by Andy McNab
A bomb – in camp.
His hearing came back as his boots pounded on the pavement.
A haze hung in the air, and the chemical smell of scorched metal came down on the breeze. The Foxhound had been knocked to one side, but its hull was designed to take blasts and it was relatively undamaged. The lads inside were already clambering out.
It was a different story for the four-tonners.
The first had been blown off its wheels and was on its side. Fire was spreading from the cabin and across the rest of the vehicle. The other had jumped off the road and smashed into the gatehouse. Black, oily smoke belched out of the truck and the building.
A Wolf was parked unattended in one of the spaces there, dented by the blast but still upright. Sean yanked the door open, grabbed the medical kit that was standard issue to all army vehicles, and ran to help however he could.
Soldiers were tumbling out of the back of the four-tonner that had hit the gatehouse. Some seemed fine, some were half stunned and shaky on their legs.
But Sean saw that there were bodies scattered around the Leyland that lay on its side, some moving, some not. The canvas hood was gone – shreds of charred material hung from the hoops.
For a moment he didn’t know where to go, who to attend to. Everywhere he looked he saw someone injured, someone bleeding, someone dead.
Blood had been sprayed everywhere – across the road and the remains of the gatehouse walls – like some kid had come along with a high-powered water pistol filled with red paint. The ground was covered in shattered wreckage, bits of vehicles . . . bits of humans. Some were stuck to torn pieces of cloth, the camouflage pattern just visible through the blood. Others were on fire, burning brightly as the fat melted in the heat. The air was thick with smells that reminded Sean of a barbecue – the sickly sweet tang of burned meat mixing with lighter fuel. Through the smoky, eye-stinging haze that hung over everything came the sounds of groans, cries.
Sean had dealt with injuries before. Like every soldier in the British Army, he was a competent field medic. Fully trained medics were assigned to platoons, but when you were out on a four-man patrol, more often than not it was just down to the training you’d received. And that meant being able to deal with anything and everything, usually in the middle of a firefight, right up to stabilizing a seriously wounded mate while securing an area to allow them to be medevacked.
In training they used real amputees to make it realistic – men who had done all the screaming and yelling for real. Fake blood and horror make-up ensured that it was as close to being there as the army could get. This was different. In every possible way.
‘Harker!’ Sean’s head snapped up. Heaton was there too, running past him, also with one of the kits. ‘Help anyone you can. Stabilize them.’
‘What about Clarky?’ Sean yelled back. She had been waiting by the gate with the Cosworth. She could help out too. ‘Where the—?’
Then he saw it. The Cosworth. Or what was left of it.
It was on the other side of the road, hidden behind one of the four-tonners. The entire front section had been blasted to nothing. The rest of it was an inferno. It was the source of most of the smoke and flames.
Sean started to run towards it, but another yell from Heaton pulled him up sharp.
‘The wounded, Harker! Clark doesn’t matter! Stabilize!’
Clark didn’t matter? What the fuck was that about? Sean thought. Yeah, she and Heaton didn’t get on, but she’d just been blown to pieces!
But he also knew what Heaton meant. You concentrated on need, not on who your mates were. A complete stranger dying at your feet took priority over your mucker who was dying somewhere over there.
Sean forced himself to turn away from the wreckage of the Cosworth and dropped down beside the soldier nearest to him. The guy had been thrown clear of one of the four-tonners and was just coming round.
‘OK, mate,’ Sean said, quickly, efficiently, calmly. ‘I need to check you over, OK? Just lie as still as you can.’
The soldier moaned, sliding in and out of consciousness. Sean checked him over for broken bones and puncture wounds by sight and by feel.
‘The medics are on their way,’ he said, more in hope than conviction. He had found nothing broken, but there was a deep laceration in the soldier’s leg. He quickly applied a high-pressure dressing – a wad of sterile, absorbent padding, held in place by a couple of strips of bandage, tied into position with a swiftly efficient knot.
‘You need to apply pressure,’ he said, guiding the guy’s hands to the wound. ‘Hold this. You’re fine, OK? Just stay with it.’ If the soldier had a job to do, there was more chance he would stay alert.
