by Andy McNab
Chapter Five
JENNY KNEW SOMETHING HAD HAPPENED. DAVE WASN’T ALLOWED TO say anything about anything on the army phone but she could still tell that he was keeping something from her.He’d used up every one of his thirty allocated minutes. He and little Vicky had cooed idiotically at each other for at least ten of them. The strange gaps, the overlaps, the complications that always occurred when there was a two-second delay on the patchy line never mattered to Vicky. It only mattered when two adults had things to say to each other.Jenny had told him all the small stuff from home. Everyone said this was the right way to talk to your man when he was away and over the last few years she’d been given plenty of opportunities to perfect her technique. So it was a quick reference to the broken gutter before moving swiftly on to what the nursery had said about Vicky being ahead of her age, the date the hospital was going to scan the baby, her mum inviting his mum over . . . she sometimes listened to her own voice, wittering on, and wondered what he was thinking. Did it mean anything when people were trying to kill you in an alien land that the gutter on a house in Wiltshire was leaking? They both had to pretend it did. But today he wasn’t pretending as well as usual.She put the phone down with that all too familiar feeling. Loss. Regret. Disappointment. The knowledge that all the important things had not been said. Phone calls were a brief interlude in her life and his. And then they went away and lived in their separate worlds, waiting always for the next disappointing call.She picked up Vicky, who seemed to share her sadness. They stood at the window. A grey day was melting into a grey evening. The street was wet. Irregular patches in the pavement were filled with water. The houses looked ugly. Sometimes, when the lights were on in the living rooms and the TVs flickered, she felt cosy on a dark evening. Not tonight.Headlamps travelled slowly up the street. As the car passed Jenny could see it was Agnieszka Dermott’s old Vauxhall with Luke in the back. Where had she been? Agnieszka never shared the details of her life with the other women. Within a day of the men leaving for Afghanistan the wives at the camp had got together in each other’s houses. Even if they hadn’t said anything in particular there was a sort of strength in knowing that everyone felt the same way. But Agnieszka hadn’t joined in.Jenny and Vicky stood at the window so long that night fell and the glass began to throw their own reflections back at them. Jenny saw herself, tall, blonde, angular, Vicky sitting on her hip with one leg stretching across the bump of the baby.More headlamps. A car drew up outside Leanne Buckle’s place. And in that moment, Jenny knew what Dave hadn’t been telling her.There was an endless pause before a man got out. He was carrying a briefcase. Jenny recognized him at once. The Families Officer. That could only mean one thing. Jenny felt her throat constrict and tears press behind her eyes. She tried not to cry for Vicky’s sake then saw with relief that the child had fallen asleep.So she let her tears spill as the Families Officer walked up the front path to Leanne’s door. She watched him ring the bell. Leanne’s bell didn’t work and when nothing happened after a few minutes he had to knock. Leanne answered, carrying a twin, legs hanging. The other one was probably behind her somewhere, bawling, the way they did when Leanne only picked one of them up.Jenny couldn’t see Leanne’s face but, before the man even had time to speak, it was clear she had guessed why he was there. Her hand went up to her head as if she was warding off a physical blow. Her body swayed. The man stepped inside and the door closed behind them.Jenny’s face was wet with tears. It hurt too much to think about it. She tried not to think.The phone rang again. She grabbed it before the noise could wake Vicky. Her whole left side ached now where she had stood too still holding the child for too long. She sank onto the sofa without letting go of Vicky, and put the phone to her ear.‘Oh, Jen, there’s some bad news . . .’ Worry could not remove the warmth from Adi Kasanita’s voice. Jenny loved Adi. She had exchanged another life in a sunnier world for rain and tax credits which never stretched far enough, and yet she was always cheerful, always kind. She never joined in the gossip and ignored the petty rivalries. And when she detected an undercurrent of anger or unhappiness, she confronted it without flinching. If we wives were soldiers, Jenny thought, I’d want Adi to be my sergeant.‘Something must have happened to Steve Buckle,’ Jenny whispered. She didn’t dare to speak because she might wake Vicky. No, that wasn’t true. She didn’t dare to speak in case her voice cracked and she started to cry.‘You looking across the road?’ Adi lived about five doors away.‘The Families Officer’s just gone in.’‘Jen, I knew you’d be really upset so I’m ringing to tell you that he’s not dead.’How did Adi always know everything? She just did. But she never told unless there was a good reason.Jenny swallowed.‘How bad is it?’‘Lost a leg.’