by M. R. Hall
Carrie Rhodes turned to ice. ‘I’ll ask you again – yes or no?’
‘No,’ Private Todd shot back.
‘Were the rest of the platoon passing around whatever it was you were drinking while Private Lyons sweated away his evening digging a latrine?’
‘No,’ Private Todd answered.
There wasn’t a person in the room who believed him.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Jenny resisted checking what the online world was saying about her inquest as she ate her take-out sandwiches in the unnerving quiet of her chambers. Alone in a silent, timeless room, she felt bizarrely distant from what she knew would be scenes of excitement and panic elsewhere in the building, but at the same time she had a growing, ominous sensation, as if what had just occurred in court was merely a gentle precursor to something far bigger, and far more incendiary, which was yet to come.
Whether by accident or design, or more likely a mixture of both, Claydon White and Carrie Rhodes had found in Private Todd just the witness they had been hoping for. Through him, they had woven a convincing story of Private Lyons as a vulnerable boy soldier who, despite his valiant efforts, had suffered repeated humiliation. Although they didn’t yet have evidence to prove it, the subtext of their narrative was that he disappeared over the wall in a fit of pique, or even in a self-destructive frenzy. Might it be that he had gone to attempt something foolhardy and heroic on his own – the ultimate proof of his worth? Or perhaps he had simply snapped under a combination of the pressure of his own expectation and that of being a constant butt of ridicule. Whichever route their story ultimately took, if they managed to stand it up, it would allow Claydon White to argue that Private Lyons was unfit for the role he was being asked to perform and that the army was responsible for his fate.
This had not been part of the MOD’s plan and Jenny was certain that the witnesses yet to come would not drift so readily from their prepared accounts.
Alison burst in excitedly a few minutes before they were to commence the afternoon session, brimming with gossip. She had overheard an ill-tempered clash in the corridor between Claydon White and Robert Heaton, and while checking on the families had walked in on Paul Green pleading with his wife to make her peace with the soon-to-be mother of their grandchild. She had also seen Simon Moreton pacing agitatedly, relaying every detail of the morning’s proceedings over the phone. She presumed he was reporting back to the Chief Coroner and had heard him use the phrase: ‘The MOD are going apeshit.’ Jenny stopped her there. Tempting as it was to listen to this hearsay, it didn’t help. The prospect of returning to court was already causing her heart to pound and her palms to sweat.
‘Just give me a moment,’ Jenny said. ‘I’ll be through in a moment.’
‘Something I said, Mrs Cooper?’
‘No,’ Jenny assured her.
She waited for the door to close and addressed the stifling, claustrophobic feeling that had been growing inside her. When it refused to abate, she resorted to desperate measures and said a prayer: ‘Please God, please let me hold it together while I sort this mess out.’ It wasn’t much, but it was the best she could do.
The relentless thump-thump of her heart only grew more rapid as Jenny returned to a courtroom bristling with tension. Everywhere she looked there were either stern, anxious or expectant faces. She took a deep breath and called Sergeant Alan Bryant to the witness box.
Bryant marched smartly forward. Like the other men in the platoon he was severely underweight. Nevertheless, he exuded an aura of invincible physicality. His movements were keen and sharp, and despite his palpable toughness, there was nothing thuggish about him. His deep-brown eyes were intelligent and evaluating. He was polite, well spoken and chose his words carefully. An accent that hovered somewhere between rural Somerset and Bristol lent him a reassuring, homely quality. Above all, he gave the impression of being a man who would remain calm in a crisis.
He had had plenty of practice. As Jenny took him through her opening questions, she established that in twenty years’ service, he had served in the NATO Implementation Force in Bosnia, with Operation Palliser in Sierra Leone in 2000, and had completed a total of twelve tours in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2002 onwards. For the previous six years, he and Major Norton had worked alongside each other during nearly every foreign deployment. Although he downplayed the fact, he was unquestionably one of the most battle-hardened soldiers currently serving in the British Army.
