Chapter TWENTY-ONE….Petite Etoile

They were treated like VIP’s at the base in Ramstien, Germany. There would be a two day stopover while they rehearsed with the small military orchestra that would accompany them on the tour. Surprisingly to all of the guys, the members of the orchestra were very good and they all got along well.

It had been decided and agreed upon by all, that Armani suits wouldn’t be suitable for Afghanistan and so they were issued fatigues and camo outfits. Carlos, David and Urs had all done military service and were used to the gear…Seb was not so sure he liked it but made the best of it, though he did whinge a bit that they weren’t issued weapons.

“We thought you would love it…we even get to wear these great hats,” David teased and tapped the metal helmet on Seb’s head.

“I wonder if they will let me keep it. I could add it to my collection,” he said, laughing.

“You can’t even see that I have any hair with this thing on,” Urs said as he checked the look in a mirror.

“At least the women will still be able to see my curl,” Carlos gloated and tweaked his kiss curl.

They all joked and laughed as they went to the briefing room but there was an underlaying current of nerves about them. It wasn’t talked about but was understood by all of them….this would be the last of the searches for Honey. If this try wasn’t successful then they would all have to get on with life, even Urs.

They met a Lieutenant who would be accompanying them on the tour, a veteran of two tours of duty who knew the region very well.

Lieutenant Jeffers greeted them warmly and indicated that they should sit around the folding table that was in the room. He looked every inch the tough soldier, strong, toned body, buzz cut hair, a chest of ribbons and a no nonsense attitude.

“Now I know that you haven’t been to a war zone before even though 3 of you have some military training. The pace for this tour will be pretty rough, a food drop every day plus sessions for the troops to meet you. We will hop from one camp to the other, touching base at Kandahar each night except on the 5th and 18th when the trip would be after dark and we don’t want to risk you with a night time movement. I understand from the colonel that you want to get close to some of the refugee camps and that you also want your CD’s played where the refugees can hear it, and I understand why.

“I have to tell you that I think this is a one in a million shot. I don’t believe that a woman could have survived for 11 months out there…you have no idea of the conditions.”

Urs held his hand up to stop the Lieutenant politely.

“You are telling us nothing we haven’t already thought of, but you don’t know this particular woman. She’s small but smart and strong, trained in survival tactics, managed to survive the crash and 4 months later gave birth to twins, somewhere out there, kept them alive for 4 months and got them into the hands of a doctor with the Canadian forces. I don’t think a little thing like a long walk in bad weather and some nasty rebels will defeat her, not without one hell of a fight.”

Urs stared the officer down and the man finally smiled at him.

“Then let’s do the very best we can to help her out. The sheets on the table are the itinerary…which of course will have to stay flexible, depending on the insurgents movements. They’ve been fairly subdued lately which usually means they’re building up to something.”

He gathered up his extra papers and put them in a folder, then shook hands with everyone in the group.

“Get some rest, gentlemen…we board at 0500 tomorrow.”

**

Military transports are not the most comfortable ways to travel, especially for men used to the comfort of business class or private jets. They were all sore and stiff by the time they touched down in Kandahar, and hungry since all that had been provided during the flight was field rations or boxed lunches. Still it was an experience and they were very upbeat over the expedition.

They scrambled into heavy armored troop carriers for the short ride to the base camp and their education of what a war zone was really like began. At first there were no standing buildings, everything they passed was a ruined shell of what used to be homes, businesses, schools. The roadway was strewn with pieces of vehicles, of buildings, belongings that had been abandoned, fragments of clothing, emaciated dogs that wandered the ruins searching for food or water.

There was a stench about the place, cordite, rot, garbage, the coppery scent of blood at times and everywhere, though it was cold, dust that coated the clothes and skin with a thin whitish layer melding everyone and every thing into one color, the grey of dirty sand.

They looked around and saw that everyone appeared to be bandits, all with scarves over their mouth and nose, but there was no laughter about the sight as they did the same, now realizing why they had been issued the cotton scarves.

On this first short trip on the land they saw their first bodies, several nationals laying at the side of the road, awaiting pick up, the faces covered by parts of their clothing, a soldier left to guard them and scare off the ravenous black birds that kept trying to land on or near the corpses.

The perimeter of the camp was heavily armed and guarded. It was flanked across the road by a loose crowd of Afghani refugees, most sitting quietly on the hard packed earth, waiting for something, likely a hand out of food. Now the problem they faced of finding Honey among the natives seemed an insurmountable task. A large percentage of the refugees in the huddle were women, all wearing the chadur, all clones of each other. What Simon had inferred back in London suddenly was very evident…. They would have to be visible and audible and let Honey manage to come to them, for there was not much hope that they could single her out from the vast sea of black clad women.

The camp was more or less what they expected. Dusty and dry, made up of military tents and divided off into rutted streets in a logical pattern. They were given one large tent to themselves, fairly near the mess tent and thankfully a good walk away from the chemical latrines.

It didn’t take long to establish a routine and get on with the schedule planned out for them back in Ramstien. A squad was assigned to them, the lieutenant, a driver, a Sergeant and 4 enlisted men to serve as guards. The orchestra was in another truck but would only go to the larger venues…for the smaller ones they would use a stereo unit in the truck with large speakers and backing tapes and the actual truck as their stage.

