Alex ended his personal recounting of the drone strike at Lashkar Gah. He had told it vividly, as Noel had done, and fell silent, eyes unblinking. The men sat motionless, staring at him. For several minutes there was neither movement nor sound in the hall.
Ruairidh spoke, “There’s more, Alex, isn’t there.” It was a statement, not a question, and Alex resumed, but this time on a more conventional level.
His tone was explanatory, prosaic.
The drone incident had taken place in the district called Lashkar Gah, a name that ironically translated as ‘the army barracks’. The village name he did not know. Perhaps Noel himself knew it only as a map reference, or by an army nickname, some phonetic corruption of Pashto.
Alex paused, then quietly explained that these were the images that had haunted Noel’s sleep. Impersonal death by an unaccountable hand. And none would reveal the hand that had killed the local men, the mother, the infant, and the two Afghan soldiers. They had died as ‘collateral damage’ at a village in the district of Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province. The hand that fired the missile could have moved in Kabul, or in Nevada.
The guarantee of invincibility if you commanded the skies was a great lie which sold UAVs in thousands. A remote operator generated new hatreds. A soldier had respect for his fellow soldier, whether enemy or not. Geeks in air-conditioned bunkers, staring at a video of life in some distant place and pressing keys to deal death and destruction, were recruiting officers for terrorist organisations. Or so Noel had said.
The account concluded by explaining something of the aftermath. Noel’s report had been formally submitted and discredited as being based on the observations of an inexperienced subaltern and a lone non-commissioned officer, despite a representation of its accuracy from Noel’s commanding officer. Long afterwards, having resigned his commission, Noel had read more of the conflict in Afghanistan and the autonomous territories on the border with Pakistan. Needing fresh air, as he had phrased it, he travelled north and joined the Commission as a forestry labourer in Lochaber.
Alex paused, for it was getting late. The main lighting dimmed on a timer and there was modest bustle as they turned in for the night, skirting chalk figures drawn on the wooden floor.