Having established Bryant’s military record, Jenny took him to the evening of 21 August. But before she could turn to details, Bryant slipped in with a request: ‘Ma’am, would you mind if I briefly answered some of what I heard said about Private Lyons this morning?’
‘Certainly. Go ahead.’
The sergeant looked straight to Kathleen Lyons. ‘That young man was one of the bravest and most dependable soldiers I have had the pleasure to serve alongside. Yes, he wasn’t the biggest physical specimen, but size doesn’t make a warrior – you only have to look at the Michelin Men the US Army calls soldiers to prove that. Load them with kit, they’re all spent after half a mile – that’s why they never get out of their vehicles.’ His jibe at the Americans’ expense drew smiles from the soldiers and officers in the court. ‘The only reason I didn’t count Private Lyons on to that helicopter back in March is that I assumed he was already on board. I hadn’t clocked that he was still thirty yards away covering our backs. Yes, he tried to prove himself, but that’s what a good soldier does. Believe me, if I ever thought for a moment he was a liability on patrol, he would’ve been staying back making breakfast. He did faint on predawn patrol that morning. It was hot. We’d covered five miles in full kit. But the only reason he went down is that he hadn’t drunk enough. I fed him some water and electrolytes – he came to without a problem. I gave him the latrine to dig so he wouldn’t forget next time. What I saw in Private Lyons was the heart of a lion – still a bit of a cub maybe, but well on his way.’
It was a heartfelt outpouring that flipped the mood in the courtroom. It was hard not to feel warmth and admiration for Bryant. He was the epitome of tough love: a man, one was tempted to believe, with an unnatural gift for transforming troubled and wayward teenagers into professional soldiers.
Jenny steered him back to the events of the evening of the 21st.
Bryant said that everyone had been looking forward to going home. There was an end-of-term feel in the post which he was having to keep an eye on. He and Major Norton were keenly aware that there were still pockets of Taliban active in the area and that they would have liked nothing more than to send the British packing with a bloody nose. There had been no room for complacency.
His job was to maintain discipline, not least because discipline was the greatest guarantee of safety. The main risk they faced in their final twenty-four hours was of an unexpected attack. Later in the evening, they had received intelligence reports that intercepted radio messages passing between the Taliban, who were speaking of a lightning assault on a British post. They knew it was as likely to be bravado and sabre rattling as a genuine threat, but all threats had to be taken seriously. He had wanted the men to be on their mettle, so at about midnight he woke them up and told them there would be a full kit inspection at six a.m. the following morning.
‘And was Private Lyons present at that time?’ Jenny asked.
‘He was,’ Bryant answered.
‘And when did you become aware that he was missing?’
‘I called the men to attention at six a.m. He wasn’t there.’
‘Had anyone noticed he was gone?’
‘I don’t think so, ma’am. Most of them had sorted out their kit the night before – they were still half-asleep. We searched the post, which didn’t take a moment, and there was no sign of him.’
On closer questioning, Sergeant Bryant revealed that some of the men had been sorting out kit until one a.m. and that others would have been awake from shortly after five. The most likely time for Private Lyons to hav
e gone over the wall would have been at change of sentries while there was movement in the post. If he had done so voluntarily, Bryant had no idea why. It was a complete mystery to him.
Jenny moved tentatively onto more contentious ground. ‘Sergeant, you have heard it alleged that some of the men may have been drinking alcohol that night. What do you have to say about that?’
He answered without a moment’s hesitation: ‘I didn’t see any. I didn’t smell any. If someone had managed to make some prison hooch – and I admit, that’s possible – we’re talking about a tiny amount and no stronger than beer. Each and every one of those men knew I would have blown my top if I’d have found anything of that nature. I don’t seek to flatter myself, but not one of them would have risked being intoxicated.’
A quiet and apparently spontaneous murmur of agreement sounded from the soldiers in the courtroom.
Jenny consulted her notes. ‘Privates Kenny Green and Dale Carter, both of B Section, of course, were on guard duty on the south-facing sangars that night. Private Green, as we know, had traces of alcohol in his system.’