‘Oh, Christ, oh, shit . . .’ Jenny tried not to swear in front of Adi but she couldn’t always help it. Adi and Sol Kasanita were Christians. They never talked about it, Jenny didn’t ask.‘Lost a leg and a lot of blood but they think he’ll survive.’‘Is anyone else hurt?’‘That new lad in 1 Section, Jordan Nelson, he’s got some bad burns. I don’t know him. He was in Germany and he’s not been here long.’‘I don’t either. Is he married?’‘No, lives in the barracks.’‘Are they flying home?’‘Jordan Nelson will soon be on his way to Selly Oak. But they can’t fly Steve out until he’s stabilized. They say his condition’s critical.’Jenny swallowed again. Critical. The word sounded like the crack of a whip.‘What are we going to do about Leanne?’‘You take my kids, they’re practically asleep anyway. I’ll go over to her when the Families Officer’s finished.’Jenny felt relieved. Always ready to listen to anyone’s problems, right now she felt unable to deal with a hysterical Leanne. She just wanted to go to bed.‘Are you sure?’‘Get your mattresses down and I’ll be over in half an hour.’‘OK . . .’ Jenny felt so tired she could hardly stand up. ‘OK, Adi. You take care of Leanne tonight; I’ll go to her tomorrow.’‘There is something you can do . . .’‘What?’‘Phone Agnieszka.’Before he left, Dave had particularly asked Jenny to look out for Jamie Dermott’s wife. Jenny liked Jamie a lot and knew he was worried about her. She was Polish, alone with a child who seemed to be handicapped and without family here except her snotty and unhelpful in-laws. But looking after a woman who wouldn’t join in anything had proved difficult. Jenny had asked her round and offered to baby-sit. But the one time she had come over and Jenny had tried to introduce her to everyone, Agnieszka had wrapped her long and beautiful legs around the bar stool in the kitchen and said little. She’d looked as though she wished she was somewhere else, with someone else.‘Can I call her tomorrow? She’s only just got home, I saw her.’‘Oh, sure. You sound so tired; you get all the kids into bed and then you go yourself, honey. We only need to make certain she hears the truth from us first and not some horrible rumour.’Jenny put Vicky to bed and pulled out a couple of mattresses onto the little girl’s floor for the Kasanita kids. She stood looking at her daughter’s sweet, sleeping face. The rounded jaw, the pink cheeks, the wisps of hair curling around her forehead.‘Don’t marry a soldier,’ Jenny whispered to her. ‘Whatever you do, don’t marry a soldier.’She wished she hadn’t. She wanted to be Dave’s wife, but not an army wife. It was just too much. The intensity of living with all the other army families, the knowledge that their burdens were your burdens, the dull ache at the emptiness on the other side of the double bed where Dave should be lying. And beneath it all, the fear. The fear when you woke up and when you weren’t even thinking about it and when you were asleep. It wasn’t a surprise when there was a knock on the door one damp, dark afternoon and the Families Officer was standing on the step. Because in your heart you were expecting it all the time.She decided now that she must persuade Dave to leave the army, and soon. Before there was a knock at her door.
Chapter Six
DAVE ROLLED HIS SLEEPING BAG OVER AND LOOKED AT THE SKY. The mountains, many kilometres away, were glowing a thousand shades of red and purple in the dawn. Everyone back in the UK calls this place Theatre, thought Dave. We are In Theatre. It is the Theatre of War. But no one eve
r tells you that the scenery’s bloody marvellous.He lay still, watching the light change and the mountain colours lose their depth. He was thinking about Jordan Nelson, how his little brothers and worried mother would be sitting miserably under the strip-lighting of a hospital canteen while surgeons picked shrapnel out of his organs.He got up and stretched. A Company and the civilians had first call on the washing area, the toilets, the cookhouse. He could see them moving around at the heart of the FOB. As soon as he could, he would try to find out if there had been any news on Steve or Jordan overnight.But first, compulsively, he counted bodies. Twenty-six.He stretched again and yawned. He looked up. And saw a vapour trail, bright orange against the blue sky. It was moving at speed and there was a smell of sulphur in the air. A rocket. It was going to land in the FOB before he could even shout a warning.‘Incoming!’ he yelled, as it hit the ground with a thud deep enough to jolt his heart and enough noise to obliterate his voice. There was a small firework display at the heart of the camp that would have been spectacular if hadn’t been so deadly. But no one was near the rocket’s landing site. The closest building was the Cowshed and its thick walls stood up to the impact.The sentries in the sangars were already firing. Civilians in shirt sleeves and body armour who had been eating breakfast were rapidly retreating to the mud-walled safe area at the heart of the camp. And A Company were leaping into action all over Sin City. Some were dressed and ready to go, others were leaving their tents with their boots on the wrong feet, grabbing their weapons, pulling on their helmets, but they all knew where they were going and what they were doing.Battle-hardened, Dave thought enviously, as he tried to organize his own comatose men. Compared with A Company, they were like headless chickens.