|
Were you really the lunatic who fell down the mountain?
Very far. Very fast. Very funny. All my village saw you do it. Very big joke. Ha! Ha! Ha!
Jesus Christ! I mean, Muhammad! Or Allah! Whoever’s in charge around here. This kid really
was from a gingerbread village.
Sarawa returned. They gave me some more water. And again he checked over my wound. Didn’t
look one bit happy. But there were more important things to discuss than the state of my
backside.
I did not, of course, realize this. But the decision Sarawa and his friends were making carried
huge responsibilities and, possibly, momentous consequences: They had to decide whether to
take me in. Whether to help me, shelter me, and feed me. Most important, whether to defend me.
These people were Pashtuns. And the majority of the warriors who fought under the banner of
the former rulers of Afghanistan, plus a vast number of bin Laden’s al Qaeda fighters, were
members of this strict and ancient tribe, almost thirteen million of whom live right here in
Afghanistan.
That steel core of the Taliban sect, that iron resolve and deadly hatred of the infidel, is
unwaveringly Pashtun. The backbone of that vicious little tribal army is Pashtun. The Taliban
moves around these mountains only by the unspoken approval and tacit permission of the
Pashtuns, who grant them food and shelter. The two communities, the warriors and the general
mountain populace, are irrevocably bound together. The mujahideen fighting the Russians were
principally Pashtun.
Never mind “No Taliban.” I knew the background. These guys might be peace-loving villagers
on the surface, but the tribal blood ties were wrought in iron. Faced with an angry Taliban army
demanding the head of an armed American serviceman, you would essentially not give a
secondhand billy goat for the American’s chances.
And yet there was something I did not know. We’re talking
lokhay warkawal
— an unbending
section of historic
Pashtun-walai
tribal law as laid out in the hospitality section. The literal
translation of
lokhay warkawal
is “giving of a pot.”
I did mention this briefly when I outlined the Pashtun tribal background much earlier. But this is
the part where it really counts. This is where the ole
lokhay warkawal
gets shoved into context.
Right here, while I’m lying on the ground bleeding to death, and the tribesmen are discussing my
fate.
To an American, especially one in such terrible shape as I was, the concept of helping out a
wounded, possibly dying man is pretty routine. You do what you can. For these guys, the
concept carried many onerous responsibilities.
Lokhay
means not only providing care and
shelter, it means an unbreakable commitment to defend that wounded man to the death. And not
just the death of the principal tribesman or family who made the original commitment for the
giving of a pot. It means the whole damned village.
Lokhay
means the population of that village will fight to the last man, honor-bound to protect the
individual they have invited in to share their hospitality. And this is not something to have a
chitchat about when things get rough. It’s not a point of renegotiation. This is strictly
nonnegotiable.
So while I was lying there thinking these cruel heartless bastards were just going to leave me out
here and let me die, they were in fact discussing a much bigger, life-or-death issue. And the lives
they were concerned with had nothing to do with mine. This was
Lokhay,
boy, spelled with a big
L.
No bullshit.
For all I knew, they were deciding whether to put a bullet through my head and save everyone a
lot of trouble. But by now I was drifting off, half asleep, half alert, and the distinction was
minimal. Sarawa was still talking. Of course it occurred to me that these men might be just like
the goatherds, loyal spies for the Taliban. They could easily take me in and then send their fastest
messengers to inform the local commanders they had me, and I could be picked up and executed
anytime they wanted.
I wished fervently this was not the case. And though I thought I understood Sarawa was a nice
guy, I couldn’t know the truth about him; no one could, not under those circumstances. Anyway,
there was nothing much I could do about it, except maybe shoot them all, and a fat chance I
would have had of getting away. I could hardly move.
So I just waited for the verdict. I kept thinking,
What would Morgan do? Is there any way out of
this? What’s the correct military decision? Do I have any options?
Not so you’d notice. My best
chance of living was to try and befriend Sarawa, try somehow to ingratiate myself with his
friends.
Disjointed thoughts were blundering through my mind. What about all the death there had been
in these mountains? What if these guys had lost sons, brothers, fathers, or cousins in the battle
against the SEALs? How would they feel about me, an armed, uniformed member of the U.S.
military, staging various gun battles, blowing Afghanis up on their very own tribal lands?
I obviously didn’t have any answers, nor could I know what they were thinking. But it couldn’t
be good. I knew that.
Sarawa came back. He sharply ordered two men to raise me up, one of them under each of my
arms to give me support, and lift me off the ground. He ordered another to lift my legs.
As they approached me, I took out my last grenade and carefully pulled the pin, which placed
that little bastard right in firing mode. I held it in one hand, clasped across my chest. The
tribesmen did not seem to notice. All I knew was, if they tried to execute me or tie me up or
invite their murderous Taliban colleagues in, I would drop that thing right on the floor and take
the whole fucking lot of them with me.
They lifted me up. And slowly we began to head down to the village. I did not understand, not
then, but this was the biggest break I’d had since the Battle for Murphy’s Ridge first started.
These friendly Pashtun tribesmen had decided to grant me
lokhay.
They were committed to
defend me against the Taliban until there was no one left alive.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
