by Peter James
And he quickly found there was much to write about. A complete exposé on the treatment of British troops by their own government. The list included British soldiers being provided with guns that jammed, armoured cars inadequately plated to protect them from landmines and a total absence of battlefield beacons to prevent deaths from so-called friendly fire.
In his last dispatch Ross had quoted, anonymously at the man’s request, a senior military commander likening the equipment supplied to being on par with long-out-of-date mobile phones. And to add insult, there was now little sympathy, support or aftercare for the terribly wounded and often permanently disabled troops after they were brought back home. As Ross focused, he tried to blot out the background noise of the distant – and sometimes, worryingly, not so distant – pounding of shells, bursts of gunfire and sporadic bomb blasts that continued into the night.
Most of the foreign correspondents seemed to know each other like old mates, including the photographer who had been assigned to him, making him feel a distinct outsider. Some of them were playing poker with a deck of cards that had seen better days, beneath a sluggish ceiling fan that performed the trick of moving the hot, humid air around the interior without either creating a draught or changing its temperature. Ross was perspiring, feeling clammy and sticky and in need of another cold shower, although he’d had one a few hours ago. During the past two weeks he had barely slept, and he felt permanently exhausted and nauseous with fear.
But overriding all that at this moment, as he typed, was his anger. Anger at the aftermath of the rape and massacre of women and children by the Taliban he had witnessed. Anger at what he had seen in the house he had entered with troops, yesterday, where an elderly man was hanging from a makeshift noose, with the naked body of a young woman on the floor beneath him, her throat cut. They’d heard a woman crying, and found the man’s wife hiding in an upstairs cupboard. All she could say, repeatedly, was a single word. An Afghan soldier translated it for Ross.
Why?
Where was God, he wondered? Having fun watching this carnage?
It really felt, being here in Afghanistan, witnessing atrocity after atrocity every day, that God had a very sick mind. That He had created this entire world for His own warped pleasure. To see what new layers of humanity the people He had created would strip away next.
Lying on his bed in the small hours, never sure if a shell was going to land on the press tent and blow him and the rest of them to pieces, Ross had his headphones plugged in, listening to music to try to block out the sounds. Imogen, whom he had married two years ago, had made him up playlists for this trip from some of his favourites: Maroon 5, The Fray, Kaiser Chiefs and loads of his country and western favourites, David Allan Coe, Willie Nelson and Patsy Cline.
On the night before the attack, he had tried to text her, as he did every night.
I love u so much babes. Don’t wish u were here coz wouldn’t wish here on anyone. Thinking of u gets me through every day & night. Tried to read book on War Poets u gave me, but too sad. Especially the one that goes, ‘If I should die think only this of me’. Because then he did die. I dream of being back in your arms. Seen some terrible things. How can any human being do this?
Love u XX
To his relief, and as rarely happened, the text went through on his first attempt.
The following morning was a date that would forever be imprinted in Ross’s mind. Friday, 17 July. The coalition forces scented victory, finally. The Taliban were on the retreat. Two squads were being sent to secure an area in the city that the Taliban had been pushed out from yesterday. The reporters were told at the briefing there would be a good opportunity to see and photograph more Taliban atrocities but, they were warned, there was still danger from snipers.
Ross had discussed it with the photographer, Ben Haines, a wisecracking, indefatigable veteran of several previous war zones, and they’d decided that with twenty United Nations ISAF soldiers, as well as several local soldiers and guides to protect them and the other reporters from around the globe, it was a relatively small risk to take. It was all new to him and it would be good for his career to see live action – he would learn fast.
At 7 a.m. they set off through the ruined city, the rancid stench of decaying human flesh filling the humid morning air, and helicopters, like giant cockroaches, hovering low above them. Ross and Haines wore helmets, military fatigues and body armour beneath their tabards printed boldly front and rear, PRESS. All around them were bleached-out walls pockmarked by bullets, bombed or shelled ruins and angry graffiti.
It happened without warning as they walked out of the protection of a narrow alley into the central market square. A maelstrom of fire that seemed to come from every direction at once.
An ambush.
Ross stood, for some seconds, rooted to the spot, more curious for an instant than afraid. Then a rocket took off the top half of the head of a local man right in front of him, in a spray of brains and blood. A grenade exploded a short distance away. He felt the blast and saw soldiers, journalists and photographers thrown to the ground. It was closely followed by another blast and a decapitated head rolled along the dusty ground, mouth open, eyes open in disbelief.
Ben, crouched with his camera, filming away, suddenly screamed in agony and began rolling across the ground like some demented whirling dervish.
Crazed with fear, everywhere that Ross looked he saw spurts of fire. From the rooftops of the single-storey dwellings. From the windows. Directly to his left was a tall, badly bombed-out shell of a bank, its front doors missing. He raced towards the entrance, the air around him thick with vicious cracking noises and bullets kicking up dirt and stone splinters. He entered the bank’s darkened interior, looking around in blind terror.
The gunfire continued behind him.
He stopped and looked back.
Straight into the eyes of Ben Haines, who was lying on the ground, a pool of blood flowing from his side, his camera a short distance in front of him. He was trying to move, to crawl, to reach his camera, but couldn’t.
