‘Jesus,’ Adams said. ‘It’s like being back at school, this is. What’s in it for me?’
‘I’ll make the tea until we go on R&R,’ Lizzie laughed. Adams threw his book at her, missing her head by inches as she dodged away from it. She leapt up from the cot, giggling as she did so. ‘I think that’s a fair trade. Don’t you?’
‘Apart from the fact that’s in a couple of days’ time, how about you don’t make the tea until we go on R&R?’ Adams said. ‘That would be a much better deal.’
They both turned as they heard the flaps to the TRT tent open. Colonel Nick was standing in the doorway, holding one door open with his hand.
‘Sorry to disturb you both when you’re busy, but can you come to the Ops Room. There’s a situation developing.’
Adams and Lizzie looked at the Colonel, and then back at each other.
‘Yeah, no worries, sir,’ Adams said.
They both got to their feet and walked towards the door to the tent. Adams, who was just behind Lizzie, jabbed her just under the ribs with his index fingers. Colonel Nick turned around and gave her an odd look as she jumped in response, but he missed her elbowing Adams in the stomach in retaliation.
Colonel Nick walked down the main corridor of the hospital with purpose — or at least that was the impression that he wanted to convey. He didn’t understand how, when soldiers were out there on the ground fighting, those two idiots behind him were arseing about like nothing was happening.
They reached the door of the Ops Room at the far end of the hospital, and Colonel Nick banged on the door with his fist.
‘Easy, Colonel,’ he heard Lizzie say behind him. ‘It’s only plywood.’ He turned and fixed her with a hard stare. The door opened behind him as an army Lieutenant opened it, and Colonel Nick pushed past him and into the cramped tent.
‘What’s going on, then?’ Colonel Nick said. ‘I need an update.’
The Lieutenant, who was quite obviously not happy with the situation, swallowed.
‘Well, sir,’ he said. ‘There’re troops in contact up near Sangin,’ He pointed towards the small screen with the mIRC, a military internet relay client which was an instant messenger service for troops in the field. ‘We’ve got multiple reports coming in from the same contact, but it looks bad.
‘Where?’ Colonel Nick asked.
‘Outside Sangin somewhere,’ the Lieutenant replied. He pointed towards the mIRC screen on the desk. ‘They’re still trying to get their heads around what’s going on.’
‘So how are we going to get them out if the bloody cabs are all grounded?’ Colonel Nick asked nobody in particular. He turned to Adams. ‘Is Captain Flash Heart still about?’ He saw Adams suppress a smile at the Black Adder reference.
‘No sir, he’s gone back to the line,’ he replied.
‘Can we listen in to the radio chatter here?’ Colonel Nick asked the Lieutenant.
‘No, sir,’ the young officer replied. ‘It’s just the mIRC. You’d need to go to the main Ops Room down by the helicopters to listen in directly.’
‘We could always head down there anyway, sir,’ Lizzie said. ‘Grab Ronald and the medical kit from the tent just in case.’ Colonel Nick looked at her, thinking that she had a point.
‘I didn’t think that we were allowed in there,’ Colonel Nick said.
‘As long as you’re with us, sir,’ Lizzie replied with a grin, ‘you’ll be fine.’
‘Right then,’ Colonel Nick said. ‘Let’s go. Thank you, Lieutenant.’
Colonel Nick walked out of the ops room and into the TRT tent directly across the main corridor. He was closely followed by Lizzie and Adams who had finally managed to stop messing about. Nick picked up his body armour from the corner of the room and threw it on.
‘Corporal McDonald,’ Colonel Nick said. Ronald, who was still dozing in one of the canvas chairs, opened his eyes and looked around. ‘Get your arse into gear, we’re going down to the line.’ Ronald jumped to his feet and the remaining three members of the team struggled to get their kit together.
Colonel Nick half-ran towards the rear door. He called over his shoulder as he did so. ‘I’m driving,’ he said. Lizzie looked up at him with a surprised expression. Colonel Nick paused for a second to see if she would say anything. Instead, she grabbed her body armour and medical bag and started towards him.
