The Enemy

“Yes; quaint and curious war is!

You shoot a fellow down

You’d treat, if met where any bar is,

Or help to half-a-crown.”

Thomas Hardy

There were five men in the car.

The driver, a seasoned corporal, had already seen Afghanistan and managed to get out of that little mess just fine. He was completely comfortable driving through hostile territory in an open Humvee. He relaxed behind the wheel as they slowly entered the streets of Al Kut along the main southern road. He thought: shit, at least in Kabul the fuckers didn’t hide behind walls.

The leader of the unit rode shotgun. A young lieutenant with soft blond hair and steely gray eyes who didn’t take any shit from any man, regardless of rank. The M-16 rested on his knee as he squatted looking out at the bleak monotone walls right next to the car. He couldn’t really see through those slits in the concrete blocks, but he knew lurking shadows were eagerly awaiting his unit’s arrival. Just because the gun was relaxed didn’t mean a thing. He would take any one of them out in a second. Just let them come.

The private behind the driver was the rookie of the group. Practically a kid. Just turned nineteen and left his girlfriend of three years back home to cry in her pillow. He saw her after boot camp but not long enough to say all the goodbyes. Now he was an open target in a dirty city in the middle of Iraq. Sometimes he wondered what the hell he was doing in this godforsaken desert, but then he remembered that he was serving his country. The rifle was at the ready, and the private had already proven himself a worthy marksman. He wasn’t afraid of them: after all, a U.S. Marine has no fear.

Right next to the private, hunched with the rifle out the window, sat the second corporal. A tough guy from South Central. A Mexican kid who ran with the gangs until he saw a couple years of jail. That straightened him out. So did the Corps. Now he was above fighting with street gangs in L.A. He was fighting guerrilla troops in the Middle East. World of difference. Half a world anyway. His wife wrote every day, and he wrote back. He knew he’d make it home to see her and the baby girl. He couldn’t be touched. Still, the gun was cocked. Knowing and making it so ain’t the same thing, the gang had taught him that long ago.

The gunner standing behind the stationary was the quiet one. Held his own in the squad, but back home he had been the kid who wouldn’t fight the bullies when they took his lunch money. If they only tried it now, he’d let them taste some of this fine large caliber ammo right in the face. The Marine Corps only cultivates the killer instinct.

Word came in the day before. The Americans are coming towards Al Kut, and a defense will be mustered. If they want to attack us, let them come. We’ll show them who they’re dealing with. The AK’s may be a little outdated, and we don’t have the technology, but they don’t have the true God. Rasool’s rifle had passed to him from his father, who had fought for Hussein long before, for the Shaat al Arab. Back then the man was well known for many hours around. When Rasool heard the news, he picked the rifle up from its place on the wall of the shack and walked out without a word. His wife did not even try to stop him; she just stood looking blankly in complete misery. But his two daughters cried at his feet not to leave. Another death in the family would be unbearable. The little boy simply sat in the corner and looked at his father with those big brown eyes that Rasool had grown to love beyond measure in the six years they had seen light. Nevertheless, he gave one sigh and left his family in order to defend something more important to him – an idea.

The path of the Americans lay directly through the rubbled buildings of the industrial district. The ruins crowded the road on both sides, making a funnel into the heart of the city. A funnel is easy to defend. Most of the firepower was to be placed at the end of it, so when enough of the invaders entered, the ensuing slaughter would severely cripple their forces. But Rasool’s place was in one of the first buildings, the ones that would have to seal off the retreat of the American army from the rear. His building, or rather the remains thereof, on the east side of the road, gave a clear view of everything happening in the open through the random cracks and holes in the old cement. Four other men were positioned within a few feet of him, their rifles on the ready. The ones in command, from the Leader’s army, said that random fire was to be kept to a minimum in order not to spook the American horde. But some fire was alright. Rasool wanted to kill the first American. He wanted to be a hero, just like his father before him.

The Humvee wasn’t even crawling. It was oozing. The lieutenant could hear each turn of the wheels with painful distinctiveness. Being at the head of the column, his vehicle led the way for quite a force. They had to make sure the path was clear. He knew the men were there, on the other side of those walls. If he could just get a clear shot.

Rasool saw the column of cars appear in the late morning. By noon they had finally reached the beginning of the road, the road that was to be their end. The column slowed down to a near stop. The movement dragged on painfully, almost imperceptibly. Finally, the first vehicle reached his gun level. He raised his father’s weapon and held the trigger long enough to release four rounds nearly point blank into the body of the behemoth before him.

The lieutenant saw the flash of metal in the gray concrete. The rifle reached his shoulder with superhuman speed. The rookie may have been a worthy marksman, but he, the lieutenant, could be called an exceptional one. Not always a kill, but nearly always. Always a hit in any case. Four furious shots ripped into his side of the car. Two were stopped by the armor on the door. One flew right by his head and grazed the driver’s helmet, to which the latter made practically no response, just a twitch of the head. The last ricocheted off the side pillar and into the rookie’s leg. The pain of that scream almost made the lieutenant’s arm twitch. As payback, he let loose a quick three round burst into the wall, just like they had taught him back at boot camp. Three rounds at a time, otherwise your aim strays. Three rounds were all he needed anyway.

