by McNab, Andy
Bacon wished for a moment he’d never heard of hip hop.
‘Well . . .’ he said, ‘I try to do a bit of rap, see, and—’
‘No, no, no!’ said Dave, the strength of his own fury surprising him. ‘You’re a soldier! You didn’t come to Helmand Province to rap about it. You didn’t do all that training and travel all this way to sit there under fire thinking that IED rhymes with ABC or I can’t see or fly with me!’
He did not miss Bacon’s look of fleeting admiration for these fast rhymes. But the admiration was rapidly replaced by trepidation as Dave went on.
‘You’re a soldier, Bacon. That means you’re here to fight not fuck about giving it MC Bacon. While we were saving your bacon, Bacon, you sat on your arse working out that yes I can and kill that man rhymes with Taliban. Is that fucking fair?’
Bacon said nothing. His deep brown eyes shifted from side to side.
‘I’ve asked you a question,’ Dave said. ‘Now answer it. Is it fair for you to sit writing rap while your mates fight for their lives and yours?’
There was a pause.
‘No,’ Bacon said.
‘No WHAT?’
‘No, Sarge.’
Dave sighed and sat back down.
‘OK. You wrote some fucking good rap today. Apart from that triumph, how else did you do?’
Bacon rolled his eyes upwards and straightened his body.
‘Well, Sarge, I think I did OK.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I got some rounds down.’
‘Well, yes, you’re a soldier, that’s what you’re paid to do.’ ‘And I think I killed at least one man.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘I saw him fall. Only . . . the woman just may have shot him because she fired too.’
‘Where was he?’
‘They were everywhere except on one side and, understand see, Sarge, I thought if they ran forward we’d be completely surrounded, and that didn’t make me feel good so I was watching. And when he ran forward I got him.’
Dave nodded.
‘Good thinking, Bacon. How many rounds before you shot him?’
‘Well, I don’t know. A lot . . .’
‘You had rounds left for him, did you?’
‘Well, yes, I did, Sarge.’
‘How many rounds did you have left at the end of the ambush?’
‘Altogether, Sarge?’
‘Yep. Bandolier, magazines, how many altogether?’
‘Well, I counted. Twenty.’
‘Twenty.’
‘Yes, Sarge.’
‘Christ. Well, that tells me a few things. First, you were firing too much, too quickly. You were told to slow it but you couldn’t stop, could you?’
‘Well, Sarge, I thought—’
‘It was an ambush. We were under siege conditions and we’d been told to wait a long time for air support because we needed an Apache. There was no point a Harrier dropping a five-hundred-pound bomb or we’d all have been blown to Paradise. We had to wait for a fucking Apache to do some targeting because the choggies had closed in on us. If the Apache had taken another twenty minutes, we’d have been out of ammo. Because a sprog like you was just throwing it down.’
‘I didn’t throw it, Sarge.’
‘Well did you know what you were firing at?’
‘No one could see the flipflops, Sarge.’
‘You should have stopped and looked at the other men. Did you watch Angus, for instance?’
Streaky shook his head.
‘If you had, you’d have noticed that he was thinking before he fired. When the rounds closed in he assessed where the Taliban firing points were. He didn’t just poke his weapon out from behind the Vector and send as much fire up the track as fast as he could. He didn’t try to turn an SA80 into a machine gun, Bacon.’
Streaky hung his head.
‘Well, I killed one guy,’ he said stubbornly.
‘Maybe one of the fifty rounds you threw at him did hit him. Or maybe the woman sergeant from the Intelligence Corps got him in three. We’ll never know. But I do know that I saw you refilling your magazines when you’d used up all your ammo.’
Bacon blinked at him.
‘What should you do, Bacon?’ asked Dave. ‘When you’re using up ammo fast, when should you refill? Should you wait until it’s all gone, then refill?’
‘Erm . . .’
‘When three magazines are empty, change. Wait for a quiet period or pull back for a few minutes and change. Don’t wait until you’re clean out. Because you never, ever, ever want to find yourself out there with a weapon and no ammo.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Bacon said. ‘We did that in training.’
‘Glad your training didn’t desert you completely. But in training guys sit behind you and remind you. This was a real fire fight with a real enemy and we were all too fucking busy to sit behind you. And if we’d been overrun and you’d ended up defending yourself, you wouldn’t have had the ammo to do it with. Now let me ask you another. What did you do with your empty magazines?’
Streaky grimaced.
Dave told him the answer: ‘You dropped them on the ground. And let other people pick them up for you. Like your mum goes into your bedroom and picks your clothes up off the floor. But you’re not at home, now, Bacon, your mum’s not here to clear up after you and you pick up your own fucking magazines, got it?’
‘Yes, Sarge.’
‘So let’s run over those points again, Bacon. One: drink more. I don’t want to see you coming home to base with a half-full Camelbak again. Two: fire less. Don’t waste ammo, choose your target. And don’t wait until you’re clean out to get more. Three: clear up your own fucking magazines.’
