by Andy McNab
Chapter Fourteen
THE DORCHESTER HOTEL was lit up as though it was still Christmas and outside in Park Lane a thousand tiny lights twinkled in every tree and snow glistened on the ground.
‘Oh, the girls would love this!’ exclaimed Jenny as they approached. She sounded like a little girl herself, excited at the evening ahead, delighted with the hotel, the lights, the big cars pulling up, pleased to be in London. Dave put his arm around her. Her heels made that important going-to-a-party click clack on the pavement; she smelled lovely and looked gorgeous. But inside his arm, her body tensed. Despite her excitement, she was furious – because Martyn Robertson’s party had turned into a farewell party and Dave was going away, back to the front line. Again.
‘Jenn, stop with the bad mood now,’ he said. ‘Let’s try to enjoy it.’
‘It’s not a mood. I’m angry and I can’t help it.’
Every time he went there was a short spell of fury. Until the morning of his departure, when it all dissolved into tears.
‘You’ve been nice to everyone today. Except me.’
They were staying with Dave’s mother and stepfather so he could say goodbye to them too. Amazingly, this afternoon, Dave’s father had appeared from nowhere. It was too much to hope that the old drunk had actually remembered Dave was staying or that he was leaving to fight on Monday. He just arrived on Dave’s mother’s doorstep from time to time and today happened to be one of those days. He had taken obvious delight in Dave and his family, was given a meal and some cans of beer and finally had stumbled happily off into the London streets.
‘I don’t know why you put up with it!’ Jenny had said to Dave’s stepfather.
‘Because my Suzy’s worth it,’ he replied, grinning. Jenny grinned back at him.
‘Dave was lucky his mum met you,’ she told him.
Suzy and Frank took pictures of them in their smart clothes and Vicky kissed them goodbye at least fifty times (‘Mind your fingers on my beads, darling!’) and then they all stood at the door waving as Dave and Jenny climbed into the taxi like royals.
And then, all the way to the Dorchester, Jenny had been monosyllabic with anger.
‘Listen,’ he said as they approached the entrance and a liveried doorman held it open for them. ‘Let’s have a truce tonight and you can be angry again tomorrow. Deal?’
The bright lights and marble floors of the hotel lobby glittered ahead of her.
‘Deal,’ she said.
A few minutes later, coats left behind, champagne glasses in their hands, they walked into another world. Cameras flashed; people talked and laughed and smiled; music played; waiters shimmied rapidly around the standing groups with trays of champagne. There were plenty of faces they knew, but here, away from the everyday, their features glowed. In this other world, colours were more vivid; talk was more animated, people more beautiful.
Jenny wanted to ask Dave: ‘How can they all look so happy? When they all know what happens on Monday?’
But when she turned to him she saw that he looked happy too and remained silent.
Martyn Robertson was greeting the men of 1 Platoon like his long-lost sons as they entered the room. Press photographers and TV news teams filmed the famous hostage reuniting with his rescuers while Martyn kept assuring them these men were heroes.
As the lads of 1 Section passed down the line-up, Angus was met by a pretty girl reporter. She asked breathlessly: ‘Are you in the SAS?’
‘Certainly am,’ said Angus. ‘Want to go to bed with me?’
‘Don’t waste your time with an unranked junior member of the team,’ Finn intervened. ‘I’m a second in command and I’d be happy to show you my shooting skills.’
‘Second in command!’ she whispered, wide-eyed. ‘Of the SAS?’
Finn said nothing but raised an enigmatic eyebrow.
‘This is the man,’ said Mal, ‘who actually found the hostage. Hidden in a doghouse.’
‘Oh! I must ask my producer if I can interview you!’
‘You can interview me all night long in my room,’ said Billy Finn. ‘But not in front of the camera. It’s in my Special Forces contract.’
She begged Finn for an interview but all he would say was: ‘Thanks to my Special Forces training, I’m able to guess your age with the accuracy of a top marksman. If I’m right, will you dance with me later?’
The woman looked surprised.
‘You’re twenty-seven,’ he told her. She looked even more surprised.
