BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Sufis
The Way of the Sufi
Tales of the Dervishes
The Book of the Book
The Commanding Self
Neglected Aspects of Sufi Study
Reflections
Seeker After Truth
A Veiled Gazelle
Special Illumination
Learning How to Learn
The Elephant in the Dark
Thinkers of the East
Hundred Tales of Wisdom
Widsom of the Idiots
A Perfumed Scorpion
Caravan of Dreams
The Magic Monastery
The Dermis Probe
Destination Mecca
The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin
The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin
The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin
The World of Nasrudin
The Secret Lore of Magic
Oriental Magic
World Tales
Darkest England
The Natives are Restless
The Englishman’s Handbook
The Farmer’s Wife
The Lion Who Saw Himself in the Water
The Magic Horse
Neem the Half Boy
The Silly Chicken
The Boy Without a Name
The Clever Boy and the Terrible, Dangerous Animal
Copyright
This edition first published in the United States in 2002 by
The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
www.overlookpress.com
NEW YORK:
141 Wooster Street
New York, NY 10012
Copyright © 1986 by Idries Shah
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
ISBN 978-1-46830-781-8
TO THE PEOPLE OF AFGHANISTAN
and
in homage to
The Leader of our Caravan:
All perfect he, and therefore won
His lofty place; and, like a sun
His beauty lighted up the night.
Fair are his virtues all, and bright.
Let peace and benediction be
On him and his posterity!
Saadi of Shiraz
From The Rose Garden
CONTENTS
By the Same Author
Copyright
Book One: Nikolai is Here
Tiger’s Fort South of the Soviet Border, in
Afghan Turkestan
Book Two: The Gold of Ahmad Shah
1 Ura Pobeyda – Hail Victory!
Kalantut Village North-West of Kabul, Afghanistan
APRIL 23
2 ‘I thank the court for its clemency …’
Guerrilla Headquarters The Eagle’s Nest,
Paghman Mountains North of Kabul
APRIL 29
3 Karima: ‘If you push me too far …’
Kabul City and Jalalabad, South Afghanistan
JUNE 7–8
4 Business on the Frontier
Manchester, England and Istanbul, Turkey
MAY 25–26
5 A Caravan for David Callil
Inside Afghanistan, on the road west of Chitral, Pakistan
MAY 31–JUNE 8
6 Bright Wolf
The Eagle’s Nest, Paghman Mountains, North of Kabul
JUNE 8
7 Noor Sharifi, Hostage
Pul-i-Charkhi Prison, Kabul
MAY2
8 A Formal Case has been Initiated
The Great Castle at the mouth of the Paghman valley
MAY 4
9 Captain Azambai, Soviet Red Army
South of Khaja Rawash Airbase, Kabul Road
MAY 2
10 The Treasure
Kajakai, Kandahar Province, South-West Afghanistan
APRIL 30–MAY 10
Book Three: Halzun, the Snail
1 Nurhan Aliyev, Uzbek Librarian
Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, Soviet Central Asia
MAY 24
2 The Artefacts Department
Moscow, Union Capital, USSR
MAY 26–30
3 A Passport for Tezbin, Carpenter
Moscow/Kabul
JUNE 2–11
Book Four: Hail Jamal, Son of Zaid!
1 ‘This is your mission Jamal …’
The Airport, Hadiqa City, Narabia, Arabian Gulf
JUNE 12
2 Highness, I am Samir, servant of Akbar
Peshawar City, North-West Frontier, Pakistan
JUNE 13–17
3 Send for Yunanian, the Chemist
The Palace/The British Embassy, Hadiqa City, Narabia
JUNE 18
4 Thank you, Dr Anddrews
Oxford, England
JUNE 20
Book Five: A Mirza in a Mulberry Tree
1 Hang the Bandit Scum!
Kabul and Panjsher Valley, Afghanistan JUNE 9
2 Compassionate leave for Mr Khan
New Delhi, India
JUNE 8–14
3 Account paid
Kabul, Afghanistan
JULY 14–16
Book Six: Daughter of Daniyel
1 Prem Lal, KGB Rezident
Kabul, Afghanistan
JUNE 8
2 Fazli Rabbi, Innkeeper
Jalalabad, Afghanistan
JUNE 8
3 To the Castle of the Yusuf-Born
The Path of Flight, Smugglers’ Route, Jalalabad to Pakistan
JUNE 9–19
Book Seven: Ataka! Ataka! Ataka!