‘Ross! Help me! Help me! Please help me! For God’s sake help me!’ he shouted in an agonized, desperate voice.
All around lay soldiers, reporters and photographers. Some were motionless, others writhing or crawling.
A massive volley of shots rang out. Several stopped moving.
‘Ross!’ Haines screamed. ‘Oh God, help me!’
Ross ran back out and towards him, zigzagging as he had been briefed if under fire, oblivious to the danger, determined to do what he could for his friend, somehow drag him to safety. But when he was just a few yards from the photographer, he heard a burst of machine-gun fire. Haines shook like a rag doll. Rips appeared in his clothes. His helmet was hit by something that made it fly off. A split second later a small piece of the top of his scalp was blown away and his head collapsed forward into the dirt.
Ross turned in shock and terror and sprinted back towards the building’s entrance. He heard more shots, more cracking sounds from bullets as a line of dirt kicked up in front of him. Something pinged off his helmet. He felt a sharp pain in his right foot, then, as he reached the entrance, his head felt like it had been struck by a hammer and he tumbled forward. The stone floor rushed up towards him. Punched him hard in the face.
Had to get up.
Had to.
Saw figures, wearing the headscarves of Taliban fighters, running towards him, clutching blazing AK47s.
Bullets cracked all around him.
He fled into the interior of the building, ducking and weaving, running for his life. Sprinting past desks, the computers all covered in dust and bits of rubble. He vaulted a cashier’s desk and ducked down on the far side. Waiting. His right foot felt as if it had a metal spike driven through it and his head was throbbing. He had lost his helmet.
He heard another short, hard burst of gunfire, outside somewhere, followed by sudden, miraculous, silence.
No footsteps approaching.
He felt giddy. He looked up. The ceiling seemed to be revolving above him. His body was swaying. It felt as if all the blood was draining from his head. The floor thumped him in the face again, but he did not notice. He lay still.
Sometime later, he didn’t immediately know how long, a squeak woke him. Ross found himself staring, in near darkness, into the face of a whiskered rat the size of a rabbit.
‘Fuck off!’ he hissed at it.
The creature scurried away into the gloom.
In the far distance was a massive explosion.
Another car bomb?
His head pounding, his mouth and throat parched, desperate for a drink of water, he crawled onto his knees, listening. Remembering. The cashier’s desk he had vaulted over. Complete silence now. He tried to stand and his right foot was agony. There was congealing blood around his boot. He put a hand up to push his hair back and felt something sticky. He looked at his hand and saw it was also covered in blood.
It was all coming back and he shivered.
I’m alive.
Slowly, cautiously, he stood up, peering over the top of the desk. In the distance he could hear the call to prayer. There was faint daylight ahead beyond the doorway he had come in through.
He looked at his watch. 7.30 p.m. Jesus, it had been a few minutes past 7 a.m. when – when –
He walked painfully towards the doorway and peered out. Bodies everywhere, some coalition soldiers, some press corps, wearing their tabards, and several Taliban fighters, all lying on the dusty ground. The person he focused on was the photographer who had been his mate during this past horrific month.
Ben Haines.
Flies were already swarming around the bodies.
He was about to step forward when he heard voices.
He froze.
Voices getting louder, approaching.
He ran back into the interior, past the empty workstations of the tellers towards the back. Pushed open a door and saw stone steps leading down. He heaved the door shut behind him and noticed steel bolts. Hurriedly, he slid them home and ran on down. One floor, then another. Down. The heat was less oppressive here. In front of him was a walk-in safe, the door, with huge rotating handles on it, slightly ajar.
It took him several seconds to heave the six-inch-thick steel door open enough to slip inside, then using the light of his phone, he looked for an interior handle, but there wasn’t one. He just pulled it shut as far as he could.
Standing still, he switched his phone to silent as a precaution, although it was showing there was no signal.
His heart was beating inside his chest, so loudly it was the only sound he could hear. Leaning up close to the tiny crack between the door and the frame, he listened for any sounds of movement above him. For anyone hammering on the door, two floors up, that he had bolted.
He could hear nothing.
Shaking uncontrollably, he looked at his phone screen. Imogen hadn’t replied to his last text. Had it not gone through?
The terrible sound of the photographer’s voice screaming for help echoed in his mind. The pitiful sight of the man writhing. Trying to crawl. The top of his scalp flying off.
Ross struggled to stop himself vomiting. From revulsion and fear.
Then he sat down on the hard, bare floor in the empty safe. His head was throbbing. Pain was searing through his right foot. And he was desperately in need of water – he hadn’t drunk anything since before they’d set off.
He eased off his boot and sock, pulled his foot up and inspected it with his phone’s torchlight. There was a jagged, bloody hole in the top, a couple of inches behind his toes, and an even messier hole at the bottom, where a bullet must have passed through. He raised his hand to his head and felt a small indentation, like a groove, above his right temple.
Shot twice?
There must be toilets somewhere in the building, and a kitchen of some kind where he could find water and perhaps a first aid kit. He would look later, when he felt it would be safe to venture out of his hiding place.