Mal left Finn impressing the woman and targeted another camera crew. He approached a young woman encumbered with a clipboard.
‘Do they give you the shit jobs, gorgeous? The army gives me shit jobs, too. We should get together and discuss it.’
She glowered at him. ‘I’m the producer. Actually.’
‘Well, there’s a few things I could produce which would impress you. So why don’t we talk about it?’
‘Because you’re standing in the way. My cameraman is trying to get a headshot of the hostage and then … Look, can you get the black guy over there for me?’
Mal blinked.
‘Streaky Bacon? You want my mate Streaky instead of me?’
‘Can you get him standing next to the hostage for a two-shot?’
‘Why? Because he’s black?’
The woman hesitated. For a moment she looked embarrassed. He took ruthless advantage of her discomposure.
‘You’ve got beautiful eyes. ’Specially when you blush.’
She turned the beautiful eyes on him and, as though seeing him for the first time, they narrowed.
‘So where are you from?’ she demanded.
‘Wythenshawe.’
‘I mean, what is your ethnic origin?’
‘Well … my folks came here from Yemen.’ He was beginning to feel misgivings. Now he had her attention, he wasn’t sure he wanted it.
‘So you must be a Muslim!’ she said excitedly.
OK, she was attractive, but not attractive enough for the way things were going.
He said coldly: ‘Yes, sister. So what if I’m a Muslim?’
‘That’s very interesting! Would you mind just—’
Mal thought of everyone in Wythenshawe switching on the news and seeing him. His brothers’ taxis would get an extra torching, his mum and dad would hear the hiss and clunk of another firebomb through the letterbox. And if that happened, Angry wouldn’t go to Afghanistan and forget all about Aamir when he got back, as Mal was hoping. Angry would return to the UK and head straight for Wythenshawe with his rifle.
‘Nope,’ he told the woman.
She flashed her beautiful eyes. ‘A lot of our viewers probably don’t realize how many Muslims there are in the British Army. They think Muslims are the people we’re fighting against. An interview with you could do a lot to improve community relations, so if you could just stand over there with the hostage, Melanie will—’
‘Hey, gorgeous, I’m a Muslim too!’ said Angus. ‘Interview me!’
‘Yeah, interview him,’ said Mal. He managed to melt back into the crowd. When, from a safe distance, he turned around, he could see the producer still scanning the room for him while the camera advanced on a surprised Streaky, who had been shoved by Martyn’s side.
Steve and Leanne had been invited to the party, although Steve had been casevaced out of theatre long before the hostage rescue.
‘Good to meet you at last, Steve,’ said Martyn, grasping his hand. ‘The guys never stopped talking about you.’
‘You met my leg, though,’ said Steve.
‘Oh sure, everyone knew it was lurking in the freezer.’
They were joined by two other casualties of the tour, Ben Broom and Ryan Connor. Only Steve had chosen to wear an obviously prosthetic leg, a streamlined network of gleaming metal which invited stares. Leanne watched the reactions to it, how people meeting him could look neither at the leg nor into his eyes.
‘I think Steve enjoys showing that leg off!’ said Adi in
her ear. The press had been told that the hostage was meeting injured soldiers and Leanne was shrinking into the background now, trying to make herself small, as the cameras whirred and flashed. She avoided having her photo taken at all costs these days. She knew she was obese: Steve reminded her almost every day. But it was truly awful when she saw herself.
‘He sort of enjoys watching how people react,’ Leanne whispered back.
‘They try hard not to look at it,’ said Adi, sipping her orange juice.
‘Anything’s better than pity. And Steve likes making people squirm. He’s a sadist.’
Adi gave Leanne a searching look before glancing around for Sol, who was deep in conversation with a journalist.
Meanwhile, Steve had spotted Dave and beckoned him over.
‘This is the man who understood that I’m still useful to the British Army!’ he cried, slapping Dave on the back. ‘I owe him everything.’
Martyn hugged Dave emotionally.
‘Shit, Sergeant Dave, I know how much I have to thank you for. And now I know what you went through out there, too, losing Jamie Dermott. He was a great solider.’
