Read Online Lie Down With Lions by Ken Follett - Free Book Online Page A

baby: according to Rabia Gul, the old village midwife, it would be a girl, for it could be felt on the left side, whereas boys grew on the right side. Rabia had accordingly prescribed a diet of vegetables. For a boy she would have recommended plenty of meat. In Afghanistan the males were better fed even before they were born.
    Jane’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud bang. For a moment she was confused, associating the explosion with the jets which had passed overhead several minutes before on their way to bomb some other village; then she heard, quite close by, the high continuous scream of a child in pain and panicking.
    She realized instantly what had happened. The Russians, using tactics they had learned from the Americans in Vietnam, had littered the countryside with antipersonnel mines. Their ostensible aim was to block guerrilla supply lines; but since the “guerrilla supply lines” were the mountain pathways used daily by old men, women, children and animals, the real purpose was straightforward terror. That scream meant a child had detonated a mine.
    Jane jumped to her feet. The sound seemed to be coming from somewhere near the mullah’s house, which was about half a mile outside the village on the hillside footpath. Jane could just see it, away to her left and a little lower down. She stepped into her shoes, grabbed her clothes and ran that way. The first long scream ended and became a series of short, terrified yells: it sounded to Jane as if the child had seen the damage the mine had done to its body and was screaming with fright now. Rushing through the coarse undergrowth, Jane realized that she herself was panicking, so peremptory was the summons of a child in distress. “Calm down,” she said breathlessly to herself. If she were to fall badly there would be two people in trouble and no one to help; and anyway the worst thing for a frightened child was a frightened adult.
    She was near now. The child would be hidden in the bushes, not on the footpath, for all the paths were cleared by the menfolk each time they were mined, but it was impossible to sweep the entire mountainside.
    She stopped, listening. Her panting was so loud that she had to hold her breath. The screams were coming from a clump of camel grass and juniper bushes. She pushed through the shrubbery and glimpsed part of a bright blue coat. The child must be Mousa, the nine-year-old son of Mohammed Khan, one of the leading guerrillas. A moment later she was beside him.
    He was kneeling on the dusty ground. He had evidently tried to pick up the mine, for it had blown off his hand, and now he was staring wild-eyed at the bloody stump and screaming in terror.
    Jane had seen a lot of wounds in the past year, but still this one moved her to pity. “Oh, dear God,” she said. “You poor child.” She knelt in front of him, hugged him, and murmured soothing noises. After a minute he stopped screaming. She hoped he would begin to cry instead, but he was too shocked, and lapsed into silence. As she held him she searched for and found the pressure point in his armpit, and stopped the gush of blood.
    She was going to need his help. She must make him speak. “Mousa, what was it?” she said in Dari.
    He made no reply. She asked him again.
    “I thought . . .” His eyes opened wide as he remembered, and his voice rose to a scream as he said: “I thought it was A BALL!”
    “Hush, hush,” she murmured. “Tell me what you did.”
    “I PICKED IT UP! I PICKED IT UP!”
    She held him tight, soothing him. “And what happened?”
    His voice was shaky but no longer hysterical. “It went bang,” he said. He was rapidly becoming calmer.
    She took his right hand and put it under his left arm. “Press where I’m pressing,” she said. She guided his fingertips to the point, then withdrew her own. The blood started to flow from the wound again. “Push hard,” she told him. He did as she said. The flow stopped. She kissed his forehead. It was damp and