by Andy McNab
Dave wedged Dawson’s body against the battered seating inside the Mastiff. It was a relief to ease the load. Except that by now he was so tense that his muscles remained taut.
‘Did it get you?’ he demanded.
‘Nah.’
The medic’s face had disappeared inside his own pain. He closed his eyes. He could barely speak.
‘What then, Doc?’
At last Doc said: ‘Old injury.’
So that was the injury which had pitched Doc out of Special Forces. There were a lot of rumours about the nature of the problem and the way it had happened.
Dave roared: ‘Angus, you help me get the driver out! Doc, cover us!’
‘I can cover,’ said a voice which sounded like Billy Finn’s, only a bit fainter than usual.
Dave felt his heart pump hopefully. Billy Finn was back in business.
‘Two minutes ago you were fucking dead,’ he grunted.
‘I’ve already got my rifle, Sarge,’ said Finny, firing to prove it.
The medic slid gratefully down the side of the Mastiff and disappeared beneath it where the shadows had already joined together to make deep night.
Angry clambered up to help Dave, drawing renewed firing from the enemy. He was bigger and stronger than Doc and he and Dave gritted their teeth and groaned and between them pulled Dawson’s body out. Even though Dave was sure he could not be revived.
A round whistled past Angry and skimmed the edge of the driver’s arm.
Angry yelled: ‘Did you see that! Fuck it, he’s been hit!’
Dawson did not bleed.
‘He’s already dead,’ Dave said, lowering the body to the ground where Doc waited under the Mastiff.
The medic leaped on the body and dragged it beneath the vehicle like a big animal tearing at a piece of meat. He began the vigorous process of resuscitation, pumping at Dawson’s chest.
‘Looks more like he’s killing him,’ said Angus. His hand was shaking.
Suddenly the medic stopped and some water came out of the dead man’s mouth.
Angry jumped as though he had received an electric shock.
‘He’s alive, fuck it, he’s alive!’ It should have been a shout of joy but there was horror in his voice. His words were punctuated by gunfire reverberating around them, from the base on one side to the enemy on the other and from Finny’s rifle nearby.
‘He moved!’ shouted Angus.
The medic shook his head.
‘Nah. I’m getting nowhere. Wasting my time.’
Finny stopped firing.
‘We had to try,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ agreed the medic. ‘We had to try.’ He flopped down by the side of the body.
Dave looked up. Night had fallen across the desert now: the shadows had grown longer and longer until they were spun together in a dense, dark fabric. He wanted to sit and watch the night deepen and wonder exactly how Dawson had died. He hoped he had drowned quietly and unconsciously, without struggle, panic or pain. He looked down at Dawson’s strangely peaceful face.
‘Sarge?’ It was Finny, speaking to him as though to wake him.
‘OK, we can’t stay here.’ His own voice sounded a long way off again. He had the strange sensation that someone else was talking. Who was this quick, decisive commander? And what was he going to propose next? ‘We’re under fire and they’ll soon be closing in on us. Get ready to move.’
‘Sarge, I’m pretty sure they’re closing in on us already,’ said Angus.
Finny agreed.
‘Are we going home, Sarge?’ asked Angus.
‘Where’s home?’ Finn asked. ‘You talking about that load of shit and mud compound?’
‘PB Boston Red Sox,’ Angry said. ‘That’s the place I’m calling home right now, mate.’
He turned and looked longingly towards the muzzle flashes which defined the dark base. There was extremely heavy enemy fire aimed at the Mastiff and the base was firing back with the two GPMGs. And when there was a dip in the enemy’s energy, Dave noticed that Sol kept the boys going, creating all the cover they could. Because Sol had worked out that they had no choice but to run for it.
‘Keep firing so the boys know we’re still here,’ he told Finny.
Doc Holliday asked: ‘Where are we heading, Dave?’
‘Back to Red Sox?’ said Angry.
‘No,’ said Dave. ‘We’re dead meat if we do that. And we’re dead meat if we stay here. We came out of those gates for a reason. And now that we’re a man down, it’s even more important to finish the job.’