Bacon hung his head and nodded.
‘I have to tell you this to make a good soldier of you.’ Dave’s tone softened. ‘That way you stay safe. And so do your mates.’
Bacon didn’t look up.
‘You’re on shit jobs with Binns for a week. Now get something to eat.’
Bacon stood up. His face was sullen and angry. His rolling, swaggering walk had a touch of insolence about it. This lad did not take criticism well, even necessary and practical criticism. But it crossed Dave’s mind that he had gripped Streaky Bacon a bit hard tonight. Maybe he should have congratulated him on killing one Taliban fighter and for keeping his nerve in an unnerving first ambush, especially when his mate was falling to pieces.
‘Poor bastard, it was his first time.’
Dave had forgotten he was not alone. He turned towards Jamie but whatever snippets of the conversation he’d heard, it seemed he had fallen back into a medicated sleep again.
‘Shut up, Dermott, or I’ll have you casevaced,’ he said affectionately, thinking that Jamie was right and he was wrong but there was almost no one else in the platoon who was allowed to tell him so.
He got up. He didn’t regret a word he’d said to Streaky. But he was beginning to regret the words he hadn’t said.
CSM Kila sat with Dave and the other platoon sergeants in the cookhouse. Sergeant Barnes of 3 Platoon had spent the day with the civilians.
‘That fucking woman professor . . .’
‘What! Emily? The sex grenade? Ventured out of her isobox?’
‘Emily. The pain in the arse. Ventured all over the fucking shop. And if you thought Martyn Robertson was difficult, you try working with her. She wants to go where she likes when she likes and sod everyone else. Picks up her shopping bag and marches off as if she’s just on her way to market and doesn’t want to miss a bargain.’
‘Apparently,’ Kila said, ‘she has one of the finest geophysical brains in England.’
‘Yeah, well, the finest geophysical brain in England could get splattered all over Helmand if she doesn’t use it more. I said: “Professor, have you noticed that we soldiers generally move around in platoons? That’s about thirty soldiers, Professor. Well that’s to keep us safe. If you wander off like that then you could become an en
emy target, Professor.”’
‘What did she say?’
‘She says: “I have no enemies, Corporal.” I say: “Professor, I am in fact a sergeant.” She says: “Army ranks are of no interest to me because I am not fighting a war. I am carrying out an analysis of Afghanistan’s natural resources.”’
‘Fucking hell,’ Dave said.
‘Fucking hell,’ the other sergeants agreed.
‘The finest geophysical brain in England and not one ounce of common sense,’ Dave said.
He told the others about today’s ambush.
‘And this evening my head’s caning and so’s everyone else’s, the medic gave us all something. It’s got to be because we were so close to the explosion.’
‘You were bloody nearly in the fucking explosion,’ Sergeant Somers of 2 Platoon said.
‘We should never have been sent on that route without manpower. They had us pinned down and we didn’t have the men or the fire to keep them back much longer.’
Kila promised he’d talk to Major Willingham again about unnecessary risks.
When the other two sergeants had gone, Kila leaned forward and said quietly: ‘There’s a rumour going round about you, Dave.’
Dave raised his eyebrows and tried to think what that rumour could be.
‘That you’re leaving the army.’
Dave stared at him. The CSM stared right back.
‘Where the hell did you hear that?’
‘From Wiltshire.’
‘Wiltshire!’ Then Dave realized. ‘Oh, someone’s been talking to Jenny. But what the hell has she been saying?’
‘She told Steve Buckle’s wife who told someone who told someone who told . . . well, I don’t know who. Anyway, people are talking about it.’
Dave felt angry with Jenny. She had started a rumour which had clearly slipped beyond the circle of gossiping wives to the NCOs. It couldn’t have come to Iain Kila through his wife because, although he’d already had three, he didn’t have one at the moment.
‘Jenny’s thinking of me leaving the army,’ Dave said. ‘I’m not.’
Kila looked sympathetic. ‘They all go through that one.’
‘Well the baby’s due soon. And Jenny spends a lot of time with Leanne Buckle . . .’
‘How’s Steve, then?’
‘Haven’t heard yet. Leanne’s with him in Selly Oak. What happened to Steve certainly scared Jen, though. She’s only started this stuff about leaving the army since Steve’s accident.’
Kila shrugged. ‘You were a soldier when you married her, weren’t you?
‘Yeah. She knew what she was letting herself in for. But when I remind her about that she says it makes no difference. And today I got this long letter begging me to leave. And there’s a letter from her mother I haven’t even opened which probably says the same thing.’
‘Just ignore it.’
‘You don’t know Jen. She’s like a dog with a bone once she gets an idea into her head.’ Actually, Jenny’s determination was one of the things Dave loved about her. Unless she was determined to make him do something.
