below him, about ten metres away, other armed figures were climbing up the same path. In total there were thirty-four, and they had two transport animals, mules perhaps.

When I saw the mules I grew really scared. It could only mean one thing: those bastards were carrying something heavy. For an instant I looked away, and I inwardly cursed Nosov, him and his eternal knack for always being right. Then I went back to observing.

After a bit Moscow came over. He crawled slowly, and when his face got near mine, he whispered:

‘So did you see something?'

I probably hadn't moved for a while, and my comrades must have grown suspicious. I'd taken more time than usual to scout the area, wanting to be sure of the enemy's exact numbers. I set my rifle on the ground, put my hand over my mouth to avoid an echo, and as softly as possible I said:

‘Thirty-four ‘spirits',
*
lots of ammo . . .' And then I couldn't go on. If I didn't say it, maybe what I had seen would be less true.

Only after a moment did I find the courage to finish:

‘. . . and two mules.'

Moscow put his hand over his eyes.

‘Fucking Christ . . .' he said. ‘Mortars . . .'

A mule could transport a light 85-calibre mortar and some ammunition. Usually a grenade launcher was enough to attack a column of soldiers – you only used mortars when you really wanted to create a living hell. If the enemy was able to position them and use them against us, our endeavour would be over within minutes. Those were deadly weapons, with an extremely powerful charge, capable of completely razing a trail such as the one we were on right now . . .

*

Once I saw an entire column of vehicles taken out by mortars.

After the explosion, all that remained was a hodgepodge of various mechanical parts, completely misshapen, mixed with ammo, remnants of human bodies, weapons, food, mud . . . You couldn't make sense of anything, it was complete chaos. It was as if a giant had taken all those cars filled with people, put them in a huge washing machine and then, after putting them on spin fast enough to send every single bolt and bone flying, had tossed them into the street. The idea of ending up in a situation like that took my breath away.

A tactic often used by the Arabs was occupying each end of a road with a mortar. They would fire and keep moving little by little towards the middle of the road, progressively reducing the distance and thus sowing total destruction. This tactic had been used against our ranks in Afghanistan – it was crude but very effective. Soldiers had nowhere to run, because after an explosion the shrapnel would fly everywhere and was more devastating than bullets, mercilessly tearing the human body to shreds.

In the mountains a mortar was even more dangerous, because there was nowhere to hide. Even if the person firing didn't have good aim, the shells still hit the rock, and the pieces would come off the mountain and fall down like rain. For a small group like ours, with only fourteen men and no heavy artillery (if you excluded an RPG grenade launcher), it was certain death . . .

Moscow and I were lying on the edge of the road, with our cheeks sinking into the damp soil, both thinking the
same thing: if we let the Arabs get through the mountains with those mules now, then nobody would be able to cross that road. There was no time to turn back and report to the captain – before long the enemy would pass the visible part of the hill and would be hidden deep in the forest.

When I spoke to Moscow my mouth was dry; my tongue stuck to my teeth, as if glued on. I was anxious. I never would have thought I'd have to make a decision like this.

‘You're a corporal. It's up to you to give the orders, but I want to tell you my opinion anyway: we need to act now . . . If any of their men are waiting for them higher up, if the ones we saw weren't the main group but were just heading to a position . . . Well, in five minutes we'll be a trio of corpses . . .'

‘You're right,' he replied. ‘We can't let them get to the woods. I give the orders, that's true, but there are three of us and more than thirty of them . . . you know what'll happen if we open fire? We can get rid of the mortars, and we three risk dying. We can go back, and all fourteen die together. What if Nosov has an alternative route?'

I was too tired and nervous to think. The only thing to do was act. I felt like a machine, a tiny piece of a mechanism that does things without making decisions, and does them that way because it was only programmed to do that specific action. My reply came out of my mouth before I'd thought it through:

‘Nosov's not here now, and we don't know shit about the roads on this stupid mountain. All I know is that
when I look through the telescope I see a group of Arabs transporting two fucking mortars. If they have any snipers positioned anywhere we're screwed, but we have to take out those mules at all costs . . .'

Moscow nodded, and went over to get Zenith. I pointed the rifle towards the enemy and began studying the column. The mules were moving slowly, only a few metres apart. Usually the Arabs would tie them together so that if one animal stopped the other would pull it forward. If those mules were tied together, the best thing would be to unload a blast of gunfire on the first so it would drag the other one down when it fell, and the enemy wouldn't have time to react.

Moscow and Zenith joined me.

‘Take this, Kolima,' Zenith said, handing me the machine gun he'd taken from the camp. ‘You use it, you're much more precise than me.'

The gun was already loaded with its killer bullets. I took my Kalashnikov off my back and gave it to Zenith along with four clips. I looked at my comrades:

‘When I start shooting, you guys look where they respond from and aim directly there . . . Don't stop – even if they kill us, their mortars will still be at the bottom of the valley . . .'

Zenith gave me a wink:

‘Don't shit yourself, brother, we'll have lots more drinks together . . .'

‘And Moscow will take you to another nurse . . .' I replied.

This was our way of boosting one another's spirits.

For months Zenith had been going on and on about this thing he had for his neighbour Larisa, who he would always spy on through the window when he was a little boy. She had, he said, such beautiful soft hair between her legs it was like a priceless rug. He wanted to touch it, he wanted to survive the bloodbath of the war and make love to her, that's what. It was a nice story, but the fact that Zenith had never been with a woman made us sad, so one day Moscow took him to a nurse who finally freed him from the slavery of virginity.

Talking about alcohol and women fired us up at the time. It's weird to think back on it now, but the possibility of ending my days on that mountain didn't have any particular effect on me. At that moment all I wanted was to get rid of those damned mules.