Finn stopped firing again and looked up from his rifle butt. Angus stared back at Dave, expressionless. Doc Holliday nodded.
‘We’re going to run across the desert to the relief party? To help McKinley?’ asked Finn. He straightened. His tone was unconcerned and matter of fact. He sounded relaxed. ‘Right, Sarge.’
Angus looked more nettled than Finny. Dave looked at him with concern. He remembered how, near the start of his first tour, Angry had panicked a couple of times. Since then he had been brave to the point of foolhardiness. All that big man talk must have been hiding panic and fear. Dave would have to grip him, or it could surface.
Now Angus said: ‘If we run to the relief, we’re running right into the arms of the enemy!’
They stopped talking as the air around them turned from falling night to wild, effervescent daylight. Dave estimated that the fireworks were caused by two RPGs from the enemy and a rocket from the base, all exploding more or less simultaneously. When the darkness came back, it seemed deeper. There was silence all around them. Dave knew it would not last. It was one of those battle spaces which just happened, as if everyone was taking a deep breath.
‘There’s a lot of mines hidden under this desert. They go back years,’ came the medic’s voice, calm and sensible, as if there had been no interruption.
Dave said: ‘That’s one reason we can’t cross it. We have to move through the Green Zone. We’ve seen children, goats, camels, on the other side of this canal – it’s clear.’
Angus looked horrified now.
‘They’ll find us in the Green Zone, Sarge. Even if it’s dark. That’s where they fucking live and they’ve all got fucking dogs.’
Dave said: ‘McCall, stop talking and get any ammo for the SA80s that you can find, and get the day sacks too. Everyone should have their night-vision goggles on in two minutes. Do it now.’
Angus did not move. Dave thought: Shit, I’m losing him. He had seen men overcome by fear before but he could not afford to carry such a man now. They were all shocked – by the crashing Mastiff, by the death of Dawson, by the danger which lay ahead – but shock would have to wait. Four men could not move through this terrain, surrounded by the enemy, if one of them was paralysed by fear.
‘Get on with it, mate,’ Finn told Angus. ‘I’ve been firing all by myself.’
‘Move,’ Dave ordered.
‘Yes, Sarge.’ Angus dropped, picked up his rifle and slithered along the metalwork of the Mastiff. Dave was relieved that he looked more like a soldier and less like a panicking kid who was going to get them all into a lot of trouble.
Then Angus stopped and looked back. ‘Sarge, why can’t we just stay here?’
Dave said: ‘In fifteen minutes this vehicle will be taken by the enemy.’
‘Oh. Yeah.’ Angus continued his journey along the great slumbering vehicle.
When he was almost lost in darkness, Dave called sharply: ‘I want you back here within two minutes, McCall.’
Angus leaped into the back of the Mastiff just as the firing started again. It burst out of the base with gusto. The enemy returned it at once. Finny joined in the fray.
‘How long before the FOB gets someone out here?’ Dave muttered to Doc Holliday, who was sitting by Dawson’s body, his legs flat out in front of him. It was a rhetorical question so he was surprised when the medic answered.
‘Hours and hours. As soon as we lost comms they would have started to
worry but the dust storm has to end at Bastion or the firing has to stop at the FOB. I reckon nothing’s going to happen before morning. So the best chance for McKinley is still us.’
Dave listened to the crack of enemy weapons. In the distance a dog barked. Above them the night sky was brighter, as if layer upon layer of stars was being peeled back.
‘You’ve chosen the right plan,’ said Doc Holliday. ‘I reckon that’s why Sol’s leading the battle out there. He’s giving us a chance to move off.’
Dave looked down at Dawson. The dead man’s face seemed to glow white in the dark.
‘Shit, I hate leaving him here.’
‘I hate leaving his rifle for the bastards.’
‘We’ll take it and hide it in the canal.’
‘Wish we could hide the fucking HMG.’
Dave asked Finny: ‘How is the HMG?’
‘Wet,’ said Finny. ‘Very wet.’
Angus reappeared at that moment with the day sacks. ‘Wet? It’s under fucking water. Just like these day sacks were.’
