Battle Lines

by Andy McNab

  ‘That’s about it,’ said Finn.

  ‘But how do you know we’ll tell the truth?’

  ‘I’m trusting you.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Go on then, guess my age,’ said the hard one, and Finn could tell that his grandfather was right; this woman wanted him to underestimate.

  He stared hard at her, pretending to study her closely, acting as if this was difficult. When in fact he had already looked at her neck and around her eyes.

  After making a show of considering, he decided to flatter her. He said: ‘You only look thirty. But you’re thirty-eight.’

  The woman’s face flashed surprise and anger at the same time and with such intensity that he knew he was right. He could feel his face twisting itself into a smile. He tried to repress the grin but it just twisted right out again like a trout from a net.

  ‘Am I correct?’ he asked the woman politely.

  She rolled her eyes and reached for her purse. Finn had been unaware that the whole bar was watching, but now they burst into applause. Finn enjoyed being a showman and he took a bow.

  ‘Me next,’ said the prettier woman.

  The bar fell silent again. Everyone watched him. Finny really did scrutinize this woman, because he wasn’t sure. When he looked at her carefully she seemed very like the other woman, but less worn: he realized for the first time that they must be sisters. The other one had been out there fighting her corner for years; this was the sister who had stayed at home.

  Tension grew as he stared at her. The woman’s eyes and neck were giving him different messages. She watched him with a half-smile. He became aware, out of the corner of his eye, that her sister was watching with the same half-smile. There was something about these two that they weren’t saying …

  ‘You’re not just sisters, you’re twins. So you’re thirty-eight too,’ he heard himself say, before he had time to think about it.

  The expression on the women’s faces told him he was right again. Finn felt relief well up inside him and escape as a broad smile. Because his luck had changed. He had lost every bet at the races but now he was winning again. His luck had wheeled around in a sudden, tight circle like the roller coaster where he had sold tickets as a lad.

  The bar broke into spontaneous applause, the pretty twin gave him ten pounds and a sweet smile and he decided to use it to buy them both a drink.

  He was doing so when he felt his phone ring in his pocket. It was a message.

  Get ready you son of a gun looks like we’re fucking out there again! Yes, that’s right lol lol lol

  Angus McCall. What was he on about now? If he had to guess, Finn would have thought Angry was trying to tell him they were going back to the FOB in Helmand. He felt his heart thud for a moment. Then common sense got the better of him. Nah. Probably Angry was just texting meaningless, drunken shit.

  As he waited for the barman, Finn’s phone rang again, a call this time. He didn’t bother to check who the caller was. It would be Angus, raving incoherently. But he answered it anyway, not liking to admit his longing to hear a familiar voice, even Angry’s.

  ‘Is that Billy Finn?’

  It was someone loud and male, but it wasn’t Angus. Finn was cautious.

  ‘Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.’

  ‘Doncha know who’s calling you, Billy Boy? And you’re the guy who saved my life!’

  It was Martyn! Martyn Robertson! A few months ago the oilman had been one of the most famous faces in the world, flashing up behind newsreaders everywhere. Then, he had been held hostage by the Taliban and with the clock ticking towards his execution, his rescue had been widely credited to the SAS. Luckily Martyn knew whom he really had to thank.

  ‘I recognized you the moment I heard your voice, Martyn. Are you calling from Texas?’

  ‘Right now I’m in Texas but soon I’ll be in London staying at the Dorrr-chester Hotel. And you and me and your boys are going to have a wild time. I know I owe you my life and I’m going to show how I grateful I am. I want you to come to London with Dave and Angry and Mal and Streaky and … all of you. The whole section, the whole platoon, all the boys who were out at Senzhiri with me. I’ll be calling your commanding officer and arranging it.’

  Amazing how luck worked. You changed one thing and everything changed. Women smiled, you started winning bets, you suddenly got invited to parties at the Dorchester. Maybe England wasn’t so dull after all.

