Distant Taps The Woodpecker
Part 5
For the legionnaires of the newly-formed International Legion, it was a time for waiting, repairing, healing, questioning, sometimes blaming, under breath or officially, and for drinking too much. That time after battle, when one discovers they are still alive, still had all limbs, but then after, the realisation that not all made it, a slow, unmitigated aftermath, when emotion is felt but not seen. Then, finally, and not easily, sleep takes over, again, when it can, as another layer of defence, so that soon, everything is ok once more, and even balanced, almost.
Someone was playing Jimi Hendrix, Voodoo Child, which fit too well somehow, added a false nostalgic, even pseudo-romantic paradigm to the permanet tiredness that had crept in, under the door, with the evening chill, and still there in the morning among the trees that had not flourished with leaves yet. Then it was Gimmie Shelter, by the Rolling Stones, which fit even better in tired minds. What kind of music did the Russians play, when they were turning Afghanistan inside out, or Angola, where their presence did not make world news, along with Cubans and Yugoslavs. Did they have protest music, like Bob Dylan, and others? Did they have any music at all connected to their wars, when they rode into other countries? With their newly-formed Afrika Corps fighting in Ukraine they were probably in for a shock. Or were the vodka-soaked thugs kept well apart from the Corps judging by what had been fed into the grapevine, that they did not want their elite African mercenaries from the huge slums of Liberia, mixing with their own elite failures from the krokodil-soaked ghettos of Siberia.
Nyine walked down a grassy bank of a small river. She turned her palms upwards and whispered an early morning tribute to nature, to the sun that rose. Looking around, she slipped off her boots and socks, trousers and T shirt, and waded into the cold water, and the sunlight broke between the branches and buds of the trees lining the banks, and she repeated this the following day, then as early as she could after sunrise, feeling an inner warmth settle, noticing the buds turning into leaves and recognising the morning bird calls and the fresh aroma in the air as the day woke up.
Some days the air raid warning would be blaring, and now and then they were subject to missile attacks, and she would rush back from the river in case they had been detailed for duty. She was still wet from the water, wrapped in towels, when there was a call for a small team, for an evacuation from Bakhmut, further south.
‘It’s from an aid agency, who were contacted from Poland, to help evacuate a blind woman,’ Apricot said, reading in English with heavy accent. ‘We need one medic, two drivers, three to provide cover, two cars.’
Toffee was not going, nor Crockett. Who was going, those more expendable or less? In this war one did not reason why. Her team inluded a sniper, the Lithuanian, plus a Canadian, and Ukrainian medic with two drivers. It was all very laudible stuff, but Nyine wondered what their core mission was, why everything was ad-hoc, and who had ordered such an expensive task as this one, driving across Ukraine to save one single person, blind or not. Or was she just being callous, unfair? She’d only just come up from Odesa. Long train ride, middle of a war: not one minute late. The old fellow Nyine sat with kept forcing salami on her. Made by his wife. Oh? Where was she? Stupid question. Died at her post. In hospital with her patients. Well, technically she was retired. But you know...yeah. She meant yeah, she knew.
When they arrived the train station had no platform. Well, it did, just not where she jumped off. If she had not sunk a bottle of Odesan red wine over the 13 hour journey she might have noticed. Actually, it was two bottles they shared on the long train ride. So how could it be that the train tracks were still so even right next to the bomb crater, even after two bottles of wine? Well the answer is obvious: they spent all night fixing them. Or maybe two nights, or three, and a day too. But they fixed them. They fixed them better than little old Heidi’s grandfather used to fix watches. And it very rarely took more than one night, anyway.
Waiting for the train were some children, and some adults. But the children did not belong to the adults, and the adults barely had any children with them. Bombing does that. They didn't talk. She met some eyes, but even though they looked in Nyine’s direction, what did they see? What did they see? What did Nyine see? She didn't know. She was now standing on the edge herself. No, not on the edge of the platform. It was no longer there anyway. She was just standing. Somewhere. About to fall in the deep hole. A deep hole inside her that sometimes broadened and she fought to fill with early morning swims in freezing cold water, when she felt that inner energy again.
So how did they feel, at the train station, with fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters no longer there? Stupid question. In this war, all questions are stupid. But there are a hundred questions a minute anyway. Imagine, never needing to ask how many were killed, who they were, and where, everyday, Nyine mused. Unlike some more narcissistic societies, Ukraine had no time, in its history to be privileged, or feel entitled, and those that came to Ukraine to fight, at least the vast majority, tended to be the opposites of narcissists. Not the ones found fondling donations in bars, no. The ones fighting and dying in the sun, dried mud, diesel, and dust. She laughed, bitterly, a step away from loudly. Just one step. One step before being declared a bit risky, that one: keep her in your sights, she may lose it, you know. That sort of stuff.
