Battle Lines

by Andy McNab

  ‘We’re thinking of renaming it Charlton Athletic,’ said Dave. ‘See you later.’

  When there were just 1 Section’s two Mastiffs left, Dave felt small in this huge landscape. He had seldom been so far from a FOB so unprotected. He reminded himself that the Taliban didn’t know how few men he had in the back. Anyone watching them might assume their force was twenty men strong, including the vehicles’ drivers, gunners and commander. If he had twenty men instead of just eight, a medic and a couple of drivers, would he sit differently, would he look more confident? He rearranged himself to look big, strong, certain, just in case the enemy had a body-language expert peering between the trees.

  To Dave it seemed a long, windy road. They passed a small village, wedged between the track and the canal. Across the canal a group of children minded the goats, sitting in the shade with sticks, drawing in the sand. They jumped to their feet when they saw the soldiers. One tried to run alongside the canal but his friends called him back.

  ‘No sweets for them?’ asked the driver.

  ‘They’ll only land in the canal,’ said Dave.

  They rose up a slight incline, the track curved and PB Red Sox came into sight. It was about two kilometres away, a small compound, reinforced with Hesco on one side, with two vulnerable-looking wooden towers rising up from inside its mud walls.

  ‘Welcome to your new home,’ said Lancer Dawson. ‘All mod cons. Friendly neighbours. Fine views.’

  Angus’s voice came on PRR.

  ‘Is that falling-down load of mud shit what the Yanks call a patrol base?’

  ‘Home sweet home,’ said Streaky Bacon.

  Suddenly the road dipped alarmingly. The PB began to disappear over the horizon.

  ‘Shit!’ said Dave. ‘Stop.’

  Lancer Dawson groaned.

  ‘Now!’ Dave insisted.

  The Mastiff screeched to a halt, and behind it so did the second vehicle.

  Dave asked on PRR: ‘Streaky Bacon! Can you still see PB San Francisco Giants behind us?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Just about,’ said Streaky. ‘It’s going to disappear any minute. This is quite a dip we’re in here.’

  ‘Can you see PB Red Sox ahead of us?’

  ‘The lookout tower. But that’s going to disappear soon.’

  ‘We’re going into a dead zone,’ said Dave.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ said Lancer Dawson.

  ‘It won’t take long to Barma it,’ Dave told him.

  But Lancer Dawson had been once more overtaken by gloom.

  ‘I hate stopping. I’m a driver and that’s what I like to do. Except when it means I’m missing a steak lunch.’

  Dave said on PRR: ‘OK, Binman and Tiny, you’re our minefield men and we’re in a dead zone. You need to check out any parts of this track which don’t have enough visibility from Red Sox or Giants to stop our friendly local Taliban from planting an IED.’

  There was a pause and then Binman and Tiny appeared, covered by Sol and the men on top of the Mastiffs. They edged forward slowly, swinging the Vallons back and forth in front of them over the dusty, stony track.

  While the engines stayed off, Dave drank in the silence. He couldn’t even hear the kids playing now. Where was the boy who had run alongside them? Had he been told not to go near the track because it was mined?

  Lancer Dawson began to look tense. ‘How do we know nothing was planted overnight? Do the Yanks check it every morning?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yep.’ Dave clicked on PRR again. ‘Slow down, Barmarers, you’re moving too fast. The enemy is active round here and there’s a good chance you’ll find something.’

  But they found nothing. They reached the top of the incline and took a good look at the PB and then Barmaed a short way down the track before turning and checking again all the way back to the vehicles.

  ‘Thanks, lads, get on board,’ said Dave.

  The local Taliban seemed remarkably quiet. There were some houses wedged between the track and the canal not fifty metres away. They were the perfect place for an ambush to hide while visitors Barmaed the track. Perhaps the locals were friendly after all. Dave made a mental note. More candy for more children.

  Tiny and Binman gave Dave a thumbs-up as they passed him to climb back into the wagons. Sweat was dripping down their faces. Barmaring was intense, scary work. It felt routine but if you relaxed for a moment and missed a faint signal, you or your mates could be blown up.