  As he delivered some more drinks to the twins, Finn remembered Angry’s mad text. For a minute there he had believed that they were actually going back to Afghanistan and the thought had made his heart leap. Now that would be a real change in his luck. But Angry was probably just trying to tell him about the party in London.

  Chapter Three

  WHEN DAVE GOT home he closed the door very quietly behind him and stood in the still hallway feeling the house’s warmth. Nothing moved. It was the opposite of the chain reaction he had started as he left the house: noisy slam, Jenny’s yell of annoyance, the baby’s cry from upstairs.

  The place was in darkness but Jenny had left on an outside light and the hall light. Which might mean she had forgiven him. A bit. Because Jenny’s anger was pure mortar. Over the wall, bang, splat and then silence. No complicated, heat-seeking, carefully targeted, slow-burn weaponry for Jenn. Contact and out.

  He stumbled into the kitchen. There were two empty wine bottles on the table, three empty glasses and a lot of crumbs. The crumbs looked like spicy tortilla. He opened the bin. Hmmm. Congratulations, Detective Sergeant Henley, on your investigative work. There is, indeed, a big empty bag of spicy tortilla chips in the bin. And since Jenny is keeping a close eye on her weight and refusing to snack or even drink much, the large empty bag and quantity of alcohol consumed indicate the presence here earlier of one Leanne Buckle plus some other mate. Theory confirmed, Detective, by Steve Buckle’s absence from the pub tonight. Because he must have been at home babysitting.

  Still congratulating himself on a superb forensic analysis, he shed his outer layers, trod too heavily up the stairs and tripped over the last one on to the landing, swearing loudly. His words were met by the sudden wail of baby Jaime, as if she had just been waiting for another excuse to start crying. He went into the girls’ room and fumbled around for the cot. Not hard to find, just follow your ears and inside the cot you will find, Detective, a small, hot, noise-emitting baby.

  He picked up Jaime and her wails grew louder.

  ‘Shhhh, shhhh,’ he instructed her gently. ‘You’ll wake your sister and she’ll start crying. Then she’ll wake your mother. And then the safest thing I can do is go straight back to Afghanistan until it’s all quiet again.’

  He said that just in case Jenny was listening. He made going back to Afghanistan immediately into a joke of an idea. He made it sound absurd. Even though he knew now that it wasn’t.

  Sure enough, a voice rang out from the darkness over Jaime’s roars.

  ‘Put that baby down. You’re drunk!’

  He knew at once that she wasn’t angry. She hadn’t even been asleep. She had been waiting for him to come home.

  ‘I’m not. Anyway, you and Leanne and someone else got through a lot of wine tonight.’

  He was swinging Jaime back and forth and the intervals between each wail were getting longer.

  ‘Who was here with you and Leanne?’ he asked.

  ‘Matt Damon.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Leanne bumped into him in Marks and Spencer’s.’ This was a fantasy of Leanne’s, which she had publicized widely. ‘She asked him over for a quick drink. He couldn’t stay long, though.’

  He looked at her and through the dark was sure she smiled.

  ‘Go back to bed,’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m on stag. So you can leave Jaime to me and sleep safely.’

  ‘Don’t shoot her, Sergeant, she’s a civilian.’

  ‘That’s never stopped me before. Do you know how many sma
ll, helpless Afghan children I’ve mortared just in case they grow up to be insurgents?’

  ‘Whole nurseries full. They said so on Panorama.’

  ‘Must be true then.’

  ‘Come to bed, Dave.’

  He looked down. He could see in the dark now. Jaime had stopped crying and was blinking up at him, wide-eyed. In the little bed along one wall, Vicky slept soundly, her face angelic. His wife, his two daughters, their home. He had built this family, he held it together, the safety and happiness and welfare of these people he loved were in his hands. It was too easy to get dragged down in the day-to-day and forget how much they mattered, and at this moment they mattered so much it made his heart ache. Shit. Maybe he was drunk.

  Carefully, very carefully, as though she was an unexploded bomb, he laid the baby back in her cot. She watched his face. He watched hers. He leaned over the cot. She closed her eyes. He did not move. Her eyes remained shut. After a minute he turned and walked silently from the room. He paused, waiting for her to start yelling. There was silence.

