Favourite Dog Stories: Shadow, Cool! and Born to Run

I knew by now we’d have to be leaving soon, as soon as my heel was better, and somehow she seemed to know it too. As the days went by Shadow wanted more and more to stay with us. But I could see she loved being with the soldiers too, particularly with Sergeant Brodie. He had even kept her favourite ball to remember her, the one she’d always liked to play with. The soldiers would throw it for her, and she’d chase it right across the compound, bringing it back, but not letting it go, till she was given something to eat in return.

But she never played with them for too long. Always she came back to sit near me, and I’d catch her looking at me, and we’d both know what it was we were thinking. Is she Polly? Is she Shadow? Would she be coming with us when we left?

I knew the answer. She knew the answer. I think we both kept hoping that both of us were wrong. I could feel she was becoming theirs again, an army dog, Sergeant Brodie’s dog. Polly, not Shadow. She still slept with us in our room, often came to lie down beside me with her head on my foot. I still hoped she would be coming with us, but I knew already deep down that it wasn’t going to happen, that she would be staying on the base with the soldiers, that she was back with Sergeant Brodie where she belonged.

She knew it too, and was as sad about it as I was, and as Mother was too – she often told me later that she could never have imagined that she could become so fond of a dog.

I think all the soldiers could see my sadness. The soldiers may have been exhausted when they came back into the base after a patrol, with their rifles and their helmets, but they always had a smile for me. They all knew by now why we were on the road, what we were running away from, all about how Mother had been treated by the police, about how Grandmother had died.

Sergeant Brodie came in to see us on the evening before we left, with the interpreter, who told us that the soldiers had collected some money to help us on our way, a whip-round, he called it. I think I knew what was coming next from the sad expression on his face. He said it all through the interpreter. He could hardly look at me.

“About Polly. I’m sorry, Aman, but she has to stay here. She’s an army dog. Maybe you can come and see her again, when you get to England, I mean. How’d that be?” He was only trying to soften the blow, I realised that. But who knew if we would ever even make it to England, without Shadow to lead us there?

I cried when he’d gone out. I couldn’t stop myself. Mother said it was for the best, that we’d be fine on our own from now on, God willing. And this time, she said, we were going to look after our money. That was why, with Shadow beside me on the bed, I spent most of our last night on the base hollowing out the heels of our shoes, the best place we could think to hide our money. Shadow watched me all the time. She knew for sure these would be our last few hours together.

I could hardly bear to look at her.

When we left the next morning, the soldiers were there to see us off, and so was Shadow. Sergeant Brodie called for three cheers, and when it was over he stepped forward to say goodbye to us. He pressed something into my hand. The interpreter was there to help him as usual. “Our regimental badge, Aman,” he was telling me. “The sergeant says you’ve earned it. He says he hopes you get to England all right. And when you do, and you ever need any help, let him know. He’ll be there. And if you want to see Polly again, just ask. You can always get in touch with him through the regiment. And he says to thank you, for bringing Polly back to him, for saving the lives of his men, that he’ll never forget what you did for us, for all the lads, for the regiment.”

I crouched down to say my last goodbyes to Shadow, stroked the dome of her head, and ruffled her ears. But I couldn’t say anything. If I spoke, I knew I would cry, and I didn’t want to do that, not in front of the soldiers.

As they drove us off out of the base, I longed for Shadow to jump up and come with us. But I knew she wouldn’t, that she couldn’t.

That was the last I saw of her.

They drove us to the nearest town, and put us on a bus. I sat there clutching my badge. I looked down at it for the first time. It was silver, like a star, with what looked like a picture of castle walls on it. And there was some writing below that I couldn’t read then.

(It said Royal Anglian. I’ve still got it. I take it with me everywhere.)

We were on our way again, to England, to Uncle Mir and Manchester. Sitting there on the bus, I remember I tried hard to think of David Beckham, to stop me feeling so sad about leaving Shadow. But it didn’t work. Then I looked down at my star, and squeezed it tight. It made me feel better. That silver star always has, ever since.

