by Andy McNab
The enemy’s main escape route was past the gatehouse and across the desert to the hills but Finn picked up talk of a tunnel system. And as he watched the number of insurgents diminish, he knew this must be right. The noise level was dropping. The air had been thick with cordite and smoke but it was thinning now. The Taliban couldn’t be seen surging across the desert. So there must be some other way out of the shrine.‘We’d drop a five-hundred-pounder if it wasn’t for Martyn,’ he told Streaky and Binman, who happened to be close by. ‘Let’s hope they haven’t got him down in a tunnel with them.’‘It’s just like they’re melting,’ said Streaky.‘Maybe they’re all dead,’ Binman said hopefully.But Finn and Streaky shook their heads.The soldiers were ordered to start looking for a tunnel system. Finn and Streaky searched in the great shadows of massive boulders but the earth was hot, dry and solid.‘I just want to kill the fuckers!’ said Mal. ‘They’re like rats, running down a rathole. I want to go after them and kill them.’ He had the hungry, alert look of a man for whom the fighting had ended too soon. A lot of the men did. A few were fighting each other. But Finn didn’t feel that way. He felt tired and defeated.‘This operation was Marty’s last hope. And we fucked it up.’Mal glared at him.‘We did our best.’‘What’s the Jedi here for? Why haven’t they sorted this out?’‘What do you want them to do? Pull the poor old bastard out of a hat along with a white rabbit?’There was a shout. A tunnel under the rocks had been found and officers were developing a plan to send men down.‘Hold firm, 1 Platoon,’ came the boss’s voice. ‘It sounds as though you’re going to be covering from up here.’Finn lit a cigarette while he waited for orders. He decided to check out the gatekeeper’s vegetables. When the doors on the wagons had slowed so that the SAS men could hit the ground on their arrival here at the shrine, Finn had got a clear view of a vegetable garden in the gatekeeper’s compound. It had been well watered and well ordered and there was probably something good to eat. Could you grow carrots in Afghanistan? Finn loved raw carrots and had stolen many from allotments.‘Where you going?’ demanded Streaky, appearing at his side.‘I feel like a little snack from the garden out there. Care to join me in a bit of thieving, Streaks?’They sneaked around to the small, solid house. It looked deserted. Outside there was a thin irrigation channel, which fed the vegetable garden. There were no carrots but there were grapes. Finn picked a couple.‘Mmm, Streaky. Just try these.’The grapes were small. Sweetness exploded in their mouths.‘Oooh, juicy!’ Streaky picked some more.A goat hung its head in one corner and nearby was the doghouse. There was no barking from inside it.‘What do people do with their dogs in this country if they never put them in their kennels?’ asked Finn. Streaky was busy munching and so he answered his own question. ‘Put their hostages inside.’He walked towards the small ornate kennel.‘The Jedi will have searched there,’ said Streaky, reluctant to leave the grapes.‘I know,’ agreed Finn. ‘I’m just nosy.’He approached the house carefully in case one of the huge Afghan fighting dogs he had heard about was asleep in there. Crouching, in case the dog bounced out on him, he pulled open the door.The first thing he saw was a pair of legs. He thought they must belong to a dead body since they did not move at his arrival. His heart thumping, he squatted down and peered up the legs and saw they were attached to Martyn Robertson.‘Fuck me! Marty! I was looking for you. But I didn’t think I’d find you.’Martyn lay with his eyes half open.‘Oy! You alive, mate?’He still did not move. Finn felt for a pulse.‘Shit, Marty! Don’t be dead!’‘Hi, Huckleberry Finn,’ Martyn said weakly, without surprise.‘Hey! They’ve all gone looking down a hole for you!’‘Uh-huh. Well, I’ve been down a few holes.’Streaky looked over from the vines.‘Finny?’Finn turned and gave him a thumbs-up.‘Go and get someone!’‘Is it him? Is it Topaz Zero? I know this is a joke, Finny!’‘Find someone. They won’t believe me if I put it out on PRR.’Streaky ran over to the doghouse to make sure this was no wind-up. Then he rushed out of the garden and back inside the rock circle. The first person he saw was an SAS man with a mug of tea in his hand.‘He’s here! He’s fucking here!’The man smiled at him kindly.‘Oh, yeah? And what’s your name, kid?’‘Bacon, sir. Streaky Bacon.’‘You must be the only fucking bacon in Afghanistan. Got a mate called Pinta Lager?’‘He’s here. Martyn! Topaz Zero! The hostage! He’s over here!’Back in the doghouse, Finn was trying to help Martyn to his feet.‘Shit, Martyn! They were going to kill you in two days’ time.’‘I sort of hoped I’d die soon anyway, just to ruin their fun.’‘While we’re waiting for the others, let’s talk about that job you were thinking of offering me . . .’Martyn’s face creased itself into something that might have been a smile.‘What odds did you give on finding me?’‘Hundred to thirty at the beginning, shortened down to fifteen to eight when we found your last doghouse in town. Then this morning on the way here I was offering eleven to eight! That was generous but nobody took me up on it. Ha! In five minutes they’ll all be kicking themselves, eh, Marty?’Martyn said: ‘You’ve got yourself that job, boy.’Finn looked round and saw Streaky advancing with a disbelieving SAS man still holding his mug of tea.‘It’s all over. You’ll be all right now, Marty, old mate and future boss. The cream of the British Army’s come to save you.’
