by Andy McNab
‘Not John Cardimann,’ she said. One of her first mistakes in the job, and there had been a few, had been to send a confidential document intended for one committee member to the wrong man. ‘John Cardimann’s phone call when he got that email must have been one of my top three most embarrassing moments …’
Eugene grinned and sipped his tea.
Jenny felt herself colouring at the memory.
‘I thought you were going to sack me. I wouldn’t have blamed you.’
‘John was as good as his word; as far as I know he’s never mentioned the contents to anyone.’
‘When I realized, I couldn’t sleep all night.’
‘Oh Jennifer, you have enough keeping you awake at night, worrying about that husband of yours in his FOB. You shouldn’t let my stuff stop you sleeping.’
‘I used to be so efficient. If I’d made a mistake like that at the travel company, someone flying to Alicante would have ended up in Agadir. So I was sort of worrying that I’d lost my touch.’
Eugene started sifting through his post, absentmindedly pulling the junk mail to one side. He looked around at her and smiled. ‘You haven’t lost your touch.’
She smiled back at him. The first time she had met him, she’d thought he was an old man just because his hair was white. Now she knew that it had turned white before he was thirty. In fact, he was in his fifties, but he had the physique and clearly defined jaw of a younger man.
He looked back down at the mail and she saw him suddenly recoil. He was holding a large, white envelope.
‘Everything all right?’ she asked.
For a moment he did not reply. Then he half swallowed, half coughed.
‘It’s from the court. I think it must be my decree absolute.’
‘Your divorce?’
‘Yes.’
He still did not move. Jenny said gently: ‘Sometimes when something arrives which I don’t want to open, usually a bill, I don’t. I put it aside and get used to the idea and then I open it when I’m ready.’
Eugene said nothing for a long time. Then, carefully, as if it might break, he passed the letter to her.
‘Would you mind …?’
‘You want me to open it?’
She was taken aback, although she tried not to show it. But he knew her too well.
‘You do mind,’ he said.
‘Of course I don’t.’
He watched her as she tore the envelope open.
Gingerly, Finny’s fingers worked at the stiff iron clasps on the box. Dave looked around impatiently: at the angry faces of the women; at Streaky on the back of the Mastiff, rattling back fire with the gimpy; at the RPG which the enemy had just sent a hundred metres past its target. And he was in no doubt that they were the target. The women had been supposed to look as if they were just on their way back with the washing when the sprayers came, when actually they had been stationed in the ditch so that the tractor would swerve around them, clear of the box. And, looking at the size of the box, Dave was pretty sure he knew what was in it.
Mal was helping Finn with the last clasp, both men concentrating so hard that they were oblivious to the battle going on around them. As another RPG splintered brightly in the air nearby, the women squirmed further under the tractor with their washing.
‘We could do with a bit of WD40, mate,’ said Finn.
‘Let’s try gun oil,’ suggested Mal, but at that moment the clasp snapped back.
Finny tugged open the lid. It was unexpectedly heavy.
‘Fucking hell!’ said Mal when he saw the contents.
Dave looked over their shoulders. The box was full of weapons.
‘A fucking arms cache!’ said Finny. ‘Hidden in a box in the middle of a fucking field.’
‘Some of those are really old,’ Dave told them. ‘I reckon there’s some old bolt-action rifles. And look at that—’
The explosion from another RPG lit up the air and this time it was close. Finny and Mal, noses in the box, ignored it.
‘No time to look now,’ said Dave.
But Finny and Mal could not tear themselves away.
‘A few AKs,’ said Finny.
‘There’s stuff in here a lot more interesting than AKs,’ Mal told him. He reached in. ‘See this one—’
‘That can wait,’ insisted Dave. ‘Close it up and get it in the wagon or it’s going to be blown to smithereens and you with it.’
The lads reluctantly shut the box. With difficulty they passed it across the drainage channel. As they carried it around the tractor under fire, the women shared agonized glances. Dave wondered if they would be in trouble. Instead of protecting the arms cache, their presence had drawn attention to it.