‘I’m calling shotgun, then,’ Lizzie said. Colonel Nick couldn’t help himself. Against all his better judgement, he smiled as he saw the downcast look on both Adams's and Ronald’s faces. All their bloody childishness was wearing off on him.
Sergeant Hawkins could see frantic activity as they approached the Forward Operating Base in the district centre of Sangin. There’d been a definite air of tension as they’d driven back through the town itself, with excited locals running around everywhere. The message that the Taliban had scored a direct hit on the Brits had obviously got around. He started to relax as their convoy, one vehicle less than it had been when they’d left earlier in the day, got within the range of the guns at the FOB. The whole patrol had been on high alert since leaving the scene of the ambush, knowing full well that they were extremely vulnerable.
He stared at a young man standing by the side of the road who was staring at them while talking into a mobile phone. Hawkins wanted to pull out his sidearm and shoot him in the head in case he was telling his Taliban mates that the convoy was approaching the base, but he could just be telling his Mum that he was on his way home for tea. Hawkins had no way of knowing, and despite what had happened to them, he wasn’t the sort of soldier who would shoot an unarmed civilian anyway. No matter how much he would like to.
As the lead WMIK reached the main gates of the FOB, the heavy doors opened outwards to let the convoy inside. Hawkins breathed a sigh of relief as they passed through the entrance. When the vehicles stopped just inside the gates, he jumped down from his Land Rover and ran towards the casualty he’d dragged from the damaged vehicle. A couple of medics had beaten him to it though, and he was gently but firmly pushed back by one of them. He turned and looked back towards the vehicle with the other casualties and saw a lifeless body being laid down on the ground next to it. The lack of activity around the soldier told him everything he needed to know. Lance Corporal Ruffles was dead.
Hawkins dropped to his knees, tears unexpectedly springing to his eyes. He rubbed them away, angry with himself when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw the second in command of the FOB crouching next to him. The two soldiers looked at each other without a word. Hawkins couldn’t think of a single thing to say and, he figured, neither could the officer. He looked at the young Captain who must have been half his age, and the look that Hawkins saw on the young man’s face was one of shared pain. Despite the fact that the officer had been nowhere near the action, Hawkins instinctively knew that they both felt Ruffles’s death just as keenly. The tears returned, and this time Hawkins made no move to wipe them away.
Adams was grumbling. He knew he was grumbling, and he really didn’t care. He sat on the thin rubber cushion in the back of the Land Rover which Colonel Nick was driving about as fast as the thing could go towards the line. Opposite him, Ronald sat on the other seat.
‘She won’t let me bloody drive,’ Adams said, ‘but she’ll let him.’ He pointed towards the driver’s seat. ‘How does that work, mate?’ Ronald just looked back at him, a half-smile on his face. Adams continued, ‘And calling fucking shotgun? Seriously? That’s just taking the piss.’ Ronald’s smile broadened.
The Land Rover sped past the main headquarters building for Camp Bastion, a cloud of dust billowing out behind it. Adams looked out of the back window just in time to see the Garrison Sergeant Major running out of the main building.
‘Did you see that, Ronald?’ Adams asked. ‘Fucking priceless, mate.’ The smile on his face now matched Ronald’s. ‘There’ll be hell to pay for that.’
A few minutes later, the Land Rover pulled up with a skid outside the main Ops Room next to the p
an. As he heard the front doors slam as Colonel Nick and Lizzie got out, Adams struggled with the catch to the tailgate until it finally loosened so that he could clamber down. With Ronald a couple of steps behind him, he walked towards to the door to the Ops Room where Colonel Nick was discussing something with whoever it was had opened the door.
Adams walked up behind them just in time to hear Colonel Nick arguing about ‘restricted access’. An angry-looking Flight Sergeant was standing by the door with his arms crossed over his ample belly, blocking any access to the Ops Room.
‘Hi, Flight,’ Adams said. ‘You mind if we come in?’ The Flight Sergeant’s demeanour changed the minute he saw Adams.
‘Hey sir,’ he replied. ‘How’re you doing?’ Adams ignored the fierce look on Colonel Nick’s face.
‘Not too bad at all,’ Adams said. ‘Got something going on up at one of the FOBs, apparently. We thought we’d come down and listen in if that’s okay? Is Davies in there?’ Adams pointed at the door.