Dave had tugged Jenny behind him. Seeing her, the old oilman grabbed her hand, looked at her, and then embraced her too.
‘Dave, you son of. You didn’t tell me you had such a beautiful girl back home!’ he said.
The cameras took advantage of the opportunity to snap the hostage with a photogenic woman and the room lit up with flashes again.
Leanne and Adi looked at each other.
‘She’s going to be on the front page of The fucking Times, sorry, Adi,’ said Leanne.
Adi appeared not to notice the swearing.
‘Good. She looks lovely. That dress is fantastic.’
‘You look lovely too,’ said Leanne. ‘All those bright colours. I can’t believe you made it yourself.’
‘I’ve unpicked every seam at least twice, darling.’
‘Want to know something, Adi?’ Leanne gulped back her champagne and in one deft movement exchanged it for a full glass on a passing tray. ‘By the time Steve gets back, I’m going to look shit hot too. He won’t recognize me. And if I happen to bump into Matt Damon in M&S, he won’t be able to resist me.’
‘You’re fine as you are, girl,’ said Adi. ‘Red, white and blue was a great idea.’
But Leanne shook her head.
‘Are you kidding? If that had been me up there with the boys those cameras wouldn’t have flashed. I look like a flag in a washing machine. When it’s on spin cycle. Correction, I look like the whole fucking washing machine. Sorry, Adi.’
Adi laughed. They were joined by Si Curtis, his leg in plaster, and Tiff and the McKinleys and the Kirks.
Tiff Curtis said: ‘Don’t we all look amazing?’
‘Yeah,’ said Si Curtis. ‘Every hairdresser in Wiltshire can afford a holiday this year.’
Rose McKinley said: ‘I want to remember this for the rest of my life. I’m glad they’re taking photos.’
A rustle of anticipation passed around the room when an elderly woman of ample frame, in an ill-fitting long dress, appeared.
Angus said: ‘It’s Emily!’
Mal grinned. ‘The sex bomb! Exploding at the Dorchester!’
‘Look, Martyn,’ said Finny. ‘Your mate Emmers is here.’
‘Oh shit,’ said the oilman, the creases in his face suddenly deepening. ‘I had to invite her but I didn’t think she’d come.’
‘Fair dos, Mart. Emmers was fucking miserable when you were kidnapped,’ said Finny.
Martyn rolled his eyes. ‘Only because of the ransom. Probably earmarked the money for her research.’
But the two geologists greeted each other warmly.
‘Who on earth is that?’ Jenny asked Dave.
‘The best geophysical brain in England,’ Dave said. ‘Clever. But no common sense.’
‘She looks like a funny old stick.’
‘You could put it that way. She spent the whole tour telling us our safety precautions were completely unnecessary. Until Martyn was kidnapped.’
Dave had been waiting to see whether Gordon Weeks arrived with Asma, the interpreter he had fallen for at FOB Senzhiri. Privately Dave had not predicted the relationship would last but here they were, Weeks looking taller and more handsome and confident than Dave remembered him, with Asma on his arm.
‘She’s pretty,’ said Jenny.
‘I didn’t think they’d still be an item.’
‘Why? They look really good together.’
‘She’s from Hackney and he’s from some posh farmhouse in Hampshire.’
‘Well, good luck to them,’ said Jenny.
‘I didn’t think Iain Kila and Jean would last either, but they’re both here.’
‘Jean looks a bit too sensible for Iain.’
‘Iain Kila wasn’t born in the normal way, he was hewn. Hewn from a block of solid Aberdeen granite.’
‘How many times has he been married?’
‘Three, at least.’
They watched the sergeant major talking animatedly to the trim, blonde Jean. Jenny said: ‘He’s the sort who falls for people big time and then he gets bored with the day-to-day. But just look at his face, it goes all soft when he talks to her.’
When the meal was over, Martyn made a speech which embarrassed Dave so much that he was unable to remember a word of it afterwards. There was a moving tribute to Jamie Dermott, followed by a minute’s silence. Finally there was warm applause for the wounded: Steve and the two other lads injured by landmines.
After the meal, Gordon Weeks caught up with Dave and Kila and told them about his new job.
