Tanner made a moon face of contempt that could've been a comment on my cluelessness regarding gate duty, or on the misery of gate duty itself.

"Gate duty?" Legg said to me. "f.u.c.kin' boring as s.h.i.t. Twelve hours of this." He dropped his hands to his sides and stared ahead zombie-like with his tongue lolling out. "They made me eat rations, too. You ever eat rations?"

"Uh, no."

"Don't bother. Then at nights I had to do kitchen prep. Which was okay because it's the only way I got any decent f.u.c.kin' food."

Legg snickered at me and I snickered back. And in that perfect second I decided I should get up and leave. I should just say goodbye and go back to my tent before I said or did something stupid and ruined everything. I was about to push my chair back when I looked up and saw Joe/Joel.

He was slowly angling up to the table the way you see dogs figuring out their path to a squirrel. He glanced over at me, then grabbed a free chair and pulled it to a s.p.a.ce across from Legg, and as he sat down I could feel my stomach going sour.

"You're a D&S guy, right?"

Legg was slouched back in his chair fiddling with his beer can and he frowned across the table at this guy.

Joe/Joel glanced around nervously at Tanner and the others in conversation, then leaned in toward Legg. "I was wondering"

he dropped his voice to a whisper "who do I talk to about getting one of the watch towers for a couple of hours?"

"Hey!" Tanner turned back to Legg. "I just put it together it's 'cause of you the mashed potatoes were s.h.i.t this week."

"What're you talkin' about?"

"You were on prep, and the potatoes were all lumps."

"Yeah," grumbled Legg. "And you don't wanna know what those lumps were, either!"

The table laughed and Joe/Joel seemed to think he hadn't been heard. He tilted his head to try and get Legg's attention. "I'm serious," he said. "Who is it I'm supposed to talk to?" He pressed his chest into the edge of the table trying to get closer. "There's this girl in the "

"Who the f.u.c.k are you anyway?" Legg was squinting at him, his mouth bunched up with distaste. Joe/Joel started to glance toward me and I shot my eyes down at the table.

"Aren't you in D&S?"

"So?"

"So I heard you guys could, you know, arrange for some privacy."

"Somebody's feedin' you s.h.i.t." Legg waved him away with his beer can.

"He'll vouch for me."

It was hot as anything in the tent, but as Joe/Joel pointed at me, my face went cold, like I'd stepped into a meat locker.

Legg began eyeing me. Suspiciously. "You know him?"

I looked from the guy to Legg and gave a feeble shrug. "He's...in my tent."

"You hang out with him?"

I made my frozen head move side to side, but that didn't seem to be enough; Legg was still watching me. "No," I said. Across the table Joe/Joel hated me now, I could tell. But I had no choice.

"Okay, f.u.c.k off." Legg waved the guy away. When he didn't move immediately, Legg stretched a foot out under the table and gave his chair a rough shove.

"Hey!"

Legg traced a circle in the air with his beer can to indicate the people sitting around him, who were watching now, and me. "This is a private f.u.c.kin' party. Get lost."

When Joe/Joel had stalked off, Legg leaned toward me.

"Don't get mixed up in any'a that s.h.i.t, eh? That's just a quick way home."

That night when I got back to my tent, three of the eight beds were already filled with snoring men in the summer months a lot of the vehicle work was done before nine in the morning, because later in the day the metal parts and tools got too hot to touch. So these guys were due to get up in a couple of hours and you had to be quiet when you were coming in late. Joe/Joel was there too, stretched out on his top bunk, but he wasn't asleep. He'd clipped an LED LED flashlight to his bed frame and he was reading a motorcycle magazine. flashlight to his bed frame and he was reading a motorcycle magazine.

"Hey, Woodlore," he muttered when I'd stepped inside, his voice just loud enough to be heard. "I had a bottle of your water and it tasted like s.h.i.t. I had to dump it out."

I didn't bother to answer him. Not even when I figured out he'd poured the water all over my pillow and mattress. I just got into bed. Normally, I would've been p.i.s.sed off, maybe gone to get fresh sheets, but for some reason it didn't matter to me. I guess this was part of the storm and I was moving with it. A few bunks away Joe/Joel was flipping the pages of his magazine and hissing a little laugh about what he'd done, but I didn't mind lying in the wet; that night, it just seemed kind of cooling.

For the next few months I hung out with Legg a fair bit, eating most meals with him and having drinks with him and his friends in the mess whenever I could. A few times I played poker with them in the kitchen, long after the mess had closed. Legg liked to shuffle and riffle the deck with a snap and then pound the table with each card he dealt. And he liked to give advice on how to play ("Ten-jack? Don't f.u.c.kin' throw ten-jack away! What, are you waiting for straight f.u.c.kin' aces or are you gonna play the game? f.u.c.kin' live a little, a.s.shole!"). At dinner he liked to snow his meat with pepper and excavate reservoirs for gravy in his mashed potatoes. He always gripped his fork like a shiv and shoved chairs around as if they offended him. But the thing I noticed most was the way he insulted and abused the people he liked best and turned wary around those he didn't know. And when he spoke to officers and others who'd lost his respect, I heard the way the undersides of his words were coated with contempt, like rot.