‘Yeah, he’s in there. Go on in, sir.’ The Flight Sergeant opened the door and held it open. Adams walked past Colonel Nick and into the Ops Room, smirking at Lizzie as he did so, knowing that Colonel Nick wouldn’t be able to see his face. Lizzie, who was facing Colonel Nick, was struggling to keep a straight face. Single Service rivalry was great fun, Adams thought as he walked through the door.
Inside the tent, there was a lot of activity. Adams shuffled to the side of the tent so that he would be out of the way, and to his relief, Colonel Nick and the others followed him. Adams looked across at Lizzie, catching her eye. When he saw her eyebrows go up in the universal ‘what?’ gesture, he looked across at the table in the far corner with a kettle and mugs on and nodded at it. Her response was exactly what he expected, which was Lizzie slowly mouthing ‘sod off’ at him. Adams grinned back as she shook her head in a dismissive gesture and held the grin until he saw her smile back.
The Ops Room had a silent air of urgency to it. One of the Ops Officers was glued to a mIRC screen in one corner, while another was deep in conversation with Davies across the room from the medical team. The pilot acknowledged Adams with a brief wave.
‘Casualties — here,’ an officer wearing headphones said, pointing at a small brown patch on one of the maps. Everyone in the room turned to look at him. ‘One KIA, one Cat A, and a couple of Cat Bs so far.’
Davies said something to the Ops Officer, who nodded in agreement before walking over to the medics.
‘I need to talk to the rest of the crew, but I think we should go,’ Davies said to them. ‘There’s no other way of getting them out of there. No chance of a road move and the Americans don’t have anything in the area.’ He was referring to the Pave Hawk helicopters that the Americans operated, known as ‘Pedros’ after their call sign. They carried the American equivalent of a paramedic — give or take a few qualifications — in the back. Adams had worked with them before in Iraq a couple of years ago and knew that although they were good, they couldn’t be as good as a four-man TRT.
Adams remembered that Colonel Nick was standing next to him, so he continued, ‘What do you think, sir? Do you agree?’
‘It doesn’t look like we’ve got any choice,’ Colonel Nick said. ‘But what about the aircraft? I thought we were grounded?’
‘We’ll get everyone together at the cab, and I’ll brief then,’ Davies said before raising his voice and calling across the room to the Ops Officer he’d been talking to earlier. ‘Jimmy, can you get the FP lads down to the cab for a brief, and we’ll make a final decision then.’ Adams saw the Ops Officer raise a thumb in confirmation, and he turned to follow Davies out of the Ops Room.
As far as he remembered, Adams thought that all operations on the ground had been paused until the helicopters were cleared for flight. If that was the case, why were there injured soldiers on the ground? And who was going to go and get them?
24
At the Forward Operating Base in Sangin the Commanding Officer — Major John Fletcher — was trying to assimilate information from a wide variety of sources and work out what the fuck he was supposed to do about the situation that had developed on his watch. He had one dead soldier, one soldier with horrendous injuries, and another couple who were hurt. As well as this, he had an entire platoon house of soldiers who were scared and angry in equal measure. Every few seconds, there was the sound of gunfire from the village. Fletcher didn’t think it was much of a threat — just the locals letting them know that they were still there — but he still jumped with every sharp crack.
When he’d heard that he was going to be the company commander of a field unit, he’d been delighted, telling his wife in a bluey that this was his chance at promotion, without any doubt. The elation that he’d been feeling since they took over the district centre had all disappeared over the last hour or so, and the only thing that he felt now was overwhelmed and terrified. He was looking around the small room that he’d made into his command post in the lower floor of a half-finished two-storey building when his second in command came in through the curtain that served as a door.
‘Update?’ Major Fletcher barked, trying to hide the nervousness in his voice. His 2IC, a young Captain with a cut-glass British accent that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in Buckingham Palace, swallowed before replying.
‘One dead, three wounded.’ He swallowed again. ‘One of them seriously.’
‘Who’s dead?’
‘Lance Corporal Ruffles, sir.’