They drove out to some of the smaller encampments the first day, accompanying the supply truck that was going out to distribute food. They helped with the distribution, playing tapes of their original CD’s, not wanting to offend any Muslims in the refugee camps by playing Christmas Carols. The hungry refugees made no reaction to the sounds of Il Divo, just held their hands up for the bags of food and bottles of water and scurried off to whatever small piece of ground they had staked out as their own.

Each camp it was the same, the guards watching the crowd alertly, warning some of the bolder people back into line, the air tense with nervousness and the fear of possible suicide bombers.

And at each camp there were more bodies…..lined up neatly at the side of the roadway, their faces covered, many of them very small, children at a guess, some definitely babies. Urs shuddered to think that this might have been the fate of Luke and Peter if Honey hadn’t succeeded in getting them home.

At the end of the first day they were discouraged as they got ready to give a one hour concert for those being deployed the next morning. They sat at the table in the mess hall, toying with the surprisingly not too bad meal.

“Well, aren’t we a sorry lot,” Urs said with a laugh, looking around at the other three.

“One day and we’re already gloomy. I think we expected this to be easier, I know I did. I had no idea of how terrible the situation here is.”

David nodded. “Neither did I. You know, you see it on the news but it doesn’t look the same as in real life…..the dust and the smell of …. decay …it’s just overpowering.”

“And every time the truck slowed down I kept bracing myself to hear shots being fired or a bomb going off. How do they stand it, these soldiers?” Seb said in awe of what the soldiers did daily.

“I’m surprised at how many women there are among the Allied Forces,” Carlos said and they all laughed. Trust Carlos to notice a thing like that.

The show that night was a huge success, well received by the soldiers, as they had planned, casual, even to the extent of accepting requests from the audience and performing those that they could. They crashed immediately after, exhausted from a stressful day and woke to do it all over again.

**

It wasn’t until their second overnight jaunt, to a place called Lashkar Gah, about 60 K from Kandahar that they had the first glimmer of hope. This time they went with a larger contingent just arrived in Afghanistan to replace the troops already over-due to be rotated out. The camp was a kind of way station for the refugees before moving on to Kandahar, but lately had come under intense fire from rebels hiding among those legitimately fleeing.

The Divos went about their business as usual, handing out food and medical packages to the people in camp, always careful to have their music playing from the truck speakers and watching the crowds for a reaction. They finished for the day and trudged through the dust and sprinkle of snow to the mess tent for a light meal, the food in the field not nearly as good as in the large mess in Kandahar.

They were sitting talking, finishing up coffee when one of the doctors with a badge showing the Canadian flag on his sleeve, came over to the table.

“Gentlemen. I don’t know if this is anything but one of our guys got cut off from the others yesterday about 25 K from here. He has an interesting story to tell if you would like to listen.”

They followed the doctor to the med tent and went down the row of wounded to the cot where one young soldier lay, his leg slightly elevated and swathed in bandages around the thigh.

“Corporal Fortier, these gentlemen are Il Divo. Would you tell them about being wounded?”

The corporal smiled up at the singers and, in accented English said they should call him Rene since he wasn’t in uniform. The singers introduced themselves and Corporal Fortier shook their hands, admitting that he was a fan and hoped that the medics would get him back to base in time to see the last concert.

“It wasn’t until I was brought here that I heard of the search you guys are doing. Today I told the Doc when I heard you were in camp, thought it might be important.

“We were about 25K west of here along the road to Kandy…Kandahar I guess you would call it. We were checking the road for bombs, going slow and looking for any new places that had been dug, stopping and running the scanner over all the wrecked vehicles at the side of the road. It’s pretty hilly there and I guess there were some Taliban hiding behind one of the hills cause all of a sudden all hell broke loose. They took our vehicle out with a rocket and we scrambled to get anywhere that we could find for cover.

“I took a dive into one of the ruined buildings but they got me good in the leg. I looked up when I landed and rolled and saw a bunch of women in those black gowns they wear, all huddled down behind the wall and whimpering. I ripped my pant leg open and nearly passed out, cause they got my femoral and it was spurting like a fountain… we’ve all been warned about that….a buddy died from getting his femoral nicked.

“Anyway I started to curse, figuring I was as good as dead. I was letting loose in French, I’m Quebecois, and all of a sudden this woman rushes over from the huddle and clamps these little hands over the wound, real hard, stopping the bleeding for a few minutes. She leaned close to me and said real soft: “Je m’appele Petite Etoile. Je suis Canadien.”

Urs gasped. “Honey.”

“Well the rest of my squad come over the wall just then and saw her bent over me, figured she was up to no good and started shooting in the dirt to scare her off. She grabbed my hand and pushed it hard against the hole in my leg. The next thing I knew all of the women were gone like smoke. Our medic says she saved my life and we tried to find her after but I guess they were all too scared after being shot at.”

Urs leaned over and shook the soldier’s hand, speaking to him for a few minutes in French and they thanked Rene and the doctor several times and left to head back to the mess and tell Lieutenant Jeffers.

“Hermano, I must tell you a sad truth. I did not have the faith that our little sister still lived. I was wrong.” Carlos was struggling, happy over the news, disappointed in himself for not sharing Urs belief.

“No negative thoughts, Carlito, not now….not only was she alive 2 days past but she’s within 35 Klicks of Kandahar. We only have to be very alert now and make sure that any gowned group hears our music.”

**