‘What’s that?’ demanded the boss, who was with 2 Section but had sighted their activities from across the field. ‘Just what are you doing?’
‘We’ve found an arms cache, sir,’ said Dave into his radio. He received no reply, or maybe he just didn’t hear it because when he turned around again he was astonished to see that the Afghan women had crawled out from under the tractor and were walking towards him, their washing under their arms and on their heads.
‘Christ, you can’t go out there!’ he shouted. They ignored him and showed every sign of wandering around the Mastiff and across the field.
‘Shit!’ said Binman as they passed him. He jumped to his feet and tried to restrain the youngest of the women, the one carrying the baby. She wriggled and screamed something at him in Pashto, her voice squeaky and horrified.
‘Don’t touch them!’ yelled Dave to Binman.
‘But they’re going to walk out there! With a baby!’ roared Binman more loudly than anyone had ever heard him shout before. A couple of the lads were so surprised that they stopped firing and stared. In the meantime, the woman had pulled away from him and was following the others out from behind the Mastiff into the field of fire.
Dave radioed everyone to stop firing. They did so, swearing. Dave felt helpless. He shouted at the women again to stop but they ignored him.
Fucking, fucking women. That’s the way they were everywhere, all around the world. High-pitched, irrational, emotional: they had no place in theatre. Jenny appeared inside his head, her hands on her hips, her chin jutting forward, looking furious with him. Her angry stance, last seen in the kitchen late one night. Quickly, he made her disappear.
‘What the hell is going on?’ demanded an angry voice on the radio. Not the boss but Major Willingham.
‘We couldn’t stop them, sir,’ said Dave.
‘Unbelievable. We can stop a bunch of Taliban who are trying to intercept the poppy-eradication programme? But we can’t stop three women and a baby?’
‘Not without manhandling them, sir.’
‘Jesus fucking Christ.’
The women had fallen into line now and were walking across the field with the washing and the baby as though deaf to the battle. They did not look back and they did not look around them. Dave debated following and detaining them but their presence had not stopped the firing from the village. In fact, there was a prolonged burst of small-arms fire. And then something different.
Afterwards, Dave could not remember what came first. The whoosh just by his head as the deadly trajectory of a round missed him by centimetres? The burning feeling in his cheek because the round had come so close? Its distinctive heavy thump as it hit the soil nearby? Or the report? It was a deep-sounding, single shot. He was unable to identify the weapon. Not a normal rifle, something heavier and nastier. A Dragunov?
He found that he had stepped neatly back behind the Mastiff. For a moment he stood there, stunned. He had followed the women into the open and, by trying to stop them, had exposed himself to enemy fire. He had been a target, and not the target of some spray-and-pray, automatic-loving Taliban lad. He had nearly been killed by a specialist marksman with a marksman’s weapon.
Finn and Mal joined him behind the Mastiff.
‘That was fucking close, Sarge,’ said Ma
l. Dave noticed he was breathless.
So was Finn. ‘Fuck me if those ugly bints weren’t trying to lead you out there!’
Binns asked on PRR: ‘Anyone shot the civilians yet?’ He sounded hopeful.
‘Nope,’ said Sol. ‘Amazingly. They must be insane.’
Angus was alert. ‘Sarge, what weapon was that?’
‘Not sure,’ said Dave. ‘Could have been a Dragunov. Listen.’
He listened for the deep, deadly bass note of the rifle which had nearly killed him. He did not hear it. The enemy’s rate of fire was easing and the women had crossed the field now and were melting into the thick mud walls of the village.
‘OK, lads,’ said Dave. His voice was weary. ‘Get that tractor driver back in his cab as soon as you can.’
The driver ran out, pulling down his balaclava. Dave’s glimpse of his face told him the man might be Turkish. He started the engine. The Mastiff reversed to give the sprayer clearance and immediately small-arms fire broke out. The Mastiff moved forward again but wide of the sprayer this time and the driver released a huge puff of chemicals before plunging across the drainage channel where the women had been hiding.
‘So what is this arms cache?’ came the voice of Major Willingham.