The moon was yellow, but the moonlight blue. Nyine was in the saddest place in Europe. The international brigade had been formed to take on the tyrant’s thugs, and already she felt familiar in the company of poets, sinners, adventurers, dreamers, and others as yet unlabelled. It became very serious very quick. Who was to be shot first? Who next, or who won’t be, no matter what, until one day… They had all sized each other up. Would we have each other’s back, each other thought.
She left at dawn with the Lithuanian. The Ukrainian drivers and medic had volunteered. They volunteered, even when busy at the front, when they had some free time they used it to volunteer to fetch a blind woman in a block of flats, terrorised by the war, with relatives in Poland. Only a couple of hours drive, that distance, they were told. When they started there had been heavy shelling, and the shelling got more and more precise. The two Ukrainian drivers swerved when there was an explosion and dodged gaping holes in the road. In journeys like that conversation is not necessary, and much is done with hand signals. The driver, a bear of a Ukrainian, knew his stuff, and even smiled at some explosions that counted as near misses. They raced on, the Canadian-Ukrainian sitting next to the driver putting hand down in karate chop signals at crossroads to show the direction. Behind them the other car followed either at a large distance, so far that in the smoke and confusion Nyine thought they had lost them, but they would suddenly appear again, too close, metres from them at high speed.
At this speed over rough terrain burst tyres were common, and they slowed down quickly when they seemed out of danger, but it was too late for the car behind that suddenly veered out of control and stopped, the front tyre at the left in shreds. It was a terrible spot, in open field, burnt out trucks and tanks scattered around. The Lithuanian got out of the car behind, joining the Ukrainian driver to assess the situation. Inside the car the third Ukrainian, who’d come back to Ukraine to fight from where he lived in Slovakia, sat on the phone, speaking.
‘He’s a target for drones staying in the car like that,’ Nyine said, her rising nervousness in her voice.
‘We all are,’ the Lithuanian replied. An armoured car was coming, Nyine understood. Was the mission aborted?
‘Get away from the car,’ the Canadian-Ukrainian said to the occupants of the second car. ‘Come with us, we need firepower, he said to the Lithianan, and Nyine jumped in the back seat again with him and they sped off, leaving the second vehicle alone on the road with the doors open, and as they looked back, they saw a sudden orange flash as the car errupted into flames.
‘Drone hit!’ the Lithuanian said.
‘Hope they were far, in the ditches,’ said Nyine, craning round.
‘Yeah.’
‘We’re next guys, eyes peeled’ the Canadian-Ukrainian shouted, as the driver again gunned the motor, pulling at his beard with his left hand, in a sign of nervousness or habit, Nyine was not sure. She scoured the skies, mouth dry, stomach knotted. The Lithuanian sat with unlit cigarette in mouth, and the two in front sat hunched, staring out of the windscreen, as they entered the outskirts of Bakhmut and thick black smoke.
‘What was I thinking?’ the canadian-Ukrainian muttered. Nobody knew. Nobody in the car knew, or the universe itself. But if he was talking about volunteering for this mission into absurdity, nobody else in the car knew why there were there either.
They arrived into the hell that was the blind woman’s appartment block, standing behind a mass of broken glass, of bits of furniture, teddy bears and clothes that had plummeted from apartments without front walls.
‘12th floor,’ said the Ukrainian, still at the wheel of the car, as the backdrops of shots, explosions and rockets bounced through the mostly empty buildings.
‘Ok, let’s go,’ Nyine said to the Lithuanian, strapping her helmet on, ‘let’s do it, quick.’
‘I come,’ the Ukrainian said.
They sprinted out of the car into the doorway, running on the broken glass andpieces of aluminium and concrete, straight gto the staircases, rifles in hand, running ever upwards, panting, round staircase after staircase, at last at the 12th floor. The Ukrainian driver banged on the three doors there, shouting loudly. They waited. He banged again with his fist on the wooden doors the metals railings on the concrete staircase seeming to shake. Then a door opened, and a middle-aged woman, stoop staring vacantly, fear on her face as bombs started to pour. They were two. Her neighbout, with her, carrying a bag. Was the neighbout coming? One did not ask such silly questions.
Nyine grabbed the hand of the blind woman. ‘It’s ok, it’s ok,’ she repeated, in English. The blind woman nodded. A rocket hit the apartment block and the ladey with the bag started to scream. The Ukrainian grabbed her, motioned to the Lithuanian to grab her other arm, and they walked her to the stairs, as her bag tumbled downwards, and Nyine followed with the blind woman, gingerly, step by step, as the building shook with explosion after explosion. When they arrived at the ground floor there was no car.
