by Andy McNab
Everybody had a job to do; mine was simply to get out of the way. I left Sarah sitting in the back of our Previa sorting out her laptop, and moved to the front of the Chinook. I knew where the flasks and food would be stowed and, if nothing else, I could be the tea lady.
As I moved to the front of the aircraft I met the loadie on his way back with the trauma pack, a black nylon bag the size of a small suitcase. I stepped to one side and watched him open the bag as he ran, bouncing off the front wagon and airframe as he momentarily lost his balance.
At that moment Sarah jumped out between us with the laptop and power lead in her hands. She was shouting at him, ‘Power! I need power!’
He went to push her aside, yelling, ‘Get out of the fucking way!’
‘No!’ She shook her head angrily and put her hand on him. ‘Power!’
He shouted something back at her; I didn’t know what because he was now facing away from me, pointing towards the front of the aircraft.
She moved quickly past me towards the cockpit, so bound up with her own obsession that she didn’t even see me. I continued on, heading for the bulkhead behind the cockpit. I picked up one of the aluminium flasks, which was held in place by elastic cargo netting, and started to untwist the cup. Coffee not tea, and it had never smelled so good.
As I turned and started to walk down towards the rear Previa, flask in hand, I could hear them, even above the noise of the heli, shouting with frustration. Two drips were being held up and a circle of sweaty, dusty and bloodstained faces was working on him. As I got closer I could see they were rigging him up in shock trousers. They’re like thick ski salopettes, which come up past your hips and are pumped up to apply pressure to the lower limbs, stemming blood loss by restricting the supply and so keeping more blood to rev up the major organs. It was a delicate procedure, because too much pressure could kill him.
Reg 2 looked as if he was on the case big time. He was holding Glen’s jaw open, breathing into his mouth with the safety pin still in place. I was close enough to see his chest rise. Someone had his hand over the chest wound, ready to depressurize. Once Reg 2 had finished inflating his lungs a few times he shouted, ‘Go!’ Another was astride him, both arms outstretched and open hands on top of each other on his chest. ‘One, two, three . . .’
There was obviously no pulse and Glen wasn’t breathing. He was technically dead. They were filling him up with oxygen by breathing into his mouth, then pumping his heart for him, whilst simultaneously trying to make sure that no more of his fluid escaped from any of the holes he had in him. Glen’s chest was just a mess of blood-matted hair.
The team were going to be too busy to drink coffee, so with nothing useful to do I pulled up my left sleeve and peeled back the tubigrip. Ripping off the surgical tape holding the catheter in place, I carefully pulled it out, pressing down on the puncture wound with a finger until it clotted.
I looked around for Sarah. She was in a world of her own, sitting near where the coffee flasks were stowed. She’d found the power point and an adaptor that fed a two-pin plug, and her fingers were tapping frantically at the keyboard once more.
I looked back at Glen. There was still lots of shouting and hollering going on in there; I just hoped that whatever was on that computer was worth it.
I looked out of one of the small round windows and saw lights on the coastline. We had a bowser inside the Chinook, feeding extra fuel. It looked like this was a direct flight and that we were on for tea and toast in Cyprus later that morning. I took a sip of coffee.
As we crossed the coast and headed out to sea, I stared out of the window, my mind starting to focus on the deep sound of the two big rotors throbbing above us. I was cut out of the daze by a despairing shout: ‘Fuck it! Fuck it!’
I looked up in time to see the bloke who’d been astride Glen’s chest climbing down slowly onto the deck, his body language telling me everything I needed to know. He swung his boot and kicked the vehicle hard, denting the door.
I turned my head and stared back out of the window. We were flying low and fast across the water. There wasn’t a light to be seen. My ear was hurting. I reached into my pocket and checked around for the lobe. I sat there toying with it, thinking how strange it was, just a small lump of gristle. Hopefully they’d stitch it on all right – but what did it matter how bad I looked? I was alive.
I stood up and went over to Sarah. It was my job to look after her, and that included keeping her informed of what was going on. She was still immersed in her laptop.