The stretcher was red, painted with Jamie’s blood. Two medics seized it and were almost immediately working with a tourniquet and dressings along his left side, where his arm and his leg should have been, except there wasn’t an arm and there wasn’t much of a leg and Dave wasn’t even sure there was a lot of left side.‘Jamie, Jamie, the fucking bastards got you again – they got you again! Don’t let them finish the job this time! Come on, Jamie, for Chrissake!’ Whose voice was that? His own?He wanted Jamie to open his eyes. He wanted it with a desperation that took over his whole mind and whole body as if he could will Jamie’s eyes to open if he wanted it hard enough. He was Jamie’s sergeant. Now he was ordering him to live.‘It’s not over till it’s over,’ said one of the medics, without looking up, as he reached for another bandage.Dave was certain it would soon be over but he refused to look at that certainty. He clung to the medic’s words instead. His hand held Jamie’s wrist and searched for a pulse. He couldn’t feel one.‘It’s there but it’s very, very faint,’ said a medic. ‘Did you see what happened?’‘RPG. Went straight through him.’‘No one can survive that,’ said Iain Kila.‘It didn’t detonate,’ Dave said.‘Well, fuck me!’ said Kila.‘It certainly touched him but it went straight on and then hit some rocks about thirty metres later.’‘He’s in with a chance, then.’‘This man survived a round from an AK, he survived a round from a machine gun . . .’The other medic said: ‘The grenade sliced his left side off but there’s a chance it missed his vital organs. He must have been squatting over the gimpy because it went through the top of his leg and the bottom of his arm. But he can live without an arm and a leg . . .’‘A few centimetres further left and he’d certainly be dead,’ said the other.‘MERT will be here in four more minutes,’ reported Kila. ‘He’ll be at Bastion inside the golden hour.’Dave leaned over the stretcher, looking at the unmoving face.He tried to imagine Jamie without an arm, a leg and God knew what other body parts. Always trying to hide the pain. Making the best of it. Loving Agnieszka as she pushed him around in a wheelchair. Some people can live like that, Dave thought. But Jamie can’t.If Jamie heard what the medic just said, then he can hear me now.Dave moved close to the thin face. Eyes closed, it showed no pain. He grasped the still fingers.‘Shit, Jamie Dermott,’ he said softly. ‘You’re the last man I can afford to lose. But I know that you’re a soldier through and through. And, Jamie, you’re the best. You’ve lost half your body. But you could never be half a soldier. I understand if you want to go now. So go, if you must, mate. You’ve done a great job soldiering. You’ve got a lovely kid. You’ve got a wife who does truly love you – I know that for a fact, whatever you think. So, if you want to, go peacefully. Good luck. I’ll never forget you.’Of course Jamie did not respond. He couldn’t.‘Not looking good!’ said one of the
medics suddenly.‘Are we losing him?’‘Can’t be . . . but we are.’Dave closed his eyes and fell back to let the medics do their work.‘No! No way!’‘See for yourself!’‘Shit! I thought we had him!’‘Resuscitate.’‘Clear, everyone, please.’Dave turned his back, walked away and stared out at the endless expanse of desert. His face stung. His eyes stung. Sand in his mouth, sand in his eyes, sand in his heart.
A Chinook had already arrived for the casualties. Another arrived for Martyn almost immediately and the hostage was taken aboard by the waiting medics.The OC was there.‘Martyn is very important but since he is a T3 we must ask him to wait while we load a T4.’Finn could not stop grinning. He had been clapped on the back by everyone around him and he and Streaky had already told the story again and again of how they had gone to steal grapes and found Martyn.He heard that there was a T4 and wondered briefly who it was, but he was really looking for Dave. Where was he when Finn was enjoying a bit of glory for once? And it would be nice to have Sol, Angus and Jamie here offering a few words of congratulations, too.The group of soldiers around the Chinook fell suddenly silent. Finn turned to see his mates approaching. They were carrying a stretcher. The body on it was covered. So this must be the T4. Even then it did not occur to Finn that there had been a death in his own section. It was only when they were close enough for him to see their faces that he suddenly felt cold. His buoyant, triumphant mood turned inside out and left all the raw places exposed.Dave and Sol were covered with blood. Dave looked bruised, as if he’d been in a fistfight. Sol’s white eyes were red. Huge tears spilled down Angus’s face.Finn looked at the men who surrounded him. Among them were Streaky, Mal and Binman.That left one man.Billy Finn’s mouth fell open, his eyes sprang out, his body was drained so that he swayed a bit. He saw the boss, features frozen, white-faced.‘No. No. Not Jamie, no,’ he shouted.Boss Weeks closed his eyes. He nodded.The body was loaded onto the helicopter in silence. There must have been the ground-shaking thump of Chinook rotors and the roar of its engine. But afterwards not one man could remember anything but silence.
