Afghanistan

Chapter 23- The dying of the light (from ‘A Girl like Alice’)

Through the mist of her pain she saw the door gunner waving her out of his line of fire but, before she had time to react, Mac grabbed her, pulling her out of the way and towards the aircraft. Bullets whined and buzzed, kicking up the dirt all around. It was almost as if she had been deliberately targeted to the exclusion of all others. She reached for the door sill with the deafening rattle of the door gun right by her left ear. Without her injury she would have vaulted into the helicopter in the same manner that she mounted her horse, with an ease that appeared to defy gravity. This time, however, she had to turn around to hitch her bottom onto the edge and was facing towards the battle, leaning back to push herself inside, when a second bullet found her.

It entered her body just below her right breast, parting a rib, and exited just above her right shoulder blade. Alice gasped with surprise and shock but felt no pain. It was as if she had been thumped by a mailed fist. She felt winded, unable to catch her breath and was dimly aware of being pulled inside to lie on the floor. There was a bedlam of noise as the aircraft took off. The helmeted door gunner turned briefly to look at her, his face a mask of incredulity, then he turned away and continued firing.

For a moment she was aware of the metallic taste of blood in her mouth and a feeling of intense cold- then- there was no feeling at all.

Khalida and Roxanna wept uncontrollably in their deep anguish, as the only person, other than their father, who had ever really cared about them, lay in an expanding pool of blood.

Alice’s body began to shake violently as she went into shock. Mac bent over to assist Bill, as he set about the desperate task of trying to keep her alive.

No-one noticed the magnificent sunset, as the helicopters thundered towards the Pakistan border, in the dying of the light.

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