Sergeant Bryant nodded as if to accept a regrettable fact.
‘It’s possible, isn’t it, that even a mouthful or two of something could have made him less vigilant than usual? He might even have fallen asleep?’
‘Knowing Green as I did, ma’am, he would not have fallen asleep.’
‘The issue of the sentries aside,’ Jenny said, ‘is it possible that Private Lyons made his way out from the post by any route other than along the road?’
‘There were two escape corridors through the mines, ma’am. Not marked, but we knew more or less where they were. Each about five metres wide. They led out diagonally from each of the south-facing towers.’
The reactions on the lawyers’ bench told Jenny that this was as much a revelation to Claydon White and Carrie Rhodes as it was to her. Heaton and his team, however, seemed unsurprised. It made her suspicious. There had been no mention of escape corridors in any of the written statements. She had a feeling that the lawyers for the MOD were about to unveil a narrative of their own.
Jenny leant down towards Alison and issued instructions. Alison brought out the heavy evidence bags containing both Private Lyons’s and Private Green’s kit and placed them on the desk. She then handed Sergeant Bryant two lists detailing the items belonging to each soldier that had been returned to stores.
‘Let’s accept for the moment that it was possible for Private Lyons to make his way unseen from the post,’ Jenny said. ‘I’d like to see if we can establish what he took with him. Can you first please tell me what happened to his kit after you discovered he had gone missing?’
‘I saw his bedroll on the ground and his kitbag next to it. I tipped it out to see what was missing.’
‘And did what you saw accord with the list just passed to you?’
He read it through carefully. ‘Yes,’ Bryant agreed, ‘there are seven missing items: pistol, holster, night-vision goggles, bayonet, scabbard, notebook and cigarettes, though Lyons didn’t smoke. He’d have given the cigarettes away.’
‘We’ll hear in due course that the notebook was retrieved by another soldier,’ Jenny said, ‘so technically, it’s not missing.’
Jenny observed Bryant’s eyes quickly scanning the members of the platoon in search of who that might have been.
‘Do you know anything about his notebook, Sergeant?’ Jenny asked.
‘I thought I saw it with his kit, that’s all. I don’t know why anyone would take it.’
‘It contained a letter to his grandmother – to be read in the event of his death. I understand a lot of soldiers do that.’
The sergeant put his momentary loss of composure behind him. ‘Yes. We do.’
Jenny returned to the main subject. ‘Given what we know was missing, it’s reasonable to deduce that Private Lyons went out into the night with a handgun, night-vision goggles and a bayonet, which, as I understand it, doubles as a knife.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Do you have any idea why?’
Bryant glanced apologetically at Kathleen Lyons. ‘I can only hazard a guess based on a few conversations I’ve had with him.’
‘I shan’t invite you to guess, but if you could tell us what he said to you?’
‘He told me he never knew his dad, that his mum left him with his grandmother when he was a young lad. We get lots like that in the army. It gets to some more than others. I wouldn’t say he confided in me exactly, but I got the feeling he was hurting. A lot of the lads would have been talking about going back home to families, wives, girlfriends, kids. He didn’t have any of that.’
‘Had he shown any signs of being unhappy enough to take his own life?’
‘No ma’am . . . But then again, you never know, do you?’
‘But he didn’t take his own life. He was captured.’
‘So it would seem.’
‘Can you think of any other possible reason he might have left the post?’
‘None at all ma’am,’ Bryant said. ‘None.’
‘One last question on the subject of Lyons: do you know anything about him having a fractured rib?’
‘He never let on to me he was carrying an injury,’ Bryant said without hesitation. ‘He was always right in the mix when the lads were playing football. It could have happened there as easily as anywhere.’
Accepting that Bryant had offered as much insight as he could into the disappearance of Private Lyons, Jenny moved on to the subject of the abortive rescue attempt. Bryant described the arrival of Yusuf, their local interpreter and go-between, and Major Norton’s decision to lead a party to the village of Shalan-Gar in an attempt to negotiate their man’s release. When Jenny asked if he had considered this a wise response, Bryant replied adamantly that they had no other choice – the alternative was to leave him in the hands of kidnappers.
