War Torn

by McNab, Andy

  She stood up, smiling. ‘Oh, fuck off, Gordon Weeks!’ she said cheerfully. But she was blushing. He studied the way her skin darkened, from the neck upwards. It was lovely.

  ‘See you later. I have to get over to the ops room now or Jean’ll kill me.’

  He watched her go, carrying her mug of tea carelessly. He wished he could show her his world. The big old farmhouse, the horses in their rugs running their muzzles across frosty winter grassland, the log fire, the warm kitchen, the draughty bedrooms, that place on the dining-room wall where his parents had marked the heights of their growing children. He tried to imagine Asma there, but it was impossible. Not because she came from Hackney but because she seemed to belong to the swelling heat of the Afghan desert.

  The soldiers saw little of the new personnel at the base but the OC, who now shared his ops room with at least fifteen people, was more visible. He frequently stood outside the ops-room door, looking hot and miserable.

  Asma and Jean spent all day in there listening to radios with more senior Intelligence officers. If they slipped out to have a meal with Kila or Weeks they were invariably called back. Cooks ran in and out with loaded trays. The 2 i/c appeared only when dashing to the cookhouse to replenish his supply of teabags.

  ‘They eat a lot of scoff and drink a lot of brews,’ said Finn. ‘But what are they doing about Martyn? For fuck’s sake, why aren’t we out there tearing into every Terry Taliban in Helmand?’

  After four days Dave herded 1 Platoon into the Cowshed and the boss told them there was to be a clearance operation on the tribesmen’s house where the shuras had been held. According to intelligence, Martyn had actually been kept there for twenty-four hours. He had been moved on now but their job was to round up for questioning any insurgents who remained and to look for signs of Martyn’s occupation.

  ‘What’s the point in finding signs of Martyn after he’s gone?’ asked Mal.

  The boss shrugged.

  ‘It’s too much to hope that there will be signs of where he’s gone. Probably the object is to feed the international press corps with something to keep Martyn at the top of the news agenda.’

  As their convoy rolled into town every man quietly hoped that Martyn would be found at the compound. He had been Topaz fucking Zero, before: mostly irritating, sometimes entertaining and finally liked. Now, in his absence and with his new status as helpless victim, he was loved.

  They found the streets deserted. The bazaar was without buyers or sellers. The new school wall was in place but behind it the classrooms were empty.

  ‘Bad sign,’ said Dave to the driver. And within five minutes the convoy was met by machine-gun fire. Rounds ricocheted around the narrow streets, bouncing off the mud walls until the soldiers were forced to dismount, take cover and find firing positions.

  Sol was trying Bacon as GPMG man for this patrol and Binns was feeding the ammo and looking for targets. The pair of them were excited and nervous to use the gimpy out on an operation for the first time.

  ‘Just ask me if you need help,’ said Jamie, who had given up the gimpy to them reluctantly.

  ‘Cheeky bastard dude down there!’ said Binman, pointing to a figure taking stock of their position from a far doorway.

  ‘I see him!’ said Streaky. He trained the sights on the space the figure had just vacated. When the insurgent stepped out again, weapon raised, he was instantly felled by a hail of fire.

  ‘Cool, Streaky, that was cool!’ Binns found himself laughing. He didn’t think it was funny but he was laughing all the same. Bacon giggled too. They became so hysterical they were barely able to fire.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, you two,’ said Angus. And then his voice cracked and he gave a rumble of laughter. He continued to laugh as he fired.

  ‘What’s so funny, Streaks?’ giggled Binns.

  ‘Binman, I just don’t know!’

  But they could not stop.

  ‘Pull yourselves together and get on with the job,’ Sol told them harshly. ‘Or I’ll hand the gimpy back to Jamie.’ Men were always laughing as they fired. It looked like a kind of mania and Sol hated it.

  The platoons were splitting into sections now to get through the maze of narrow streets and approach the compound from the positions they had agreed. The town was a labyrinth of alleyways and high mud walls.

  ‘Stay together, 1 Section,’ Sol warned as they struck off into a side street. ‘This place is a rabbit warren.’

  Over PRR Dave said: ‘Fix bayonets.’

  All members of his platoon, wherever they were, did so. You could do this mechanically, without emotion, like Angus. Or you could do it, like Jack Binns, with apprehension, knowing that this was a close-quarters measure and that it might mean you’d find yourself within arm’s length of the Taliban.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mal said. ‘No one ever really uses their bayonet, not in the last hundred years. It’s just to make you feel better.’

  ‘You’re all right,’ said Binman. ‘You’ve got the shotgun.’

  ‘Have you, Mal? Sure you didn’t put it down somewhere?’ voices shouted.

  ‘Get moving and stay alert,’ Boss Weeks told them sharply as he followed them down the alley.

  The soldiers felt vulnerable making their way through the twists and turns. Rooftops and windows gave the enemy any number of good firing positions and shots could be heard from all over the town. They advanced cautiously, Sol leading.

  When Finn, near the back, saw movement on a roof he stopped suddenly. Behind him Boss Weeks froze and behind him the signaller.