  Jenny was already back in bed. He shut the door quietly, tore his clothes off and left them lying all over the floor in a way he would not have tolerated in his platoon. He slid into bed next to her and put his arms around her. She was warm and soft and she smelled nice.

  ‘Sorry,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘I’m stupid. Whatever I said, I was wrong. ’Specially the bit about your mother.’

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ she whispered back. ‘And don’t ever, ever say that again.’

  ‘I won’t ever say it because it’s not true.’

  ‘Dave, I only had to think about Agnieszka and what she’s lost and how lucky I am to have you here with me …’ He held her tighter. She turned to him. ‘Thank God they aren’t sending you back to that horrible country any time soon.’

  Dave swallowed. Should he tell her now? Before she heard the rumours which would be flying around the camp tomorrow? He decided that Afghanistan was the place to be a hero and home was the place to be a coward.

  He said: ‘Yeah. Thank God for that.’

  Binman stretched out in the sand. The Afghan sun was scorching his face, his desert camouflage was soaked with sweat and deep in his leg was a dull, throbbing pain.

  ‘Oh fuck, oh fuck,’ he moaned.

  ‘All right?’ asked someone. Female. Must be a medic.

  ‘Rifleman Jack Binns 23379917,’ he muttered mechanically before she could ask him.

  ‘Wake up, Jacko!’

  Binns opened his eyes with an effort. He looked around. Alison. Beach umbrellas. Bodies with no clothes on, not because the clothes had been blown off them but to saturate the skin with sun. He stared anxiously at the people lying closest. All body parts in place. He listened. The crash of sea on sand. No mortars.

  ‘Oh Alison, I thought I was in …’

  ‘I know where you thought you were.’ Her voice was gentle as usual. But it was flat. And somewhere, buried under the flatness, like a landmine, was her anger. He knew Alison was getting sick of it. She was fed up with the way he woke up yelling in the night or just sat there nodding while she was talking to him, far away inside his head.

  ‘The umbrella fell on you, that’s all.’

  She tried to dig it back into the sand, the wind tugging against it. Her muscles were negligible, small, jutting things like little elbows which were no match for a huge, wind-filled beach umbrella. Her body was white and slim and vulnerable. He had thought about this body of hers so often lying in his cot at the forward operating base, longed for it, and now he was here with her, on the beach, he felt a strange detachment. As if he was still back in Helmand and she was on a Moroccan beach with some other bloke.

  She turned an angry face back to him.

  ‘Well, sitting there watching isn’t going to help much, is it?’ she snapped and he leaped up and grabbed the umbrella and shoved it in the ground for her.

  They both settled back down in the sand. The silence between them was filled by the slapping of the waves.

  Her words and her tone echoed in his ears. She had never been so sharp before. He wanted to talk to her, to tell her how good the sound of water was when you’d come from a dry, dry place where you were always thirsty, no matter how much time you spent chewing on your Camelbak, because your mouth was always coated with sand and it wasn’t nice beach sand but more like dust. He would try to explain all that right now, this minute. He turned to her.

  ‘Alison …’

  ‘Yes?’

  Still sharp. The yes that means no. It was her building society voice. She worked in the local branch of a building society in Dorset and old folks shuffled up to her all day and hollered through the glass that they’d saved fifteen pounds in ten-pence pieces. Alison’s e-blueys moaned a lot about the customers and he had loved to lie on his cot at the FOB and read about her small world and hear her complaints. It was all so insignificant that it had been a sort of comfort. He should have realized that none of it was insignificant to Alison. Her life was composed of all those little things: demanding customers, a nosy boss, a lost umbrella; they all mattered to her. Maybe they used to matter to him. But they didn’t any more.

  ‘What?’ she demanded without opening her eyes. He knew she was reluctant to hear about Afghanistan. She had wanted him to come back the same Jack Binns who went away, the one she had met working in Curry’s before he joined up. She didn’t really want to know what had happened in between.

