‘Lizzie’s okay,’ Adams replied, looking up from the paperwork he was filling out. ‘Just a bit hot-tempered at times, that’s all.’
‘Even so,’ Colonel Nick said. ‘That’s not how I’d talk to a senior officer, no matter how hot-tempered I am.’
Adams thought before replying. Several options ran through his head, all discounted fairly quickly. He could tell the Colonel that he wasn’t really a senior officer, he was only a Lieutenant Colonel, but he wasn’t sure how he’d take that. He could apologise on Lizzie’s behalf, but he figured that she’d be really annoyed if she found out. In the end, Adams chose the path of least resistance and just stayed silent.
‘Don’t you think, Adams?’ Colonel Nick pressed him.
‘Er, well, sir,’ Adams replied after thinking for a couple of seconds on the best approach. ‘Thing is, we do normally all do our own bags. It’s kind of an unwritten rule and I know that Ronald offered to do yours, but that’s just him.’ Colonel Nick looked at Adams with a surprised expression. ‘I don’t think that he was expecting you to say yes,’ Adams added.
‘Well he shouldn’t have fucking asked then, should he?’ Colonel Nick retorted. Figuring that there was no best way to answer that question, Adams again stayed silent. ‘And what’s with the “Lizzie this”, “Ronald that”? What’s all that about, Adams? You’re an officer. They aren’t. You’re the senior RAF one here, and it doesn’t look like they know that to me. And if they don’t respect you, they’re not going to respect me. Are they?’ Adams looked at the Colonel, trying to keep his expression neutral.
‘Sir,’ he said, looking the Colonel directly in the eye. ‘You’re right. I’m the senior RAF officer here, and they’re not officers. But as far as respect goes, I’d prefer it to be earned. If you get to the point where you have to demand it, you’re probably buggered,’ he said, before adding, ‘sir,’ just to be on the safe side.
The two men sat in silence for several minutes, Adams completing his paperwork and Colonel Nick leafing through a dog-eared paperback book that Ronald was reading. Adams wondered if he should say something else — an apology of sorts by way of a peace offering — but when he looked over at Colonel Nick, he thought better of it. From the expression on the doctor’s face, he didn’t look as if he was in the mood for any further conversation.
‘Right then,’ Adams said, putting the clipboard he was balancing on his knees on the side. ‘Paperwork’s all done. I’m going for a shower. Do you want anything from the accommodation block, Nick?’ The Colonel glanced up sharply.
‘Nick?’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Did you mean Colonel Nick?’ Adams took a deep breath and was about to reply when the flap at the end of the tent was pushed aside. Lizzie and Ronald walked through, carrying a medical bag in each hand. They looked uncertainly at each other as if they sensed the tension in the air. At exactly the same time, the red phone on the desk rang. Adams looked away from Lizzie and Ronald’s concerned faces and muttered under his breath.
‘You have got to be fucking joking.’
8
Brigadier James Foster, despite being the most senior officer in Camp Bastion, knew when he had to listen rather than talk. He sat back in his rickety canvas chair and held the receiver of the telephone a couple of inches away from his ear until the Garrison Sergeant Major had finished talking.
‘Yes, Mr Irvine,’ the Brigadier said when he could finally get a word in edgeways. ‘I will speak to them about their driving, but at the same time it’s important to remember why they’re driving so fast down the main drag.’ This prompted another outburst from the GSM. Foster sighed and moved the receiver back away from his ear as there was a knock on his door. A few seconds later, one of the Ops Officers — a young Lieutenant whose name Foster had forgotten — stuck his head around it.
When he saw that the Brigadier was on the phone, he raised a hand in apology, but Foster waved him in. The young officer would have waited for a reply if it wasn’t urgent.
‘Right, Mr Irvine, let me stop you there,’ Foster said into the phone. When the GSM’s voice had tailed off, he continued. ‘You’ve made your point, several times. I’ve said I’ll speak to the team, and I will do. Now something has cropped up and I need to go, so thank you.’ Without waiting for a reply, Foster replaced the receiver on the handset and turned his attention to the Ops Officer.
