by McNab, Andy
She snuggled down under the duvet and talked. It felt intimate. Her voice became soft. He even made her laugh. There were whole minutes at a time when she was able to forget the big, black abyss that had opened up in her life tonight. They talked for two hours and at the end of their talk she was so tired that she slept.
Chapter Thirty-eight
DAVE SCREAMED AT JAMIE AND ANGUS NOT TO LIFT THE CASUALTY BUT it was already too late. He could see that Jamie, standing at Connor’s head, had taken the weight and was amazed by it. People always were. You could double a man’s weight when he was injured or dead. And then there was his Bergen too. Bad enough without fucking mines every six inches.
He could barely watch Jamie’s attempts not to stagger. Mal had marked the path more clearly with tape and once the body was up the pair had to exit in a straight line and then swing sharply to the left on a tight arc to reach the stretcher.
They had laid it out in the safe area which had been cleared around Broom. Even from here you could see a black mass of something there which might be leg or it might be flies or maybe both.
Jamie stayed firm, but until he could get his arms more securely under Connor’s shoulders, his body was bent at a weird angle to compensate for his poor grip.
Dave’s hand was on his forehead as he watched, as though he had received a blow to the head or was trying to ward one off. There was a tense silence all around the clearing. Binns and Mal were just stepping off the minefield and into the woods, Binns looking wretched. And, suddenly, the enemy opened fire.
Two shots from an AK47 ripped into the silence, cracking open the tension like an eggshell. Within a moment Finn’s gimpy was chattering back, and so were at least ten rifles. Streaky was sure he saw the shadow of a man in the distant trees fall. He saw it because the field and the trees and the weeds and the lone figures at the centre of the clearing lit up suddenly like a stage.
The explosions were a series of lightning strikes ripping out of the ground and across the field. Everyone felt the hot breath on their faces. The men from 3 Section along the more distant edges received the explosions like a large fist punching them, a few felt the patter of shrapnel on their helmets or the searing rip of it on their exposed skin. Others received the debris of stones and branches as the trees that protected them were torn. And in the centre of the field the two soldiers, their casualty hanging between them, were turned to stone.
The two watched as one mine detonated and set off another and they waited helplessly for the string of explosions to reach them. No one, not even Dave, could do anything but watch as shrapnel was thrown into the air and plumes of black smoke shot up. It was a volcano and they were powerless against its might.
The first detonation had been at the far end of the field but, as each mine set off those around it, the explosions moved closer. The rational side of Dave had so far counted five explosions, but there had probably been more than ten mines involved. And then, when the end of the field was a smoking, burning, dusty hell, the detonation stopped.
Everyone waited for the next explosion. They were motionless, as though even breathing too heavily could detonate a mine. And then, in silence, Jamie and Angus began to continue their painstaking extraction towards the stretcher. It took a moment for Dave to see that Angus’s arm was bright red.
‘Christ, what’s happened to you, McCall?’ he yelled.
Angus did not respond. Neither he nor Jamie looked up. They were near the stretcher now and the safe area.
‘He’s been hit . . .’ said Mal, walking back up the mine path again to where Angus and Jamie were settling Connor on the stretcher.
Dave knew it was useless to stop him. The boss tried, without success.
‘Mr Angry . . .’ Mal said from a distance. There was no room for a third person inside the tape.
‘Fuck off.’
‘You’re wounded.’
Angus was shaking. ‘Just fuck off, Mal.’
‘We can get his Bergen off now. You can take it,’ said Jamie.
He was shaking too.
‘Angus, for Chrissake let me see the arm.’
‘No.’
Blood was dripping from it now. Part of the sleeve was missing.
‘Morphine!’ said Mal.
‘Not fucking likely,’ said Angus. ‘I don’t want to go back to Bastion.’
‘Let me carry Connor, then. You’re a danger to everyone like that,’ said Mal. And, amazingly, Angry moved aside for him and then stumbled off, carrying Connor’s Bergen, down the track.
Mal immediately bent over Connor.
‘Well?’ bawled Dave.
‘Still alive!’
‘Don’t do medic stuff, the Chinook’s landing soon,’ yelled Dave. Wait for a Black Hawk and you could wait until Christmas.
‘It’s landing in five minutes!’ called the boss.
Mal and Jamie picked up the stretcher and began the slow, hot, march down the field for the last time.
‘Angry’s taken a hit there,’ Mal said to Jamie.
‘So have I.’
‘You what?’
‘I’ve been hit.’
‘Where?’
‘Ribs. I’m OK. It bounced off my body armour, just like last time. But I can feel it. Just like last time.’
‘Holy shit,’ said Mal.
‘It’s OK. It was probably only an AK47 this time,’ said Jamie. But his voice sounded weak and the second he was relieved of the stretcher by 2 Section he sat down on the hard woodland floor and put his head in his hands.