The groan that escaped Rasool’s throat was the mix of a great many feelings: shock at his failure, disappointment and self-loathing, basic animal anger, but mostly the surprise and pain of two bullets tearing through his body. The first round passed through his right arm, forcing him to drop the rifle at his feet. The same Soviet-made AK that killed so many Shias in Iran had now failed to take the life of even one American infidel. It landed useless in the stream of Rasool’s blood. The second shot had been the deadliest. It entered his body through the right side of the chest and exited the back near the spine. It barely missed the heart, but Rasool instantly knew he had at best a few minutes left on this Earth. The third shot from the M-16 was the only one to miss its intended victim and merely left a hole in the wall behind Rasool.

Blood fell in a torrent, like a fountain. No, like a waterfall. Rasool’s body went limp and he fell flat on his back. He could still see the roof of the destroyed structure in which he would meet his end, and the others running to aid him in his last moments. They crouched around him and said silent prayers, but made no effort to ease his passing physically. Nothing would have helped in any case. Rasool watched all this with an almost childlike curiosity. But more importantly, he remembered…

His father had returned. The boy had just passed his sixth birthday, and now his father had returned from the war. The war was not over, and wouldn’t be for another six years, but with a bad leg wound his father could no longer continue in the struggle. Even so, he had nothing to be ashamed of: his rifle had already sent ninety four men to meet their Maker. A number to be proud of. Ninety four nonbelievers of which he had rid the world. He was indeed a hero among his people, and now he could retire to his family with nothing but pride. No regrets. When he entered his home for the first time in four years, he summoned his young son Rasool and handed him the heavy wooden and metal contraption. This is yours now, son. Someday you will make good use of it, just as I have. You will defend your country with it. You will defend your father’s honor and pride. The boy, barely standing under the full weight of the weapon, nodded in understanding. He would remember these words, these simple instructions, as long as he had to, until his time would come.

His time had come now, but he would not return to his own six year old son to pass the rifle on to the next generation warrior. The boy would never see that old rifle. One of the other men around his father’s dying body would pick it up when his eyes finally shut on the world and would take it home, perhaps to his own son.

Fourteen years after his father’s return and ten years since the man’s death of that same leg wound, Rasool met the most beautiful girl he would every set eyes on. When her family arrived in his village, he was doing some chores for the household. What was he doing at that moment? Oh yes, he was drawing water. When he turned to look at the new ones, the half-filled bucket nearly dropped from his hand. Everything was perfect: the skin, the hair, the eyes, the nose, the breasts, the hips. A moment of blissful enlightenment struck him. She was the one to raise his children, the one that would take care of him when he returned with a battle wound from glorious combat with some foreign infidels. Providence, love at first sight, whatever it was, he knew he had to have her. In mere weeks he was courting her, and only four months after her arrival she was moving again – into his home as his new wife. No man anywhere in this wide world could possibly have been happier than him on that day. After all, he had acquired the best girl in the world. What could make one happier than that?

Naturally, he had hoped for a boy as the first-born, but it was a girl despite his greatest desire. Disappointment would not sufficiently describe what he felt when the screaming, bloody little thing greeted him upon her arrival from her mother’s womb. Yet it was his child, of his own flesh and blood, and he would love her with all the love his soul would give. A year later, the same disappointment and the same resignation penetrated his life again. When it happened a third time, Rasool began to wander if he wasn’t cursed. Finally, on the fourth try, his wife brought forth a boy, and the disappointments of the past were rectified by this new joy, which almost surpassed the one of four years prior when he saw his gorgeous wife for the first time.

Great joy never comes alone. It always brings along unwelcome company. Soon after the birth of his only son, Rasool dug a small grave and, restraining his tears, placed his second daughter in it. She had been sick for only a fortnight, yet in those few days she shrunk from a vibrant young being into a skeleton, a ghost, the slightest of shadows. No consolation that he could muster helped his wife, who seemed to have aged a year for every night her daughter spent in suffering. When she finally left the world which she had seen so briefly, her mother cried for a day, and remained silent and resolute in her misery for much longer. Perhaps, Rasool now realized, this is why she did not try to stop me: she was resolving herself to making another little monument, bracing for the digging of the parched earth where her husband was destined to find his final rest. She did not want to disrupt her last minutes with me by arguing. Perhaps it is better that way, she will suffer that much less if she already knows what to expect.

But no memory stood out greater or brighter than that beautiful little boy. Rasool’s mother said that the toddler resembled his father in every single way when he was that age. Especially those innocent round eyes that instantly won over anyone who gazed into them. Rasool could lose himself for hours in those eyes, playing with his most sacred treasure in the dirt outside his modest little shack, himself feeling just like a child. And, of course, he had told the boy of his grandfather on more than one occasion. He pointed to the rifle resting on the wall and promised the boy that, one day, it would be his own to defend his family and his country, not to mention the honor and pride of two previous generations of fighters. His son had understood as well as Rasool himself had understood all those years ago when his father placed the gun into his hands. Rasool could not contain his joy at that moment. He hugged the boy with a gentleness that few boys ever see from their fathers.

The memories streamed behind Rasool’s eyes, in his inner sight, while before his eyes stood the dark specter, patiently waiting. He was in no hurry, though there would soon be other men to take away to the realm that so many fear and so many enter upon the battlefields of Earth. Rasool strained with his last breaths to produce a light smile, a recollection of a life well lived, albeit marred by failure in the very end. Unlike his father, he had found his only regret in battle. He did not kill his enemy. A trace of sadness passed over him as he thought of never seeing his son again to fulfill his promise, never making love to his wizened yet still beautiful wife, never seeing his children grow and start their own families. But the sadness lifted along with his spirit as the specter placed his ethereal black sheet over Rasool, leaving nothing more than a cooling body and a pool of coagulated blood amid dark cement ruins.