I said, ‘Sarah, he’s dead.’
She carried on tapping keys. She didn’t even look up to see me offering her a flasktop of coffee.
I kicked her feet. ‘Sarah . . . Glen is dead.’ She finally turned her eyes and said, ‘Oh, OK,’ then looked straight back down and carried on with her work.
I looked at her hands. Glen’s blood had now dried hard on them and she didn’t give a shit. If it hadn’t been for her fucking about and not telling us that the job wasn’t as straightforward as we were first told, maybe he’d still be here, a big fucking grin on his face. Maybe Reg 2 was right, maybe she had been trying to kill Glen at the FRV. She knew that I would have binned the patrol and gone with her if he wasn’t still in with a chance.
The team were sitting against the wagon, opening flasks and lighting up, leaving Glen exactly as he was. We’d all been doing what we got paid to do. Shit happens. This wasn’t going to change their lives, and I certainly wasn’t going to let it change mine.
As Sarah carried on hitting her computer keys I drank coffee and watched the line of the Cyprus coast appear, trying to work out what the fuck I was doing here.
APRIL 1998
1
Friday 24 April 1998
‘Three gallons a day, that’s your lot,’ the bosun barked. ‘But two gallons have to go to the cook, so there’s one gallon – I’ll tell ye again, just one gallon – left over for drinking, washing and anything else ye need it for. Anyone caught taking more will be flogged. So will gamblers, cheats and malingerers. We don’t like malingerers in Her Majesty’s Navy!’
We were lined up on either side of the deck, listening to the bosun gobbing off about our water ration. I was trying not to catch Josh’s eye; I knew I’d burst into a fit of laughter which Kelly wouldn’t find amusing.
There were about twenty of us ‘new crew’, mostly kids, all dressed in the standard-issue sixteenth-century sailors’ kit: a hessian jerkin and shirt, with trousers that stopped about a foot short of the trainers we’d been instructed to bring with us. We were aboard the Golden Hind, a full-sized reconstruction of the ship in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 1580. This version, too, had sailed round the world, and film companies had used it as a location so often it had had more makeovers than Joan Collins. And now it was in permanent dock serving, as Kelly called it in her very American way, as an ‘edutainment’ attraction. She was standing to my right, very excited about her birthday treat, even if it was a few days late. She was now nine, going on twenty-four.
‘See, I told you this would be good!’ I beamed.
She didn’t reply, but kept her eyes fixed on the bosun. He was dressed the same as us, but was allowed to wear a hat – on account of all the extra responsibility, I supposed.
‘Ye slimey lot have been hand-picked for a voyage with Sir Francis Drake, aboard this, the finest ship in the fleet, the Golden Hind!’ His eyes fixed on those of each child as he passed them on the other line. He reminded me of my very first drill sergeant when I was a boy soldier.
I looked over at Josh and his gang, who were on the receiving end of his tirade. Joshua G. D’Souza was thirty-eightish, five feet six inches, and, thanks to being into weights, about fourteen stones of muscle. Even his head looked like a bicep; he was 99 per cent bald, and a razor blade and moisturiser had taken care of the other 1 per cent. His round, gold-rimmed glasses made him look somehow more menacing than intellectual.
Josh was half-black, half-Pu
erto Rican, though he’d been born in Dakota. I couldn’t really work that one out, but nor could I be bothered to ask. Joining up as a teenager, he’d done a few years in the 82nd Airborne and then Special Forces. In his late twenties he’d joined the US Treasury Department as a member of their Secret Service, in time working on the vice-presidential protection team in Washington. He lived near Kelly’s dad’s place, and he and Kev had met, not through work, but because their kids had gone to the same school.
Josh had his three standing next to him, working hard at understanding the bosun’s accent. They were on their last leg of a whistlestop tour of Europe during their Easter vacation. Kelly and I had collected them off the Paris Eurostar just the day before; they were going to spend a few days seeing the sights with us before heading back to DC, and Kelly was really hyper. I was pleased about that; it was the first time she’d seen them since ‘what happened’ – as we called it – over a year ago. All things considered, she was pretty well at the moment and getting on with her life.