  ‘Don’t fire,’ the boss instructed.

  Finn who had been prepared to lay down a few rounds to warn anyone armed up there that he was ready for them, grudgingly put the safety back on the minimi. They waited. Ahead of them, the rest of the patrol waited too. No one liked standing still here. The men looked around them constantly, like birds. Finn’s attention was fixed on the roof. Slowly, a head edged out. And then another. Dark-haired, brown-skinned, big-eyed, it was two small boys, eager to see the soldiers pass.

  ‘Shit,’ said Finn. Jamie took a bag of sweets out of one of his pouches and threw it up to them. The boys caught the bag delightedly. But instead of eating the sweets they began to use them to bombard the men below.

  Jamie laughed but Finn was angry. He shouted: ‘Little bastards!’

  ‘We know what they want to be when they grow up,’ said the boss. Finn caught one of the sweets and stuck it defiantly in his mouth as the section moved on.

  There was firing nearby and the boss heard on the radio that this was 2 Section, who were accompanied by Dave. One insurgent had been killed. Two more had fled.

  Sol rounded a corner and almost walked into a man running towards him, looking over his shoulder. In a split second Sol took in his presence and the weapon he was carrying, a Kalashnikov PKM.

  Sol knew, without actually having time to think it, that he had to be quicker than this man or his deadly weapon could slaughter the entire section. He did not give himself the luxury of hesitation. He darted forward. The insurgent turned to find himself eyeball to eyeball with Sol’s wide, dark face. Sol had time to watch the man’s features scatter into a mixture of surprise and horror before plunging the bayonet into his chest. The insurgent staggered and Sol pulled out the bayonet.

  ‘I’ve got him,’ said a voice from behind. ‘Get down, Sol.’

  Blood spurting from his chest, the man was still attempting to raise his weapon. Sol dropped onto the dusty ground and Mal fired the shotgun. The man fell.

  The rest of the section rounded the corner and halted when they saw the corpse. Blood was blossoming in widening circles all over his torso. His eyes were open but clouding rapidly.

  Sol stared at him and at the man’s blood on his bayonet. 1 Section crowded around him.

  Binns turned a shocked face to Mal. ‘I thought you said no one had done that for a hundred years!’

  Streaky asked: ‘Was it hard to get it in him, Sol?’

&
nbsp; ‘It was much easier than you’d think. And I’ve always worried a bit about getting it out but it extracts really easy, too.’

  Another man, carrying an AK47, emerged through a doorway down the alley. Seeing them, he turned to run.

  Mal raised the shotgun again. Its report echoed around and around the high walled alley. Everyone waited for the man to fall. He took his few last paces running from life to death. He turned into a ghost as he moved: his momentum remained forward as his body crumpled.

  The boss was describing the dead men over the radio to Dave, who confirmed they were the pair who had escaped from 2 Section. ‘At last the fucking shotgun’s come in useful!’ said Mal happily.

  The boss was watching Sol.

  ‘All right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, course,’ said Sol, wiping the insurgent’s blood off the bayonet by scraping it across the man’s body. He turned to Angus, the sharp shooter for the section.

  ‘Don’t s’pose you’ve got the pistol?’ he asked hopefully. Dave had told Angry to bring his SA80 and not his sniper rifle today, which usually meant that he had left the pistol behind as well.

  ‘Yeah, I did stick it in,’ said Angus. Sol’s face lit up. The boss smiled.

  ‘Well done, mate,’ said Mal. ‘That’ll save Sol getting his bayonet dirty again.’

  Angus handed over the pistol. But Sol’s bayonet remained fixed. Then he led them on, past the two bodies, through the tiny, winding streets. When they arrived at the compound where Asad’s family had lived, everyone recognized it. But the only welcome today was the chatter of AK47s.

  Chapter Sixty-one

  2 PLATOON WAS ALREADY IN CONTACT. THE ENEMY WAS NOT EXPECTING attack on another flank: a few were lying along the top of walls. When they realized that there were soldiers on both sides they evaporated, but not before Binns had killed one of them with his rifle.

  ‘Shit, oh, shit,’ said Binns when he saw the body of a Taliban fighter roll off a wall and fall to the street. ‘Shit, was that me?’

  Jamie looked at him hard because Binns had been involved in numerous fire fights over the last few months.

  ‘So have you been missing them until now, Binman?’

  Binns coloured.

  ‘I never was sure before that it was me.’

  ‘Go!’ roared the boss behind them, aware that they had a good opportunity to advance if the enemy was reorganizing.

  Covered by 2 Section, 1 Section ran forward to the shelter of an adjoining wall while engineers laid a bar-mine.

  ‘You’ve been inside, boss, you know the layout here,’ said Finn while they waited.

  ‘I know the layout of the rooms nearest the door,’ agreed Boss Weeks. ‘I’m not sure how helpful that is.’

  As rapid fire continued on the other side of the compound, the engineers retreated and a small hole appeared in the massive walls.

  ‘We’re attacking at state red,’ the boss reminded them.

