War Torn

by McNab, Andy

  But Angus ignored them because he did not want to believe the Special Forces ever made mistakes.

  Mal was looking through the sights.

  ‘I’d give anything for a day with one of these in Wythenshawe. It would be just the job there.’

  ‘Who do you want to top in Wythenshawe, mate?’ Finn asked. But instead of answering, Mal passed the rifle to Angus, who was waiting with arms outstretched. He held it carefully, aiming at some faraway target beyond the hesco.

  ‘How long have you been in the Regiment?’

  ‘Five years. I was in the Tigers before that.’

  ‘Ever come across the names of blokes who used to be in the Jedi?’ asked Angus shyly, handing the rifle back.

  ‘Well, yeah. Mostly on the front of books. You only get in if you’ve got a degree in Creative Writing.’

  His mates laughed but Angus was serious.

  ‘Ever hear John McCall mentioned?’

  The man and his colleagues exchanged thoughtful looks. ‘McCall . . . McCall . . .’

  ‘That’s his dad,’ explained Mal. ‘His name’s Angus McCall.’

  ‘Well we’re probably not old enough to have known your dad,’ said the man. ‘And I can’t say I’ve heard the name.’

  Angus tried to hide his disappointment.

  ‘But I don’t know the names of everyone who’s ever been in the Regiment. Now you’d better fuck off while we get prepped up.’

  That evening, Angus sneaked back to the Cowshed. There was no sign of the men or their weapons. The paperbacks were lying on the floor along with the tin teapot. He had personally been on stag and had anyway kept an eye out for the men. They had just evaporated into thin air. He knew that, more than anything, he wanted to be one of them.

  Chapter Forty-five

  JAMIE RECORDED THE NEXT PART OF HIS FROG STORY FOR LUKE. By now almost everybody in 1 Section was providing sound effects or background music.

  ‘And so the little frog began his journey towards the deep, deep river. First he had to cross the Green Zone . . .’

  ‘Ribbit, ribbit,’ said Binns.

  ‘It was full of ditches and trees and fields growing fruit and flowers. The little frog wanted to stop and look at the flowers and maybe have a bite to eat but he knew he had to keep on hopping . . .’

  ‘Ribbit, ribbit.’

  Streaky and Finn provided a musical accompaniment.

  ‘And so the little frog hopped towards the place where he knew his mum and dad were waiting for him and would wait for ever if they had to. Just one more mountain to cross and he would be there.’

  ‘Splaaaat! That’s the sound of a 500-pound bomb falling out of an A10 on top of the fucking frog! You’re making me puke!’ roared Angus from his cot.

  ‘Aw c’mon, Mr Angry,’ said Streaky. ‘His babymother will play it to his little boy every night.’

  ‘I’m going to the cookhouse, I can’t stand it any more,’ said Angus.

  ‘I have to stop now anyway. I’ve got a call booked to Niez,’ said Jamie.

  ‘Is that the end?’ asked Binns.

  ‘There’s a bit more. I want to finish it before we go to Jackpot in case I get slotted there.’

  ‘We’ll finish it for you if you do,’ said Streaky.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Binns. ‘Just leave the mic and the rest of the story by your cot.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the same,’ said Jamie. ‘But thanks anyway.’

  He went out and hung around near the phones. He could no longer text Agnieszka: she had made him promise not to although she hadn’t explained exactly why.

  He dialled the number and it rang and rang. No reply. And he might not get another chance to phone before they left. Answer. Answer! He couldn’t explain, even to himself, why he needed her to be there. He just knew that, if she wasn’t, there was nothing.

  Then, just when he had given up, she picked up the phone.

  ‘Niez, where have you been? It’s been ringing and ringing!’

  She sounded distant.

  ‘Asleep.’

  ‘But it’s not night time in England!’

  ‘No, darling. I tired today.’

  ‘Why, Niez?’

  ‘Well, I just tired, I don’t know why. Raining weather. Luke has two fits this morning. So now he sleeps and I sleep.’

  ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Jamie felt desperate.

  ‘Talk to me, darling.’

  ‘What you want me to talk about?’

  Some of the men found that words failed them after a few months in Afghanistan when it was time to make a weekly call to their loved ones. They detached from their families and communicated less as they became immersed in this other world. But that wasn’t true for Jamie. The worse things became, the more Jamie needed Agnieszka. He had rung her twice since the minefield a week ago. He needed her and she knew that and she supplied him with loving words, small stories, sweet chatter. But today she seemed unable to do so.

  ‘Tell me what you did last night. Or today . . .’

  ‘Watched TV.’

  ‘Don’t you go out?’