The bosun had turned back and was moving up our line. ‘Ye will be learning gun drills, ye will be learning how to set sail and repel boarders. But best of all, ye’ll be hunting for treasure and singing sailors’ shanties!’ The crew was encouraged to respond with their best sailor-type cries.
All of a sudden, competition for the loudest noise came from the siren of a tourist boat passing on the river, and the bark of its tannoy, as the first sailing of the day ‘did’ London Bridge.
I glanced down at Kelly. She was quivering with excitement. I was enjoying myself, too, but I felt just a bit weird standing there in fancy dress in full public view, aboard a ship docked on the south side of London Bridge. At this time of the morning, there were still office workers walking along the narrow cobblestoned road that paralleled the Thames, dodging the delivery vans and taxis on their way to work. The trains that had got them this far were slowly trundling along the elevated tracks about 200 metres away, making their way towards the river.
The pub next to the ship, the Olde Thameside Inn, was one of those places that supposedly dates from Shakespeare’s day but which, in fact, was built maybe ten years earlier on one of the converted wharves that line the river. The office crowd, plastic cups and cigarettes in hand, were making the most of the morning sun on the terrace overlooking the water, having picked up their late breakfast from the coffee shop.
I was hauled back to the sixteenth century. The bosun had stopped and was glaring theatrically at Kelly. ‘Are you a malingerer?’
‘No sir, no sir!’ She pushed herself into my side a bit more for protection. She was still a bit anxious about strangers, especially adult men.
The bosun grinned. ‘Well, seeing as you’re a special crew, and I know you’re going to work hard, I’m going to let you have your rations. You’ll be getting some special sailors’ nuggets and Coke.’ He spun round, his hands in the air. ‘What do you say?’
The kids went bonkers: ‘Aye aye, sir!’
‘That’s not good enough!’ he bellowed. ‘What do you say?’
‘AYE AYE, SIR!’
The kids were shepherded by the bosun and the rest of the permanent crew towards the tables of food. ‘Small sailors first,’ he ordered. ‘The tall sailors who brought you here can wait their turn.’
Kelly ran over to Josh’s three – two girls, Dakota and Kimberly, aged eleven and nine, and a boy, Tyce, who was eight. Their skin was lighter than Josh’s – their mother was white – but they looked just like their dad, except they still had all their hair. Which was a good thing, I thought.
Josh and I turned and looked out over the deck towards the Thames. Josh waved back at some tourists who were waving from the boat, either at us or at the coffee morning still going strong to our left.
‘How is she coping?’ he asked.
‘Getting better, mate, but the shrink says it’ll take time. It’s affected her schooling big time, she’s way behind. The last lot of grades were shit. She’s an intelligent girl, but she’s like a big bucket with holes, all the information’s going in, but it just drips out again.’
‘You think about what she’s been through, man, for sure it’s going to take some time.’
We turned to see all four of the kids throwing chicken nuggets down their necks. It was a strange choice for breakfast, but then again, I liked choc ice and chips first thing in the morning when I was a kid. The elder daughter wasn’t getting on with Tyce today and Josh had to do a dad thing. ‘Hey, Kimberly, chill! Let Tyce have his Coke – now!’
Kimberly didn’t look too happy but obeyed. Josh turned back towards the river, took off his gold-rimmed glasses and gave them a wipe. ‘She looks happy enough, that’s a good sign.’
‘It’s the best she’s been for ages. She’s slightly nervous around adults, but with her friends she’s OK. It means so much for her to see your lot. Besides, it gives her a rest from me.’ I couldn’t bring myself to say that I found it wonderful to see him as well. I hoped he knew anyway.
We both looked out over the river with not a lot to say. He broke the silence. ‘How’s the job? Are you on permanent cadre yet?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think it will ever happen. They know I was involved in a lot more of the Washington stuff than I let on.’ It pissed me off, because I needed a regular income these days. I had the money I’d rescued from last year’s gang-fuck, but that wouldn’t last for ever. I grinned. ‘Maybe I could turn to crime. Couldn’t be worse than the shit I do now.’
