by Andy McNab
He pointed to a Bergen which had been blown thirty metres into a field from the top of the Mastiff as if a giant hand had picked it up and dropped it there. Nearby were strewn two others.
‘So’s mine,’ said Mara, indicating his own kit.
‘So’s mine,’ said O’Sullivan, his voice heavy with misery.
‘A lifetime’s supply of peanuts lies rotting in that field,’ said Danny Jones. ‘It must be killing you, Paddy.’
‘Want to risk your life Barmaring out to it?’ suggested Gayle.
‘Maybe we should sound the Last Post for all them little silver bags,’ said Andy Kirk.
O’Sullivan only said: ‘I’m hungry.’
‘All right, all right, it’s coming,’ said Jason Swift, who was cooking something nearby for the men whose rations were now lying in a field.
As they ate, Aaron noticed the boss throwing anxious glances at his kit bag.
‘What crop is that?’ Chalfont-Price suddenly asked irritably.
The men shrugged.
‘Not poppies,’ said one.
‘Not marijuana,’ said another.
‘We rely on Jack Binns from 1 Section to answer our burning agricultural questions,’ said Jason Swift.
By way of explanation, Jonas added: ‘He’s from Dorset.’
‘Ah. No wonder,’ said the boss.
A voice said: ‘I think it’s cotton, sir.’
They all turned to look at Gerry McKinley, who reddened slightly.
‘Really? Are you from Dorset too?’ asked the boss.
Aaron thought it was amazing that Chalfont-Price had no idea where any of his men were from. But of course he never asked or showed the smallest interest in them. Aaron was sure that was one of the reasons Dave hated the commander. You could see it on the sergeant’s face at prayers, whenever the boss gave orders or was seen swaggering around at Bastion with his officer mates. And you could see Dave biting back angry, sarcastic retorts when the boss was rude to him. Aaron Baker didn’t know how Dave stopped himself from criticizing the boss in front of his men but he never, ever did.
‘No, sir,’ said Gerry McKinley. ‘I’m from Norfolk. But I saw cotton growing in America once and this looks a bit the same.’
The boss nodded. Aaron noticed that he continued to throw anxious glances at his kit.
The radio crackled into life. Reports came in that the FOB was under fire. Gradually the reports became more urgent. The FOB was under determined and sustained attack.
‘This isn’t looking good,’ said Jason Swift. ‘No air support and now they won’t be able to get out of the FOB to us either.’
It was hard to believe that there was a battle raging back at FOB Nevada. They were surrounded by silence. Just once or twice they heard the distant bass of artillery.
When it was time to change the men on stag, Aaron took Fife off the .50 cal and told O’Sullivan to replace him. The HMG had been lifted off the compromised wagon and carried back down the blue lane and mounted on to the second wagon instead of the gimpy.
There was the rustle of noise and activity when the men changed over and settled into their new positions. People moved around inside the blue line as though it was a high electric fence which they must not touch instead of some spray paint on the desert floor. The call to prayer sounded across the Green Zone and the desert as if it was swelling out of the ground. Then the voice stopped and the men were still and the afternoon was quiet again. Nearby were a couple of compound walls and from inside came the occasional shout of children playing and then a woman calling. Aaron Baker thought that women yelling to their kids sounded the same all over the world: the voice could belong to his mum telling his kid brothers to get inside for their tea.
The boss was still listening to the radio, his face alarmed.
‘There are now four PBs under attack as well as a very major assault on FOB Nevada,’ he said. ‘This is certainly a Taliban strategy in response to the handover from the Americans.’
‘They probably worked it all out a long time ago. They’ve just been waiting for a personnel change,’ said Aaron.
‘Four PBs and a FOB, that’s a lot of ragheads,’ said Swift.
Danny Jones shook his head. ‘They couldn’t have planned for a fucking sandstorm grounding air support. You have to ask yourself whose side Allah’s on.’
‘The ragheads don’t have to ask themselves. They know,’ said Gerry McKinley.
‘Wish I could be so sure of anything the way they are,’ muttered Andy Kirk.