‘Fuck.’ Major Fletcher slammed his fist down on the thin wooden desk, knocking over a cup of cold tea. ‘Fuck. I know his bloody girlfriend.’ He looked around for some tissues to mop up the tea before it ruined all the papers on his desk, not that it really mattered anymore. ‘She was at the regiment barbecue before we left. What was her name?’
‘I’m not sure, sir,’ his second in command replied after a few awkward seconds’ silence. ‘I’ve not met her.’
‘Fuck,’ Major Fletcher muttered under his breath. ‘I can’t bloody remember.’ There was another awkward silence. ‘What about the others?’
‘One lad’s lost both his legs and looks in a bad way. Private Mitchell. The other two — they were in the back when the WMIK went woof — they look okay, but the medics are with them now. Sergeant Hawkins is in a bit of a state as well. Hardly surprising.’ Fletcher clenched his fists and put them on the table in the middle of the spreading tea stain. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths as he saw his chances of promotion any time within the next ten years slipping away. It was his decision to mount the reassurance patrol. ’Sir?’ the Captain asked. When Fletcher didn’t reply, he asked again. ‘Sir?’
‘What?’
‘What are we going to do?’
Fletcher thought for a few seconds before replying.
‘We need a plan,’ he said, returning to familiar territory. He was an Army officer. That’s what officers did. Plan. ‘Let’s put together a plan for extraction. Even though the helos are grounded, that’s not going to last forever.’
‘It’s only the Chinooks that are grounded, sir,’ the Captain said. ‘The Ops Room at Bastion has been on the radio, and there’s an Ugly on the way up to deny the locals any access to the damaged WMIK.’ The young officer was referring to an Apache gunship — black, nasty, and very dangerous if you were on the other side.
‘Oh, thank fuck for that,’ Major Fletcher replied. The gunship would calm the locals down a bit, and perhaps the sporadic gunfire he could hear from the village would settle down. ‘Right then,’ he continued, spurred into action with something to actually act on. ‘Let’s work on a plan to get the casualties out to the secondary LZ for when they can get something else in.’
There were two landing zones that had been identified as potential sites for helicopters to land that were both within easy reach of the district centre. The primary LZ was out in the open, not far from where the WMIK had been hit and the troops ambushed. That one was out of the window for the
moment at least. The secondary LZ wasn’t the best, as there were too many places for the Taliban to hide in the vicinity for anyone’s liking, but it was the best they had.
‘Let’s go to the radio room to work this out,’ Fletcher said. ‘And get Hawkins. I want him in on this plan for his own sake. If he knows that he helped get them out, then he might not top himself.’ The Captain nodded and pushed his way back through the curtain into the blistering heat outside.
Fletcher took a deep breath and followed him. The bright sunshine was dazzling, but as his eyes adjusted, he could see his soldiers looking at him as he strode across the courtyard in the middle of the compound towards the radio room on the opposite side. He felt his heart fluttering in his chest as he realised that they were looking at him for guidance. It had been his decision to mount the patrol and he was supposed to be in charge. Which meant that he had blood on his hands. British blood.
Flight Lieutenant Davies stood on a plastic icebox full of water in the back of the grounded Chinook and looked at the medical and Force Protection teams. Some of them were sitting on the floor, the others on the canvas seats down either side of the cabin.
‘Right chaps,’ he said, running his palms down the legs of his flight suit. ‘This is the situation. There’s at least one Cat A up at Sangin and a couple of Cat Bs. One KIA as well, so they’re getting hit pretty hard. But we’re technically grounded as the altimeter isn’t working properly. We,’ he pointed at Taff and Kinkers, ‘are happy to go in and see if we can put down without it to get the casualty, but we’re not going unless everyone is happy. You’ve all got the right of veto, so either we all go, or we don’t go.’
Staff Sergeant Partridge was furthest away from the pilot, standing towards the rear ramp of the helicopter. He raised his hand.
‘Sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve already talked about this. Everyone’s happy in my team.’ Davies looked at the Staff Sergeant, and then around at the Force Protection team. A few of them nodded in agreement, reassuring Davies that Partridge hadn’t just made an arbitrary decision on their behalf. Davies looked towards Adams and the medics and saw a thumbs up from the Lieutenant Colonel. Next to the doctor were the rest of the medical team, all nodding.
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