Excerpt from Red Birds by Mohammed Hanif, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Great, I thought. They're going to retire me and replace me with a geek in Houston who remote controls drones, someone who can fight a one-handed war while dipping his fries in barbeque sauce.

Colonel Slatter politely suggested that I work towards raising my profile before this happened.

Profile? And I thought we were no show and all go.


My career had been a bit of a straight line, he said, all bottom-line competence but there were no acts of extraordinary valour, no courage-under-fire-type citations.

But, but, went the Colonel, 'There is a war on and what is a war if not an opportunity, an opportunity to make up those extra points.' Under the Colonel's shaved, shiny head, his eyes were icy blue pools of certainty, the kind that eighteen years of implementing distant wars brings.


I wonder if there is a special medal for pilots who went out on a mission and found themselves lost in the desert. People only talk about being lost in the desert in Sunday school, or in air force folklore. They put GPS chips in pets and migratory birds now, I mean who the hell gets lost these days? And how can someone flying around in a 65-million-dollar machine get lost.

Say hi to Major Ellie.

I scan the horizon, turn around and look at the endless sea of sand surrounding me. I pour a drop of water on my parched tongue.

In the distance I can see the sun reflected in a giant, blurred mirror. If I look long enough, I can see the little ripples running through it, like the sweet waters of a natural lake, like an infinity pool made specially for me. But you can bet your dog tags that there isn't a drop of water to be found there, it's just your mind playing tricks on you.

Desert Survival Rule Number One: Seen something nice? Forget it. It's a mirage.

That reminds me of Desert Survival Rule Number Seven and I slowly start taking off my flying overalls. My suit is olive green with the head of a shrieking bird stuck to my chest and can probably be detected from miles off. I turn it inside out and put it back on. I've blended in now. I can lie down in the sand and wait for the Angels to come and take me away in a helicopter. I can roam around without being detected. I can probably go and search for the camp that was in my cross hair for a second, my thumb ready to push the drop button. Had I pushed it or not? Was the world a little bit safer now or had I fucked up?


There is a Hangar, and there is a Camp. The Colonel had pulled out a map. The Colonel still liked his printed maps and coloured thumbtacks and pointers and cross hairs on targets. Before he could send us off to wipe out a bit of earth, he liked doing his thing with the pointer. In a world of uncertainty, if you can nail them down on a paper map, the enemy's existence becomes much more real.

'You take this out and we are done. One last sortie and you can go home, make babies, and take care of them for the rest of your happy life.' I knew they were offering a little extra to save on long hires. I didn't know they were also dishing out advice on how to spend it. The best pilots of the best air force in the world being treated like cabbies: Hey, need an extra fare? Here's another bombing run.

The Colonel had resisted a lot of things in the force. He had resisted the induction of priests in the combat units (They screw little boys), when the don't ask, don't tell protocol came into effect for homosexuals (They'll want to ass-rape rather than fight) and in the end the induction of women into combat units (Now we are all truly screwed).

But the Colonel had never resisted a good war, or for that matter any war which had an aerial component to it.

He had earned medals on the battlefield and a stack of warnings for opening his mouth at the wrong time; in the presence of generals he was not above calling them accountants in uniform. Passed over many times for promotion now, his mission briefs had become a bit of street theatre.

Red Birds © 2018 by Mohammed Hanif. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Black Cat, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc. All rights reserved.