‘Did it occur to you that it might have been a ploy to lure you into an ambush?’ Jenny asked.
‘That was always a risk. It was one we had to take. When we weighed it up, we thought the most likely scenario was that Private Lyons had fallen into the hands of locals – part-time insurgents who had day jobs as farmers and shepherds. They would have known we had good relations with Musa Sarabi – the senior elder at Shalan-Gar – and that’s why they sent his grandson to make contact.’
Bryant then described how Major Norton had gathered a detail to go to Shalan-Gar. They had driven the short distance to the village compound in two armoured Land Rovers. Privates Danny Marsh, Dean Paget and Mike Allerton were left outside with the vehicles, while he and Major Norton went inside together with Privates Lee Roberts, Dale Carter, Kenny Green and Lance Corporal Jim Warman. They found the village to be noticeably quieter than usual. The plan had been for Norton and Bryant to negotiate with Musa Sarabi while the others stood guard outside. But no sooner had the old man come to the door than gunmen opened fire from a nearby rooftop and a grenade exploded in the square behind them.
The firefight lasted probably no more than a minute or two, Bryant said. His memory was more a collection of fragments than a detailed sequence of events. Musa Sarabi’s door slammed shut from the inside and they had all dived for cover in different directions. He made it to a gap between buildings from where he opened fire at what appeared to be three gunmen on the rooftops on the far side of the square. Major Norton had ducked behind a low wall twenty yards or so to his left and was also returning fire. Meanwhile, two men were down in the middle of the square – Carter and Roberts. Roberts appeared to have lost his legs – he was screaming. Private Green was pinned down behind the palm tree. He couldn’t see Lance Corporal Warman, but would later learn that he had ducked into an alleyway several yards beyond where Major Norton had taken cover.
‘I heard the major yell at Green to stay put,’ Bryant said. ‘I think another grenade went off at that point. There was a lot of dust. Bullets flying everywhere. Eventually, we took out the gunmen who ha
d been up on the roof. The shooting stopped as quickly as it began. When the dust began to settle, I saw Green lying out in the middle of the square halfway to Roberts. A few seconds after that, the three lads who’d been outside were on their way in. I took charge of trying to keep Carter and Roberts alive while we waited for a helicopter to medevac them out. Major Norton searched the village for any remaining enemy. None was found. Nor was there any sign of Lyons.’
‘Did you know at that point that Private Green was dead?’
‘Yes, ma’am. It was obvious.’
‘Had Green stayed behind the palm tree, do you think he would have survived?’
‘Probably. But it’s hard to stay put when your mates are bleeding out just a few feet away from you.’
‘Did you at any point check his clothing?’
‘No, ma’am. All we did was stretcher him out to the helicopter when it arrived. There were two lives in the balance. Sadly, there was nothing to be done for Private Green.’
Jenny asked a few further follow-up questions but learned nothing more of substance. She had got as far as she could with Sergeant Bryant. With the troubling feeling that she had missed something important, she handed the witness over to the lawyers.
TWENTY-NINE
Robert Heaton rose to ask his questions of Sergeant Bryant with the relaxed manner of a man who had escaped unscathed from a tight spot and now saw the end in sight.
‘You’ve been most helpful, Sergeant,’ he began. ‘And I’m sure we all appreciate that it can’t be easy, relating events that are so fresh in your mind.’
Bryant accepted his thanks with a self-deprecating nod. Several of the women in the jury box smiled in sympathy.
‘I think we can assume from what you have said that you were fond of Private Lyons?’
‘I was very fond of him,’ Bryant said. ‘He was what I call a proper scrapper. Maybe wasn’t the best at getting up in the morning, but put him to a job and he’d get it done.’
His joke raised a smile from Kathleen Lyons. Sarah Tanner reached over and touched her arm.