  They drove on, back up the incline and along the canal. After about fifty metres they swung left at ninety degrees to the compound. As they neared it, the gate opened for them. Inside were the Marines’ vehicles and men in American desert camouflage were piling kit into the back of them. There was little room for the Mastiffs.

  The very first thing Dave noticed was that the walls here were so high they wouldn’t be able to use the heavy machine gun on the back of the Mastiff. And they couldn’t take it off because they had no tripod for it. Shit. He looked around for a sand bank to drive the Mastiffs on to: there certainly would have been one in a UK-run compound but here there was none.

  Dave hailed the American officer, aware as he did so that the US Cougars were almost fully loaded and Marines were throwing the very last of their kit inside.

  The OC barely greeted Dave.

  ‘I’m Captain Grant Rider.’ He did not pause for Dave to give his own name. ‘We’ve been told to leave straightaway. We’re just about ready to go. This is my sergeant, Gunny McGunn.’

  Dave held out his hand and Gunny McGunn shook it, but he did not allow Dave time to give his name either.

  ‘I have five minutes to tell you everything I know about this place, so let’s get going, pal.’

  He strode ahead and Dave followed him while the lads dismounted and stretched and looked around them.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Mal asked a Marine.

  ‘Three months.’ With their beards, their kit and their loud voices they filled up the crumbling compound. The lads sat down on the ground, backs to a wall.

  ‘Going home?’ asked Bacon enviously.

  ‘Nah, we do longer tours than you Brits. We’re going north now, up towards the mountains.’

  Dave stepped out of the bright spring day into the compound behind the US sergeant. It was dark and dingy. Gunny McGunn led Dave through empty, dirt-floored rooms.

  ‘We used this for ammo, because it was the only place to stay dry when it rained, but you probably won’t have any more rain now. This is the kitchen. We had a rat problem but we’ve sorted them out. Just stay vigilant because you got one rat, you got a thousand.’

  In the courtyard he pointed out the towers.

  ‘They do not afford good protection. Got to keep your head down in there when things get hot outside …’

  ‘Do things get hot around here?’ asked Dave. And for the first time the man stopped and looked him full in the face.

  ‘You’re British but you’re not talking about the weather, right?’ he asked, squinting slightly.

  We’re on the same side, thought Dave, but we’re different.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m not talking about the weather.’

  ‘This is a seriously active PB,’ said Gunny. He fired his words rapidly, without expression. ‘Some days the local Taliban are quiet. Like Friday. So we think they’re very religious. But Sunday to Thursday they’re, like, not religious.’

  ‘Mostly light arms?’ asked Dave.

  ‘If only. They often have machine guns and RPGs and sometimes there are a lot of them. We’ve had to call for air support on average once a week.’

  Dave asked about the Taliban’s usual firing points. Gunny discussed the terrain.

  ‘Visibility is good on the whole. Remember always to watch those rocks. They don’t seem a whole lot higher than this compound, but they are, and it’s a favoured enemy position.’

  He led Dave up the tower. ‘It feels like you have visibility in most directions,’ said the Marine, ‘b
ut don’t be fooled. Did you notice a dead zone on the track?’

  ‘Notice it? We Barmaed it,’ said Dave.

  Gunny nodded.

  ‘That’s correct. You should always Barma the Bronx. That’s what we call that area. We just can’t get a line of sight on it; it’s too low and on an angle. So the enemy sneaks in with their IEDs and they plant them in the Bronx. We do a clearance route every morning. We cleared for you a few hours ago.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Dave.

  ‘We prayed to the Lord that you would remember to stop and check the Bronx.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Dave again. ‘But you didn’t need to. It’s basic drill to check a dead zone.’

  ‘We should have put in another PB down at the Bronx and we’ve been meaning to the whole time we’ve been here. But I guess no one ever had a chance. The Taliban kept us too busy,’ said the American.

  ‘You’ll be going back to the FOB through the Bronx,’ said Dave evenly. ‘But don’t worry, we’ll pray for you.’

  The sergeant seemed to take his words at face value. ‘Thanks, but actually we’re turning right out of the gate and taking the other route back.’