‘I’ve done the fucking training too,’ the lad muttered, but he did as he was told.
Other soldiers were arriving, running towards the scene as fast as they could. Sean moved on to the next casualty, a woman who was sitting, dazed, among shards of broken glass and shattered metal. She was staring into the distance, rocking back and forth. She didn’t seem to notice the compound fracture in her arm. Bone jutted out above her elbow and blood pulsed out onto her combat shirt.
‘Hey, hey . . .’ Sean got her attention by clicking his fingers in front of her eyes, bringing her back to the here and now. He had nothing to splint the break with, but he wrapped it tight in another bandage. Then he guided her good hand over to hold her damaged arm.
‘Just hold it straight. Steady. Right?’ He cocked his head. He could hear sirens, still distant. ‘They’ll be with you in a minute, OK?’
He moved on again. ‘Oh – fuck – me . . .’ he whispered.
The next casualty was Clark.
His friend was alive, just. Sean only knew this when he saw something bubbling between her lips. She was one charred mess, from her face down to her knees. It was hard to tell where her skin ended and her clothing began. After the knees, there wasn’t anything. Her legs ended in ragged stumps that were slowly weeping fluid.
For a moment it sounded like Clark was weeping herself. She wasn’t. There was a long-drawn-out, high-pitched sound which Sean realized was her breathing.
Where to start? He was trained for bullet wounds and fractures. Not this.
Keep them warm. That was it. Part of it. A burns victim would go into shock; core body temperature would drop dramatically.
Sean pulled off his shirt and draped it over her. ‘Clarky. Mate.’ His voice shook. ‘Let’s have a look at you . . .’
He gazed helplessly at the remains of Clark’s legs. She could haemorrhage if they were left like that. He fumbled in the bag. ‘Gonna need a couple of tourniquets here . . .’
A hand touched his shoulder, gentle but firm. ‘We’ll take it from here, soldier.’
And then two paramedics were there, crouched over Clark’s still form, not even looking at Sean. They tossed his shirt over to one side. Sean slowly picked it up, shrugged it back on, and tore his eyes away from Clark to look around.
Several ambulances had turned up, civvy and military. The paramedic crews were at work among the dead and dying soldiers. A fire engine had arrived and its crew were spraying foam on the wrecked vehicles. It looked like a war zone.
Sean spent the next half-hour helping load casualties into the ambulances that kept on arriving. Adrenaline had him wired. He couldn’t stop moving. If he stopped, then his body started shaking. It needed to be occupied.
That was until he bent down to pick up another stretcher, and realized it was Clark, and she had a sheet over her face – which meant only one thing. And then his body froze. His knees shook and his eyes filled with tears and he couldn’t move.
‘Take a rest, soldier.’ The voice in his ear was gentle but firm. He blinked and focused on a Rupert, but a medical Rupert. The guy put out both hands to turn him gently away and propel him in the direction of the barracks. ‘That’s an order.’
Sean nodded dumbly and stumbled away while they loaded his friend into the meat wagon.
Lat
er he sat down away from the destruction, hugging his knees, his back against the high fence that surrounded the barracks, utterly exhausted. His clothes were covered in blood. His nostrils were thick with the reek of what had happened. The smell seemed to have crept down his nose and into his skull. He wondered if he would ever get rid of it.
Slowly, deliberately, Sean clenched his right hand into a fist and pushed it into the ground, twisting as it went, keeping it going even when the pain set in. The healed skin split open and his body asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing to it. It hurt.
Good. He wanted it to hurt. He wanted to keep his mind fresh. Back in his old life he had seen lads just seize up like rabbits when it all got too much, when shit started going wrong, and next thing the cops had them. He wasn’t going to do that. He had a vague sense that something had just changed, big time, in his life. Fine. He would rise to meet it.
And so he made himself study the scene in front of him, committing it to memory. His first time on the receiving end of enemy action.
The bombed area had been taped off. Figures in pristine white suits moved amongst the wreckage, like aliens from another world. The scene was smeared with blood and oil and foam. The bodies were all gone, but nothing else could be touched. It was a job for the civilian police now.
