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horizon faded slowly behind our left shoulders.
    We kept liste ning on the radio for the rest of the day, but heard nothing.  Ra'ashid and the rest of Jamal's little band of Kurdish bandits were goners.
    That kind of thing makes you think. Not about them. They were dead or dying by now.
    It makes you realise how lucky you’ve been to get away with it.

CHAPTER 3
    The Iran-Turkish Frontier
     
    Thank God we made it to the hills that lead to the Turkish border.
    That night, as we huddled in our sleeping bags round our fireless camp, the muted conversation turned inevitably to the debacle of our retreat. To my astonishment, Nusret told us that he had lost a brother in Ra’ashid 's group.
    "Why didn't you tell me before?" I asked. "Will you not go back?"
    "Of course. Now it will be a matter of vengeance, a vendetta."
    Yusif, standing sentry, a dark shape against the stars, growled his assent. I thought I understood the Kurds, but their capacity to surprise me was itself a constant source of surprise.
    "But today," I probed, "Today did you not ... ?" I trailed off tactfully. No-one, least of all a Kurdish fighter, likes to be told he has run away and abandoned his brother.  Particularly by an infidel foreigner, and a white face at that.
    Nusret grunted in the dark.  "What purpose would it have served?  It was as God wills. Now I must pay my family's debt, with blood."
    Yusif growled again. I persisted, trying to pin down the thought processes behind the Kurd rhetoric.
    "The will of God the merciful?  But was it not Jamal al Faud's desire for revenge that caused this? When he killed like a halaal butcher in the maydaan at Hasak? Had we not wasted time there, we may even now be with your brother, Nusret. Who knows?"
    Nusret's face was impenetrable in the dark. "Who knows indeed, English? But I would not wish to be with my brother at this moment, Sayeed ."   I remembered the jets and the smoke and the silent radio.
    "True. But was it not Jamal's revenge that caused all this?"
    "Jamal did right."  Yusif's interruption was abrupt.  "A man must spill blood when it is required for the honour of his family: revenge is his duty. Someone must punish the guilty. Is it not so written in the Holy Koran?"
    "His revenge has cost us all dear, my friend."
    "True; but duty is duty. Who else will act for us if a man will not act like a man to help his own kin? This time  Nusret interrupted. He stood up to join his friend, the zip of his sleeping bag sounding harsh in the cold mountain desert night.
    "I would not question Jamal's vengeance. He did what he had to, for the blood debt of his sister and his family. Who else could they look to for honour and to avenge them?", he asked rhetorically. "The Iran ian police dog deserved to die. He had done great evil to Jamal’s sister. Is not the law that evil must be punished and seen to be, by all? Someone has to do what is right. There is no law in the mountains. Jamal was the law. And for  upholding the law I think he has paid a higher price than any of us here.  One day I will avenge Jamal as I will avenge my brother."
    In the dim starlight , his eyes glittered and I realized he was weeping. "Come my friend," I said, "Let me light a cooker and make us a hot drink. The jaysh will not see anything if we shield the flame."
    We never spoke of it again.
    *               *               *
    It took us another four days to get across the Turkish border. Four days of survival rations. Four days of me getting sick with some stupid bug that no amount of bung up pills in the medical pack could stop. Four days of hiding behind rocks.  Four days of constant fear and tension. We tried one night drive and bloody nearly killed ourselves, so we only drove by day; carefully. We discussed leaving the Rover and going across the mountains on foot, but the climbs and distances didn't add up. We'd never have made it without help, and we would never be able to carry weapons and ammo