“The Whole Story, I Need the Whole Story.”

Grandpa

All this time, as Aman was telling his story, he had hardly looked up at me. It seemed to me that as he was telling it, he needed to relive his memories without any kind of distraction. He spoke so softly that he could almost have been talking to himself, his voice often barely a whisper. Sometimes I had to lean right forward to hear what he was saying. But throughout it all, his voice had been steady, until the very last bit, the moment he’d had to leave Shadow behind. I could hear then that he was fighting back the tears.

When he got up suddenly and rushed out of the visiting room, I was sure it must be because he did not want me to see him crying. I knew too that he might not come back, that he might be too proud to have to face me again after that. But I waited there anyway, because somehow I felt there was at least a chance he would come back. After all, he’d come back before, hadn’t he?

Sitting alone at the table I wished more than anything that Matt could be with me. Aman wouldn’t have run off like that if Matt had been there. They were friends, best friends. Matt would have been able to talk him round somehow.

It was then, with Aman’s story still fresh in my head, that I first began to consider seriously whether there really might be something that could be done to help Aman and his mother – besides just visiting them, I mean.

The longer I sat there, and thought about the poverty of their lives in Bamiyan, of the suffering the whole family had lived through, of their determination to get out of Afghanistan and come to England, the more I hated to think of them locked up like criminals in this place. There was a terrible injustice going on here. Aman’s story had awoken the journalist in me. I wanted to know more.

I wanted to know everything.

When Aman did come back a few minutes later, his mother was with him again. I hadn’t expected this at all. There was so much I still had to find out about. I’d been hoping that when he came back, he would be able just to pick up his story where he’d left off. But I knew Aman was much more shy and reserved with his mother around, so I wasn’t at all hopeful he would talk as easily or as freely as he had before. I could see his mother had been crying, and was still very overwrought. She was rocking back and forth, clutching a handkerchief in both hands.

His mother spoke up then, but only to Aman, and in her own language. When she had finished, he translated for her. “Mother says she had to come and tell you herself that we cannot go back to Afghanistan, that the police would torture her again. She says the Taliban are not defeated, they are everywhere, in the police, everywhere. They will kill her, just like they killed Father. She says we have been living in England for six years now. This is our home. She says our lawyer cannot help us any more, that the government won’t even let us appeal. She has prayed to God that you will be able to help us. Her dream tells her you will, but she has come to ask you herself, to beg you to make her dream come true.”

I didn’t know what to say, only that I had to say something, and something encouraging too, but without making promises I could not keep.

“Tell her I can do my best, and I will,” I told him. “But she must understand, and so must you, Aman, that I am not a lawyer. I’m not sure what I can do, what anyone can do. But I do know that for me to be able to do anything at all, I will need you to tell me your whole story, from the time you left Shadow behind, and got on the bus that day, until now, until today. I mean, how did you manage to get all the way to England? How have you been living, and what exactly happened when they brought you in here? The more I know, the better. I need to know everything.”

Aman talked to his mother for a few moments, to explain things. She was calmer now, more composed. Then he turned back to me, took a deep breath, and began again, reluctantly though, almost as if he did not want to remind himself at all of the rest of the story, as if he was dreading having to live through it again.

“God is Good.”

Aman

All right, if you think it will help, I’ll go on then. The bus. We were on the bus. It was a comfortable bus, the most comfortable I’d ever been on. I was missing Shadow, of course I was; but apart from that, I was feeling really up. I think I imagined this bus would take us all the way to England. I was only eight then, remember. I hadn’t any real idea where England was, nor how far it was away, nor how long it would take us to get there.

I think if we had known what a long and terrible journey it was going to be, then I’d never have got on to that bus in the first place. As it turned out, that bus journey was the last time we were going to be comfortable, or happy, for a very long time.