‘We are fucked,’ the Lithuanian stated, simply, as they stood, small figures under a black, billowing sky among the charred remains of civilisation.
There never was an explanation when the Canadian-Ukrainian turned up again, after nearly half an hour. No swearing, no questions, no stares. They sat three in front and three behind, Nyine with the two women, the blind woman gripping the car door with white knuckles and her neighbout next to her, sobbing. It was already getting dark when they started off out of the outskirts of Bakmut again, and there, in the cramped car Nyine opened a small book and mumbled the first verse to herself she found:
Where is it, the long dark shadow I normally wear Dropped from my shoulders from where it hung Ripped, shredded, like spring recovering From a winter too strong Oh my dears I've tried antidotes and cures To shake off this curse first picked up in trenches And a few notorious red-lit sreets herewith censured Or fight-a-night bars ran by admirable wenches Ah that cloak of darkness that I thought my past Perhaps it merely grew too heavy to bear Carrying its quotas of broken hearts an' other such wares And other such memories long dispersed
Back at what they called base, she tried all night to sleep, and early in the morning, after her latest plunge in the ice-cold river she saw a tattoo shop, with the window blown out. The tattoo artist was inside, standing among the broken glass, eyes wet with tears.
‘Tomorrow, put a tattoo of the tryzub on my arm,’ she said to her.
‘Thank you,’ the tattoo artist replied, and picked up a broom to brush her shop floor clear of glass shards.
‘See you in the morning,’ Nyine told her.
‘If we are alive,’ she heard her say, quietly, as the glass tinkled under the brush.
What do you say to that? Nothing. So nothing was said. No questions, or any vagaries. Minds were so full, anyway, who knows what grief, anger, hurt dismay would pour out if one started, and that was not fair on anyone. So keeping quiet and dealing with the basics, like soap, coffee, new gloves, for gloves were always lost worked better, and tattoos, yes tattoos, just kept things rolling a little more smoother, and also trying to avoid the consistency of news, for the news was like a runaway train, hurtling forward, with nothing that could stop it, onwards, through the day and night, news that let people breathe, maybe even smile, distantly, absent-mindly but not always much else. Even the good news was tragic. Liberating Bucha had been vital, but it revealed the utter horror of Russian occupation.
Today’s news was that 11 more Georgians had been killed. 11 more beautiful, warm, emotional and generous Georgians, neighbours to the non-existent state of Circassia, who fought for Ukraine with all of their hearts.
They hate us, yet we are here to liberate them, intercepted Russian phone calls back to mothers, wives, neighbours, drinking partners kept repeating.
Hurt them more until they understand, the mothers said.
Rape them, torture them, said the wives, they’ll soon shut up.
Did you find money, gold, valuables? Neighbours asked,
I got a toilet, real porcelein, more than one Russian soldier replied.
A toilet? How do you get a toilet back to Russia? What were tanks for, if not for that? At least until...in Belarus, now a huge market of stolen goods from Ukraine. Everything can be found. Literally everything. And what was not sold at this wonderful. Huge market was sent back to muddy villages and polluted cities throughout mother Russia, by a willing Russian post offices that offered extra special rates, and stole much of the already stolen merchandise.
Ukrainians were very different, more circumspect, bashful, struggling with their feelings, with the adaption needed to live in a country permanently at war. How did one act? What kind of veneer of normality must one maintain? What to think of those who had fled, or those who hid, to not be called up to fight, of those who claimed to be friends but sent the bare minimum of aid, or those distant relatives in Russia who’d used their hospitality when they used to come on holidays but now hung up their phone on calls, or the Russian neighbours who came and raped, looted, ransacked, tortured, executed, bombed, droned, missiled, mowed down prisoners of war, burnt and mined forests and land, specifically to kill children?
At Odesa market Nyine had hugged a woman selling a few secondhand T shirts, happy her daughter had been able to get to the United States, but who burst into tears at the thought of the horror that was Putin, and she had shared home-made pomegranate wine at a stand with Georgians, and then felt that Ukraine was the right place to be, the most honest place, where she had shed all from her that served nothing, and had found comfort as well as terror in this war, in this sum of all things where nothing was vague anymore, and everything that was right made sense, and things of beauty like poetry, music, art, flowers and love were really beautiful, and when she climbed up the grassy bank from her cold early morning swim, she saw a woman with thick brown hair, brown eyes, olive skin sitting on a bench in battle fatigues watching her, with a wry smile of amusement.