‘Then string her along. Aren’t you doing a degree course through the army?’
Dave laughed. The classes he’d attended and the coursework he’d finished seemed far away and trivial, like a game he used to play.
‘Engineering,’ he said. ‘I work on it when we’re not operational or away training. So that’s not very often.’
‘Well,’ Kila said, ‘when do you expect to finish?’
‘It’ll take years and years at this rate.’
‘So tell her you’ll leave when you’ve got your degree.’
Dave chuckled. ‘Good idea, Iain! She’ll have to agree it’ll improve my job prospects.’
Kila grinned back. ‘Women. You just need to know how to handle them.’
‘Not much chance here for you to practise your handling skills.’
Kila’s grin broadened meaningfully. Dave squinted at him.
‘Well I knew the boss was after the Intelligence Corps bird but I didn’t think you . . .’
‘I’m not interested in that iceberg. Or Professor Sex Grenade. That only leaves one.’
‘Not the monkey!’
Kila leaned forward and spoke quietly. ‘There’s a limit to how far I can go here at the base of course. But between you and me, I wouldn’t say no to a bit of monkey business.’
Chapter Twenty-six
BOSS WEEKS WAS EXHAUSTED. THE DAY’S ADRENALIN HAD DRAINED out of him, leaving him feeling like a hollow shell. He had taken something for the thumping headache from the bomb’s blast wave and was too tired now even to look at the pictures of the ambush that kept playing inside his head. He only knew one thing. He wanted to be with Asma. The ambush had been a terrifying, intense experience. She had shared it. Even if they didn’t talk about it, he wanted to be near her.
In the wagon she had mentioned she liked to walk around the perimeter after dark, looking at the stars. So now he was walking the perimeter, hoping. He passed other people. But none of them was Asma.
He saw a firefly. Then he realized it was the red tip of a cigarette, lighting up as the smoker pulled on it. And finally he saw that the smoker was Asma.
Gordon Weeks was so pleased that he tried not to be disgusted by the cigarette.
She smiled sheepishly.
‘OK, I didn’t happen to mention that my little night-walking habit was connected to my little smoking habit. But I only have three a day. One in the morning, one at lunchtime if I can and one walking around the hesco at night. That’s not so bad, is it?’
He was thinking of a reply when she went on.
‘Look, most people would’ve smoked a whole fucking packet after what happened today. But this is only my third, I swear.’
He could not imagine feeling this way in the UK about a girl who smoked. In fact, he couldn’t think of any girl he knew who smoked.
‘Does Jean smoke too?’ Whenever he saw Asma in the cookhouse or around the camp, Jean was always there. He looked over his shoulder for her now.
‘No, she disapproves just like you do,’ said Asma.
‘Did I say I disapprove?’
She laughed then. How had he done it? He had made her laugh without trying at all. When he tried he was lucky to get a half-smile out of her.
‘Well, you do, don’t you?’
‘Er . . . er . . .’ And it gave him great pleasure to hear her laugh again.
‘I thought so,’ she said, drawing on her cigarette. ‘I’m trying to give up. But an FOB where everyone smokes may not be the right place. Although Jean says there’s never a right place to give up.’
‘You seem very good friends with Jean.’
‘Yup,’ she said, throwing down her cigarette stub and stamping on it fiercely. They were in the darkest part of the camp now and, although their eyes were accustomed to the night, they could barely see each other. But Weeks could sense her. He could sense the warmth of her body. As well as, regrettably, the smell of the extinguished cigarette.
‘Listen, it’s obvious you’re not keen on Jean. But you don’t know her.’
He was silent.
‘She takes her job seriously and she gets pissed off here. We both do. We’re used as interpreters at this FOB but we’re trained to do a lot more. Jean’s Royal Military Police. That’s what she joined up to do. She didn’t join up to interpret for engineers who want to talk about fucking wall-building.’
‘But,’ said Weeks, ‘without her interpretation the school wall would never get built.’
‘She thinks it’s a waste of her skills because a local Afghan interpreter could handle it. And you want to know something, Gordon? She’s right.’
‘What about you? Do you feel your skills are wasted?’
‘I could be doing a lot more at Bastion. Listening to intelligence, helping piece it altogether, getting something useful done.’
‘So why have you both been sent here?’ asked Weeks.
&n
bsp; ‘Because of the civilians. It’s part of the contract that top-level interpreters are on hand for them.’
‘Top level, eh?’
They had completed a circuit now and their faces picked up the light from some of the brighter tents and reflected it. She was ridiculously beautiful. He could not understand how she could stroll around the hesco without a line of panting men behind her. Except that she was so skilled at freezing people out. The only man he’d seen her respond to warmly was the tribesman at the shura, the one with the moviestar looks. When he thought of the way Asma had talked to that man he felt a stab of something which might have been anger. Although it was probably jealousy.