Angus’s arm was already being treated.
‘Looks as if you’ve been in a knife fight,’ said McKinley.
‘Did I take a round?’ asked Angus.
‘I think you took shrapnel but it’s too full of shit to tell now.’
Blood was seeping through faster than McKinley could dress the wound.
‘I won’t do more because you’ll be on a Chinook in a few minutes.’
‘I won’t!’ roared Angus.
‘You will, McCall,’ said Dave.
‘Sarge . . .’
‘McCall, you’re going,’ said the boss.
‘But the medics here can see to me, sir!’
‘They’re up at the front nearer the fighting.’
‘I am not going nowhere, I’m staying with my mates. And don’t try giving me fucking morphine when I’m not looking,’ muttered Angus.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it, mate,’ said McKinley.
‘By the way, McCall,’ said Dave. ‘Fucking well done, mate.’
The platoon was starting to move towards the helicopter landing site. The men who had gone with Broom led the way.
Corporal Baker had wanted to carry Connor’s stretcher. He stumbled along tearfully with the bloody and near-lifeless rifleman.
‘Need an extra hand that end, Aaron?’ asked Sol kindly. He felt bad enough but he knew how much worse he would be feeling if his section had been the one caught in the minefield. He remembered how Aaron Baker had radioed excitedly to say he wanted to outflank the flipflops. Now he would spend the rest of his life wishing he hadn’t.
‘I can do it,’ said Aaron Baker.
Jamie was walking slowly towards the back of the section with Binns. They did not speak but they were bound together by the enormity of their experience on the minefield.
‘Dermott, you all right?’ asked Dave.
‘I’m OK. I think I’m just bruised.’
Dave surveyed the filthy faces and bodies of Jamie and Binman.
‘That was good work under a lot of pressure, you two,’ he said. ‘Very good, both of you. Well done, Binns.’
Jamie nodded and glanced at Binman and then smiled at him. There was both exhaustion and triumph on his dirty face. The sprog had finally done something right.
They reached the field where the Chinook was due to land. So did everyone else. CSM Kila, medics, EOD, engineers and 2 Platoon were all assembling.
‘Too fucking late,’ Dave told them. ‘It’s
all over.’
He and Iain Kila pulled the wounded off to one side with the medics. As well as Connor and Angus there were three members of 3 Section with shrapnel wounds, plus Jamie with bruising from a round as well as seriously cut hands. Binns was surprised to find that the skin all over his own palms was sliced as though by razors. As soon as he saw them, they started to hurt.
Connor was loaded first while the boss and CSM Kila argued with Angus.
‘I do not need to go anywhere!’ Angus was yelling.
‘You won’t be able to fight. You’ll just be a liability if we have to stretcher you out later,’ said the boss.
‘I can fight!’ roared Angus.
CSM Kila’s face turned into a mask of anger.
‘Get on the fucking Chinook,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a deep wound there and in the time you’ve wasted arguing, Ryan Connor could be fucking dying.’
Angus grimaced and climbed on board the helicopter.
‘Anyone else?’ roared Kila.
‘This shrapnel wound should go, what about you, Jamie?’
‘I feel fine.’
‘OK, we can cope with everything else here,’ said the medic, shoving a bloodied face from 3 Section forward.
The helicopter took off instantly. Everyone watched it go. There was silence as its rotors disappeared into the distance.
‘Right,’ said Dave to the others. ‘Let’s get on with what we came here to do.’
Some lads looked surprised. A few had forgotten they were supposed to be supporting the Paras.
‘To be honest, there isn’t much left to do,’ said Boss Weeks. ‘The Paras have just about completed the op. The Taliban put up some big opposition at the start and then fled. We’re picking them up in the area but there hasn’t been much more than a few skirmishes.’
‘I thought that place was a choggie training school,’ said Dave.
The boss shrugged.
‘They didn’t make much attempt to defend it. In fact, it was empty except for goats and women and old folk. So either we were misinformed or they knew we were coming.’
‘Oh, shit, we’ve missed the action,’ groaned a few people. ‘We’ve been stuck out here all day.’
‘We had enough action,’ said Dave.
‘And we’ve only been stuck for an hour,’ said the boss.
Even Dave couldn’t believe that.
‘An hour? It felt like . . .’
The boss looked at his watch.
‘It took you just one hour to get those two men off the minefield. An amazing achievement, which has saved their lives.’
‘Fucking incredible,’ said CSM Kila. ‘You should be proud of this platoon.’
‘I’ll be honest,’ said Dave. ‘It was the worst hour of my life.’