‘Hi, I’m from Brazil,’ the woman said: I am part Indian, a little part of the Amazon, my name is Spirit. I am your new spotter.’
‘Sounds good,’ replied Nyine, she hoped enthusiastically, but she feared blandly, ‘you were waiting for me?’
‘I have a car,’ said Spirit in reply.
‘I am Sufi,’ Nyine said, sticking out her hand.
‘I know.’
‘Of course.’
Hands on the driving wheel in her army green painted old Mazda 3 she’d parked close to the train tracks, next to a small concrete fence, Spirit looked at her and tilted her head: ‘First, you need a manicure, and pedicure I think, and a good hairdressers, then, I will teach you samba, to keep your sensuality and femininity.’
‘If you help me hit Russians I will submit to all that,’ smiled Nyine.
‘Oh we will get them, for sure,’ Spirit said, as she jammed her foot onto the accelerator and sped off into the street, then suddenly screeching to a halt:
‘Look, a cosmetician, still open, even with broken front window!’
‘Spirit, let’s get to base.’
‘I read that Circassian women were known to be the beautiful, and I see is true,’ answered Spirit, ‘let us get you pampered, your nails, and everything.’
Nyine sighed.
‘You never know, you may find a very nice harem to join,’ Spirit teased, you must be prepared!’
‘I see you have been reading all kinds of things about Circassia,’ Nyine laughed, as she let herself be dragged into Nymph Cosmeticians.
Nyine would like it here, I thought, as I prepared coffee with a small gas cooker. The hammock was up between two sturdy alders, and Irina’s tent was safely ensconced in bushes with Bunny’s and a few others. We had spades, but the water table in Polesia was high. And we were a moveable group.
Irina was sitting at the entrance to her small tent, boots and thick socks off, rubbing her foot.
‘You call me Irina,’ she said across the small clearing to me.
‘Yeah, sorry, you keep reminding me of another Irina from the book I mentioned, also a ballet dancer, Tokaj.’
‘Ah, that’s better!’ she clapped her hands.
You have rubber shoes too?’
‘I do, I just thought we’d be walking a long way to camp.’
She got up and walked gingerly through the grass, then on pebbles towards the river.
‘Watch out for piranhas,’ I said.
‘And you watch out for ex-ballet dancers!’
Overhead there was a sudden rushing sound of two jets, flying quite low. We both froze for a minute as they flew overhead and away, circled and came back in our direction.
‘They don’t dare stay long over Ukraine.’
‘They didn’t need to.’
We watched the jets as they arched around again, then one fired a missile past us, overhead, then another, and the second jet did the same.
‘SU-27 fighter jets. Bastards,’
‘You know your planes.’
‘I do, yes,’ said Tokaj, quietly, ‘many Ukrainians already do, but I have some experience.’
‘They came in from Belarus?’
‘It looks like it.’
‘Hard to know the target.’
‘Probably a small village house or two, or maybe the trenches in the formal rows of front lines back there.’
‘Yeah, could be.’
There was a further loud rumble then two more jets suddenly flew overhead, a hundred metres or so above us, and jettisoned their missiles before banking sharply and turning back in the direction they came.
‘Would be nice to be able to shoot them down,’ said Tokaj, like an ex-ballerina does.
‘I don’t understand the purpose of these sorties,’ I said, grabbing the fishing rod.
‘I have ecalyptus oil,’ said Tokaj. ‘Later you can tell me about Irina, the ballerina.’
‘Snow gum ecalyptus trees might be a good thing to plant here, to suck up the swamp, and reduce the mosquito population.’
‘Toxic to many animals though.’
‘And to Russians?’
‘All that is good is toxic to Russians.’
Bunny’s shirt was unbuttoned to the navel in the heat. Underneath she wore a pink and black polkadotted bra. I had to smile. Wireman was admiring his wire collection, and Raven drew up silently to the bank with her kayak, slipping out and walking towards us and shoving him on the back with her foot as she walked back.
‘Hey!’ he said.
‘Not all catepillars want to be butterflies,’ said Bunny.
Hot Dog was cooking with Tokaj and others. It all looked like a family picnic, except that everyone was in variants of green in the forest, our forest that protected us, hid us, fed us and nurtured us. The reason Ebola, and Marburg virus among others did not spread is because of the forest. The reason many diseases do not spread is due to forests. When deforestration advances at alarming rates, ebola occurs, specifically after heavy rain. Forests also stem the spread of disease: it is simply not feasible to travel quickly through dense jungle, in an area where roads themselves are not paved. But generally lack of trees means more chance of stagnant water, and if not more chance, at least near to civilisation. which mean more likelihood of malaria.
