She opened her eyes just a fraction, and when she saw me she murmured softly. There'd be no screaming out in pain for her. That stage was well gone. Her burns were so severe that even the nerve endings had evaporated.

Like Ahmad and his boys, I was in full Gunga Din gear and cowpat hat. I took off my waistcoat and tucked it gently under the back of her head to protect it from the rocks.

She had an hour at the most. There wasn't even a field clinic or a nurse up here. The nearest hospital was in Jalalabad, a couple of days away on foot, and the roads round the city were teeming with hammers and sickles.

I doubted she even had someone who cared enough to bury her. Treated like a slave, not only by the husband but also the rest of his family, I guessed she'd just had enough. Most of the women stuck at these shit marriages because that was the way things were. By tradition, every Afghan girl or woman had to be attached to some man – her father, husband, brother, son, uncle – and for all too many of them the kerosene trick was the only way out.

Boots scrambled towards me. 'Nick! We have hut – come.'

I looked up. Ahmad's beard was longer than mine, and he was proud of it. He hadn't shaved these last seven years, ever since the Russians had arrived to 'liberate' his country. He was a hard fucker, like the rest of the muj, a good Muslim, a good fighter, a good man. I enjoyed working with them, but I could never understand why they were total arseholes to their women. They treated them like shit.

He didn't even bother to glance at the girl. She might as well not have been there. 'Come, leave it. We're cooking.'

'Go on, mate, you get stuck in. But maybe bring me something, will you?'

I knew there was fuck-all I could do for her, but there'd been enough killing up on the mountain. It seemed such a waste of a young life for her to have done it to herself.