The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and Sacrifice Read Online Free Page A

could smell gasoline, she told him. She couldn’t get the taste of it out of her mouth.
    ‘I’m cold,’ she said. ‘I’m freezing.’
    ‘Don’t worry. You’re always cold.’
    *  *  *
    Down the lane, Ayala saw a bright flash, but he didn’t see much else. He was too far off, and the trees edging the stream and the uneven line of compound walls blocked his view. The kids who had gathered around him screamed and ran, dropping the candy he had given them.A young soldier named Justin Skotnicki heard cries from down the path, and then the smell hit him. He had been to the scene of roadside bombings, and he instantly recognized it: the smell of someone burning.
    Ayala ran. He pulled out his pistol. It must have been a suicide attack, he thought. He hadn’t heard an explosion, but he had been through this before, and he assumed the silence was auditory exclusion, a stress response that causes momentary hearing loss. As he moved along the lane between the stream and the compound walls, a man fell toward him, the sleeves of his tunic on fire. The man was striking his flaming clothes with his hands and running fast and haphazardly down the lane, his eyes wild with fear.
    Ayala thought the man was a victim, a bystander, perhaps, caught up in the attack. Thenhe heard someone yell: ‘Stop him! Shoot him!’
    Ayala gripped his pistol, raised it. He looked up and saw people moving. He knew Cooper and Loyd were back there. He saw flames up ahead, saw a dark shape rolling inside the fire. He didn’t know who or what it was. He didn’t shoot. Instead, he stuck out his arm and clotheslined the running man. His fist hit the Afghan in the throat and the Afghan dropped to the ground.
    Ayala knelt and grabbed hold of him, pinning him down. He was close now, close enough to notice the man’s long shirt, light beard, and cropped hair, the tattoos on his arms. He looked to be in his mid-twenties and he couldn’t have weighed more than 160 pounds, but he was wiry and he struggled like he was pumped with adrenaline or high on drugs, kicking, shoving, writhing, his eyes desperate. Two soldiers helped pin him down, one of them grabbing his legs. The Afghan kicked and bitand grabbed the muzzle of a private’s gun.It took three of them to subdue him. Finally, Ayala raised his pistol and the Afghan subsided. Ayala could feel the captive’s warm, skinny body against his own. He smelled the other man’s sweat.
    ‘Get the flex cuffs!’ Ayala yelled. ‘Cuff this guy!’
    A sergeant came up and helped one of the soldiers slip a plastic tie around the man’s wrists and pull it tight. Ayala squatted next to the detainee, his knee on the Afghan’s throat. He ran his hands over the man’s body, feeling for weapons. He scanned the path for more attackers.
    He thought that only a few minutes passed there on the path, but it might have been longer. Time was elastic, impossible to measure. He heard shots and didn’t know where they were coming from, didn’t know who stood at the end of the lane, who was watching through the trees. Someone shouted at the soldiers to get in position and men dashed past, but Ayala stayed where he was, guarding the captive. He wanted to see what was happening to Loyd and Cooper, but no one else was around to take his place. Pathak, the platoon leader, came over to talk to the staff sergeant who had supplied the flex cuffs. They were discussing what to do with the prisoner. Ayala heard them saysomething about handing him over to the local police.
    He still didn’t know what had happened, butnow he was starting to panic. Something deeply fucked-up had occurred and he was stuck here, away from his teammates, too far from the action to be of any use. The cuffed Afghan half lay, half sat against the mud wall of one of the compounds edging the stream, his legs extended across the path,writhing and kicking though his hands were bound.The man was not his responsibility, Ayala thought. The soldiers should have been