  ‘Yes, I walk. I like to walk now if weather good in the evening. They cut grass and it smell good. Or I listen to birds. But today it rain so I was a prisoner.’

  ‘Niez, I’ll ask my mother to phone you and invite you . . .’

  ‘If she does not invite me herself I don’t go.’ Agnieszka’s voice conveyed a mixture of hurt, boredom and anger. ‘She does not ring me.’

  They both knew that Jamie’s mother was so saturated in disapproval – disapproval of Agnieszka, of Luke’s undiagnosed condition, of Jamie’s army rank – that she preferred not to pick up the phone.

  ‘Where do you walk?’ he asked her.

  ‘All around. Everywhere. I getting very fit, this is my aim in this summer weather, to get a little bit fit.’

  ‘You’re already fit, darling. I miss you so much. And I might not be able to phone for almost a week.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that. How’s Luke?’

  ‘He fits today. But sometimes I think he relax a bit more, cry a little less. He like me to pick him up more too.’

  Jamie had worried quietly to himself about the way Agnieszka took care of Luke’s physical needs so attentively but seemed to take no real pleasure in him. That was probably because he cried such a lot. While Jamie was happy to feel Luke’s sleepy little head tucked into his shoulder, Agnieszka never seemed to share his delight in the child’s love and helplessness.

  ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘That’s very good.’

  ‘Yeah, he give me a bit of a smile sometimes.’

  ‘Oh, Niez, that’s fantastic.’ He felt relieved and at the same time deprived. Luke was going to stop crying and start smiling and he wasn’t there to receive those smiles.

  ‘I’m recording a story for him. About a frog. The lads are doing background noises and I think he’ll enjoy it.’

  ‘Jamie, I don’t think Luke old enough for understand stories.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to understand it. Yet. He just has to hear my voice and know it’s his dad.’

  ‘Well, OK, we can try.’ She sounded unimpressed. But then she hadn’t heard the story yet.

  He sensed she wanted to get away, that she wished the call would end. She probably had nothing else to say and there was nothing he was allowed to tell her.

  ‘I miss you and love you,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, Jamie, me too. Luke too. We think of you, OK?’

  Was her voice fractionally more dismissive than usual? It was rising to indicate the end of the conversation. Maybe she had another hair appointment. He told her he loved her again and hung up.

  He was left feeling empty. He always felt empty when she had gone. But this was something more. It was instinct. The instinct told him his calls to her did not matter as much as they used to. They mattered less because he had now been away so long that the landscape was
re-forming without him. The thought was unbearable. He was losing importance. The contour map was changing.

  Dave was next for the phone. Jamie looked desolate as he handed it over. He always looked miserable when he’d finished talking to his wife but this was something more.

  ‘What’s up, mate?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Dave studied him closely.

  ‘Everything all right at home?’ He hoped that Agnieszka hadn’t told Jamie there was another man. He hoped there wasn’t another man. But if there was, Jamie didn’t need to know about it when he was here, far away, unable to do anything.

  ‘No, fine. Luke’s starting to smile.’

  ‘That’s good news, then.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah I know. I just wish I could see it.’

  ‘Not much longer,’ Dave said. ‘Couple more months then we’re home.’

  ‘How’s Jenny? Blood pressure OK now?’

  ‘I’m about to find out. But I’m sure she’ll have it under control.’

  Trish answered the phone.

  ‘Thank God you’ve rung at last,’ she said. ‘Jennifer’s just gone into hospital.’

  ‘Oh no.’

  ‘They’re monitoring her.’

  ‘Oh, Christ.’

  ‘It’s all right, Dave, it’s the best place for her. I could see by looking at her she wasn’t right and I was worried anything could happen at home here.’

  ‘What’s going to happen in hospital?’

  ‘She’s got pre-eclampsia. It’s very serious, for her and the baby. So if her blood pressure goes up much more, they’ll have to induce.’

  The silence was so long that Trish thought he hadn’t heard and she repeated the news, slowly and clearly as though speaking to someone who knew very little English.

  Dave was irritated. ‘It’s OK. I can hear you. If they induce will you be with her? During the birth? Because Adi Kasanita said that she’d—’

  ‘I’ll be there. Even though you know very well you should be the one, not me.’

  ‘Don’t start, Trish. Please.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t want to hear it and there’s never a right time to say it so I’m going to get it off my chest now, Dave.’

  She took a deep breath. The satellite phone clicked into the crystal clarity it only attained very occasionally and never when you wanted it to. Dave braced himself.

  ‘There comes a time in everyone’s life when their family must come first. You’ve got a daughter and you’ll soon have another child and you’ve got to start treating them right. They’re more important than the British Army, for heaven’s sake. You’re out there fighting some stupid war for people who’re nothing to do with us for no reason anyone can understand. When you should be home with Jennifer. She needs you and you’re not here.’