  ‘It looked like the track came to a dead end here.’

  ‘It used to but we’ve cleared it so we can go around to the FOB in a big circle. The first mile’s difficult but it’s OK after that.’

  As they went back through the kitchen area, he gestured to a box.

  ‘We left you some stuff. We know how you Brits love our rations so there’s some over there. You guys don’t get M&Ms in yours, right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Dave, putting his hand in the box and pulling out some M&Ms. ‘Thanks a lot.’

  McGunn was making his way back through the compound now. Outside, the Marines were revving their vehicles. Men were climbing on board, shouting to one another, radios crackling.

  ‘Oh, and if a guy called Raham Dil tries to sell you goat meat, don’t eat it. No matter how good it looks,’ Gunny said, climbing into the back of the vehicle.

  The lads watched them manoeuvre around the Mastiffs. The American Cougars were not only built with good mine resistance but they had mine flayers on the front too.

  ‘You lucky, lucky bastards,’ said 1 Section to the Americans’ retreating backs.

  ‘Why do the Yanks always seem more tooled up than us?’ asked Binman.

  ‘Because they are,’ said Angus.

  Before the last vehicle drove off, a Marine leaped out of the back and ran up to 1 Section. He chose Slindon and pressed a bag into his hand.

  ‘Guys,’ he said, his eyes sweeping the assembled faces, ‘I don’t know if you already have one of these, but I really recommend you take a look at it. God bless your stay here.’

  He pressed the bag into Slindon’s palm. Then he ran back to the truck. The Cougar roared out of the entrance like a big, vicious animal which had been released into the wild.

  ‘Gates!’ yelled Dave and Tiny and Bacon ran forward.

  Meanwhile, Slindon pulled down his headphones in surprise. Distant, tinny music issued from around his neck.

  ‘Why did he give this to me?’ he asked blankly.

  ‘Because you were nearest. Maybe it’s a box of M&Ms!’ Angry pulled it out of Slindon’s hand and drew a book from the bag. He saw the cover and then dropped it as if it was contaminated.

  ‘Christ, what is it?’ asked Mal, picking it up. ‘Oh. One of those.’

  The other lads crowded round.

  ‘A Bible!’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘He must be one of them Bible Belt soldiers.’

  ‘Reckon he scatters them all over Helmand Province?’

  ‘Well, I’m not reading it.’

  ‘Me neither.

  Sol and Dave, after rapid discussion, showed the men their firing positions and somehow by the time this was completed the Bible ended up on the ground in a dusty, dark corner of the compound.

  ‘I’ll tell you something,’ said Mal. ‘If that was the Quran and everyone here was Muslim, there’s no way it would be lying there like that.’

  Most of the lads were messing with iPads or listening to iPods and did not hear him.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  DAVE’S WORDS AT the end of their phone call had made Jenny cry. He had said he was sorry in the most loving and graceful way possible. Overnight, she examined her own behaviour. Had she been unkind or unfair? He had said he was leaving Camp Bastion and she could tell from his tone that he was going somewhere dangerous. Had she told him she loved him? Probably. But not in a truly loving way. She did not fall into a deep sleep until morning, shortly before it was time to get up.

  She prepared the children and went over to Adi’s. She had arranged to leave the girls there when Adi got back from church. The Kasanita family had gone to the first service. Somehow Adi had managed to dress herself and all the children nicely and pile them into the car at a ridiculously early hour while Jenny still slept. But now Jenny had seen her scooting home and she braced herself to take the children over and ask another favour of Adi – an enormous one.

  ‘I’m a bit early. I thought maybe we could have a chat for a few minutes,’ she said when Adi answered the door.

  ‘Come in, darling, we’ll have a cup of tea. But watch out, because I’ve started cooking and I’ve already burnt something and the whole place smells horrible!’ laughed Adi, leading her to the kitchen, where children were scraping leftover cake mixture from bowls with wooden spoons. Jaime was asleep so Jenny left her in her buggy in the hallway. Vicky sat down in front of the TV with some of the other children as though this was her second home. Which, thought Jenny guiltily, in a way it was.