1 Nanpaz the Baker
The Castle, Paghman Valley
JUNE 5
2 The Whirlwind to see Colonel Slavsky
Below the Castle, Paghman
JUNE 19
Book Eight: Nest of the Eagle
1 One hundred and fifty-eight – and volunteering
Eagle’s Nest, The Buddhist Monastery, Paghman Mountains
JUNE 19
2 Silahdar Haidar, Weapon-Bearer, reporting, Komondon
Eagle’s Nest
JUNE 20
3 Time to move on, Big One …
Eagle’s Nest/Kalan’s Farm, Near Kabul
JUNE 20
4 The Fourth Battle
Valley Entrance, Paghman
JUNE 24
Book Nine: Across the Hindu Kush
1 An Izba in Nuristan
The Koh-i-Daman Foothills
JULY 3
2 The Wild Ones of Murad Shah
The Lower Paghman Range
JULY 5
3 Land of the Living Prince
Beyond High Serai
JULY 11
4 We must cross Black Mountain …
Qala Kavi, Central Mountains
JULY 12
5 Kara Dagh is Icebound …
The Great Pass
JULY 14
Book Ten: The Wolves of Turkestan
1 Like lice on a dinner plate …
The North Slope of Kara Dagh Mountain, Afghan Turkestan
JULY 16
2 Guerrilla City
Kurt Burj, ‘Wolf Redoubt’, Reed Forest, Afghan Turkestan
JULY 17
3 The Gunboat Jihun
Qizil Qala, Oxus River Port, Afghan-Soviet Border
JULY 21
4 Leninised
On the
Oxus River
JULY 21
5 March South …
Wolf Redoubt
JULY 21
Book Eleven: Southwards to Kandahar
1 Ride and Die!
High Hazara Land, Central Afghanistan
LATE AUGUST
2 The Mulla and the Water of Life
Baghran Town, Descending towards Kandahar, South-Central Afghanistan
LATE AUGUST
Book Twelve: Ekranoplan, the Sea Monsters
1 Wild Horses
Southern Hazarajat
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER
2 Kandahar in disguise
The Oasis of Panjtan, Kandahar Province
MID-SEPTEMBER
3 Council of War
The Oasis
MID-SEPTEMBER
Book Thirteen: Into the Abode of War
1 Target: Kandahar Airport
Pendergood’s Army, In the Free Land, Pakistan-Afghan Border; and Moscow
SEPTEMBER 15, Late Afternoon
2 The Russians are coming
The Eagle’s force, North of Kandahar City
2100 hours
3 Pendergood’s Army, approaching the Airport, 18 kms from Kandahar
2140 hours
4 The Eagle’s force, north of Kandahar City 527
2151 hours
5 Pendergood’s Army, Kandahar Airport
SEPTEMBER 16,0100 hours
6 The Eagle’s force, Herat Road boundary, Kandahar City
0230 hours
7 Pendergood’s Army, Kandahar Airport
0800 hours
Book Fourteen: The Secret Weapon
1 Stand to Arms!
North of Kandahar Airport
SEPTEMBER 16, 1000 hours
2 Kandahar Airport
1200’1300 hours
3 The Tanks must not get through
1436 hours
Book Fifteen: Zoo-Bear
The Super-Redeyes
Almas Fort, the heights near Kandahar Airport
1600 hours
BOOK 1
Nikolai is Here
Tiger’s Fort
South of the Soviet Border
Afghan Turkestan
SUMMER
Juma lay, waiting for death, by the parapet on the roof of his ancestral home.
Until five weeks ago, he had been a captain of the Seventh Infantry Division of the Afghan Army, stationed at Kabul. Then had followed a week under arrest, for slandering the Soviet people.
As the Russian grip on his country had tightened and the National Army crumbled, broken by purges and desertions, Juma had answered a more ancient, more pressing, call to duty. He was the twenty-fifth hereditary Battle-Lord of Sher-Qala, Tiger’s Fort, a mile south of the Soviet–Afghan border, the Oxus River, and he had come home to lead his people, and to fight for freedom.
It seemed an age since the Russians had invaded Afghanistan, one of the few free countries left on their borders. It was three and a half years ago. The war was still on. Ten miles up the road from there, the Afghan port of Qizil Qala was crammed with tanks, landing-craft, Soviet equipment of all kinds. The only halfway decent ship on the mile-wide river was the ancient Afghan gunboat Jihun, busily ferrying the country’s gold reserves, precious stones which were mined there – lapis lazuli, emeralds and rubies – and priceless ancient Greek, Buddhist and Islamic artefacts from the collection in the Kabul Museum, to help pay for the ‘fraternal assistance’ of the Soviet Limited Military Contingent, the new masters.
The Russians had, at last, broken through the barrier which had denied them warm-water ports of their own. To the south, Pakistan was wide open, all the way to the Arabian Sea. After that, the Gulf, the riches of Arabian oil, and the outflanking of Iran, were the next targets. Unless the Afghans, still fighting, could stop them. Twelve to sixteen million mountaineers, with only the world’s vague sympathy, and their own determination, on their side.
But there was something that might enable the Afghans to evict the invader, reclaim their homeland, win their war. This lay in the secret which Captain Juma had entrusted to the village mayor.
What chance was there that the message would get back to a man who might do something, might just turn the tide in time, the man they called The Eagle? Not much.
The Russian helicopter gunships had been flying low these last few days. God willing, the summer clouds of north Afghanistan would keep them low, so that someone could, now and then, manage to shoot off a tiny rear rotor: the only way to get them down, if all you had was a World War I British Lee-Enfield .303, with second-hand cartridges filled with homemade black powder.