‘Sorry to interrupt, sir,’ the young man said. Foster looked at him, realising that he was about the same age as his youngest son. ‘We’ve just deployed the TRT again. There’s a Cat A up near Sangin. IED, we think. Serious leg injuries.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Foster replied. ‘How’s the other one doing?’
‘He’s in Intensive Care.’
‘Are the aeromedical evacuation lot involved?’
‘They’re already arguing with Intensive Care, apparently,’ the Ops Officer said. Brigadier Foster allowed himself a wry smile. He’d already had a one-way conversation with the team leaders of both groups about playing nicely, but perhaps another one would be needed when things had settled down.
‘Okay, thanks,’ he said to the young Lieutenant. ‘I’ll pop down to the ER, make sure they don’t need anything from me.’
‘Did you want me to ask the TRT to come and speak to you when they get back, sir?’ the Ops Officer asked. He nodded at the phone on the Brigadier’s desk. ‘I take it that was the GSM about their driving again?’
‘I think that’s probably the last thing they’ll want to do when they get in, don’t you?’ Brigadier Foster replied with a smile.
‘Listen in!’ Corporal Emma Wardle jumped as Squadron Leader Andrew Webb, the doctor in charge of the Emergency Room, shouted just as she walked into the ER. My God, she thought. Does he ever love the sound of his own voice? ‘I’ve just heard from the Ops Room that the TRT’s on its way back out to another Cat A casualty. We need to make sure that everything’s re-stocked and ready to go.’
Emma had already stocked up after her role in the previous resuscitation. As scribe, this was pretty straightforward as it only involved replacing the trauma chart on the scribe’s table and making sure that the pen was working for the next one. It wasn’t as simple as that though, as the doctors rarely helped to restock the rest of the department.
She moved across to the head of the trauma bay and started to check through the emergency intubation equipment even though she didn’t think it had been touched.
‘Corporal Wardle?’ she heard Major Rob Clarke say behind her.
‘Sir?’ she replied, turning to look at him. He was just wiping his face with a dirty looking handkerchief. Even though the tent was air-conditioned, he still had a red face and looked as if he was suffering more than anyone else in the room from the heat. It was still stifling, despite the air conditioning.
‘Corporal Salah has gone to Intensive Care to follow that last casualty through. That means that we’re a nurse down. Can you step up please and assist the anaesthetist? I’ll get one of the kids to do scribe and keep an eye on them.’ He nodded towards a couple of Combat Medical Technicians who were standing in a corner of the Emergency Room, looking lost.
‘Er, I can do, sir,’ she replied. ‘I’ve not done that before though. I mean, I’ve seen plenty, but not had the chance to–’
‘You’ll be fine,’ he cut her off. ‘The gas man will be at the head, doing his thing if it’s needed. Keep an eye on him and make sure he’s okay, but your main job is to get an initial set of observations and make sure that the casualty’s got a decent line in. Put one in if he hasn’t got one already on your side.’
Emma swallowed and nodded at the Major.
‘Okay, sir,’ she said. ‘I can do that.’ As Major Clarke walked off to talk to the Combat Medical Technicians, she ran through the job ahead in her mind. Help the gas man, get some observations, check the intravenous line or put one in. She mentally rehearsed the procedure for cannulation, which she’d done loads of time in the Emergency Room she worked at back in the U
K, but she’d never inserted one in the middle of a trauma call.
Feeling the familiar butterflies start to build up in her chest just at the thought of it, she took a few deep breaths and moved to check the trolley with some of the other emergency equipment on it, paying particular attention to the cannula tray. There were a few bits and pieces that needed to be restocked, as there normally were after a trauma call, so she started a list of things that she’d have to go and get from the main hospital store. Cannulas, saline flushes, alcohol wipes, they all went onto the list.
She paused for a moment, looking up just in time to catch Major Clarke looking away from her from the opposite side of the tent. What Lizzie Jarman had said in the toilets suddenly came back to her. She knew that Lizzie had only been joking, but now she began to wonder if there was something behind what she’d said. She made a mental note to have a proper chat with Lizzie when they were back in the accommodation that evening to see if she was being serious or just taking the mick. Emma jumped as Squadron Leader Webb started shouting again.