  ‘I think our boys are leaving Bastion,’ she said.

  Adi, who was making a pot of tea, swung round to her.

  ‘You’ve spoken to Dave!’ she said, her face breaking into a wide smile. So Adi knew how little communication there had been between them. Because Adi always knew everything.

  Jenny nodded. But she doubted that the phone call from Dave yesterday was like any phone call between Sol and Adi.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Fine. They were getting ready to leave Bastion to go somewhere.’

  ‘Another FOB, I believe. Did Dave tell you when they might be coming home?’

  Coming home. Not a subject they had broached.

  ‘I don’t think he knows.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you two have spoken.’

  The water boiled and Adi poured it into the big teapot, stirring it with the same energy she applied to everything. Jenny couldn’t smell anything burnt in the kitchen. It felt like a warm, welcoming, sweetly scented Adi sort of place.

  ‘Can I help you with anything here?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘Don’t you have to rush off to get ready for work?’

  ‘I’ve got a few minutes. I’m just wearing jeans, since it’s Sunday.’

  ‘Hmm, well a bit of peeling maybe?’

  Adi plonked a tray of vegetables and a peeler in front of her.

  ‘Now then, Jenny, what time do you think you’re going to finish tonight?’

  ‘Well, you know that Eugene’s on a committee?’ Jenny began.

  ‘Ummmm,’ said Adi.

  ‘They’re writing a report.’

  ‘Oh yes? Is that what you type? I thought it was his memoirs.’

  ‘That too. But the report’s really urgent. It’s for the Government.’

  ‘Ooooh.’

  ‘And I think I told you that the deadline’s moved forward and it has to be finished tonight? Well, that might mean working very late.’

  Adi was pouring the tea but now she paused and looked at her.

  ‘So, what are you trying to tell me, Jenny?’

  Jenny could not look up. She picked a large, bell-shaped squash from the tray and tried to peel its thick skin but the peeler kept sliding over the hard, smooth surface.

  Adi delivered a cup of tea to Jenny and then scooped up a small child and p
laced him on her hip. She stood swaying gently with the child in front of Jenny.

  It was difficult to say this. It was difficult to peel the squash. ‘I’m not sure what time we’ll actually finish.’

  ‘Well, we agreed I’d have the children this afternoon … I can keep them until their bedtime this evening …’

  ‘The thing is, we might not finish until, well, midnight or even later.’

  Adi stared at her.

  ‘Oh. I see. So what you really want is for me to take the girls all night.’

  Jenny was making headway with the squash now. She had found it was possible to peel it using sheer brute force, pushing the blade into the skin. She pressed as hard as she could and at that moment the blade slipped down the squash to her other hand, which was holding the vegetable, and along the back of one finger. Jenny could see the white line of peeled skin.

  First there was pain and then there was blood.

  ‘Oh Adi, I’m sorry, I’m making a mess of this!’ Jenny did not want to admit how much her finger hurt. She tried wrapping a tissue around it but by the time Adi had reached for her first-aid kit, the tissue was soaked in blood.

  Adi put the child down and rummaged in the box until she found a bandage and without a word started to wrap it around Jenny’s finger. Jenny took her silence for anger. Usually Adi was all noise and sympathy at the slightest mishap. This cold, quiet Adi was like a reprimand.

  She stood up.

  ‘It’s OK, Adi, don’t worry about my finger.’

  Adi looked up at her. Jenny took the bandage out of her hand.

  ‘I’m causing nothing but trouble. I’ll see to this at home and replace your bandage. And don’t worry about this evening either. I’ll be back at five for the girls.’

  ‘Now, Jenny, don’t be like that.’ Adi’s voice had lost its customary warmth.

  ‘I’ve put you in a very difficult position. I’ve asked too much. I’m sorry.’ Jenny was moving towards the door now.

  ‘You’ve put me in a difficult position because you’ve asked me to take your kids for the night. So that you can work late with this man, Eugene. Jenny, do you have any idea what people are saying about you? And what they’ll say if they find out I’ve looked after your girls so you can be alone with him at night in his house?’