Finny opened his and reported: ‘My night sights are useless, Sarge. They’re wet through.’
‘Everything’s wet, fucking wet,’ said Angus.
Dave pulled his out. They were dry. Why? Because they were in the canoe bag along with the camera Jenny had given him. Fucking well done, Jenny. He remembered opening the camera at home. He had said something sarcastic like: Waterproofing’s a sound idea in the desert. Did she have second sight or something? Jenny. His Jenny. So far away, doing God knows what, but always inside his fucking head. No matter what stupid thing she had done back home in Wiltshire, she was a girl worth fighting for.
He pulled the GPS out from his webbing. He remembered that when the Mastiff had rolled, flinging him about, there had been crunches around his body. He had wondered, fleetingly, if it was ribs or equipment. Now he knew. It was the GPS. It was both crushed and wet. So he would be navigating using his sense of direction. That snowy, cold night in Brecon reappeared inside his head again, the whole platoon lost and exhausted. Training. Training with no enemy around except possibly his own platoon commander. It seemed like some kind of a game now.
Doc was ransacking Dawson’s wet webbing.
‘I’ll get his ammo,’ said Dave, stuffing some of it into his own sack and throwing some of it at Angus.
Finny found space and Doc took a lot more. They rearranged the contents of their day sacks and stuffed rations into their webbing while Dave spoke to them.
‘The enemy’ll realize we’ve left the vehicle when we stop firing. The moment they get here they’ll send their dogs after us. So we’ll have to throw them off the scent by wading down the middle of the canal.’
‘We’ve got a lot of kit here,’ said Finny.
‘If we can’t carry it, we’ll have to dump it. They’ll expect us to head south towards the relief vehicles. That’s why we’re heading north.’
It seemed to Dave that under the Mastiff there was complete silence at that moment, even though Sol and the enemy were at full throttle just a few hundred metres away. He could see the eyes of Finn and Angus, shining in the dark, staring at him in disbelief.
Then he heard the reassuring voice of Doc Holliday: ‘Good plan.’
‘We’ll tab back to the relief party through the Green Zone.’
‘Right, Sarge,’ said Finn. It sounded as though he was trying to make his voice firm and strong. But underneath Dave knew it was wavering.
‘They’ll find us! What are the chances we can go tabbing for miles and miles without no one seeing us and no dog smelling us?’ demanded Angus, that undertone of panic audible again.
It was more of a statement than a question but Dave had begun answering it in his mind before Angus had even opened his mouth. He had decided they had a 50 per cent chance at most, probably a lot less, of reaching the relief party alive. He would have liked to ask Doc’s opinion. But not in front of Finny and Angus.
‘Odds are looking good,’ said Finny rapidly.
Angus blinked at him. Doc looked surprised.
Dave explained: ‘Billy Finn’s our platoon’s gambling expert.’ He did not add that Finn had been banned from taking bets all the time they were away.
‘Anyone who wants a flutter on our survival chances is welcome to lay a bet,’ said Finny. ‘I’m offering nine to four on.’
‘Yeah, I’ll bet a thousand that we arrive,’ said Doc quickly. ‘Since you won’t be collecting your winnings if we don’t.’
‘That’s enough,’ said Dave. ‘We should go while Sol’s covering us. Knee OK to move off now, Doc?’
Doc shrugged dismissively. Probably because he knew that, even if he was in agony, they had to move.
Dave said: ‘Finny at the front, then me, then Doc, then Angus. Complete silence. If you have to say something or stop, tap the man in front. Use hand signals. Keep checking the guy behind you.’
He looked around at their faces: Finny’s battle-sharp, Angus’s blanked by anxiety, Doc’s expressionless.
Finn asked: ‘Should we fix bayonets, Sarge?’ His eyes moved quickly in the starlight.
‘No, but keep your bayonet where you can get your hands on it fast,’ Dave ordered. ‘Before we go, let’s give them a fireworks display for a few minutes and use up some of the ammo which we can’t carry. So they don’t get it. And so they know we’re still here.’