The second driver rearranged his back against the wheel of the Mastiff, kicking up a small cloud of dust with his feet. ‘I’m sure of one thing. If Allah keeps Terry Taliban tied up down there, it’s good for us. If he lets Terry Taliban drift this way, we’re in trouble.’
They listened. What little battle noise they could hear sounded reassuringly distant.
The sun was sinking towards the horizon now. Further down in the Green Zone a boy chased six goats larger than he was. A man with a camel passed along a track on the other side of the canal. He did not look at them. No one came near.
‘They know this track has got mines sprinkled around on it like fucking pepper,’ said the bandaged driver. ‘That’s why no one walks along it.’
The boss wrinkled his brow. ‘But there’s nothing to stop someone crossing the field and taking my kit.’
‘We’re showing a lot of weapons, sir. I don’t think anyone’s going to risk nicking your kit,’ said Aaron.
‘Not with me on the fucking HMG they won’t,’ shouted O’Sullivan from the turret. ‘If Terry Taliban goes near my peanuts he’s dead meat.’
‘Even if they send a little kid?’ asked the driver of the second Mastiff.
‘Ha! Especially if they send a little kid!’
‘Yeah, well, let’s get real,’ said the driver with the bloodstained bandage. ‘If they ambush us and they’ve got enough firepower, they can get their hands on the kit, the wagon and us too.’
Aaron saw Chalfont-Price’s look of alarm. Trust a fucking driver to look on the bright side.
‘And anyway,’ the second driver went on, ‘once it’s dark it won’t be so easy to watch those Bergens.’
Andy Kirk picked up his tone. ‘The ragheads haven’t been for the Bergens yet because they’re just waiting until night.’
‘The way the kit’s sitting right out in the field, Terry Taliban probably thinks Allah just dropped a big present,’ added Jonas.
‘Yeah, gift-wrapped,’ Fife agreed.
Aaron rolled his eyes. So all those anxious looks which the boss kept throwing at his kit had not been lost on the lads. Chalfont-Price was not popular and men loved a chance to play on his fears.
‘For Chrissake, boys, we’ve got fucking night sights and we can keep an eye on the kit,’ Aaron said gruffly.
But now the boss’s attention had switched from the Bergens to the sky.
‘I think it’s getting dark already,’ he said.
Still enjoying his discomfort, the men agreed. ‘Yep. Won’t be long now, sir.’
Chalfont-Price suddenly jumped to his feet.
‘Look, it’s not just my rations in there. It’s some sensitive stuff,’ he said. ‘Mapping. Signals documentation. It’s all secret.’
Aaron exchanged concerned looks with Jason Swift. They had both guessed what was coming next. Senibua from 3 Section was returning with the Vallon from the area around the compromised vehicle. As he moved towards the rest of the platoon down the blue lane, Chalfont-Price swung around abruptly to the nearest man.
‘You!’ he said. He was talking to Gerry McKinley. Aaron guessed that the boss had forgotten, or more likely had never known, McKinley’s name. ‘Norfolk Man. Grab the Vallon and Barma your way out to my Bergen, would you?’
McKinley blinked at him.
Aaron coughed a little and then said: ‘Sir, since it’s getting dark we should clear as much of the area around the Mastiff as we can now.’
The boss turn
ed to him.
‘I don’t think you understand, Corporal. That Bergen is vulnerable to attack and it contains compromising information. Retrieving it must be a priority.’
There was a silence. Then Senibua started passing McKinley the protection kit.
‘Sir, McKinley did a long stint on the Vallon earlier,’ said Aaron. McKinley and Senibua had both trained extensively on the mine detector and were probably the fastest men in the platoon on it if there were no sappers around. But you couldn’t keep twenty men hanging about while two did all the work, not when most had taken some level of Vallon training.
‘I’ll go, sir,’ said Jason Swift.
‘No,’ said Aaron. It was daft to send a corporal on the boss’s Bergen mission. He looked around at the men to choose someone else.
‘I’ll go,’ offered Jonas.
But McKinley was already putting on the protection.
‘I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘It’s better than sitting here and just waiting.’
‘What happened to those mine-protection pelvic overpants we trialled back on the Plain?’ asked Jonas.