‘Haven’t had a chance to look yet, sir. It’s in the back now. About twenty weapons, AKs and some others.’
‘Well done, Sergeant,’ said the major. ‘No dead civilians and twenty enemy weapons.’
Dave said: ‘Sir, I think there’s a sniper out there. With a Dragunov or something similar. Did you hear it?’
There was a pause. Everyone was listening. Light-arms fire had started again. It was a part of the patina of daily life and all the men were used to its sound. Here at the poppy fields the enemy was firing AK47s from too far away to aim accurately. Rounds were, as so often, going everywhere. And, as usual, the Taliban were leaning heavily on their automatics. So it was spray and pray and anyone who was hit could blame bad luck as much as enemy skill. Dave had told the ANA often enough that pointing your weapon is not the same as aiming your weapon but someone out there had already learned that lesson. They had fired just one single shot with high precision and it had missed him by a whisker.
He remembered the dead boy, the sobbing father, the elder on the motorbike. The elder had been wearing glasses. Behind them, his cold eyes had studied Dave’s face, trying to remember it. Dave felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
‘Sergeant—’ began Chalfont-Price, his voice pompous. Then he stopped. Because there it was again and he had heard it too now. That sound. An isolated, throaty, single shot from a heavy rifle. Its report was instantly discernible over the patter of other weapons. And the marksman had fired just one because he knew he was a very, very good shot.
The radio crackled but no one spoke.
Dave knew from the sound of the weapon that he had not been the target this time. He wondered who was. His question was answered by more crackles over the radio and then yells from 3 Platoon. A casualty. He listened and understood that the platoon commander, who had been darting around in a Jackal, had been hit in the neck. The radios became frantic with orders and reports as Doc Holliday’s wagon screamed across the poppy field.
Major Willingham’s voice was fast and crisp. ‘Gunners take cover. Anyone exposed take cover,’ he said. ‘Get the tractor drivers. There’s a serious sniper out there.’
But before the OC had finished his sentence, Dave heard the marksman fire again.
Another roar went up.
‘Man down!’
This time it was 2 Platoon. Another Jackal had been hit. After some confusion Dave learned it was the gunner.
‘Sniper! Get down, everyone, get the tractor drivers inside. Sniper!’ he repeated as Iain Kila’s wagon scooted towards the second casualty.
Dave waited in the Mastiff, listening for the sound of the rifle again. Despite the surge in firing, he knew its voice would speak clearly. And when it came, with deadly accuracy, it picked off the tractor driver 3 Platoon was protecting: he had gone back to his vehicle and been trapped there by the sudden outbreak of firing. Then he had opened the door to try to make a run for it. But he hadn’t even got down the steps. Dave watched with horror as the body, far away, tumbled from its seat to the ground.
So the Taliban had produced a fighter who was so well trained and highly skilled that he could hit a man from a distance with almost every shot. His three well-aimed rounds created chaos. All crop spraying stopped and men rushed around the casualties, radios were busy and the soldiers, with a new anger, fired on the compounds.
‘Two can play at snipers!’ roared Angus, sliding out of the back of the Mastiff with the L115A3.
‘Oh man, you’ve been itching to use that thing,’ Streaky said. ‘Itching in your fingers.’
Sol shook his head. ‘I think you’re too late.’
‘I’ve got to try,’ Angus insisted.
‘Just make sure you keep your head down, Angry, or you’ll be next,’ warned Dave.
But there was no target for Angus. He trained the sights all over the village, peering at any exposed walls of the compounds; no one was to be seen. He detected movement and swung towards it. But it was only a couple of women, walking along a track on the far side of the compounds, going about their business as though nothing much had happened.
‘If the women are out that means they know it’s over,’ said Sol.
The enemy had almost ceased firing. And there was silence from the sniper.
‘I reckon that bloke knows he’s caused total mayhem and he’s packed up and gone home now,’ said Binns.
Far beyond the noise of the radios, the shouting and the soldiers’ gunfire could be heard the eerily compulsive whine of the call to prayer from the village mosque.