There were times when I'd arrive at the kitchen tent late and he'd already be seated with other soldiers, mocking them and swearing at them. He never saved a seat for me and I never expected him to; soldiers generally didn't spend much time with civilian support. So those times I just grabbed my food, found a seat a few tables away and tried to listen in, I guess to see if there was any real difference between the way Legg treated them and the way he treated me. The next time I was sitting with him, I'd spend the first few minutes worrying that something would seem different, that maybe he'd decided it was strange that I was always around. I only relaxed once he'd fired that first "f.u.c.kin' a.s.shole" my way.

Then one day Legg entered the kitchen after patrol, still crusted with grit, and he walked past a bunch of soldiers he could've sat with and came up to me.

"Looka this s.h.i.t," he said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out two small, olive-tinted eggs.

"f.u.c.kin' partridge eggs," he said. "We're on the north side doin' our route through all the mud buildings, right? And this guy comes up and gives 'em to me." He looked up. "You want one?"

"You mean, to eat?"

"What else?" He tipped his head toward the cook tent. "Come on, they'll do 'em up for us."

Inside the small cook tent, holding our elbows in tight to avoid all the blackened pots billowing meaty steams, we watched as the tall Afghan chef, who'd been trained in England, hefted the eggs with a suspicious look. "Where did you get these?"

"North end, I told you!"

"From who?"

"This f.u.c.kin' guy!" Legg looked over at me in the dim light, exasperated. "How do you want yours, fried or what?"

Before I could answer, the chef cracked the eggs against the edge of the stove with one hand and opened them into a bowl. What plopped out of the sh.e.l.ls seemed more like oysters than eggs.

Legg's face twisted as he pointed at the bowl. "What the Jesus f.u.c.k is that?"

"Embryos," said the chef. "These were fertilized eggs."

Right then I braced for some kind of explosion, but Legg only peered in closer.

"That man," said the chef, "he is one of those who has partridges for fighting, I think. He was not giving you eggs to eat, he was giving you some babies to raise."

Legg was still staring at the phlegmy lumps. "f.u.c.k me, eh?" he said, with a kind of reverence. He jabbed a finger at the eggs. "That's what I like, right there. s.h.i.t that keeps you guessin'." Then he straightened up, slapped me in the gut, and yanked a thumb at the bowl. "Whaddaya think," he said, half serious, "scramble 'em for Tanner?"

As the months went by it got dark earlier, and the evenings turned pretty cold. Most nights, after the mess closed, somebody would light a fire in a sand pit that had been dug out behind the tent, a few metres from the bastion wall. There was a corkscrew of razor wire strung along the top of the barrier, and the light from the flames would dance across it and make it stand out orange against the black sky. I'd hang out there for hours while Legg subjected his friends to indignities. Some nights, the best nights, he'd try to push me into the fire.

I didn't have any more problems with Joe/Joel, but I guess he kept at the D&S guys. One day in October, just before lunch, somebody banged on the wall of the water treatment ISO ISO, and, when I looked outside, Legg was there acting jumpy and wearing a big grin.

"What?" I said.

"You busy, a.s.shole?"

"f.u.c.k, yeah," I said. "I have to set up a new batch of polymer." The guy on the shift before me usually did it, but for some reason that morning he hadn't and I'd just figured it out.

"Can it wait?" He couldn't stop moving around.

I shrugged. "Maybe half an hour?"

"Come on!"

He charged off in his heavy boots across the compound and I followed him, around the supply tents and through a parking area for LAVS LAVS, jumping over the large black basins set on the sand ready to catch the oil drips from the vehicles when they came back from patrol. When he got within about ten metres of the southeast watch tower, he stopped and pointed up at the tower.

"f.u.c.ker's up there."

"Who?"

"That j.e.r.k.-.o.f.f. from your tent."

It took me a second to figure out who he meant. He pushed a finger to his lips and waved me closer, until we were in a sliver of shadow under the platform.

"Is he with somebody?"

Legg frowned as if he disapproved and squinted out at the hard sun. "Some stupid-a.s.s girl private," he muttered. "Dunno what the f.u.c.k she's doin' with him."

"How do you know he's up there?"

"I arranged it."

He watched my reaction I must have looked confused and the corner of his mouth twisted up. "He kept buggin' everybody, right? So I told 'em, 'Let him use the southeast tower. n.o.body's gonna walk in on him there.'"

I couldn't tell if I was missing something. "That's nice of you, I guess."

He spat a gob of phlegm into the dust. "Not really." He looked at me, his eyes like flares, and I smiled even though I didn't know what for.

"It's infested," he said. "f.u.c.kin' sandflies."

We pressed in and listened. The sandflies couldn't kill you, but they could give you a boil like an orange. We watched some LAVS LAVS and G-Wagons roll by leaving tracks in the dust, and then it was quiet until a captain came out of the nearest supply tent on his way to the latrine and looked over. He kept going for three, four steps, his eyes on us, then he turned and came our way. and G-Wagons roll by leaving tracks in the dust, and then it was quiet until a captain came out of the nearest supply tent on his way to the latrine and looked over. He kept going for three, four steps, his eyes on us, then he turned and came our way.