‘Yeah, it would have been a lot more useful to trial them here,’ said Senibua.
‘I don’t need them. I’ll go careful.’ McKinley took the visor.
‘I’ve got the Vallon set high,’ Senibua said, ‘or every little bit of shrapnel sets it off.’
‘Yeah, I’ll keep it high or it’ll take me all night to get to the Bergen,’ agreed McKinley.
He set off down the blue-sprayed path. The others watched him. He reached the damaged Mastiff and then turned. Swinging the Vallon in front of him, he stepped outside the blue paint which marked the safe zone.
The PB was quiet before dark. The drivers had put up bashas and were already asleep under them and so was Doc Holliday. Mal and Angus were cooking. Binns was on stag on the gate, Streaky Bacon had just changed places with Slindon, who was now back up in the tower, and Dave had been inside the compound with Sol reviewing the ammo and listening on the radio to reports of the mighty battles raging at other PBs and back at FOB Nevada. It was the smell of Mal’s cooking which had pulled them outside in time to hear Slindon say: ‘Holy shit!’
And behind his words came the thud of an exploding landmine. Its boom seemed to echo down inside Dave, so deeply that he knew instinctively that it had blasted a hole at the base of his world.
Sol looked up at Slindon.
‘Where was it?’
As if they didn’t know.
‘There! In the dead zone! I saw the flash and now I can see the smoke. Hooooooly shiiiiit.’
Dave did not move. He waited. He listened to the radio so intently that his whole body was nothing more than an appendage attached to his ear.
After a long silence, he heard: ‘This is Charlie One Zero to Zero. IED. Man down. Sit rep to follow. Wait. Out.’ It was a strangely clipped version of Chalfont-Price’s voice.
Dave wasn’t here in the compound any more. He was across the desert, two kilometres away, with two Mastiffs which were fixed in one spot, sitting ducks for any weaponry or explosives the enemy cared to unleash on them. The anxious faces of his men gathered around him brought him back to the present, to the compound, to the sound of his own voice moaning: ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ to the knowledge that he was here, not there. And if he had been there, would it have happened? One of his men was down, and, without knowing which one, Dave felt the dead weight on his shoulders.
‘Zero this is Charlie One Zero. Sit rep as at 1745. Zap number MK4452 has been badly injured. Can’t yet assess extent. Lower limb injury. Put tourniquet on his leg himself. Request urgent medical aid at grid 626298.’
‘MK …’ said Dave out loud. He knew whose zap number that was.
‘Gerry! Gerry McKinley!’ shouted the men who stood around him. ‘Shit, Gerry McKinley’s down!’
Quietly, the group was joined by Doc Holliday.
‘He’s not a T4, he’s injured. Lower leg. They’re Barmaring to him,’ Dave said, cutting off the end of his own sentence to listen to the major’s voice in his ear.
‘Zero Alpha to Charlie One Zero, why did he apply his own tourniquet? Can’t you get to him?’ demanded the OC.
‘He was Barmaring into a field.’
‘So you’re Barmaring out to him now, are you?’
‘No, sir, we only had only one working Vallon. And it’s just been blown up with the casualty.’
Dave and the major both gave a sharp intake of breath.
‘Fucking hell,’ said the major. ‘You’ll have to send the men prodding forward slowly on their belt buckles.’
‘Yes, sir. A helicopter would help now, sir.’
‘There are no fucking helicopters!’
‘Sir, the front vehicle is still immobilized. Do you still want me to hold fast until assistance arrives? Or should I now deny the vehicle?’
The major told him to wait. There was a long pause. Finally the radio crackled back into action.
‘Charlie One Zero this is Zero Alpha. You are to remain where you are until I can organize a recovery plan to get you out. Be aware that there are still no helicopters. Be aware that at this location we are under very sustained attack. Be aware also that there is sustained attack at other locations and we have casualties. Out.’
Dave was quick. During the radio silence he had been thinking rapidly and now no more thought was necessary.
He said: ‘Hello Zero Alpha and Charlie One Zero, this is Charlie One One. At this location I have a CMT Class 1. I will now move from here to your grid ref with Vallons to give assistance. I will also bring tow ropes. Will I be able to pull your immobilized vehicle on a straight bar, Charlie One Zero?’
