Goats

Goats serve several practical roles during the journey into Afghanistan: they help make the caravan’s cargo look like livestock, travel with the men as a herded resource, and ultimately provide food when the group is isolated and hungry. Their place in the account shifts with the caravan’s fortunes. At first they belong to a moving supply system; after an attack destroys much of the camp’s provisions, one goat becomes central to the men’s survival, while its discarded remains prompt a discussion of religious law.

Caravan, Camouflage, and Provisioning

On the first day, the caravan’s goods and personal supplies lie in a nearby pasture beneath sheepskins and goatskins, arranged to resemble a herd when seen from the air. A few actual goats are tethered among the bundles, making the disguise part of the camp’s practical preparations. The animals are not simply cargo: they help conceal the cargo itself.

The larger caravan includes thirty men, twenty riding horses, fifteen pack animals, and ten goats. Some men walk, some ride, and men are assigned to herd the goats. The horses carry a different kind of value. Khader Khan intends to present them to his people near Kandahar, where their prestige will matter in dealings with local clans. The goats, by contrast, are among the caravan’s provisions and working animals. Together, the two species show how the expedition depends on animals for both practical movement and its dealings with others.

Hunger on the Mountain Route

The journey’s supply arrangements leave little margin. The caravan gives priority to munitions, machine parts, and medicines, so it carries at most two days’ worth of food for the horses and no food for the men. Water in each man’s canteen is reserved sparingly for people and animals. At times the men have only a glass of water and a small piece of naan. After three weeks of dragging horses across mountains and freezing rivers, the narrator abandons his usual vegetarian diet and eats meat offered by raiders.

This scarcity gives the goats’ presence a double significance. They are animals to be herded along the route, but the caravan’s need for food makes livestock a potential reserve against hunger. The account does not present the goats as plentiful supplies: the men’s reliance on resupply agreements with local clan leaders is essential because they have little room to carry provisions. The distinction between what the caravan transports and what it can obtain along the way becomes decisive after the camp is attacked.

The Surviving Goat

After the attack, the nine surviving men assess what remains. Of the two goats they had at the start of the attack, one has run away and is never seen again. The other is found sheltering in a narrow recess between rocky slopes. It is their only food. Flour, rice, ghee, and sugar have been burned; the fuel is exhausted; and most of the medical instruments are unusable. They can still carry weapons and some medicines, and melt snow for water, but food has become an immediate concern.

The group leaves the ruined camp for a cave about twelve hours away, carrying the goat with weapons, ammunition, medicines, blankets, fuel, and wood. At the cave, one of Jalalaad’s young companions, a halal butcher in his village, prepares the animal. The men cook the meat, set aside the parts Muslims regard as forbidden to eat, and divide the rest into small daily portions. They preserve most of it in a hollow made in the ice and snow. For four weeks, nine men live on the meat from this one goat, rationing it while hunger persists. The animal’s importance is measured not by its place in the caravan’s original count but by the length of time its provisions keep the group alive.

Remains and Religious Observance

The goat’s story continues through the food left uneaten. Later, when Habib Abdur Rahman visits the camp, he says that he can smell food. The men find the discarded forbidden cuts of the dead goat in the snow, already decaying. His remark leads to a discussion of whether eating the forbidden portions would violate religious obligations.

The men pray and have faith, though they do not strictly follow every prescribed prayer schedule. In their circumstances, the question is not abstract: they are hungry, isolated, and facing danger, but they are also mujaheddin who believe that death in battle would make them martyrs. They hesitate to incur religious blame when they feel close to that possibility. The goats therefore mark more than the material hardship of the expedition. From the animal tethered among disguising bundles to the single goat that sustains the survivors, and finally to the remains that test their observance, the account traces how practical survival and religious commitment meet under pressure.