"f.u.c.k," Legg muttered.

The captain stopped in the middle of the road and set his hands on his hips. "Are you on duty, corporal?"

Legg straightened up. "No, sir." He tried to keep his voice to a half whisper. "Not till thirteen hundred."

"Why are you skulking around in the shadows?"

Legg quick-marched over, murmured something to the captain that seemed to satisfy him, and jogged back looking happy as the officer carried on. When he got close to me he leaned in.

"Told him you were thinkin' a gettin' your d.i.c.k pierced and I was talkin' ya out of it."

I was still choking on that when Legg smacked me on the shoulder and held a hand up like he'd heard something, and pretty soon I heard it too: a kind of rumbling sound that seemed to be coming from deep inside the tower, almost from its foundation. And pretty soon it was clear that what we were listening to was Joe/Joel's pounding boots, and maybe the boots of his girlfriend, trying to fend off the invaders. And then, over top of the fervent rumbling, from the windows high above, came one loud and desperate "Holy f.u.c.k! f.u.c.k!"

Legg was doubled over against the wall, killing himself trying to keep quiet, when Joe/Joel exploded through the ground-level door. He was beating himself with one arm and had half his clothes bundled under the other. As he stumbled away, barefoot, he left a trail of personal effects a sock, a pen, his underwear. Seconds later the private came down. She was pretty in that stark, sincere way of a lot of army women. Apparently Joe/Joel hadn't gotten her too warmed up because she was still in her fatigues with her boots laced tight. She paused near the entrance, shaking a sandfly out of her cap, then bent down to pick up something small and shiny. As she straightened she eyed Legg and me, giggling by the wall, and flicked Joe/Joel's unopened condom at us.

For a long time Legg was stuck on basic foot patrol duty in the quietest sections of Balakhet. It wasn't until one of the other D&S guys broke his leg falling through some weak floorboards during a security sweep that they put him back in OP OP Shield rotation. By then the roof of the school, near the open field where he'd seen the fighting kites, had been built. But you could tell he never stopped thinking about the kites, or the Pashtun with the scarred hand, because he never stopped talking about them. "I wish you coulda seen this a.s.shole," he'd say. "His hand ripped to s.h.i.t, for f.u.c.kin' Shield rotation. By then the roof of the school, near the open field where he'd seen the fighting kites, had been built. But you could tell he never stopped thinking about the kites, or the Pashtun with the scarred hand, because he never stopped talking about them. "I wish you coulda seen this a.s.shole," he'd say. "His hand ripped to s.h.i.t, for f.u.c.kin' years years, and he doesn't care."

His only hope of seeing the gudiparan gudiparan again was to get a.s.signed to a patrol that pa.s.sed near the field at the right time on a Friday, the day the fights happened, but he never had that luck. By December, as the Afghan desert took on the colour of ash, he'd pretty much given up hope. again was to get a.s.signed to a patrol that pa.s.sed near the field at the right time on a Friday, the day the fights happened, but he never had that luck. By December, as the Afghan desert took on the colour of ash, he'd pretty much given up hope.

One day at lunch, when Legg was out on patrol, I loaded up at the sandwich bar like usual and carried my plate through the crowded kitchen to a table near the salad section. After I'd pulled in my chair I noticed I was sitting a few seats down from Zini, the curly-haired master corporal. I'd found out she worked in the command office, and I'd seen her move in and out of Legg's circle of friends almost like she had diplomatic immunity; he showed her respect, but he spared her the cruelty that went with it.

She saw me and smiled the way she usually did with me, kindly, with some pity. "So, Kyle," she said, "when are you going home for Christmas?"

I stared down at my kielbasa on rye. Going home hadn't even occurred to me. "I guess I probably won't," I said.

"What? Why not!"

I shrugged. "I just prefer it here."

"Wow." She looked astonished. "I thought most of the COF-AP COF-AP people were going." There was a fork in her hand and she stirred the air with it to include the soldiers she was eating with. "Most of us would kill to eat some Mom-made Christmas turkey." people were going." There was a fork in her hand and she stirred the air with it to include the soldiers she was eating with. "Most of us would kill to eat some Mom-made Christmas turkey."

I dipped my sandwich in the puddle of mustard on my plate, thoughts lining up in my head. "You mean you're not going home?"

"Nope."

"Is that true for...all the soldiers?"

Zini's face went wry. "You mean guys like Legg?"

I picked at a piece of crust and shrugged.

"Yup," she said, "everybody's staying here through the holidays."

A female lieutenant seated near Zini began singing, "I'm dreaming of a beige Christmas, just like the ones the mullahs know..."

"So," I said, "what happens in a camp like this around Christmas?"

Zini speared some feta-flecked rotini spirals and lifted them halfway to her mouth. "We'll probably have a tree. But it'll be a busy time too."

Everybody around her nodded like bobble-head dolls.

"How come?"