‘Get your body armour on!’ he yelled as lads jumped to their feet and, forgetting they were still inside their sleeping bags, tumbled to the ground. Two men laid claim to one pile of webbing and started arguing.‘For Chrissake, shitheads!’ Dave shouted. ‘Helmets, boots, body armour but get out of your sleeping bags first. Then straight to your fucking positions.’He might as well have been telling them to go straight to the moon, although they had all been given their stand-to positions in case of attack by the boss yesterday.The air smelled of cordite. Another RPG landed almost exactly where the first had. And 1 Platoon were still at the Vectors messing with their boot laces.By the time everyone was in the place with their weapons, the order to stand down was being shouted.‘You were a fat lot of fucking use, tossers,’ Dave overheard A Company muttering. ‘Better sharpen up a bit.’Dave’s lads looked boyish and confused as they made safe their weapons, gathered up magazines and straightened their bodies. The Officer Commanding A Company appeared, checking out the damage with his second i/c. A sandbagged area of the FOB had been badly hit.‘We’ll leave R Company to sort that,’ the outgoing OC told Boss Weeks cheerfully.Nobody wanted the contact to prevent A Company from going. The FOB was too crowded. CSM Kila had to break up a fight between one of the ginger lads in 2 Section who had sneaked into the cookhouse and an A Company Royal Engineer who had called the infantry platoon a bunch of ginger mingers. Finally, to everyone’s relief, it was announced that A Company would be leaving at 1600 hours.1 Platoon spent a sweaty day filling sandbags and remaking walls.‘Been swimming, mate?’ a passing A Company engineer asked Billy Finn. The Lance Corporal wore only a pair of shorts and sandals. His wiry body was running with sweat. His face was bright red from his exertions and because he had failed to use any sun block.He tried to reply but his mouth was so dry he had to take a swig of water first.‘You’ll get used to the heat,’ the engineer said.‘Since you’re used to it already, fancy lending a hand?’ Finn croaked.The engineer shook his head. ‘If I had a quid for every sandbag I’ve filled, I’d be a fucking millionaire.’ He was going home. He couldn’t wipe the grin off his face. ‘My body’s here, mate, but in my mind I’m already cuddled up with a nice curvy bird.’At 1545, when people were already starting to imagine they heard the distant thud of Chinooks, A Company vacated their tents. Dave’s platoon rushed in and grabbed their cots and started to hang up their posters.‘Oh, Christ . . .’ Angus McCall watched Mal attaching a picture to the tent rails by his cot. ‘I thought she was all mine.’He held up an identical photograph.‘She was waiting for me in Nuts,’ Mal said. ‘Your girl must be her twin sister.’The air was thick with the thunder of helicopter rotors and suddenly the rest of R Company were streaming into the base.Dave didn’t greet them. His first words were: ‘Brought the mail bag?’They’d been away from the UK for well over a week now, training in the comparative luxury of Camp Bastion before leaving for Sin City. He knew that, consciously or unconsciously, everyone was waiting for their letters. It was important to distribute them as rapidly as possible.When he went over to the sangars to where Sol and Angus were on stag, he saw two bottles of urine and a condom beneath the tower.‘I reckon the condom must be something to do with Emily, Sarge,’ Angus said.Sol Kasanita laughed. ‘The marines had a lot of women supporting: medics and psych ops and Intelligence,’ he said. ‘Emily isn’t the only woman in Helmand Province.’‘What is all this shit about Emily?’ Dave asked.‘Emily’s the number two civilian here. Their number one is that old guy who wanders around, Martyn someone. And Emily’s his side-kick. The marines have a name for her.’‘Let me guess.’‘The sex grenade.’‘Uh-huh.’‘Now,’ Sol said, ‘according to the marines, when she needs a man she just whistles.’‘And one bloke isn’t enough, Sarge! Sometimes she needs a whole platoon!’ Angus added.‘I can’t wait to meet her.’‘If she exists,’ Sol said.The air was still now. From up here the town seemed to have grown out of the ground. Its walls were the same colour as the surrounding desert. Suddenly, hauntingly, the call to prayer crept across the sand towards them.‘Not him again,’ groaned Angus. ‘He never stops wailing.’‘It’s Friday,’ Dave said.Angus looked blank.‘Holy Day. Like Sunday used to be in England before we found out PC World was more fun than “All Things Bright And Beautiful”.’Sol didn’t catch his eye. Dave remembered that the Fijian was a practising Christian. He never mentioned it, but Dave had seen the Bible by his cot and back in Wiltshire he’d seen Sol, Adi and the kids all bundled into their rusty old car in their best clothes on Sunday mornings.