In the morning the cloud of mosquitos slowly dissipated, and with them stale thoughts of the previous day and long night. Raven and Hot Dog prepared to launch a spotter drone, a small FPV. Others were taking to the river as planned to go further north into Polesia, past the border, for recon and surveillance. Coffee was boiling somewhere in a pot in the bushes nearby, a couple of birds chirped periodicaly, and it almost felt an alligator might slide up the river bank to have a look at any moment. Instead, Wireman strolled up.
‘Want to buy any cosmetics?’ he said, unfolding a sheet on the ground, with a collection of toiletries; ‘from my last trip.’
I saw a can of shaving foam, toothpaste, antiperspirant, shower gel and a few other assorted bits and pieces, and shook my head. Wireman had clearly made contact last night. They were there, somewhere in the forest, this jungle right in the middle of Europe, but obviously badly-trained, considering all I had allowed was soap without fragrance or pine soap, natural frayed twigs and toothbrushes, no shaving and other limitations. Bunny had questioned this:
‘A warrior must be at his best before conquest,’ she’d said, rather cheekily.
‘And alive after battle,’ Raven had retorted, in a sneering tone.
‘Now you can go into battle,’ said Spirit, ‘and join only the best harem at the highest court.’
‘I cannot join any harem Spirit, first there are none now, and no country of mine left, either, but mainly because my heart belongs to only one man, who will not need a harem.’
‘Then we must stay alive, in this war,’ Spirit said, linking her arm in hers as they walked back to her car.
‘And win.’
‘And win, yes.’
Past the piles of rubble and mounds of dirt they drove, silence reigning again, seeking the relief of seeing buildings standing, and hearing the crunch of broken glass under car tyres, a crunch of the different sound than pebbles, or dirt.
‘Let us hope never to get a puncture!’
‘Among other hopes, yes.’
‘Bakhmut,’ said the commanding officer, as to the question asked.
‘Where’s that?’
‘Just down the road, champagne-making town.’
‘Never heard of Bakhmut champagne.’
‘Many never heard of Melitopol cherries, Mariupol Greek food, Avdiivka salt, Uzhhorod sakura blossoms, Lviv chocolates , world’s first gas lamps, most digital society.’
‘We need teams to take out any reconnaissance teams coming into Sievierodonetsk, and other towns around. We have drones, but we need good marksmen, he turned, and women, then we’ll be swapping over with another unit, heading to Bakhmut, for an easier time.’.
Up in an empty apartment they sat. Just two of them, among spent cartridges that now and then they put in careful piles, when they had the time.
‘So who is the one who has your heart,’ Spirit whispered.
Nyine kept her gaze on the smouldering town, where birds barely flew around anymore, nor alight on burnt, broken walls and charred trees, fences, roofs She knew she would never leave this place. Called Ukraine, that was more than a country, it sat between the shoulder blades somewhere, like an extra organ, that made tears fall, smiles light up, and caused longing, love, and fortitude. The country was the yin and yang of Europe, a reason, a destiny, an identity, but an identity never savoured fully, never openly expressed. There were Ukrainians who used to use Russian all the time but now spoke only in Ukrainian. Why had they not before. It was a mystery.
‘We have been here too long. We should move,’ said Nyine, ‘I will tell you, not here.’
‘We will become a target for sure,’ Spirit said.
Nyine watched the birds, few as they were, for any sudden chirping or movement.
‘In the Amazon, if we see a white bird, we know it is there to guide us away from danger,’ Spirit said, so watch for when a white bird rises and spreads its wings.’
‘Ready,’ said Nyine, ‘let’s move, quickly, if you are talking like that, it is a sign we must move.’
‘Yes, Sufi.’
‘Don’t forget to relay our movement when you can Spirit, no need to get shot by our own brothers,’ Nyine added, collecting gloves and ammunition.
‘Careful you don’t break your new fingernails,’ Spirit smiled, securing her pistol, binoculars and picking up the drone and tablet.
‘Got you!’ Nyine shouted, lying in the rubble, elbow down, training her Lapua rifle on the street; ‘Go!’
Spirit sprinted across the street, bag over one shoulder, pistol in hand, slipping once, jumping over bits of twisted metal, arriving to the green door they had marked as the way into the building.
‘Locked!’ she panted, and banged the door again with her left hand, holding her gun.
Second entrance, Spirit, come on! Nyine thought, training her rifle again on the street, looking through the scope, carefully, carefully, everywhere, each window, the street, each door, the street, building roofs, the streets.
A sudden kick of dust next to her hip, and she rolled back behind the building on her right.
‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ she muttered.