‘Gone to pray, more like,’ said Slindon. ‘He’s just shot all those people and now he’s gone to thank Allah.’
Finny said: ‘He probably gets a special place in Paradise for all those direct hits.’
On the radio, news came through of the casualties. The tractor driver, an Iranian, had been killed outright. The commander of 3 platoon was seriously injured, the gunner of the Jackal less so.
‘Another centimetre to the right and he would have had it,’ said a voice over the radio. Dave sighed. He heard that every time there was a casualty. A centimetre to the right, ten millimetres to the left, fifteen seconds earlier, ten seconds later, and everything would have been much better or much worse.
‘Anyone still firing back there is just wasting time and ammo,’ said Dave.
‘Yeah,’ said Bacon, ‘but it makes me feel a lot better, Sarge, just doing some, you know, bang bang, back at those bastards.’
‘Well, stop with the bang bang, Streaky,’ Dave ordered. ‘MERT’s coming in.’
‘We should raid the fucking compounds and get their fucking sharpshooter! Let’s do it!’ roared Angry.
‘Duh, yeah, like their top man’s going to be sitting there waiting for us to come and get him,’ groaned the lads.
Chalfont-Price said: ‘The Taliban will probably have whisked him away. We’ve had reports of an exceptional sharpshooter elsewhere in the province. The Americans encountered him near Sangin. But no one was aware he had moved to this area.’
‘Might be more than one of them,’ said Dave.
‘The Taliban certainly could be moving their best marksmen in to counter the poppy-eradication programme,’ agreed the boss. ‘But there have been rumours for a while now about one outstanding sniper. He’s constantly on the move.’
‘I’d like to show the bastard what outstanding snipers from the British Army can do,’ roared Angus.
‘Angry, why don’t you shut up and have a brew while we sit here and wait for the heli,’ said Dave wearily.
‘Brew’s on, Sarge,’ said Hemmings.
‘I can’t drink nothing,’ said Binns.
‘How’s your allergy, Streaky?’ asked Dave.
‘I
’m all right when I’m firing. Then when I stop I feel sick.’
‘Get a brew inside you,’ advised Dave. ‘Cures most things.’
Mal added: ‘And we can take a look at that box full of weapons while we’re doing it.’
A Chinook could be heard thudding nearby. Iain Kila was directing the soldiers around the stretchers. Sol gave Dave and the driver a cup of tea. The driver produced some peanuts and he and Dave sat in the front of the Mastiff, crunching in silence. They watched the helicopter land and the hatch at the back open. Soldiers with stretchers began running towards the team of waiting medics inside.
Dave felt a new weariness. He didn’t even ask the boys in the back what they were finding in the arms cache.
Chalfont-Price’s voice came over the radio. It was a smaller, less sure voice than usual. ‘Thank God the sniper didn’t turn his sights on us. We’re the only platoon to escape.’
The commander of 3 Platoon was being loaded right now into the back of the helicopter, gently as though the stretcher was made of glass. Dave knew the officer and liked him much more than he liked his own commander.
Dave spoke hesitantly into the radio now. ‘Well, sir … he did. Turn his sights on us.’
‘What? The sniper fired at someone from 1 Platoon?’
‘At me.’
‘When?’
‘When I was out in the field trying to persuade the women to come back. He very narrowly missed me, I felt the round close to my cheek.’
He heard his own voice. Tired. Shocked. The sniper had only just missed. All his subsequent shots had hit their target. His legs suddenly weighed more than metal. He dropped his heavy hands to rest on his knees. Even his eyes were leaden. For a moment, he allowed himself to close them. And waiting for him inside his head were Jenny and the children. In all the hurt and arguments and half-heard phone calls and too-brief blueys you could forget how precious they were. How there was nothing more important in his life than these three: a woman, a small girl and a baby. How it was his job to love and care for them and how it was difficult to do that when they were far away, the distance doubled by angry words and foolish actions. He knew then that he had to contact Jenny soon and tell her how much he loved her and how much she meant to him, whatever she had done.
