War Torn

by Andy McNab

  Agnieszka waited for Jenny to phone back. The minutes ticked past. Was Jenny still talking to Adi? Was she phoning other people? Had she fallen asleep?Her anxiety was like a massive machine waiting to run her over. Her nerves throbbed as she listened to the silence, listened for a car stopping outside. Then the doorbell. Then the Families Officer. Standing on the doorstep with news that would crush her like a great juggernaut.Jamie dead. Jamie not there any more. Jamie’s body in a big, dark bag and then a wooden box, buried in the cold ground. Jamie icy and unfeeling, Jamie without love or warmth or life inside him. Jamie unable to put his arms around her or hold Luke. Had all his absences been a way of preparing her for this final, awful absence? She wanted to howl with pain, howl like a wolf.Still no phone, no car. The silence assumed huge proportions of its own as she waited for it to end. It seemed to get bigger as it went on and on, like a sound getting louder. Except it was silence. She was almost grateful when Luke started to whine. She went in to him. His cot was on wheels. She rocked it over a bump in the rug she had made by stuffing towels under it and he went back to sleep. The unbearable silence resumed.If only there was someone. But there was only Jamie and he was out there. Last night there had been a TV programme about the Arctic and how it was melting. Instead of being shocked by this, Agnieszka had been horrified by its kilometres of white emptiness. The wasteland had reminded her of her own life. A polar bear floating on a small iceberg through freezing seas, far from other polar bears or any life at all, had made her weep with sad recognition.Then she had an idea.She reached for the phone.After a few rings, a sleepy voice answered.‘Yes?’‘Hello . . .’ She spoke quietly.The voice was surprised. It was uncertain. And it was wide awake.‘Hello?’‘Who is this?’But she could tell he knew who it was. He was just scared to hope he was right.‘It me.’‘Aggie?’‘Yes.’‘Aggie!’Surprise. Pleasure. Then a realization that this was around 2 a.m.‘Aggie, are you all right?’‘Help me, Darrel. You always fix everything. So now I ask for help.’‘Aggie, I’ll fix anything I can. What’s happened?’‘Oh, God, something so awful I can’t stand it.’‘Tell me.’‘I sorry to ring in night.’‘Well, I wasn’t busy. I was only sleeping.’‘I don’t know what to do . . .’‘Tell me, Aggie.’It was a relief to tell him. The call to Jenny had been awkward, full of guilt and confession. And she had sensed Jenny’s disapproval. Now she was talking to someone who really cared about her, who could share her concern and understand it.‘Listen, when my husband go to Afghanistan he take a secret little telephone . . .’She finished the story, her throat catching on the words Jamie is dead.‘Darrel? You still there?’‘Yes, Aggie. I’m thinking. The problem is that you need to find out whether the message could be true. Without telling anyone where it came from.’‘Darrel, that exactly right. Exactly. You understand.’This was different from the hysteria of her call to Jenny. This was a more quiet desperation.‘OK, is there some sort of place you army wives go for help? Supposing something happened to Luke and you had to contact your husband urgently . . .?’‘I go to Families Officer.’‘You’ve got a choice, Ags. Either you sweat it out and wait. Because if he’s really dead they’ll come and tell you soon enough. Or you go to this Families Officer and say you got a text, you don’t know who from or where from, it was anonymous. You say you immediately erased it from your phone but it’s been worrying you ever since.’Darrel was right. Either she waited or she contacted the Families Officer with every detail of the story except the one she didn’t want him to hear.‘But, for what it’s worth . . . well, I don’t think your husband’s dead. It sounds to me like some of his mates have found his mobile and they’re trying to teach him a lesson.’‘No one teach such nasty lesson.’‘There are enough nasty people around. I don’t think he’s dead.’She felt as though someone had put their arms around her in a warm embrace. Darrel, who fixed things, was fixing this.‘Ags, can you contact this person, this Families Officer, in the middle of the night?’‘Um . . . maybe there’s a number. But maybe I don’t contact. Maybe I wait until morning.’‘Can you stand it?’‘Yes. In morning I go to office.’‘That’s my suggestion.’‘Oh, Darrel, talk to me a little while.’She didn’t want to put the phone down and hear the silence again.‘No, you talk to me, Aggie. Go on. Tell me what you’ve been doing since we last met. Any more drawing?’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 C
hrissake 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.’