The clang of a high velocity bullet on metal made her flinch, and a second, third, fourth clang! They were hitting that green door! But she did not dare move, did not dare look around the corner. She knew she would have the top of her head blown off if she did. There was a second thing she knew. Spirit was a goner. A sitting duck. Exposed just a few seconds too long. A friendship extinguished, a team snapped in half. She felt alone, suddenly. A rising panic. Breathed deep, and slow. Once more. Deep, slowly. But she was angry now. Very angry. Spirit’s death would be avenged. She would hunt them down. She would.
She scuttled back into firing position, inched forward to the corner of the building, but still out of view, maybe. Perhaps. Legs rubbing against the gravel, knees, shins, inner thighs, rubbing forward, elbows painful at every move. She knew if she could get a view round the corner she would find Spirit crumpled in the street. Her training told her to know. She whispered a silent prayer, an homage, wished for the cover of trees, her sanctuary, the forest, where even during war time, even if mined, it was still possible to find the elixir of tranquility.
It was her fault. Accidents need two or more things to align to happen. She had not covered Spirit properly; had not spot-checked carefully enough. Why would that door be unlocked Spirit had run to? Because it was green? She should have waited. Mapped it out better. Found somewhere. Gone first. But she was out in the open now, a sitting target for anyone behind her in the street at a right angle. She rolled on her back. Had a look, a glance, a perusal even. She was vulnerable, very vulnerable, alone, on the street, somewhere near Russian reconnaissance forces, except that they were also rapists, torturers and executioners. The sounds of war drifted in and out of focus, mortars being shot. The cracking thud of a building being hit. Gunfire, sporadic. She thought of the Carpathians, the tall spruce trees, pines, oaks, stately beech trees. And she felt her love rush for him, a love of tragic proportions, a love that would never end even if she had only minutes to spare out on this dusty street, marked by the horror of war, with rubble dotted along tank tracks that had churned up the tar. But no bodies, no bodies, yet.
There was a thud, thud. Thud. Closer. Marks in the tarmac, near her back. A large calibre round, sniper, but normally a calibre looking to pierce armour. From where? Where? She pulled herself up. Ran. Ran from the direction of her colleague, her sister, lying on the street. Had to. A bullet zinged by, causing the air to quiver, like a bow, a taut line from a rifle, up there, somewhere, straight to her head. He was aiming again Would she feel it? Would her bullet proof vest protect her? Would he shoot for her legs, bring her down, taunt her? Too hard to hit. Run, she panted to herself, gasping lungfuls of air, in permanent ache, then diving in a narrow corridor between two buildings, almost before she saw it. Collapsed against a wall. Deep breath. Checked her rifle. Loaded. Checked again, a shiver going through her. Then she finished her prayer for Spirit, quietly, eyes closed, palms upwards.
It was time to call for support, but overhead she heard the heavy chopping sound of a helicopter somewhere nearby, possibly, echoing against the buildings. Surely we can hit that, she thought.
But as the sound of the helicopter echoed and she searched the sky, she saw the FPV drone, like a loud insect, darting between buildings, and another, further down the street. Reluctantly, Nyine grabbed rifle and back and sprinted back in the direction she came. Carelessly, recklessly, as she started to lose faith in ability to survive. She saw steps to a basement and open door, but did not take them.
One grenade chucked down there and I am done. She thought. Then she saw two children at the door below her, two lovely kids, scared, bewildered, frozen, hoping.
Stay, stay,’ she rasped, panting, voice hoarse and full of dust, arm outstretched towards them, palm up.
Oh the roses when they perfume, they perfume for all, but only those with clear hearts know the perfume is love,’ she recited between her teeth , a sufi incantation, coughing again, and saw an open doorway two blocks in front of her. She kept her eyes on the door as she pressed herself behind a drainpipe, bullets spitting around her, then a mortar, close, and another one, whistling in, explosion, a great heave of dirt and shrapnel peppering too close to her.
‘For the rose opens to share all that is love, thorns only for those who want to own the rose.’
Then it happened. It happened like this: Nyine ran up stairs, then the next floor of corner tower, arriving on the 2nd floor, and immediately kicking it open, hard. Spirit was lying on the floor, bullet proof vest shredded at the back, eyes closed and pale. Nyine dropped rifle and back, ripped gloves off and knelt beside her, feeling for her pulse, then pushing her on her back, saw the equally blown apart bullet proof vest over her chest, pinched her nose, opened her jaw and brought her mouth to hers.
‘We got a problem,’ Raven said quietly, at my left shoulder.
‘Yes?’
‘Wireman has brought us a guest.’
‘A guest?’ I turned, ‘what kind of guest’
‘A POW kind of guest. He ran out of wires.’