There was no mistaking the relief in Chalfont-Price’s voice.
‘Charlie One One, we are badly in need of Vallons and a class 1 medic and your offer is accepted. I confirm that you will be able to tow the vehicle.’ His voice was shaky, shocked and even, for once, humble. Dave looked up and saw that Doc Holliday was there, nodding.
‘What is your ETA?’ the boss asked anxiously.
Dave said: ‘Well, if you’re prodding your way to the casualty we should be there to help with a Vallon kit before you’ve even finished the job.’
Chalfont-Price did not reply but Dave paused for the major to argue with him. After all, this was a high-risk strategy. He was proposing to leave the PB undermanned and venture, undermanned, into a world of total exposure to the enemy. But without a good medic Gerry McKinley’s chances of survival were insignificant.
He remained braced for a challenge from the major, but, amazingly, none came.
Dave looked around at the waiting men. He spoke quickly and firmly.
‘I want to be out of here in fifteen minutes with both Mastiffs and a tow rope. I’ll go in the first one. I’ll take a gunner, Doc and two more men, one to Barma and one to cover him. In the second wagon we’ll have a driver, a commander and a gunner: that wagon will have to bring back the men from the exploded vehicle. Shit, Sol, that’s not leaving you with enough men here at the base.’
Before he had finished speaking Doc Holliday had melted away again and was even now shuffling around, gathering equipment together for their exodus. His rasping voice suddenly issued from under the basha: ‘I can fire an HMG. And I’m handy with a rifle. So save yourself a man in the first Mastiff.’
Dave nodded.
‘Yeah. Thanks, Doc. And when I think about it, I can command from on top. So I’ll take a driver, you, and two others.’
‘That leaves four men here,’ said Sol.
‘Can you manage?’
‘If you’re quick.’
Dave looked around at the remaining faces. It was easy to tell who wanted to go on the mission and who dreaded they would be picked.
Sol said suddenly: ‘Sarge, there’s only one driver! Reed’s ankle!’
Dave jumped as though Sol had delivered a small electric shock.
‘Can anyone else drive a Mastiff?’
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Tiny said: ‘Well, I had some lessons at Catterick …’
‘You were good!’ said Slindon. ‘I remember that. I was useless.’
‘No surprises there, mate,’ Finny told him.
‘It was really basic. I’m not sure I could—’
‘Lancer Reed, take Rifleman Hemmings and give him a five-minute refresher course in driving the Mastiff,’ Dave instructed. Reed started to stagger to his feet. Angus tried to help by grabbing him eagerly and pulling him up.
‘Fuck off, oaf!’ the driver protested, pushing Angry away and hobbling painfully through the compound with Tiny. ‘And as for you driving the fucking thing,’ Reed said, ‘do you know how long it took me just to master reversing? It’s one of the most heavily armoured vehicles on active service but if you think you can just get in and drive it …!’
He limped off, still moaning audibly, Tiny loping awkwardly behind him.
Dave looked around at the other faces.
‘Sol, can you cope with the numbers you’ve got? You can bet that the moment we leave the patrol base, it’s going to come under attack.’
‘The moment you leave the patrol base, you’re going to come under attack,’ Sol corrected him.
‘Yeah, of course. But we’re only going about two k down the track. Since we’ve been dicking it, we won’t need to Barma so we should be there in a few minutes. Then once we reach the relief, we’re safe and you’re going to come under fire.’
‘They’ll throw everything they’ve got at you for two kilometres.’
‘I’m hoping they’re all too busy fighting down at the FOB to come all the way out here.’
‘The enemy has enough guys to phone for reinforcements.’
‘By the time they can mobilize we’ll be over in the Bronx with a tow rope, the Vallons and the medic. And before they can get here we’ll be back at the PB.’
Sol’s eyes rested a moment on Dave.
‘That’s the best scenario,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ said Dave. He knew he had to prepare for the worst. But what was the worst that could happen? Probably an ambush when they were isolated on the track. Surely they would have reached the relief before the enemy could organize itself to react effectively to their surprise exit?