He curled up on the floor and slept.
Ten minutes later he was woken by something crawling over his face.
4
July 2009
Am I going to die down here? Alone with the rats?
In his sleep he dreamed of water and food. Simple food. Boiled eggs; stewed apples; French fries; burgers with cheese, relish, tomato ketchup.
When he woke he was in darkness. His phone battery had died. All he had to give him his bearings now was his watch, with the dial that illuminated when he pressed a button on the side. He felt feverish.
He thought of his brother. Ricky. Thought about him constantly with pangs of guilt and regret. He’d bumped into an old school friend at a wedding, a short while after Ricky had died. Jim Banting. Jim told him that Ricky knew Ross didn’t like him, but he’d never understood why.
Sitting in the darkness, among the rats, with nothing to do but think, he dwelt on Ricky, feeling full of remorse for how he had treated his brother. Thinking all the time about Ben Haines’s body lying outside. Rotting in the searing heat. It could have been him. Or perhaps if he had done something different, he might have saved Ben, somehow.
Last night he had crept up the stairs, unbolted the door and heard voices above him in Arabic. He’d hurried back down in panic, forgetting to bolt the door shut again. So parched with thirst, his tongue felt like an alien object, his lips stuck, painfully, together. His head felt better now, but in the faint glow of the light from his watch he could see pus on his foot. It was going septic. If he didn’t get it treated, it would turn to septicaemia and he would die down here, alone. He needed to go and try to find some first aid stuff, quickly.
Then he felt a sharp pain on his right hand. Opened his eyes. Saw red eyes in the darkness.
A rat had bitten him.
‘Get off!’ He swiped wildly at the creature and stood up, unsteadily, giddily.
His right foot felt like it was burning.
‘Fuck you!’ he shouted at the rat.
Above him he heard a noise.
Footsteps.
He froze.
Shit. He had shouted out and given himself away.
Footsteps coming closer. Down the stairs. Step by step. Shuffle. Shuffle.
Getting closer.
Shuffle. Shuffle.
Closer.
He flattened himself against the wall.
Closer.
Shuffle. Shuffle.
Thinking. He would surprise the bastard. Jump on him.
Closer.
He heard a little grunt. Someone tugging at the heavy door. Heard it moving. Opening.
He was shaking in fear.
Then the voice of a child, timid, foreign. ‘Hello?’
Ross pressed the button on his watch again. And saw the small boy. Dark hair so coated in dust it looked grey, his clothes ripped into rags. He just stared at Ross, numbly.
‘It’s OK, kid,’ Ross said.
‘English?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Taliban gone. Gone,’ the boy said. He turned and ran away.
Ross heard him hurrying up the stairs.
He waited some moments before following him, warily, unsure this wasn’t a trap, but almost beyond caring. He needed water so desperately. Food. At the top it was daylight. He watched the boy run out through the doorway, his arms in the air. Hesitantly, keeping to the shadows, ducking around the furniture but clumsily bumping into some, Ross followed him, weakly. Then peered out into the square.
The bodies had all been removed. Bloodstains had baked in the sun. The city was almost silent, for the first time since he had come here. Moments later he heard the roar of an engine and a metallic rumble. A tank rolled into the square. He recognized it as a Challenger 2. One of the few decent pieces of kit the government had supplied to the troops.
Ross ran out, stumbling, waving his handkerchief in the air.
The tank stopped in front of him, the front hatch opened a
nd a man’s head appeared. ‘Need a lift, mate?’ the man asked in a cockney accent.
‘Going anywhere near London?’
‘Hop aboard. I’ll put the meter on.’
Ross staggered towards the tank, but hadn’t the strength to climb aboard. Two of the crew climbed out to help him.
‘Press, are you?’ the man asked. He had a shaven head and a tattoo on his right arm of a skull topped by a winged eagle.
‘Uh-huh,’ Ross gasped.
‘Which paper?’
‘The Sunday Times.’
‘Gave up reading ’em a long time ago. All them rags. Always a crock of shit, don’t you think?’
Ross smiled. He had no fight left in him.
‘The editors, they ought to come out here, know what I’m saying? See all this shit for real.’
‘Do you have any water?’ Ross pleaded.
5
July 2009
Ten days later, after spending four of them in a US military hospital in Afghanistan, then having to wait for a flight out, Ross finally arrived back in England on a troop transporter, landing at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. He’d been put on a plane a day earlier than he had originally been told, and decided to surprise Imogen, who was not expecting him until tomorrow.
Arriving early afternoon at Brighton station, in light rain, he took a taxi, ordering it first to stop at a florist where he bought a massive bouquet of flowers, then a wine merchant, where he bought a bottle of Imogen’s favourite champagne, Veuve Clicquot.
Shortly after 3 p.m. the taxi pulled up outside the tall, slightly shabby semi-detached building close to the Seven Dials, where they had their top-floor apartment. He paid and tipped the driver, climbed out with his holdall, bottle and flowers, limped up to the front door and let himself into the communal hall, with its familiar smell of damp and an irritatingly loud beat of music coming through the door of the ground-floor flat.