‘A gesture of humanity. Told me the problem was he was all heart.’
‘And no brains,’ I said.
‘We can feed him to the sharks, capn.’
‘Funny, Raven.’
‘Jean Mi took him in,’ Wireman said behind Raven. ‘He was fishing.’
‘I see.’
‘We had to grab him, he saw us coming around the bend.’
‘Grab him, in full saylight?’
‘Not exactly. Jean Mi asked him if he had a fishing permit. He said no. Told him he had to come with us then. He put his submachine gun in the canoe and came with us. Of course I took his machine gun, after a moment.’
‘Of course.’
‘If they did they saw him get in the canoe voluntarily, that we were not armed.’
‘What about the green tape?’
‘Jackets were not on. I had a vest, Jean Mi a T shirt.’
The prisoner was Congolese.
‘Give your details and get some sleep,’ I told him in French.
‘Name,’ I heard Jean Mi say.
‘Don’t sell him the canoe,’ I told him.
Mtabe spoke. ‘In the Congo nothing sleeps,’ he said, meaning not only in the big, sprawling hulk of the cities like Kinsasha and other masses, cities that do not sleep in wholy opposite ways that New York famously does not, for in the cities of Congo, one finds the true land of opportunity, meaning naked, bare, very rare opportunity, stripped of any glamorous accompaniments, for Congo’s opportunity means the opportunity of finding food, or the right medicaments at an affordable price. These kind of opportunities do not come if one is resting. And they are more rare than the diamonds or other minerals mined 24 hours a day in far-flung areas throughout the country, and further, as the Congo rainforest spreads through six countries. This was the true home of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, in the Congo forest, the earth’s second lung, after the Amazon, and nearly as large. And yet, as Marlow, in Heart of Darkness, escaping death from illness, witnessing the horror, laments what we call the civilised world. Heart of Darness is at the very least a book about the Congo itself, and the overbearing need for the white man to control the environment itself, and therefore descend into pitiful, brutal imperialism, the thin veneer of European identity and civilisation stripped off and laid to bare.
That is all fine and well, but what about the local people of the Congo rainforest. The damages — barbaric mass murder and mutilation endure in the eyes of inhabitants to this day. It will take more than a few generations to get over what the Europeans did to the Congo. And as always, as I remembered from the Darien Gap, it is the settlements furthest from the mass sprawl of today’s version of civilisation that fare the best, unless they happen to be in the latest war zone, and if there was ever a call for a lack of surface infrastructure in the jungle, that is one. And was that my future, to be turned into some kind of Kurtz, or from Apocalypse Now. Maybe I needed to follow Bunny’s advice, in her Tarzan suggestion.
Mtabe sat silently for a while, hands unbound by Bunny.
‘No coffee?’ he said.
Coffee was the least of worries. We had not planned on taking prisoners, just had not entered our simple minds. More than unusually, it had entered Wireman’s.
What happens to me?’ he asked.
Just don’t tell us some crap story about being a student in Moscow and not knowing what you are doing,’ Raven said, looking at him with steely eye, cause then I do not know what I will do.’
Take that crazy woman away from me,’ Mtabe said.
‘You just lost your coffee,’ I told him.
‘We are in a difficult position with that guy,’ Raven said.
‘You took his phone, broke it?’ I said.
‘Yeah, first thing, is at the bottom of some creek somewhere.’
‘Need me to coax information from him?’ Bunny said.
‘Let you know, Bunny, thanks.’
Mtabe started coughing, then spat on the ground.
‘Maybe I got ebola,’ he said.
‘Ain’t gonna work, man,’ Raven said, in broken French.
‘There are bats here, in this forest.’
‘Still not gonna work.’
I looked at Mtabe. Like the Ebola virus in Africa and the Nipah virus in Asia, covid originated in bats. Samples of the coronavirus from patients in Wuhan, where it is said the corona virus originated, were compared to stocks of known viruses, with a match of very close to 100% with a virus found in horseshoe bats, meaning that genetically they had to have a common ancestor, spreading either from bats to people or through another animal in-between, of which there were many in the market where the virus is said to originate from.
In previous coronaviruses, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), from 2002–2003, a bat coronavirus jumped to civets, a member of the mongoose family, and was sold to at markets and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), in 2012, a coronavirus jumped from bats to camels to people who maybe drank raw camel milk or ate undercooked meat. The next virus will do the same process. Bats carry many viruses; over 130 have been found, and at least some of these spread to people, and bats and people come into contact, either as food, or simply because there are billions of bats and more than 1,300 different species, roosting in large, crowded colonies. The different bat species live in caves, hollowed out trees, or abandoned buildings. The bats are found in groups up to the millions, where viruses pass between them easily.