He frowned, not sure if I was being serious or not, and tilted his head in the direction of the huddle of small sailors, as if to remind me of my responsibilities. He put his specs back on and focused on a black guy in an old, shiny blue tracksuit who had set up shop at the corner of the pub, selling the Big Issue and chatting up the women walking past.
‘It’s OK for you,’ I said. ‘We don’t have a training wing where I can go and put my feet up and still get paid.’ I thought Josh was going to give me a lecture, so I put my hands up. ‘OK, I surrender. I will sort my shit out – one day.’
In a way, I had sorted myself – a bit. With the money I’d diverted from the Washington job, £300,000 once the dollars were converted, I’d bought myself a house up on the Norfolk coast in the middle of nowhere. The village had a Co-op on the corner and that was about it; a traffic jam was when the three fishing boats came into the harbour and their vans arrived at the same time to take the catch away. Otherwise, the busiest it got was when the postman rang his bell as he was going round the corner. I didn’t know anyone; they didn’t know me. If anything, they all had me down as an international drug dealer or some weirdo. I kept myself to myself, and that suited everybody just fine.
I’d bought a motorbike, too. At last I had the Ducati I’d always promised myself, and I even had a garage to put it in. But what was left – about £150,000 – wasn’t enough to retire on, so I still had to work – and I only knew one trade. Maybe that was why Josh and I got on; he was much the same as me, running his life like a conjurer, trying to keep all the plates spinning on top of their poles. His plates weren’t spinning so well at the moment. Now that Geri had gone, one income wasn’t enough, and he’d had to put the house up for sale.
Josh had had a fucker of a year. First his wife had got into yoga and all that mind-body-spirit stuff, then she’d ended up going to Canada to hug trees – or, more precisely, to hug the yoga teacher. Josh and the kids were shattered. Something had to give. He could no longer travel away from home with the vice-presidential crew, so he became one of the training team out in Laurel, Maryland. It was a very grand-sounding outfit – Special Operations Training Section – but a shit job for a man who was used to being in the thick of things. Then, two months after his wife left him, his friends Kev, Marsha and their other child, Aida, were hosed down, and he found he was an executor of the will – along with some dickhead Brit he’d never heard of called Nick Stone.
Between us we looked after Kelly’s trust f
und, and we’d been having some problems selling the family home. When it came down to it, who was going to buy a house where a whole family had been butchered? The property company was trying to pull a sleazy deal so it could get the land back. The insurance companies had been trying to give Kelly a lump sum instead of making regular payments, because it was cheaper for them. The only people getting any money were the lawyers. There was something about it all that reminded me of my divorce.
I turned to him. ‘It is good to see you, mate.’
He looked back and smiled. ‘Same here, mate.’ His piss-taking accent sounded more Australian than English. Maybe they got Neighbours in his part of Virginia, too.
There was really nothing more to be said. I liked Josh and we had a fuck of a lot in common, but it wasn’t as if we were going to be sharing toothbrushes or anything like that. I’d decided after Euan turned me over to bin any idea of friendship with anyone else ever again, and to restrict myself to acquaintances – but this did feel different.
‘Talking of shit,’ I said, ‘how’s the quilt shaping up? The kids sounded really ecstatic about it last night.’
His eyes looked up at the sky. ‘Fuck, man, it’s been a nightmare. Two months of hoo-ha and the kids getting so high they might as well be on drugs.’
I had to laugh. I’d been following the build-up to this from Josh over the phone, but no-one was going to stop him honking about it a bit more now. ‘I’ve been to meetings, meetings about meetings, sewing classes, discussion groups, you name it; that’s been my life for the last two fucking months.’
There was going to be a summit between the Israelis and Palestinians in Washington DC. Clinton was out to look the big-time statesman, brokering the peace deal, and somebody had come up with the bright idea of making the world’s biggest peace quilt to commemorate the occasion. Kids from all over had been sewing like crazy in preparation for the world’s biggest photo opportunity on the White House lawn.