‘Right people!’ he bellowed to the four or five people who were still in the room. ‘TRT’s just left, so we’ve probably got about thirty minutes before we need to pick up the pieces.’
9
The Chinook turned in lazy circles just over three thousand feet above the Sangin district of Helmand Province. Adams was sitting next to Ronald, the only member of the medical team who was able to talk to the pilot via a microphone attached to his flying helmet. When he saw Ronald stop talking, Adams tapped him on the shoulder.
‘What’s going on, mate?’ Adams shouted as Ronald pushed the headset off one ear. ‘Why aren’t we getting in there?’
‘Insurgent activity in the area!’ Ronald yelled back. ‘The Captain’s not happy. No news on the casualty though.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Adams said, although he knew that the Captain was spot on. He stood and walked back down the aircraft to pass the message on to the rest of the medical team. Lizzie was sitting further back towards the rear ramp with her eyes closed. She looked as if she was asleep, but as Adams touched her on the shoulder she jumped and opened her eyes, looking at him with a startled expression.
‘Lizzie,’ Adams leaned in and put his mouth next to her ear. ‘We’re circling until we get confirmation that the area’s safe for us to go in.’ He saw her eyes widen at the news, but a couple of seconds later she shuffled down the seats to pass the message on to the Force Protection team leader. Adams moved across to Colonel Nick who, on hearing about the delay, just nodded at him.
Happy that the team knew what was going on, Adams sat back down on the seat and retrieved the paperback book that he’d been pretending to read, but his mind was buzzing. Just as he did before every landing, he ran through his own internal checklist about what if the worst happened, and he didn’t come back. Before he’d left the United Kingdom, Adams had taken ages to make sure that everything was in place, and that there was nothing that was going to embarrass anyone if he didn’t come home. He was sure that his computer was clean, and that both his browsing history and ‘private’ folder had been deleted. Even though he was sure that no-one would be that upset about finding a bit of porn of his computer, it was one less thing to worry about.
He’d written letters to all his family, which were in his desk drawer back in the UK and would only be read by the intended recipients if he didn’t get back to shred them. The life insurance policy he’d taken out paid double if he died on operations. Even though his parents didn’t really need the money, it wouldn’t hurt. Adams's final mental check was to double check that the photo of his girlfriend Sophie was safely tucked behind the Kevlar plate in the front of his body armour.
Adams tried to push these thoughts to the back of his mind as he felt the helicopter bank and start to descend. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the loadmaster point to the floor of the helicopter and hold up his hand to indicate five minutes, a signal which Ronald immediately repeated. Adams earmarked the corner of the book and tucked it behind his seat. He checked his personal kit, and picked up his rifle to sling it across his back, muzzle downwards.
Around him, all the other members of both the medical and Force Protection teams were all doing their own checks. Adams moved across to Lizzie and gave her a quick buddy-buddy check before she did the same thing for him, reaching out and pushing Adams's toughened scissors behind his rank slide on the front of his uniform. He was very attached to those scissors, but only because he’d had to order them in from Amazon specifically. Being left-handed, he’d not been able to use the scissors they were issued to cut through a piece of paper, let alone the tough material of a combat uniform. She gave him a weak smile, and he reached across and used his knuckles to knock a couple of times on the top of her helmet, grinning back at her as did so.
Turning around, Adams gave a thumbs up to both Ronald and Colonel Nick, who returned the gesture. Colonel Nick was sporting a new-looking pair of kneepads. Remembering that he didn’t have any on their last job, Adams wondered where he’d got them from. There certainly hadn’t been enough time to get all the way to the camp’s main stores when they’d been back at Camp Bastion, and the medical stores refused to keep any stock at the hospital because they weren’t medical kit. He wondered if Lizzie had given him a pair, despite her apparent ambivalence towards the doctor.