About an hour after the Chinooks, the convoy of Vectors finally set off, carrying the last of A Company back to Bastion. They roared past the sangar sending up choking clouds of powdery dust, which hung in the air long after the vehicles had disappeared between the town and the mountains.‘Goodbye and good luck,’ Angus McCall muttered insincerely. At lunchtime he’d got into a heated argument with two men from A Company, insisting that Manchester United led the Premier League in 2005. Later, Dave had told him quietly: ‘You were wrong. It was Chelsea. They were defending champions and they won it again.’Angus had looked sheepish. ‘I remembered that halfway through. But I wasn’t going to give in to the bastards.’That night, he booked some phone time with his father. He said: ‘I hate marines.’‘A lot of them are big, strong, brave men,’ his dad said. ‘The sort of man you should be, Angus.’Angus immediately regretted the argument in the cookhouse and thought that he’d probably never be that sort of man, like a marine, like his dad. If he was, he’d have backed down from the Premier League argument and admitted he was wrong.‘Did you know any marines?’‘Course I did. Marines, Paras and . . .’ John McCall dropped his voice. ‘SF.’There was always something in the knowing way his dad talked about Special Forces which made Angus sure his dad had been in the SAS. He knew that John McCall had fought with distinction in the Falklands, although the medals themselves had been stolen many years ago.His parents were divorced and since early childhood he’d spent every Saturday afternoon with his father. From the moment that John McCall turned the sign around in his newsagent’s so that the door read ‘OPEN’ from the inside and ‘CLOSED’ from the outside, Saturdays were war stories, war films, war games. And whenever his dad talked about the SAS, Angus knew that he would apply for Selection himself one day. Even though he was sure h
e could never be good enough to get in.‘So!’ said John McCall resuming his normal tone. ‘Was the journey to the base OK?’‘Had a contact.’If he’d told his mum that, she would have panicked. But he could hear the shrug in his dad’s voice. ‘Oh, well, start as you mean to go on.’‘Now we’re two men down in my section.’‘Two men down already? What’s the matter with them?’‘One lost a leg, the other had burns.’‘Dear oh fucking dear. They didn’t last five minutes, did they? Where are they now?’‘I had to carry my mate who lost a leg to the helicopter. They were flown to Bastion. Soon as they’re stable they’ll be back to Selly Oak.’‘Helicopter!’ scoffed John McCall. His accent was still strong although he had left Scotland years ago. ‘A helicopter! Sitting there waiting, was it? On the TV they’re always saying you boys haven’t got enough helis. Turns out they’re on hand twenty-four seven. Fuck me, warfare’s changed.’Angus felt himself deflate. Of course his dad was right. All that fear and excitement he’d felt during today’s contact had been sheer cowardice. Because there was always air support waiting to bail you out.‘I was scared,’ he admitted. ‘Until a Harrier came in to sort them out.’‘There you are! You knew a big machine would come and save you! Och, you lads have got it good. I mean . . .’But now the line was breaking up. There had been a two-second delay which meant the men kept talking over each other. Angus lapsed into silence. He wasn’t sure he should have told his father anything about the contact over the satellite phone. John McCall’s voice came and went in his ear.‘I have to finish now, Dad,’ he shouted. ‘I have to ring Mum on this card.’But his father didn’t hear.‘Air support . . . Harrier . . . Goose Green . . . weather conditions . . .’Angus finally hung up.‘All right, mate?’ Corporal Curtis from 3 Section was next in line for the phone.‘Yeah.’ From the day Angus had joined up, conversations with his father had left him feeling flat. He’d thought his father would be ecstatic at his enlistment but he’d received the news quietly. Then, during the passing-out parade at Catterick, Angus had stumbled over his own big feet. It was something he’d never forgive himself for. He’d immediately, anxiously, looked into the crowd, to the place where he knew his divorced parents were sitting together in hostile silence. He’d been in time to catch the look of contempt on his father’s face.