Mother was sick with worry when we came to the frontier with Iran, I could see that. She told me we were going to play a game. If the soldiers came on board to check us, we had to pretend we were asleep. So that’s what we did. I heard them coming down the bus, but they passed by us without stopping. I only dared to open my eyes when the bus was on its way again. We were through.

“You see, Aman,” she whispered to me, “God is good. God is helping us.”

She told me then that she had telephoned from the army base to Uncle Mir’s contact in Teheran, the next big city, and he would be there waiting to meet us when we arrived, that he would take care of everything. So we had nothing more to worry about. I think I must have slept almost all the way, because I don’t remember much about that journey, only that it seemed endless.

Uncle Mir’s friend was there to meet us, as Mother had said. He walked us through the streets, warning us not to talk to anyone, and not to look anyone in the eye, particularly policemen. He told us that if we got caught they would put us in prison, or send us back to Afghanistan. So of course we did what he said. He took us first to one man, who took some money off Mother, then to another who Uncle Mir’s friend called ‘the fixer’, who took even more money off her.

I didn’t like any of these people. I didn’t trust them either. They treated us as if we were dirt. I felt lost in a strange and hostile world, with no Shadow to guide us any more. But I had my silver star. I kept it hidden in my pocket. I never took it out in case someone saw it. I’d squeeze on it tight whenever I was frightened, which was a lot of the time, and always before I went to sleep at night. It was my talisman, my lucky charm.

Uncle Mir’s friend kept telling us everything would be all right, that we would be looked after now all the way to England. Travel, food, we’d have everything we needed. There would be no problems, he said, no problems at all.

We believed him. We trusted him. We had to. We didn’t have a choice, did we? But it turned out to be the beginning of a nightmare. They took us down into a cellar, and said we’d have to stay there till everything was arranged. We were there for days on end. They gave us food and water, but they wouldn’t let us out, except to go to the toilet. Mother said it was like being back in the police cell in Afghanistan.

Then they came for us one night, took us out into a dark alleyway and shoved us into the back of a pick-up truck. I remember looking out of the back and seeing all the bright lights of the city. Once, when we were waiting at traffic lights, I said to Mother that we should climb out and make a run for it, that we were better off on our own. But then the truck moved off, and the chance to escape was gone.

We never had another one.

Somewhere on the edge of the city, the pick-up stopped. There were people waiting for us. They made us get out and climb up into the inside of a huge lorry. It looked empty at first, but it wasn’t. At the back, there was a large metal container, its doors wide open. They pushed us in, threw us a couple of blankets, told us we had to be quiet and just left us. It was pitch black in there, and cold. We sat huddled in the corner, Mother telling me all the time it was going to be all right, that Uncle Mir knew what he was doing, that these were good people who were looking after us, and that everything would turn out fine, God willing.

Hours later, when we heard the sound of voices outside, and when the lorry started up and moved off, I began to believe she was right, right about everything, that maybe the worst was over. I kept telling myself that we would soon be in England with Uncle Mir, and we would have a warm place to sleep, running water, television, and I could go to see Manchester United play and see David Beckham. I might even meet him.

But it wasn’t only those thoughts that kept me going, it was my silver star, and the memory I had in my head of Shadow, always trotting on ahead of us, her tail waving us on, how she’d stop to look back at us from time to time to make sure we were coming, her eyes telling us that all we had to do was to keep going like she did. I just had to think about her, picture her in my mind, and, however hungry or cold or frightened I was, it made me feel a little better, for a while, but not for long.

I was half asleep by the time the lorry stopped again. We heard footsteps from inside the lorry, then voices right outside our container. “Police,” Mother whispered. “It’s the police. They’ve found us. Please God, no. Please God, no.” She had her arms around me, holding me tight, kissing me and kissing me, as if it was for the last time.

The Little Red Train

Aman

The door of the container opened. The daylight blinded us. We could not see who it was at first.

It was not the police.