  Her voice softened. ‘Jacko, why don’t you talk to me?’

  ‘Sometimes I start to say things. But I don’t get the feeling you want to hear them.’

  Alison rearranged herself in the sand. She washed her hands with gel. She was always doing that. She looked clean, as if she washed a lot, and on this holiday together, their first, Binman had learned that she did indeed wash a lot. He wondered how she would manage in a dirty old FOB like Senzhiri where you could only shower once every three days at the most.

  ‘Of course I want to hear,’ she said awkwardly. ‘You can tell me anything you like.’

  And suddenly it seemed vital that he did tell her. He had to make her understand. Before they got back to Dorset and she went into the building society and they settled with their families again, he had to tell her.

  ‘There was this minefield, see,’ he began. ‘Been there for years and years because the Russians left it behind and the locals didn’t go near it so you couldn’t tell just by looking at it. We thought it was a clearing in the woods. Everyone did. And 2 Section started crossing it. And then a bloke got his leg blown off and they thought the enemy was watching from the trees, chucking mortar. So they started firing back and then there was another explosion. And they realized no one was mortaring them. It was a minefield. And they were on it. But they couldn’t move. And someone had to get to the casualties. And I got chosen.’

  Alison was sitting up now. She was pointing to the sun-tan lotion. He picked it up and passed it to her and she began to apply it. After a moment she asked: ‘So what happened in this minefield, then?’ Her tone was casual, so casual it was almost resentful. The question was dutiful. She didn’t really want to know the answer.

  Binman shrugged. ‘Nothing much. I had to get the casualties off, that’s all. I had to crawl on my belly across the ground sort of feeling it and blowing on it.’ The rough, red Afghan soil chafed his fingers again and its dust billowed into his eyes. ‘In case there were more landmines. Then when we had a clear path, we carried the wounded men off.’

  Alison nodded. ‘Oh, right,’ she said. ‘So did you find any mines?’

  ‘Yeah, a few.’ They were no more than a discoloration of the soil, a clumping, a solidity, an irregularity. Try to find out more and your curiosity killed you. So you had to guess, you almost had to smell them. Your fingers developed a new sensitivity to the soil structure. Your whole body was a raw nerve; you were skinless as you progressed, millimetre by millimetre, sweating under the cruel sun. And all the time you could see y
our mate lying there ahead of you with his leg blown off, blood pooling, flies gathering, probably dying.

  Binns said: ‘If I thought there was a landmine I just had to go round it. That’s all.’

  ‘Oh. Sounds scary.’

  Scary. The most massive experience of his life, so inflated that it seemed to take up years and years instead of only a few hours, had just been neatly packaged like a piece of meat in the supermarket. To help you forget that it comes from a cow.

  ‘Did they die?’

  ‘No. They lived. They’re doing all right, considering.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good.’ If the biggest, most focused task of your life had been to save your mates’ lives, then their survival was fucking marvellous, so marvellous that there weren’t words for the joy you felt when you saw them again at the medals parade.

  Alison finished with the sun cream and lay down again. Jack Binns did not look at her. He had seen her face and it looked white beneath her newly acquired tan. They were on holiday but it was nothing but a strain for both of them: he not talking and she not listening. He reached out and took her hand and it felt limp in his. She did not respond to his squeeze. She said nothing.

  Between the crash of waves he became aware that his mobile phone was beeping. He dived into Alison’s beach bag to retrieve it as if he was expecting something really important instead of another dirty joke from Angus.

  It was from Streaky Bacon, Binman’s best mate.

  Hey dude you not going to believe it but looks like we’re going back because of spare head. Yes. Back there and soon. See you in barracks.

  Jack Binns squinted at the text and then held the phone in the thin shade of the umbrella and read it again. Then again. Back there? Not there? He felt something lurch inside his body as if he’d been in a deep slumber and just woken up. His skin was suddenly electric; his legs and arms surged with a new blood supply.

  He glanced over at Alison. She lay still with her eyes closed. He shoved the phone back in the bag. But he remained upright and alert, his body taut as he stared out to sea.