Captain Juma, of the former Royal Afghan, now People’s Democratic, Army, screwed up his eyes to make out the distant profile of the light, scouting whirler, and guessed that it must be the forerunner of two or three more: the big ones they called the village-killers. They would have been called up by radio, because this community had harboured badmashes, ‘villains’, the communist word for the Muhjahidin, ‘the strugglers’ – the Resistance. And Juma had his own, special reason, for wanting them to come.
Last night near Sher-Qala, the village folk, the yokels, with utter foolishness, had lit a huge bonfire to celebrate the ambush of three Soviet tanks, just four kilometres down the road towards the provincial capital of Turkestan. They had knocked them out in broad daylight, too. Using only soft-drink bottles filled with petrol, plus a little shredded rubber – Molotov cocktails – they had burned out all three tanks, though with the loss of eight men and five women of the farming folk.
Usually the assault helicopters flew high past here, on their way to deal with the people of the more turbulent far west, along the plains of the boundary with the Soviet Union. Their targets were the ordinary people of the country: starvelings who tended the fields as best they could during the day, and crept out to attack at night. Just after dawn, the raiding parties, each of ten to thirty fighters, would return, carrying their wounded, from the raid. They would show Russian army pay-books, an officer’s gaudy epaulette, boxes of almost unstrikable Estonian matches, buttons, cap-badges. Yesterday’s day-raid had been too successful, and far too venturesome, for the Russians to ignore.
The best times were when the fighters brought back arms, grenades and ammunition. Often, too, there were things like canned food and candies: boiled sweets from Hungary which the Nikolais really loved. And metal mirrors. These were, oddly, engraved with the words, in Russian, ‘to be used only for shaving’. Sometimes the village women, although most of them had been in action against the Nikolais, would weep when they saw these. Each could see, in her imagination, another mother, somewhere far to the north, saving up to buy one, and giving it to her conscript son. ‘Nikolai, carry it in your left breast pocket. Do it for my sake: you never know …’ There were letters, too, unposted, to Moldavia, Georgia, the Ukraine or Byelorussia. Trophies, certainly: but this detritus of death, this rubbish from soldiers’ pockets, was the same the world over: sad and irrelevant.
Not irrelevant were the loading and defence instructions for the huge secret cargo of the treasure-ship; foolishly carried by an over-confident Russian officer, on an observation mission in one of yesterday’s tanks. That was the sort of information that would change the course of the war. Taken from the Russian’s body and carried to Juma, sick and useless, by his men.
The local Muhjahidin were still a travesty of a resistance force. Ragged, ill-equipped, careless and lacking cunning. They needed to be trained. Descendants of warriors, perhaps; but at this rate, how far were they from complete extermination? They were not afraid: Juma accepted that, but they were far from being the kind of soldiers that Afghanistan needed now. Giving themselves away with public displays of exultation at any success, firing shots wastefully and idiotically into the air, they regularly forgot that the cover of darkness was their great asset. Instead of letting the night cloak them, all too often they allowed themselves to be caught in the open in the mornings, and hunted by thos
e satanic flying machines. Mind you, there were other fighters, like the seasoned warriors of the southland, who had had the Soviets on the run more than once; but Juma belonged to Turkestan.
A spasm of pain brought his thoughts back to the present. The villagers would not come back, he hoped: not for some time, anyway. He lay back on the straw which the blind cobbler, Haji Alim, had brought for him, near the upper turret of the baked clay building. By moving slightly, he tried to ease the pain, but it only increased: he felt the throbbing move higher, up now to his thigh. The wound was massively infected, the leg swollen and going blue. He hadn’t been able to get it treated since the guard had slashed him with a bayonet as he jumped the barbed wire that night at Islahgah, the ideological-correction camp for politically unreliable soldiers, more than a fortnight ago. He had covered over a hundred and fifty kilometres in five days, most of it on foot, but sometimes helped by a friendly peasant with a donkey. Twice it was a man with a truck.
He had been planning his escape since he had discovered that his wife, held hostage for his good behaviour, had died of ill-treatment in the Pul-i-Charkhi prison. They had no children; now that Peri was gone, his duty was clear.
Juma had got home, had come back here to Tiger’s Fort, still in his own uniform, to help train these people, to give them the knowledge he had gained at battle school. Without that they would be wiped out by those skills that he had learnt, but of which they had only dimly heard. His father had been their Bashkan, their chief. His family, alone in the village, had maintained the ancient fighting tradition, for seven hundred years. They were hereditary noyons, battle-lords, descended from the commanders of the Horde of Genghiz Khan. And the peasants, surely, could be trained. They would listen to him. It was really a matter of time, as Major Zaman had said. The Major had been trying to prepare him for this day.
Instructor-Major Zaman was an ancient veteran of the war with Britain in 1919, the year the Afghans had last regained their independence. He had lectured, speaking truly, that day ten years ago in the stifling classroom, a hero with the Star of Afghanistan on his tunic. ‘Now hear and understand!’ Cadet Juma had jumped to full alertness, awakened by the raised voice from his daydream of the fair maidens, peghlas they called them thereabouts in the soft southern Pashtu, tripping to the brook which he could see through the window from his desk, the meadow bright with buttercups and daisies; and filling their clay jars with the family’s daily drinking-water.