They live for more than 30 years so can be infected and infected for a long time, but bats are not affected by these viruses. A bat’s temperature rises to over 37.778°C when flying, and its heart rate can increase to more than 1,000 beats per minute, both too much to survive for most animals. Their special immune systems seem to have developed to counteract the viruses: Their bodies make molecules that other mammals don’t have, which help repair cell damage. Their systems don’t overact to infections, which stops them from getting ill from the many viruses they carry and prevents conditions like diabetes and cancer. It is not always the virus itself but the body’s response to the virus that makes us ill. Even though bats may be the source of viruses that affect humans, they could also be the source of potential therapies if we study their immune systems.
‘Actually the Congo rainforest itself is one reason why ebola never spread far,’ Raven said. ‘Is pretty different from a big city with everyone living close to each other. Bats decamp if an area is sprayed with eucalyptus oil, or cinnamon powder, though vampire bats’ saliva increases blood flow in stroke patients, just in case,’ Raven said.
‘A vampire would know,’ said Bunny.
Spirit coughed. Spluttered. Coughed again, hacking away.
Nyine pulled off her flak jacket, over her shoulders. Her T shirt was muddy with blood. She drew a knife and slit it open, cut her bra off. Stomach dark. Dried blood. She checked her breasts, wiped with her thumb. Looked like no cuts, holes. Her brown nipples hardened.
Checked her stomach. Small cuts, bruises. Reached for her medical kit. Was about to turn her over and check her back.
‘Well,’ Spirit said quietly eyes open, ‘that is a surprise.’
‘Stay with me, Spirit,’ Nyine said.
‘You are a good kisser,’ Spirit said, pity no beard.’
‘Let me check your back.’
She sat Spirit up against the wall.
Looks good.’
‘Yes, I had compliments on my back,’ Spirit wheezed. Only hurts when I laugh,’ she said quietly, voice strained.
‘I need to check our surroundings,’ Nyine said, picking up her rifle, putting the scope on, as the evening dusk settled, to the background of distant gunfire, explosions, bright orange, randomly, some near, others far.
‘Sufi,’ Spirit said, wincing, ‘you need to get out of here, I think it is too painful, for me to move.’
‘Yeah, right, sister.’
‘Really.’
‘It is not the thorns that attracts the soft of heart to the rose, but its beauty that stays with us,’ said Nyine.
‘Sufi, I have a very bad feeling about this place, you must leave,’ Spirit said.
‘We. We must.’
‘I have premonitions, it is not the frst time.’
‘We will leave when you are ready. Call for support.’
‘There is serious danger. We must go from this tower, and get support elsewhere.’
‘Call now.’
It was over a month later that Nyine read the report, about the outnumbered platoon of International Legionnaires from US, Canada, France and GB, almost surrounded when pinned down by heavy fire from Russian forces who were at times only 10 metres away. A squad of Belarus volunteers, fighting on the Ukrainian side, were able to take out a tank about to target their stronghold in the tower. During the escape downstairs Jordan Gatley, only 21 years old and a Ukrainian soldier were hit and killed.
Emotions sprout from interoception, an awareness of what is happening within us. A panic attack causes acute awareness of our heartbeat. People with post traumatic stress disorder experience reduced interoceptive awareness. People with anxiety disorder are bothered with interospective feelings of tension, headaches, fatigue gastrointestinal problems and pain. Those who are depressed also exhibit a lack of awareness of heart beat or other functions. People with Somatic Symptom Disorder, where mental issues manifest themselves as physical symptoms greatly benefit from a task like forestbathing, that focuses on being at one with the nature around them. Nyine and Spirit were in Bakhmut a month later, a city of tree stumps that looked like blackened teeth ripped out of an ugly, great, gawping mouth, a city of broken windows, broken walls, broken legs, arms, and minds. A city where nobody even talked about broken will or not. Things had gone further, much further than that tipping point. As spring turned into summer, the zombies came. Rows upon rows of completely drugged convicts, mowed down, day after day, charging forward even after shot, eyes crazed and objectives not even clear.
Day after day in this murderous soup of flesh, bones, blood and fear, of being pounded hour after hour and by artillery.
And then one day she saw me.
She watched, for a while, through her sights, from the apartment she was in, with Spirit and her team.
‘It is him,’ she’d said, and told me she resisted runnng downstairs, to shout a greeting: ‘you are alive!’ or similar, that one greeted each other with in Ukraine.
Spirit took out a mirror, and catching the sunlight flashed it, once, twice, again, towards the street.