"You don't know a goddamn thing about goats, do you Bol?"
"These aren't African goats, Doc."
"Yeah, even I can figure that much out. So what?"
"It's different, Doc."
"How is it different, Bol?"
"In Africa, the women deal with the goats. It's not a man thing."
"So the long line of illustrious goat herders?"
"All women."
"Well, you ought to do just fine then." John scowls.
Procuring a couple of goats turns out to be an amazingly difficult and expensive task in a country that is lousy with the things. Within a few days word has gone out through the neighborhood that somebody at FOB Agah wants goats and suddenly peace breaks out in their little square of war. The locals set aside their guns or at least manage to get the Taliban to set aside theirs, then gather up their stock and come in for endless cups of tea and extended negotiations.
By the time the fifth herder shows up the whole base knows that they're on a mission to buy goats for an orphanage and probably at least John's section has sussed out why. When he figures out which one of them let it all slip he's going to duty the bastard with shit-burning until the end of tour.
Bol hangs in there with him through negotiations, despite having been uncovered as a fraud and a possible gossip because he is, still, a good man at heart. Tarkani the unit interpreter and cultural liason stays too. And Shea's there because he simply cannot resist an opportunity to take the piss out of John. Everybody else sits back in position inside the post and giggles.
"So, you don't have the slightest idea what to look for in a goat?" John asks Bol.
Bol smiles sweetly. John glances at Tark.
"Don't look at me, man, I grew up in Cambridge."
Tark joined the Army imaging that he would be negotiating with top Afghani officials using the highly ornate court Farsi he'd learned from his parents only to find himself having to shout orders at illiterate farmers in a colloquial language he barely understood. It is a bit of an issue for Tark. This situation is not helping.
"Come on, Bol, you've got to know something."
Bol shrugs.
"Ah, for Christ's sake it's just like a woman, you look for big tits and wide hips."
"Thank you Mr. Shea, and I suppose that piece of wisdom comes from generations of fucking Irish sheep?"
"No, you syphilitic English ponce, it comes from my common sense. Something none of you lot seem to have any of."
The snow from a few days before has melted and run off, leaving the ground smooth and concrete hard beneath the blankets and carpets laid out for the meeting. The weather feels like a cool spring day. Bol's willingness to lounge around laughing and drinking tea, along with his immense size and scarred face goes a long way to gaining them a certain amount of respect and John's innate sense of fairness manages to smooth over some of his obvious impatience.
"What about those two?" John says after a preliminary of the kind of tea and court courtesies he would expect from a visit with the Queen. He points at the largest pair of goats in the milling collection browsing the nearby shrubbery. Bol lifts a skeptical eyebrow at the pair in question. Much head shaking and muttering amongst the sellers and audience ensues. "Tark?"
"Can't do it Doc."
"What's wrong with them?"
"Haven't the faintest. But the guy who's selling them is a son-in-law to the headman from the next village. If you buy his goats you're going to insult our headman here. Could make all kinds of trouble for us."
"So where are the headman's goats?"
John waits for an answer. Eventually, two scrawny, scabby beasts are dragged forward. John looks at Bol who shakes his head sadly.
"Oh, like you know."
"I don't need to know to know that that is an insult to you, me and the whole British way of life."
"Alright, Tark, find out what that's all about."
Another long pause while John works on keeping his composure. He thinks about how this kind of shit makes zen meditation and staring at the sun seem easy.
"He says these goats are the only ones he can spare. He says he would give you better ones at a good price, but since we destroyed his opium fields he can't spare the livestock. He has to feed his kids, pay his eldest daughter's dowry. He has to support his brother's family since the British blew up his hou—"
"Yeah, alright, back to that again, are we? I get it. Let him know I cannot reimburse his brother for the house. If his brother hadn't let the Taliban use his roof as a mortar launch at us maybe he'd still have a roof and if snipers didn't hide out in his damn poppy fields air support wouldn't be blowing holes in them. Just ask him how much a couple decent goats would be and tell him, that I'm insulted he would offer me those mangy tubercular worm-riddled specimens after I've given him tea and the last of my personal stash of Scottish shortbread."
"Doc, you can't sa—"
"Well, clean it up, Tark, you're the interpreter, not me."
It takes most of the day and enough sugary tea that John is afraid he's going to throw himself into a diabetic coma or at least have his kidneys fail, but he finally becomes the owner of two milk goats plump with kids and looking relatively healthy as far as Afghani livestock are concerned. The headman can barely contain his pleasure at the pile of English pound notes in his hand and even forgets to make a last final plea regarding his brother's real estate. The son-in-law of the leader from the next village throws a dark scowl at John as he starts off back into the hills.
"Bet I know which direction the next mortar attack will be coming from." Shea notes indifferently, scowling back at the man and his party.
"Yeah, so let's make sure these goats are well sheltered because I am not going through that again."
"You know, Doc, most guys just have a wank when they're horny. It's a hell of a lot easier."
"Don't you be jibing the Doc, man." Bol says clucking at the goats under his tongue and expertly tapping at the backs of their legs with a stick to keep them in line as they climb up the hill towards the base. John eyeballs Bol suspiciously. "He has the soul of a real black. Everybody knows you got to court classy women with goats and cows. None of this hoping to get them drunk enough to fuck you like you white tribals are always trying. That's not the way a true man goes about it."
"Yeah, well, either way you better get yourself laid, Watson, because otherwise I'll shoot you myself if you keep carrying on like this."
It's actually much easier, despite regulations against transporting non-military animals to get the goats shipped back to base than it was to purchase them. John calls in a favor on a helicopter pilot. When the pilot balks Screamer, who's taken to the goats and orphans idea in a big way, gets a friend at Bastion to come up with a photo of the pilot on his last leave in Italy in the arms of a truly hideous Romanian prostitute and the email address of the pilot's wife. The pilot reconsiders and agrees to pick up the goats on the next resupply.
John's section isn't scheduled to go off post for another two weeks after the resupply. He'd initially thought to hold onto the goats until then, but soon realized the whole section would insist on being a part of the delivery. John definitely does not want to arrive at her door with that circus in tow, so they crate up the goats in some boxes they bang together from pallet wood and hoist them into the Lynx while the pilot scowls bloody murder at them.
"Make sure they get delivered alive and well to Father Bradley," John reminds the pilot over the comm system he borrows from the gunner as they load the bleating goats.
"Fuck you, Watson. I'm dropping them out over the next village. How many jinglies you think one goat can take out from 2,500 metres?"
"Yeah? That hooker...? You notice how well you can see her mustache in that shot?"
"Again, Watson, fuck you."
John chuckles good-naturedly. "No, sir, fuck you very much." He twists the comm set off his head and, with a big grin, thumbs up the pilot, waves bye-bye to the goats.
"He's gonna drop them, Doc." Bol predicts.
"No he won't. They're for the orphans. Everybody loves orphans. Besides, he knows I've got God on my side." Unlike most Army padres, there's a lot of respect on base for Father Bradley. Mostly because he's a big, jolly St. Nick of a man who drinks and swears like the rest of them and, when he bothers to talk about God at all makes Him sound like some senile grandfather who spends most of His day doddering around in a rose garden. John is very fond of him and knows without asking that when two airsick goats in homemade crates with "Little Wanderers Orphanage" scrawled across the ends show up at the door to the Padre's hut they will end up where they're supposed to be.
It helps that the Padre owes John a few.