Amber by Stephan Collishaw Read Free Book Online Page A

ain’t moving. I don’t give a shit, I’m not digging any more,’ Kolya said.
    Yuri stood by the road, shimmering in the light of the sun, which was setting. We watched him. He did not call or indicate whether he could see the top of the truck, which was close to the edge of the hole, but came trotting slowly back across the sand towards us. We sat up and watched him approach. His pace slowed as he came close and he slouched wearily across the last twenty metres of sand, his shoulders drooping.
    â€˜It’s fine,’ he said. ‘You can’t see anything.’
    Kolya stood up. His face was set like concrete and his eyes flickered with fury. He slipped down the slope to where Yuri was standing, and grabbed the young Uzbeki’s dirty vest.
    â€˜You fucker!’ Kolya spat.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Why didn’t you just call from over there?’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    Kolya pushed Yuri back. Yuri looked at him, fearfully.
    â€˜You know what I mean, you little arsehole.’
    He jabbed Yuri hard with his fist. Yuri stumbled, raising his arms to defend himself. We watched in silence from the low mound of earth. No one had the energy to move and intervene. As Yuri fell to the ground Kolya kicked him viciously. Yuri screeched, a shrill, fearful protest.
    At that moment the figure of Oleg lvanovich staggered into view, black against the setting sun. He approached slowly, weaving from side to side, stumbling occasionally in the brush. His face, we could see when he drew closer, was scarlet. He stopped when he was close to us and gazed around with an irritated but bewildered look on his face.
    â€˜Where’s the fucking truck ?’ he yelled, gaping distractedly from one face to another. ‘What the fuck have you done with it ?’
    â€˜He’s sunburnt,’ someone whispered.
    â€˜And pissed.’
    â€˜He must have fallen asleep in the sun.’
    â€˜He’s probably got sunstroke.’
    lvanovich staggered forward towards Kolya, who was still standing over the cowering figure of the Uzbeki conscript. He raised a finger and stabbed it against Kolya’s chest.
    â€˜Where’s the truck ?’ he snarled, and bent over and vomited on Kolya’s boots. He straightened up, but his eyeballs were floating loosely around the whites of his small eyes and a few moments later his legs gave way and he crumpled to the ground with a thud. We gathered around his supine figure, a silent, bemused crowd.
    â€˜Is he dead ?’ Yuri whispered, his voice shaking.
    â€˜Don’t be so stupid.’
    â€˜Better get him back to base as quick as we can.’
    We loaded Ivanovich on to the back of the KamaZ and drove back to base. The sun had already set and it was dark by the time we dragged his unconscious body into the medical wing.
    Word of our posting came through at the end of our period of training. All of us had heard whispered stories about Afghanistan. For the first years of the conflict the reality of the situation was kept secret by the government. Even when the zinc coffins began coming home on the planes they called black tulips, the silence was maintained. There was no suggestion on the grave­stones of those first young men that they had died in battle. But as the years passed and conscripts returned to their homes after service, rumours fluttered like dark angels from ear to ear, with stories told in hushed voices of soldiers flayed, of limbs chopped from bodies, of coffins filled with earth because there was nobody left to fill the uniform of dead sons sent home.
    In the faces of some the panic was visible – tight, pale lips and eyes that flickered rapidly from one object to the next, as if searching for something. Others disguised their fear with coarse jokes and laughter that was a little too loud.
    I received a letter from Liuba the week before we left. ‘We all miss you,’ it read, ‘please take care of Kolya for me, I