Chapter Thirty-nine
THE WIVES, THE REAR PARTY, THE SUPPORT STAFF, EVERYONE IN THE camp was talking about casualties in 1 Platoon. Something had happened in Afghanistan while England slept and rumours ran around the barracks and the houses, along the telephone lines and through cyberspace.
Jenny was sure she knew the truth because Adi had phoned her first thing to tell her.
‘Something did happen last night, Agnieszka was right about that. But Jamie’s OK.’
‘Who, then?’
‘Two lads, Ben Broom and Ryan Connor. In our platoon but not in Sol’s section.’
‘I don’t know them.’
‘Broom has a girlfriend who works at the day nursery.’
‘Kylie! Her boyfriend’s in Dave’s platoon and his name’s Ben!’
‘Well apparently he’s going to survive. But the other one is touch and go. There are more injuries but they’re patching them up at Bastion.’
Jenny was surprised to find Kylie at work today when she took Vicky in. She was a pretty, noisy girl who usually wore bright colours and bright lipstick.
‘They crossed a minefield,’ she said. ‘Ben’s going to live. But he’s lost his leg below the knee.’
Vicky squirmed in Jenny’s arms, the baby kicked and Jenny felt ready to cry.
‘Kylie, I’m really sorry.’
‘It isn’t such a big relationship for me, you know,’ said Kylie. ‘But now he’s injured everyone thinks I’ll stick by him. I suppose I have to for a while. His parents are wailing all over me like I’m their daughter-in-law. But it probably wouldn’t have lasted long anyway.’
‘You’ve got to lead your own life,’ Jenny heard herself saying as she put Vicky down. Kylie leaned closer.
‘And I’ll tell you something else. I might not even be able to look at it. I mean, the place where the leg was.’ She pulled a disgusted face. ‘That kind of thing grosses me out.’
‘You should talk to Leanne Buckle,’ said Jenny.
‘But she’s married to Steve. I’m not even living with Ben and we haven’t been going out that long.’
When she got back from the nursery, Trish made Jenny sit down with a cup of tea in front of the television.
‘Oh, Mum, I never watch daytime TV, I don’t have time.’
‘Feet up!’ said Trish. ‘You look as if you haven’t had a wink of sleep for two days.’
This was almost true. At first the programme, a chat show, made her feel relaxed and sleepy. But memories of last night intruded. Who had sent that text message to Agnieszka? She had rung Agnieszka again this morning. Adi had already called her with the news and when Jenny rang Agnieszka had been in a hurry. She certainly had not wanted to talk about the message.
Jenny was sure it had come from the Taliban. Dave had explained before he left that the enemy intercepted signals and then sent their own messages. It hadn’t meant anything then but now Jenny understood. The Taliban had picked up Jamie’s loving texts to Agnieszka and calculated how they could hurt her. Coincidentally, they had sent their own text when Jamie really was in danger. But the sender didn’t know that. He was a man far away who had never met Agnieszka but knew only one thing about her: that he hated her because she was loved by a British soldier. He hated her enough to send a message that would cause alarm and misery. And the faceless man had achieved his aim. The Taliban had penetrated Agnieszka’s house, then Jenny’s and then Adi’s in a new, shocking, personal way.
‘I have to go out,’ she told her mother.
‘Why?’
‘There’s someone round the corner I must talk to.’
‘Just relax, for heaven’s sake.’
‘I can’t relax until I’ve spoken to her.’
‘Until you’ve put your feet up, you’re not going anywhere, my girl,’ said Trish sternly. Jenny felt fifteen again. She giggled.
‘I’m not going clubbing to eye up Leroy Tanner,’ she said.
Trish looked knowing. ‘I always said that boy would end up in jail and I was right, wasn’t I? I can’t think what you saw him in.’
Jenny knew exactly what she had seen in Leroy Tanner but, eight months’ pregnant with her second child, this wasn’t the time to think about it.
She got up, slowly.
‘I’m only going around the corner, Mum, and I’ll only be five minutes.’
Before Trish could argue, the phone rang and Jenny, who was passing it, picked up the receiver.
‘Hi,’ said a distant, weary voice. ‘Hi, darling.’
‘Dave!’
‘Managed to get the phone again.’
‘You only rang last night!’
‘Well, it was this morning for me and I was in a hurry. And I didn’t tell you that I love you.’
She could hear tiredness and pain in his voice.
‘I love you too. And I know about the minefield. Everyone in camp knows. Ben Broom and Ryan Connor, right?’
‘I can’t talk about it.’ He sounded more vulnerable than she had ever heard him. ‘Jen, I miss you.’ She realized that she could not imagine, know or even understand what crossing a minefield meant. The gulf between them had nothing to do with miles. It was a gulf of understanding. And Dave knew it too.
‘Sweetheart . . .’
‘I can’t talk about it, Jen.’
‘I know. Is Jamie OK?’