  Sol took a grenade from his pouch and threw it into the room and Mal pulled him back by his webbing. There was a pause followed by a roar, then smoke, dust and shrapnel. Mal scrambled in behind it with the shotgun. There was no sign of anyone in the room, alive or dead. He put down thirteen rounds and then sank onto one knee and let Jamie, immediately behind, fire over him.

  The others piled in through the hole and, behind them, the boss and then 2 Section. They spread out, moving from room to room, double tapping into every corner. They were outflanking the enemy now, who were still fighting 2 Platoon across the compound. The Taliban, recognizing their poor position, threw down machine-gun fire in no particular direction before melting into the walls.

  Jack Binns found himself at a doorway and approached it gingerly. How did you know what would be waiting in there for you? A bunch of grandmas having a cup of tea, deaf to the fighting like so many Afghan civilians? Or a wild fundamentalist with a grenade? Each called for a completely different response.

  He burst in through the door, twisting to see all around it at once, wanting to fire but not daring to, at least not until he knew for sure about the grandmas.

  The room was empty, to his relief. Suddenly a man jumped through a doorway on the other side. He was carrying a machine gun and behind him were more dark figures.

  Jack Binns looked into the thin, bearded face of a Taliban fighter. He stared into the man’s startled eyes. He wanted to run away. All his instincts, every reflex, told him to remove himself from this danger. If he had still been standing, hesitating, at the doorway, then he would have done exactly that, but he was so far inside the room he’d be shot from behind if he ran. In a fraction of a second he knew he had to kill this man and kill him instantly, or he would die.

  It seemed to Binns that minutes passed between the appearance of the insurgent and the sound of his own weapon firing. And in that time he did not remove his eyes from those of his opponent. The communication was so intense that he felt he had been talking to his opponent instead of killing him. He watched as blood emerged across the front of the man’s clothes.

  He continued to fire: when the first man fell he left the second without cover. He looked into another set of brown eyes and, as he watched their owner stagger, a cool, rational compartment in his mind told him that a stoppage in his rifle would mean the end of his life now.

  He fired more as that same rational part of his mind warned him that the two men behind were not only ready for him but ready together. Fuck! He couldn’t shoot them both at once!

  Binns told himself calmly that he was about to die but he might as well keep firing. To his astonishment, both men fell at the same moment. One shouted something. It sounded like: ‘Oh, Mum, I’m sorry!’ Binns assumed it was some Pashtu phrase that sounded like English.

  A voice in his ear said: ‘Good, Binman, very good.’

  It was Finn.

  Jack Binns wanted to ask Finn how long he had been there but he couldn’t speak.

  ‘You got three out of four!’

  Finn threw a few more rounds into the bodies to make sure they were dead and then stepped over them. ‘You needed me for the fourth, though. Glad I got the English bastard.’

  Binns felt sweat drip down his face and neck and run in rivers along his backbone. The last body lay across the doorway. He knew that he could not touch it or step over it. Finn pushed it aside with his foot.

  ‘Did you catch the Brummie accent? I’m glad I killed him, the fucking heap of traitor shit.’

  Binns was starting to shake now. He stared at the bodies scattered across the floor, the faces of the men who only minutes earlier had been alive with all their thoughts, feelings, complexities and inner secrets. He had taken that away from them now, there was nothing left.

  ‘Get yourself together, Binman,’ Finn said sharply. ‘Come on. So you’ve killed a few blokes, we’ve got a lot more to do here.’

  Binns didn’t move.

  Someone came in behind him. Binns jumped nervously and turned to fire again.

  ‘Hey, don’t shoot me!’ Sol was surveying the bodies. ‘You’ve done some good work, Binman.’

  Jack Binns wanted to say: I couldn’t run away or I’d have been killed; that’s the only reason I did it. But he remained silent.

  ‘This fucker’s English,’ Finn told Sol. ‘Can you believe it? I mean, I could have been at school with him.’

  ‘Thought you didn’t spend a lot of time at school, Finny.’

  Sol bent down and searched the bag that had been slung across the man’s shoulder. He pulled out a mobile phone, a Pakistani passport and a British passport.

  ‘Someone’s going to be very interested in that,’ Finn said.

  But Sol was already moving on.

  ‘Let’s go. They’re bringing in more men.’

  ‘Think my mate Martyn’s still here?’ asked Finn hopefully.

  ‘We won’t know if we don’t look.’

  Sol pushed Binns roughly ahead of him.

  ‘Stay focused,’ he ordered. ‘Stay on
the job.’

  Binns stumbled forward wordlessly.

  On the other side of the compound, the firing eased and stopped.

  They haven’t gone, thought Mal. They’re drawing breath.

  ‘There are still Taliban inside this compound somewhere,’ said the boss. ‘Unless there are tunnels.’

  To Mal the place suddenly seemed immense and complicated, full of corners and staircases and dark places like somewhere in a dream. At home he played computer games but this was not like those games. This was full of the sights and smells of recent occupation. A warm teapot. A cushion with an indentation where someone had been sitting. Empty cartridges. A pair of sandals by a doorway, neatly arranged.