‘It’s good but I wish I was going back into theatre with you,’ he said.
‘So do I,’ Dave told him.
‘I tried to persuade them. They said I’d already been replaced.’
‘Yeah,’ said Dave unenthusiastically. ‘You have.’
Weeks looked at him quizzically. ‘I thought your new platoon commander might be here tonight. Even though he wasn’t in theatre with Martyn, I thought he might be invited.’
Dave remained pointedly silent. Weeks looked at Iain, who said nothing.
Asma, forthright as ever, said: ‘I’ve heard he’s a right git.’
‘That’s an understatement,’ Jenny told her.
The men shuffled their feet and looked grateful when the dance music started. Dave pulled Jenny towards him and murmured in her ear: ‘Want to have a slow dance with me?’
‘No.’
‘Aw, c’mon. You won’t get another chance for a few months.’
‘Good. I’m looking forward to all that slow dancing I’ll be doing with other blokes once you’re out of the way.’
‘Oh Jenn, stop being angry with me. You promised a truce,’ he said, tugging her towards the dance floor.
‘I want to kill you,’ said Jenny as he put his arms around her.
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I do. You and all the other men here who look so happy tonight. You’re going away to do what you enjoy. And leaving us alone.’
‘Shuddup and dance.’
Word rapidly spread through the hotel that most of the large and noisy party was shortly to return to Afghanistan. Complete strangers shook their hands and bought them drinks; a few sat down in any empty chairs they could find to ask about their experiences. But not all the other guests were friendly.
‘I didn’t come here to listen to people boasting about the state-licensed murder of Afghan civilians,’ said one man loudly as Streaky and Binman described a firefight in graphic detail to a hushed group. He and his wife were tall, lean, tanned and expensively dressed.
‘We aren’t politicians. We didn’t ask to go there,’ Finny said to their retreating backs. ‘We’re soldiers doing what our country asks.’
The couple did not break their stride.
‘Hey, they left before they had a chance to hear my Dorchester rap!’ said Streaky.
/> ‘Go, man, give us your rap!’ shouted the lads.
‘Well, I haven’t really finished—’
‘Go, Streaky!’
‘I’ll beat box,’ said Binman, leaping on to a chair.
Alison, who had not left his side all evening, looked shocked.
‘Jack, I think you should get down.’
But Streaky had already begun. People stopped talking and listened, and as he reached the last few lines there was an outbreak of applause:
‘… the invitation to this evening said Dress to Impress,
Smile, ladies, we’re alive, don’t get us depressed.
Things here are all so good, sorry that we’ve got to go,
But there’s still a couple other things the Taliban need to know.’
‘Very good,’ said Alison primly to Binman as he sat down. ‘I had no idea you could make all those noises.’
‘I learned at Catterick,’ said Binns, still out of breath.
‘He’s got a lot of talents, this boy, that you probably don’t know about,’ Finny told her.
‘Like puking,’ said Angus.
Alison looked at Binman closely. ‘You’re different with your mates,’ she said.
‘Different from what?’
‘Different from how you are back in Dorset.’
Binman’s face shone. He was staring around at the lads leaning on tables talking loudly, the light bouncing on to the glasses in their hands and then bouncing off, muted by the colours of their drinks, amber and red and white. He was looking at his mates, their faces young, their eyes full of hope, their bodies strong and ready for whatever lay ahead.
Nearby Angus, Mal, Streaky and a group of girls from the oil company were raucously laying some sort of bet with Finny, something to do with guessing how old the girls were. Then the band struck up again, and men and women catapulted towards the dance floor. The sergeant major shuffled around all wrapped up with that blonde monkey woman he’d met at FOB Sin City. And there was the boss being extremely intimate with the look-don’t-touch interpreter from Sin City. Sarge and his missus were entwined, dancing and looking into each other’s eyes, which was surprising for a married couple. With considerable awkwardness and at arm’s length, Martyn was dancing with Emily. And Binman could see Jonas and Mrs Jonas and Andy Kirk and his wife, while O’Sullivan was already on intimate terms with an oil-company woman.