The bastards. The bastards! So this was what it felt like to have a war on your own turf, in your own country. The bastards!
Sean kept a lid on his anger, holding it down with both hands. He was used to being mightily pissed off, but this was different to anything that had ever happened to him. This wasn’t like someone treading on the Guyz’ turf. It wasn’t like that Pricky screwing over his mum, or him getting nicked. This went deep and personal. Friends had been killed. It was a new type of anger and he needed to come to terms with it. If he let it all out in one blast, then it would consume him.
Heaton wandered over, dropped down next to him. ‘You OK?’
‘Oh, yeah. I’m absolutely fine and fucking dandy, mate. Thanks for asking.’
They sat silently. Heaton pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Sean. Sean declined with an angry shake of the head, so he lit up on his own.
Sean broke the silence at last. He felt his voice shake. ‘Who would put a bomb in a soldier’s car?’
‘It’s a long list,’ Heaton said. ‘They keep sending us to places we’re not meant to be . . . Guess what? We make enemies.’
Sean shook his head. ‘I didn’t sign up for this,’ he said. ‘This isn’t right.’
‘Oh Christ, here we go,’ Heaton breathed. ‘I didn’t sign up for this. Poor Sean.’ Sean stared hatred at him. Heaton stared back, his lip curled. ‘So what did you sign up for, Harker? Being served cups of tea by grateful old ladies? Playing with guns as a dick substitute? Or was it just your get-out-of-jail-free card?’ He prodded Sean in the chest with a finger, while Sean mentally weighed up the pros and cons of decking an NCO. ‘You sign up, you’re prepared to fight. You put that uniform on, you turn up for duty, it sends a statement: I am ready to go to war.’
He got up again. ‘I’m gonna catch a shower. See you around, Harker.’
The anger was still there when Heaton had gone. For a long time Sean simply sat there and let it swirl around inside his head. He didn’t trust himself to move until he had dealt with it. Because, right now, for the first time in his life, Sean felt like killing someone.
Chapter 18
The briefing room had been quiet. Even after nearly a week, no one was in the mood for chat or joshing. The platoon silently came to attention as Franklin and a uniformed woman Sean hadn’t seen before entered. Adams followed behind and shut the door, then took up position there.
The woman was an attractive blonde, probably in her thirties. The three pips on her front said she was a captain, and Sean took a moment to run the tactical recognition flash on her arm through his memory. A square with its two halves divided into dark blue and yellow. That was . . . Arse, he knew this. Dark blue and yellow was . . .
‘At ease. Sit down,’ Franklin instructed curtly. The platoon plonked their arses on the faded brown plastic chairs, which reminded Sean of the thing he’d sat on in the custody van on his way to prison, except perhaps even more uncomfortable. One of the most technologically advanced armies in the world could never quite find the time to bring its buildings into the twenty-first century.
Dark blue and yellow was . . .
‘This is Captain Fitzallen of the Royal Logistics Corps.’
Logistics Corps. Yeah, I totally knew that.
‘Captain Fitzallen specializes in explosive ordnance disposal. Captain.’
‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’ An attractive woman and a bomb expert – she had the undivided attention of every man in the room.
A laptop and computer projector had been set up at the front of the room, looking almost futuristic compared to the massive cork boards covered with A4-sized notices that lined the walls. She touched a key and the laptop whirred into life, displaying the gold badge of the Corps.
‘First, the forensics report, which will be made public this afternoon. As her mates, you deserve to know first: we can confirm that the bomb which killed Private Clark and four other soldiers was a fertilizer-based explosive planted under the driver’s seat of her car.’
The picture changed to the charred wreck of the Cosworth. It was an image that would be burned into Sean’s mind for ever. He glared his hate at it, wishing that somehow, telepathically, it would link to the bastard who had planted the bomb and do something useful like fry their brains.
‘The sad fact is that this bomb could probably have been detected if Private Clark had thought to look for it. And with that in mind, it’s been decided that all units are to receive a refresher course in bomb awareness. So, here goes . . .’