  She drew breath and he braced himself for her next blast wave. It was like seeing a bomb fall and waiting for it to go off. ‘She’s the most loyal wife you could find, Dave, but she’s sick of it. I expect she’s been too nice to tell you that.’

  No, thought Dave, she’s told me. She’s even put it in writing.

  ‘I know there are women around here who can’t take it. Watching the news, hearing about another death. Wondering if it’s their man. There’s a lad from across the road lost his leg, you know. And another just lost his arm, that’s what people are saying.’

  ‘I do know.’

  ‘Well it’s too much for some girls always waiting for that sort of news. They look around them and then they find other fellas who know how to treat them. And Jennifer’s a good-looking girl, Dave.’ Trish’s voice was thick with dire warning.

  ‘That’s one thing Jen wouldn’t do,’ said Dave confidently. ‘Like you said, she’s a loyal wife.’

  ‘I’m not saying she wants to. I’m not saying she doesn’t love you. I’m saying you’re driving her to it. Now think about that, Dave. Just think about it.’

  ‘OK, Trish, I will think about it. But the fact is that the skills I’ve picked up in the army don’t translate well to the outside world. I mean, they aren’t valued. I don’t know what I could do out there.’

  ‘I should have thought you could do security work. There’s so much crime now that security guards are getting more and more important.’

  Dave tried to imagine himself on night duty at a building site, sitting in a wooden box with an electric heater and a TV, plodding around the site at regular intervals. He tried to imagine himself doing any of the things mates who’d come out had done: one was a chimney sweep, one had spent years trying to get a job and now did youth work, one had become a bus driver. He shook his head involuntarily.

  ‘Can I phone Jen at the hospital?’

  ‘You can try. She’s not allowed a mobile but you can try her ward. I doubt you’ll have much luck.’

  Trish gave him the number and he talked to Vicky for a few minutes and then tried the hospital. But he was cut off when his call was transferred to the ward. He tried again and this time he was put through but no one answered. He tried once more but the phone rang on the ward and then went dead. The midwives were probably all dealing with emergencies, he thought. He just hoped Jenny wasn’t one of them.

  Chapter Forty-six

  IN THE AFTERNOON 1 PLATOON WAS SENT OUT ON A ROUTINE patrol. Nobody knew why the boss suddenly ordered the Vectors to slow down as they approached three bearded Afghans in dusty clothes at the roadside. He ordered a door to be opened and, without the convoy even stopping, the three men jumped in and the wagons continued.

  Asma was at the front of the second vehicle with the boss, listening to the radio.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ she asked him.

  He shrugged but did not explain. Although she would have to know, sooner or later.

  ‘Those weren’t the SAS guys?’

  He sighed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I must say they looked bloody authentic.’

  ‘Not a sniper rifle in sight.’

  ‘I wonder what they were doing out here all night and all day?’

  ‘Waiting for a big event to start.’

  ‘A big event? It’s not a holy day.’

  ‘A family event.’

  ‘Did they top someone at a family gathering? That’s brave.’

  The boss said nothing and the convoy rumbled on. He thought he had escaped. But in a few minutes she turned to him again.

  ‘What kind of family gathering?’ she asked suspiciously.

  He looked at her but did not reply.

  ‘A wedding?’

  He nodded. Asma’s face began to redden. But when she spoke her voice was icy.

  ‘Please, Gordon. Tell me it wasn’t the wedding we were invited to.’

  He looked embarrassed.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t invited. You were.’

  Asma was silent. He waited for the explosion.

  ‘You’re Intelligence Corps. I assumed you knew who the target was,’ he said.

  ‘The SAS don’t tell every low-down ant in Intelligence what they’re doing.’

  She had been staring listlessly at the road ahead but now she turned to look directly at Weeks again.

  ‘So who was the target?’

  He braced himself. It was better to get it over with. ‘Asad.’

  ‘No!’ It was more of a cry than a protest.

  ‘Asma, I know you won’t want to believe this. But Asad was a very high-up Taliban commander. If today’s op went according to plan, the snipers have just killed him.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I know how much you liked him.’

  Weeks had received the news about the operation yesterday and his first thought had been for Asma. The tribesman stood for something that mattered a lot to her. If Asad was a rival, Weeks took no pleasure in the knowledge that his rival would be wiped out.

  Her face was all strong bones and big brown eyes now.

  ‘Liking him didn’t come into it!’ she said, her face showing this was untrue. Liking had cert
ainly come into it. ‘I trusted him!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Weeks. ‘You made a mistake. He was a Taliban commander. But so high up he was rarely called upon to fight.’