Blood Lily Company - Afghanistan, year 1

LXXVI

The next morning Erk had heated some water for the coffee and it was that smell that woke me up. I was the last, but not by much.

We left, not much to say about our day, except that we walked a lot, that we took a lunch break so short it was like we ate while walking. The brothers wanted to reach a cave further south, which would be the last chance to rest before crossing the border into Durrani's territory.

We were pretty tired when we got there, Erk gave everyone massages, then we had dinner - military rations this time - and Kris took first watch, JD would follow him, etc.

We all had a short watch, Erk took the last one, as he often does, and woke us up with coffee. Okay, it's just instant coffee in hot water, but it's better than none at all.

Before leaving, we got a quick briefing.
- Okay, Kris began, we'll be in Durrani's territory in an hour. No need to remind you how dangerous that guy is. His reaction to the pin-up was completely disproportionate, the sign of a sick mind. Sending Rafa and the others to us was both very calculated and also a pure reaction, almost knee-jerk.

He looked better this morning. It's true that in the last few days he had been sporting big dark circles, but just like the rest of us, in fact.
- I want you to pay closer attention than ever from now on. We've been to his place three times already, that he knows of, and he's likely to be expecting us.
- Guys, Erk said, I know it's very hot, and it's tempting to take a layer off, but don't. The uniform from now on is henley, bulletproof vest, helmet and no visible keffiyeh.

We nodded. The henley is a long-sleeved tee-shirt, buttoned at the collar, to open more or less depending on the temperature. In winter, we have a version with wool or silk mixed with the cotton of the summer one. Without the Hellason brothers' allergies, we'd have synthetic stuff, supposedly better absorbing, but I can't start describing the smell when you sweat in that, it's something you have to experiment first hand to understand why we were happy to have only natural fibers.

So we obeyed, got equipped, checked everyone's bulletproof vest, then the helmets, put our keffiyehs at the bottom of our bags and off we went.

When we arrived near the almost dry wadi that marks our border with Durrani, Quenotte contacted the base, informing Mike of our situation and our intentions.

And then, we crossed the river and entered the territory of the prudish Pashtun. I mean, the guy has a harem, but a drawing of boobs or a picture of a naked woman makes him kill the chief of his guards. What a hypocrite...

We had designated a radar man, that would be me, and a maps man, that would be Tito. The role of the radar man is to use the head-up display of the helmet, visor down, and to monitor the information received via satellite, embedded in the landscape you see through the visor. You have to get used to it.

The role of the maps man is to make sure we don't get lost, also using the helmet's head-up display, but with a different layer. His helmet also records our journey, and Tito can dictate notes, if necessary. This will be downloaded into all of our helmets, and will be used to make a patrol report upon return or as a black box if bad things should happen to us. We can also extract from the helmet memory what I see, that is to say the landscape with the superimposed satellite data. And that's already a lot. With more videos, stuff and gizmos, it would have really weighed down the helmets, which are already heavy enough...

We started walking in a different formation than the usual one, the one we had on the first day. We were in single file, Kris leading the way, Erk closing it, and Yaka, under JD's orders, flitting around the patrol, adding to our human technology the unparalleled technology of her dog nose.