She took the platoon through the details with brisk efficiency, illustrating it with images of actual bomb parts as she went.
‘Any bomb needs a detonator, and explosives . . .’
Sean sat back and rested the side of his head on his fist as she talked. Some of it he could already have told her, some was new.
‘. . . The Omagh bombing of 1998 used about two hundred kilograms of explosive and killed thirty people. Deaths were mostly caused by the supersonic shockwave of the blast, and the distribution of shrapnel. But think about two hundred kilos of explosive . . . That’s two hundred bags of sugar. The Omagh bomb was planted in a stolen car, but for a bomb to be planted in your car – well, you’d notice something that big, wouldn’t you? So it’s much more likely to be a few kilograms – but still something that should be visible if you take the time to look. Now, what haven’t I mentioned?’
There was a pause until someone put a hand up.
‘The trigger.’
‘Exactly. What sets the bomb off in the first place? A pressure device hidden in your car; a timer device; a radio-controlled detonator.’ More images were shown on the projector. ‘The bottom line is, someone got into your vehicle. There will be signs, if you only take the time to notice. Which brings us on to security – how to leave your car to reduce the chances of someone breaking in, and how to check it before you get in. These habits should be routine for as long as the threat level is SEVERE, as it currently is . . .’
The talk went on. Sean mostly paid little attention. He didn’t have a car, after all. He could spend the time wondering how Clark’s bomb had been planted in the first place, and how it had been set off. Was it coincidence or deliberate that it had been outside the gatehouse as a convoy was coming through? If it was deliberate, then that would have been difficult to fine-tune with a timer, so had it been a remote detonation?
But someone would have thought of this. The security people would have gone through the CCTV images with a fine-tooth comb, looking for anyone hanging around with line of sight of the gatehouse. There was no talk of any leads so it couldn’t have been anyone obvious.
Clark’s death had brought home som
ething Sean had always known but never really appreciated. Terrorists wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. They would look so normal that they were basically invisible. They could be the person right next to you.
Shit.
The talk was over. The platoon came to attention again and Fitzallen left the room.
Franklin stood at the front and surveyed them. ‘Corporal Heaton’s section – you all have extra duties to perform. You’re dismissed to go and get ready. I’ll see you this afternoon. Do her proud, lads.’
And so it was that four hours later, Sean was in his No. 2 Service Dress, the smartest gear he owned – khaki tunic and trousers, with creases ironed to razor sharpness; shirt and tie, precisely knotted; white belt, with buckle badge gleaming – stony-faced, solemnly helping bear Clark’s coffin into St Michael’s Garrison Church. They formed pairs in order of height to carry the coffin: Marshall and Penfold, Mitra and West, Bright and Sean, with Heaton walking behind. The coffin was covered with the Union Jack, with a wreath and Clark’s beret resting on top.
TV news crews milled about outside, on the far side of the road, anxious to catch the first of the Tidworth bomb’s five funerals. Inside, the church was full of similar uniforms, the only exception being Clark’s family, just as smartly turned out in dark civvy suits and dresses: a mature West Indian couple, dignified in their grief, and a gaggle of brothers and sisters, some with kids of their own.
From a soldier’s point of view it was all too formal for tears – though Sean could feel them pricking at the backs of his eyes – and the extra responsibility of being a coffin bearer meant that he stayed dry-eyed. It was the first funeral he had been to – he hadn’t been allowed to go to Gaz’s – and he would have been determined to do it properly even without the added duty. He and the lads were synchronized to the nearest millimetre, to the nearest split second. It was their final tribute to a fallen comrade, giving her the respect she deserved.
The service passed in a blur. The company major delivered a tribute to Clark, which sounded good to anyone who didn’t realize that he had barely known her. The padre made a better job of it, in Sean’s opinion. He pointed out that St Michael’s Church was named for the warrior archangel, the leader of the armies of heaven that would defeat the forces of evil. Still all bollocks, as far as Sean could tell, but he liked the idea. If you had to die, then you might as well be on St Michael’s side when you did it. Fighting evil, whatever form it took.
