The Yellow Birds

Bartle recalls the moment Murph disappeared, crying because of the doctor’s death. Although Murph did not attend the ceremony in the woman’s honor, it was not until hours later that Sterling announced they had to go searching for Murph—who, in the meantime, had escaped naked through a hole in the wire.

The men gather quickly and walk toward Al Tafar, which is eerily empty because of the curfew. The uncertainty of the situation makes Bartle wonder about potential dangers, such as being attacked or having to search for Murph for days. Suddenly, an Iraqi man emerges from a house, his arms raised, begging not to be shot and explaining that he saw Murph. A translator then comes, properly hooded, and interrogates the man in a brutal manner, which leads the man to explain that he saw a naked American boy, with legs and feet bloody from the wire and the trash, walk past him in the afternoon, when he was at a local shop.

The Iraqi man pauses, confusedly asking the soldiers why Murph was naked, as though they knew the answer. He then pursues his story, explaining that Murph passed next to him without being aware of any other human presence, looking at the sky and swaying back and forth. The man and his friend at the shop tried to convince Murph to go back to the military outpost, but Murph remained in a trance and followed a beggar, who took Murph’s hand and led him down a dark alley.

The soldiers follow the direction the Iraqi man indicated, seeing local inhabitants run away with fear at their approach. The soldiers look for signs of Murph and find a puddle of blood down an alley. Following the bloody footprints, the men check their weapons and follow the alley, reaching a dead old beggar at an intersection. Unsure which direction to take, the soldiers worry that Murph has been captured and tortured to death.

As the sun begins to rise, the soldiers reach the outskirts of the city, where a man with a mule-drawn cart, seemingly undisturbed by the presence of twenty armed soldiers, explains—through the interpreter—that he saw five or six men go into the minaret the previous night. Sterling decides that Bartle and he will go explore the minaret, and the cartwright offers to guide them there. The cartwright then placidly stops and feeds his mule, explaining to the interpreter that he has already been to the minaret and does not want to go there again.

The interpreter tells Sterling and Bartle to go look by the minaret, and Sterling tells the interpreter to leave. Bartle is scared, feeling that this whole bizarre situation must be a trap, but Sterling pushes him on. In a tense, eerie atmosphere, Bartle and Sterling walk up to the minaret, where they find Murph’s dead body. Sterling comments that Murph must have been dead before falling, because of the minaret’s small height.

Pulling out Murph’s body from the vegetation, Bartle and Sterling see that Murph’s eyes have been gouged out, his throat slit, almost detaching his head from his neck, and that his ears, nose, and genitals have been cut off. Bartle realizes that neither Sterling nor he will ever again be able to see Murph the way they knew him, as an innocent eighteen-year-old boy. Bartle covers the body with a blanket from his pack and finds himself unable to look, finding the sight of Murph more horrific than the results of suicide attacks or cut-off heads.

Bartle asks what they should do, and Sterling swears, speaking to Murph directly, telling him he shouldn’t have died in this way. Sterling argues that they need to bring the body back, because that is regular procedure and that they do not have the authority to decide. Bartle does not want to send such a destroyed body back home, where Murph’s mother would probably open the casket and see what happened to her son. Influenced by Bartle’s adamant attitude, Sterling takes a moment to think while Bartle shakes uncontrollably. Finally, Sterling decides that they will pretend that they never found Murph’s body.

Sterling and Bartle call the old cartwright, who asks for a cigarette, and they lift Murph’s body into the cart. Sterling burns the grass by the minaret, cursing “them” and “everyone on earth.” Then they take Murph’s body by the river, walking past burning objects thrown in the streets from the soldiers’ search. When Sterling and Bartle reach the river, they throw Murph’s body in. It soon begins to drift away. Sterling reminds Bartle that they have to act as though none of this ever happened, and he shoots the cartwright in the face. The mule walks away and, when Bartle looks back at the river, he sees that Murph is gone.