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Authors: John Birmingham
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uncle Bongani while Kono screamed in his face to kill the old man if Yusuf wanted to live.
Of course in those days his name was not Yusuf Mohammed. He did not remember what his name had been when he lived in the village with his mother and uncle and brothers and sisters and all his cousins. He did not remember being happy, but at times even now he assumed he must have been, even if that happiness was born of ignorance.
Yusuf Mohammed forced himself out of the waking nightmare before it could get any worse. And it could get much worse than the memory of his murdering a kindly and much loved uncle just to save his own life. He forced himself to open his senses to the real world even though it was a hell of fire and death. He was surprised to find himself lying on open ground a few feet from his dugout, which was smoking and ruined as though from a bomb blast. His heart, already trip-hammering, lurched sickeningly in his chest as he caught sight of a disembodied arm and a leg trailing the gruesome tendrils of torn flesh and muscle and meat he knew so well from the battlefield. But as he pushed himself up off the ground, he knew they were not his limbs. He was still all in one piece.
His weapon was still secured to him by its strap, but the canvas bag full of magazines was missing, and his chest throbbed with a great dull pain as though he had been struck heavily.
A terrible sound like the clanging of a large metal press brought him further back to his senses as one of the Americans’ Apache helicopters flew overhead, hosing long lines of machine gun fire into an unseen target. A scalding hot rain of empty brass shell cases began to tinkle around him, burning his skin whenever one touched him. Yusuf scrambled to his feet but stayed crouched as low as he could, running for cover into the nearest building. He nearly tripped on the remains of one of his fellow fighters who was lying a few yards away. A head and maybe a third of the upper torso, the rest just viscera and bloody ruin. He thought he recognized Abayneh the Ethiopian. An unbeliever gone to his punishment. He had probably been one of the drunken fools cavorting around the rocket launchers. Why did the emir’s lieutenants allow the consumption of liquor among the janissaries? Among the fedayeen it was strictly forbidden. At the end Abayneh remained a pirate and an ally of convenience, nothing more. Most of the men on the island were like him. Only a handful of the righteous had been salted through their number to stiffen their resolve and attend to the technical aspects of managing the rocket barrage so that it fell as close to the target as possible.
As one of the righteous, Yusuf knew his duty. He rushed toward the nearest building clutching his weapon, his lungs burning as much from the smoke as from the exertion. For the first time since the American counterattack had begun he heard voices, speaking in Arabic. His spirits soared. Some of the fedayeen must have survived and rallied together in this building. He rushed onward, his feet seeming to fly across the ground as a burst of machine gun fire from above scythed down the chest-high grass in front of him. He ran on regardless of the danger. If it was Allah’s will that he should die, then he would die.
But he did not. Diving through a shattered doorway, he found himself inside a large room, empty except for what looked like some desks and chairs that had long ago been pushed into one corner and covered with a heavy dust cloth. He came up out of his roll, clutching his weapon as he had been taught, and found two comrades shouting orders out of a window. It was hard to hear them clearly over the uproar and the clatter of American fire, but merely hearing the familiar sound of their voices was enough to give him heart for the fight.
“Allahu akbar,”
he cried out.
One of the men spun around, pointing his gun at Yusuf but smiling a little wildly, perhaps even crazily, when he saw it was the Ugandan convert.
Of course in those days his name was not Yusuf Mohammed. He did not remember what his name had been when he lived in the village with his mother and uncle and brothers and sisters and all his cousins. He did not remember being happy, but at times even now he assumed he must have been, even if that happiness was born of ignorance.
Yusuf Mohammed forced himself out of the waking nightmare before it could get any worse. And it could get much worse than the memory of his murdering a kindly and much loved uncle just to save his own life. He forced himself to open his senses to the real world even though it was a hell of fire and death. He was surprised to find himself lying on open ground a few feet from his dugout, which was smoking and ruined as though from a bomb blast. His heart, already trip-hammering, lurched sickeningly in his chest as he caught sight of a disembodied arm and a leg trailing the gruesome tendrils of torn flesh and muscle and meat he knew so well from the battlefield. But as he pushed himself up off the ground, he knew they were not his limbs. He was still all in one piece.
His weapon was still secured to him by its strap, but the canvas bag full of magazines was missing, and his chest throbbed with a great dull pain as though he had been struck heavily.
A terrible sound like the clanging of a large metal press brought him further back to his senses as one of the Americans’ Apache helicopters flew overhead, hosing long lines of machine gun fire into an unseen target. A scalding hot rain of empty brass shell cases began to tinkle around him, burning his skin whenever one touched him. Yusuf scrambled to his feet but stayed crouched as low as he could, running for cover into the nearest building. He nearly tripped on the remains of one of his fellow fighters who was lying a few yards away. A head and maybe a third of the upper torso, the rest just viscera and bloody ruin. He thought he recognized Abayneh the Ethiopian. An unbeliever gone to his punishment. He had probably been one of the drunken fools cavorting around the rocket launchers. Why did the emir’s lieutenants allow the consumption of liquor among the janissaries? Among the fedayeen it was strictly forbidden. At the end Abayneh remained a pirate and an ally of convenience, nothing more. Most of the men on the island were like him. Only a handful of the righteous had been salted through their number to stiffen their resolve and attend to the technical aspects of managing the rocket barrage so that it fell as close to the target as possible.
As one of the righteous, Yusuf knew his duty. He rushed toward the nearest building clutching his weapon, his lungs burning as much from the smoke as from the exertion. For the first time since the American counterattack had begun he heard voices, speaking in Arabic. His spirits soared. Some of the fedayeen must have survived and rallied together in this building. He rushed onward, his feet seeming to fly across the ground as a burst of machine gun fire from above scythed down the chest-high grass in front of him. He ran on regardless of the danger. If it was Allah’s will that he should die, then he would die.
But he did not. Diving through a shattered doorway, he found himself inside a large room, empty except for what looked like some desks and chairs that had long ago been pushed into one corner and covered with a heavy dust cloth. He came up out of his roll, clutching his weapon as he had been taught, and found two comrades shouting orders out of a window. It was hard to hear them clearly over the uproar and the clatter of American fire, but merely hearing the familiar sound of their voices was enough to give him heart for the fight.
“Allahu akbar,”
he cried out.
One of the men spun around, pointing his gun at Yusuf but smiling a little wildly, perhaps even crazily, when he saw it was the Ugandan convert.
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