Seeing the back of the ramp start to descend and the loadmaster holding up a single finger, Adams reached up and pulled down his protective goggles over his eyes. Around him, everyone else did the same thing. He felt the nose of the Chinook lifting as they came in to land, and as the back end of the helicopter touched down, the interior became so full of dust, vegetation, and God knew what from the desert floor that he could barely see Lizzie on the other side of the helicopter. While he was waiting for the thumbs up from the loadmaster, Adams noticed that the plant materials that had been sucked into the back of the helicopter were the dried-out heads of poppy flowers. They’d touched down in the middle of a poppy field.
As soon as he got the signal from the loadmaster, Adams picked up the stretcher and moved down the ramp. At the end, he looked in the direction that the loadmaster was pointing with a flat hand to see a solitary figure standing and waving at them through the dust a couple of hundred yards away. He knew that Lizzie would be right behind him, so he jumped down off the ramp and started running across to the soldier. On his right-hand side, he saw Lizzie running alongside him, her rifle swaying on her back with every step. She was gradually moving in front him, which annoyed him, but then again he was older and was also carrying a stretcher. His lungs started to burn with every deep breath of the hot air. If he ever went for a run in a sauna, he thought, this is probably what it would be like. The only difference would be that if he was running in a sauna, he wouldn’t be wearing so many layers of clothing and body armour.
When they reached the soldier who was waving at them, Adams was only a few yards behind Lizzie. He stopped, pushed his goggles back up on to his helmet, and used the back of his hand to wipe his forehead. The casualty was about twenty yards away, down a slight slope leading to a wadi. Even from this distance, Adams could see that this was a bad one; the soldier’s left leg was missing below the knee, and he thought that the femur on the right was probably snapped.
‘Hey, I’m Adams,’ he said, shaking the soldier’s hand. ‘What’ve you got?’ The soldier glanced at the rank tab on the front of Adams's combat vest.
‘Hi, er, sir. I’m Mulumbu. Patrol medic,’ he replied, pointing at the casualty. ‘He went down into the wadi and then that was it. Must have stepped on a mine, I reckon. Blew him back onto the hard standing, such as it is. His leg’s gone. The other one looks fucked. I put a tourniquet on, and gave him his morphine, but apart from that…’
‘Mulumbu. Cracking job, mate.’ Adams looked across at Lizzie and then down at the stretcher with a nod. Getting the message, Lizzie moved the stretcher so that it was laid down next to the casualty
and pulled the arms apart to make it into a proper stretcher. ‘Best not fuck about, lad.’ Adams pointed at the stretcher that Lizzie was now kicking to secure the struts in place and said to Mulumbu, ‘Let’s get him on that so that we can get the hell out of here.’
Mulumbu raised his eyebrows and looked at Adams, a look of surprise on his face. Adams knew full well what he was thinking. Officers weren’t supposed to talk like that. At the end of the day, Adams didn’t give a monkey’s what Mulumbu or any other soldier thought of his officer qualities — all Adams wanted was to get the casualty back on the helicopter and up in the air. Where it was safe.
‘Ok, sir,’ Mulumbu replied. ‘Got it.’
Adams knelt on the opposite side of the casualty from Lizzie, who gave him a quick thumbs up. This didn’t mean anything other than the casualty was still alive. Knowing full well that what he was about to do would hurt the soldier lying on the floor in front of him, Adams reached out and grabbed two handfuls of uniform, one by his shoulder and one just above his shredded thigh, and pulled the soldier onto his side. Lizzie jammed the stretcher into the sand at an angle, and eased the stretcher back towards the horizontal as Adams rolled the casualty onto it. Together, they moved him into the middle of the stretcher, both ignoring the groans that the movement caused. If anything, a groaning casualty was a good thing as it proved that they could maintain their airway. It was the quiet ones that concerned them more.
Adams stood, readjusting the rifle slung across his back as he did so. Looking at Mulumbu, Adams barked, ‘Right then. Off we fuck. Get on the back of the stretcher, would you? You’re about the same size as the two of us put together. On your count, Lizzie.’ Adams knelt by the head end of the stretcher and waited while Lizzie fiddled with the extra pair of safety goggles that she’d pulled out of one of the pockets in her combat vest. She finished putting them over the casualty’s eyes and grabbed the handle of the stretcher with her right hand.
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