I took a deep breath, then I pushed out the air and held my breath, trying to become completely still and hard like a rock. I put my eye to the scope, and as soon as I pinpointed the first mule I fired. The first blast was very short, but I had to correct my aim immediately, since, as I had already experienced, that machine gun had a strong recoil, and it was hard to keep a good grip on it. I unloaded another blast and then another, whereas the other side hadn't fired a single round. The mules fell down, along with a few men. We could hear their shouts, the animals' cries, and then there was a loud explosion. I aimed the gun at the column and emptied the rest of the clip without stopping for a second, almost euphoric. I felt every round on my skin – it was as if with each explosion the air pressed on a different part of my head.

I was so absorbed that I didn't notice when the Arabs began responding to the fire, but I felt the pieces of rock hitting my back. Zenith and Moscow had already moved away, shooting wildly like I was. The enemy was running in every direction, but luckily there didn't seem to be any snipers in hiding; maybe they felt safe in their mountains and hadn't bothered to set up a position.

‘Zenith, another clip!' I shouted. My ears were ringing – the noise the gun made was incredible – and it felt like I was being pounded on the head with a great big hammer. Zenith pulled two clips off his jacket and threw them to me. The machine gun was smoking, and when I opened it I burned my fingers. The clips were heavy; I inserted one and in a few seconds I was shooting again. A few Arabs tried to climb up, others ran down; amidst all the chaos, I was able to knock down about ten of them. The mountain was steep, and they didn't have enough space to set up a firing position. I could see their rifle ammo exploding upon contact with the bullets, and then the enemies' bodies falling off the mountain like stones swept up in an avalanche.

Suddenly we saw a bright light that illuminated the sky like daylight. Moscow barely made it in time to shout:

‘RPG!'

Suddenly everything I could see with my right eye turned blinding white, like when you look at the sun for a long time with dark sunglasses on and then quickly turn away and try to look somewhere else. There was a violent explosion on the wall behind us, and our backs were pummelled with boiling stones. The impact was so strong
that for a second I felt like my whole body was made of cotton – I had become light and soft, I couldn't even manage to keep my hand on the trigger . . . Moscow had a small flaming rock on his shoulder; seeing such solid material catch fire was impressive. Zenith had his head down, his hands over his ears, his mouth open and his eyes wide. The Arabs started shooting a few tracer bullets, trying to correct their aim in order to send over another grenade.

So I pointed the machine gun at the mountain and without ever taking my eye off the scope I unloaded the rest of the magazine, following every human figure that came into my sight. I couldn't remember with any precision where the RPG blast had come from, nor did I know what my comrades were doing at that moment. I was in a state of complete confusion . . . My head hurt like hell, every little noise irritated me, but I kept shooting anyway, changing my clip again, working like a robot. We could hear some people shouting and others sobbing, desperate . . . The cries of the wounded seemed so close that if you closed your eyes you could imagine them next to you. I looked through the scope, searching for movement, but nobody had been responding to the fire for some time. So I began shooting at the bodies strewn along the path until there was an explosion – I must have hit the RPG rounds or the mortar shells.

I stopped and closed my eyes. I was thirsty. My mouth was so dry that when I opened it to take in some air, my lips cracked; running my tongue over them, I could taste blood. That brought me back to reality. All three
of us were lying flat next to one another, breathing hard.

Zenith, who was on my right, was covered in shells from the machine gun. He got up and made the sign of the cross, then he looked at me with a smile and a crazed look in his eyes.

Moscow, as if he had just woken up from a nightmare, leapt to his feet, gave me a kick on the side and yelled:

‘Let's move! Come on, we have to tell the guys!'

Then he hurried off to reach our group. I pulled myself up too and followed. Zenith came last; he hadn't hooked the machine gun stand very well, so it had opened and was making a lot of noise, bumping against the barrel.

I wasn't thinking about anything. I felt good, like I had freed myself from something that had been tormenting me for a long time. Our captain often said that was what winning felt like. Running back to the rest of the unit, though, I felt less and less protected, as if at any moment a bullet could hit me in the back.

At some point, Moscow turned around and yelled to me:

‘Fucking whore of a war, we did it!'

We saw them from afar, running towards us; after hearing the gunfire, they had decided to come and help us. It was Nosov and Shoe, with their rifles levelled.

‘Saboteurs here! Identify yourselves!'

‘Ivanisch, it's us!' Moscow yelled.

‘We heard an explosion, what was it?' Shoe asked, lowering his gun.

Moscow was all excited, like a happy child:

‘Thirty-four Czechs with two mules and two mortars! Fuck, we took them all out!'

‘Move, move, let's go!' Nosov ordered the rest of the group. He didn't want us to stop; we had to get out of those mountains as quickly as possible.

It was good for me to see my comrades' faces. As always, after getting through danger, it was like seeing family; I wanted to hug them all, greet each one, ask how they were . . . After an especially stressful action, I got too sentimental.

Nosov continued questioning us:

‘Did you make sure there weren't any others? Are you sure you killed them all?'

Moscow repeated his version like a broken record:

‘We took them all out, every single one of them . . .'

And then, short of breath from running, he started recounting every detail of our action. I asked for something to drink and an explorer gave me his water bottle. I took big gulps and found the water so good I almost felt inebriated. After a few minutes we came to the spot where we had been shooting earlier. The ground was covered in shells, and that particular point on the road, now that our group was all together, seemed much smaller than when there were only three of us just minutes before. On the side of the mountain above us was the huge hole made by the RPG. Looking at it, I thought how lucky we'd been – if the round had hit just a few metres lower
the falling rock would have killed us . . . I felt strangely relieved, as if all the bad things that still awaited us were contained within that hole in the rock.