They had been under assault from the moment they had left the base. Ever since the Mastiff had pitched into the canal the enemy had been attacking them with glee, like the fans of a football team two-nil up who knew the ref was about to blow his whistle. Dave had been too busy with a dead man, an injured medic and a near-panicking rifleman to focus on the constant ping and whistle of Taliban rounds coming too close for comfort, bouncing off the Mastiff’s armour, throwing dust up in the ground nearby. But now it felt good to return some of that fire.
The two gimpys from the base joined in and for a while the enemy were silenced by the concerted British effort. They might have assumed, Dave realized, that the wrecked Mastiff was in some kind of radio contact with the PB as well as the FOB. Maybe they had no idea that a dust storm in Bastion meant no help could come from the air. It probably didn’t occur to them that out here were four soldiers who were as isolated as the great metal wreck which lay by itself at the desert’s edge.
For a grand finale, he switched Dawson’s rifle grimly to automatic and pretended it was a machine gun. He changed the magazine once and the weapon got so hot that he thought the barrel was drooping. He wouldn’t do it to his own rifle but this one would soon be in the canal anyway. He turned up the night sights and gazed at the rocks where the muzzle flashes were coming from, at the base of a ridge to the south-west. Then the goggles picked up a man, his loose clothes flying behind him, running from one rock to the next through the dark, exposing himself to enemy fire for about three seconds. When the man fell, Dave hoped it was his shot which got him. Although it could have been one from the gimpy at the base behind.
‘OK, let’s leave it to Sol now,’ Dave ordered reluctantly after a few minutes, looking up from his rifle. He realized that the men had stopped firing and were watching him, ready and waiting to go. Finn immediately moved forward under cover of Sol’s gimpy fire. Maybe Sol guessed what they were doing, or maybe his night vision told him that the distant, silent forms were slipping away from the side of the vehicle, but the gimpys were now in overdrive. Dave hoped the barrels wouldn’t melt.
Swinging left when they reached the canal might confuse the dogs and confound their handlers. For a while. The drainage in this area had mostly been built by the Americans and they favoured the grid pattern of American cities, so finding your direction was as easy as east on Third Street and then north on First Avenue. After about ten minutes down the canal, they were to climb out on the right side and cross the fields going east. When they hit the next drainage channel, they would turn left and go north again. They would walk for at least an hour through t
he water where the dogs couldn’t smell them. Only then, if all was quiet, could they consider looping back through the Green Zone to the relief party.
Dave estimated that the silence meant the enemy would realize the Mastiff was deserted within five minutes, ten at the most. And, despite Sol’s efforts, within another fifteen they would be swarming all over it, stealing its weaponry, learning its secrets. He wished he could blow it up instead of leaving such a fat prize for the enemy. Less than ten minutes after they took the Mastiff, the Taliban would get dogs here to sniff out the trail of the departed men. Which meant that the four of them could be caught within thirty minutes.
He decided that he would rather be dead. If the Taliban came close enough to catch them alive, he would give each man a choice. They could hope the enemy would be kind to them. Or they could accept his offer to kill them first. Dave hoped he would have time to kill himself too. It would be better for Jenny to learn from a knock at the door that he was dead than to watch his brutal execution online.
Dave took a last glance at Dawson. He saw the others do the same, all except Angus, who ignored the still body. Then they rounded the great, lumbering shape of the Mastiff and, as they did so, Dave decided that the enemy were welcome to it. But he was fucked if they were having any of his men too.
Chapter Thirty-four
JENNY HAD BROUGHT the computer into the dining room and was bashing the keys without looking at them, her eyes fixed on the paper by the keyboard.
‘I don’t think we’ll be finished by the time my kids go to bed,’ she said.
‘What time is that?’ asked Eugene.
She paused. The room went silent.
‘Well, seven o’clock at the latest, preferably earlier.’
‘Are you going to fetch them so they can sleep here?’ he asked, getting up to throw another log on the fire.
‘No, Adi said she’d keep them all night.’ Jenny did not look at him. Her eyes tried to make sense of Robin Douglas-Coombs’s scribbled handwriting.
‘Good!’
‘But I’ll have to ask you for an hour’s break later so I can go and say goodnight to them.’