Chapter Sixty-eight
AGNIESZKA STOOD MOTIONLESS IN THE BEDROOM, STARING AT herself in the mirror. When Darrel came in, she looked up at him. Not his real face, but the one in the mirror. He stood behind her and their mirror eyes met.‘I’ve thought about you the whole time I’ve been away,’ said Darrel.That’s what Jamie always said when he got back. And he would be back in a few weeks now. But then he would go away again. Loving Jamie meant saying goodbye. It meant waiting, waiting, waiting for him to come home.‘I know you’re scared. I know this is a big step for you, Aggie.’Her eyes met her mirror eyes. They were frightened. She felt frightened. She felt no sexual excitement. She just wanted to be touched and loved and cared for and not to be alone. She didn’t want to be a woman in an endless expanse of snow.‘It will be all right. I promise. I’ll take good care of you.’He began to kiss her neck. She tensed.‘No, no, that’s no good,’ he murmured. ‘Melt a little, Aggie.’She tried to relax. He stroked her gently. He massaged her back and rearranged her hair. And then he began to kiss her again.
Dave was leaning against the wagon. He thought he should get the lads moving, unloading, sorting things out. But everyone just wanted to stand very still.The officials and VIPs buzzed around them, making a big noise about Martyn’s rescue. The SAS men were being wholeheartedly congratulated. Only the soldiers from the base did not speak.The OC, who had initially disappeared into the ops room, had re-emerged now and was walking over to the men. His face was expressionless. His walk was slow. He dragged his feet through the dust as though they weighed a lot. He surveyed the quiet soldiers and then raised a hand to stop everyone else talking.The OC cleared his throat.When he spoke his voice was loud and grave.‘I am very sorry to tell you that Rifleman Jamie Dermott, a loved, brave and highly proficient member of 1 Section, 1 Platoon, died at 1000 hours today. The medics treating him said that it is a testament to his courage and tenacity that he survived with such serious wounds for as much as thirty minutes. Less than an hour before his death, Rifleman Dermott ran into the desert under intense fire to help another man in his section out of danger. It was an action typical of a soldier who served all those around him without thought for his own safety. He died in action, shot through by a Rocket Propelled Grenade, having already remarkably survived two enemy rounds on two previous occasions. We will miss him and mourn him.’Dave closed his eyes. The loss was so immense that you couldn’t put a fence around it, you couldn’t estimate its size, you couldn’t even begin to get to the edges of it. Because death was endless and so was loss. And even when he was an old man, many years from now, Dave knew that it would not have ended then.The OC looked at him.‘Sergeant. Would you please lower the flag in recognition of the death of Rifleman Dermott?’Dave walked across the base to the flagpole. He was loaded down with invisible kit. It weighed more than any ammo. His body wanted to sink beneath it. He could hardly carry this immense burden and he almost stumbled once or twice. He reached the pole. Slowly, very slowly, he lowered the flag. The base was silent, the desert was silent, the distant hills were silent, and he knew that this was Jamie’s silence he was hearing now, a silence without end.
* * *
‘God, what am I doing?’Agnieszka lay in bed, crying.‘For Chrissake, Aggie!’ Darrel’s voice was tender and then exasperated. ‘You enjoyed it, didn’t you?’‘Yes. But that make it worse.’Darrel sighed and rolled onto his back. They lay next to each other, not touching.‘I was trying to make you happy!’Had she really thought that Darrel could drive away her fear and loneliness? Had she really thought that having sex with him would put right everything that was wrong? Her body was convulsed with sobs. She loved Jamie. And she had been unfaithful to him. Now she felt lonelier than ever and she even knew what the snow was. It was loss. She had gained nothing tonight and lost everything. Because she loved Jamie, even when he wasn’t there.‘Aggie?’Darrel reached for her but she pulled away.He sighed.‘Do you want me to go?’She did not reply. She felt the bed rearrange itself as he climbed out. When he dressed, she could hear his anger and resignation from the way he pulled on his clothes. Before he left he leaned over the bed.‘Aggie, call me when you want to talk.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘I don’t understand you.’‘Darrel, I very sorry. It not your fault.’‘Yeah.’She heard him go down the stairs and close the door. She listened for the sound of his feet on the pavement. The house felt cold. She heard, at the bottom of the hill, a car starting. It pulled away rapidly.Luke started to scream. She went to him. He would not stop. Finally he had a fit.Maybe that was why she didn’t hear the car. But she heard the doorbell. Darrel. Back to reason with her. She wouldn’t let him in.She pulled the curtain to one side. It was not Darrel and the car outside was at first unfamiliar. She stared down at the figure on the doorstep. Something very cold, like a splinter of ice, ran through her. It started in her scalp and made the hairs stand on end and, as it moved down her neck and her shoulders, on down to her toes, the tiny hairs on her body bristled. The Families Officer. On her doorstep in the night. At that moment, the world froze and this time she knew it might never thaw.
