by Andy McNab
Friday, 27 January
11.21 hrs
Ken Marabula had been my first sergeant in Malaysia. His favourite gag was to warn us young troopers not to turn our backs on him at mealtimes. He told us that in Fiji in his grandfather’s day they’d often marinate a guest or two in coconut milk and add them to the menu. ‘Nothing personal, man. They just loved the taste of Long Pig.’ He’d lick his lips like Hannibal Lecter and give us the kind of leering grin that made us sleep with one eye open.
In his quieter moments he used to admit that cannibalism is not actually as popular, these days, as it once was, particularly in the UK. I found that quite reassuring, especially when we got pissed together on a big night out, but I still kept my distance from the earth oven. They’d dig a big hole in the back garden, then cook chicken and fish and stuff on a bed of charcoal embers covered with leaves.
Ken and his fellow islanders followed in the footsteps of local legends, like Laba and Tak, the boys who’d held off at least two hundred and fifty Communist insurgents at Mirbat in ’seventy-two with a twenty-five pounder, an assault rifle and – because Tak had been shot in the shoulder – only three arms between them.
Laba had taken a round in the jaw early on, then one in the throat after fuck knows how many hours, which left Tak holding the fort. Neither of them got VCs because the Head Shed didn’t want to go public on the Regiment being there, but Laba was still the only member of the Special Air Service to have had a statue dedicated to his memory.
Ken had enlisted in Nandi with a few of his mates and got the first plane to Heathrow. He’d kicked off his basic comms training near Salisbury, fallen for a local girl and still called it home forty-odd years later.
He had been to some places and done some things in the meantime, first with the Regiment and then on the Circuit. The Iranian Embassy balcony in 1980 was the most crowded piece of real-estate on earth, if you believed even half the people who claimed to have been on the team. Ken really had gone in through the front window, though he would never boast about it. He never boasted about anything else either, which was one of the reasons his and Jill’s place was my next port of call. Another was that his and his nephew’s names were on the list me and Trev had agreed by the dam.
I’d overnighted at the Hunter’s Lodge on the outskirts of Wincanton, in return for a handful of Sniper One’s notes. They’d given me a warm welcome in the bar, and apologized that the kitchen was closed. That wasn’t a problem for me. I’d already stopped for a burger and Coke outside Chippenham and only needed a shit, shower and shave, followed by a good night’s sleep.
The cathedral spire was better than satnav when you needed to find your way to Salisbury. At 123 metres it was the tallest in Britain, and had been for more than seven hundred and fifty years. I’d first seen it when I’d spent a few weeks at Larkhill Camp, up by Stonehenge, during my early days with the Green Army.
I followed the ring road and took the turning to the Culver Street multi-storey car park. I didn’t want to leave the 911 anywhere near Ken and Jill’s. I didn’t think I’d been followed from Gloucestershire, but Salisbury was the next best thing to a garrison city, and if Trev was right about the CQB shit going all the way to the top, I didn’t want to tempt Fate.
I swapped my Gore-Tex for my bomber jacket, made sure I was out of sight of the CCTV cameras, then slid the Browning into my belt and the spare mag into my left pocket. Another old habit: the weight of the mag made it easier to flick back that side of the jacket if you had to draw down – not that it would make much difference with a case of beer and a bouquet of flowers under my arm.
Ken claimed that Fiji wasn’t as close to Paradise as the fantasy travel ads would have you think, but every time I’d been to their neat terraced house on the south-eastern edge of the city I couldn’t help wondering whether the old boy really didn’t hanker for the white beaches and clear blue water of his birthplace. Whatever, as soon as you walked through Ken and Jill’s front porch you knew this was home.
I’d called from the Hunter’s Lodge so they were expecting me. I’d told Ken to fire up the earth oven and stand by for fresh supplies of beer – but to go easy on the kava. They came over a bit sensitive when you refused to get their ceremonial drink down your neck, but I’d explained that something was up, and I couldn’t afford to shift onto Fiji time. I didn’t add that I’d always hated the stuff, that it made my cheeks go numb and tasted like washing-up water.
Ken hadn’t changed a bit. He still had a face like a bag of walnuts. He gave me the world’s biggest man-hug before I’d even stepped into their hall. It reminded me that rugby football was as much their national sport as cannibalism, and that you sometimes couldn’t tell between them.
Jill stood behind him, as trim and blonde as she’d always been. When I’d got my breath back I held out the Cobra to him and the flowers – tulips that were so deep a purple they were almost black – I’d brought with me from Wincanton to her. I presented them with an exaggerated bow. ‘Your favourites, Mrs M. The same colour as your husband.’
That earned me a smile and a pantomime curtsy from Jill, and a thump on the back from Ken that rearranged most of my internal organs. We moved through to the garden room, from where I could see that the man of the house had already got busy with a fork and spade.
I turned to him as we took our seats. ‘I was joking about the earth oven.’
‘Good. I was doing the border.’ His weather-beaten face creased into a grin. ‘I’m not going out there after dark in this weather, man. We’d freeze our coconuts off, eh? But we’ll treat you to some quality Fijian MRE this evening, that’s for sure. It’s been a while …’
2
I spent the afternoon swapping war stories and banter with Ken, over biscuits and a brew, followed by another brew. And another.
We also touched on the news from the camp – or, rather, the fact that there wasn’t any. Rumour control was rife with speculation, but there still seemed to be a lockdown on any reliable detail. DSF was having a serious sense-of-humour failure.
I didn’t bring up the subject. He did.
When I made a stab at looking blank he rolled his eyes and grabbed my arm with his paw. ‘Get real, man. I wasn’t born yesterday, eh? You’ve been off the grid for God knows how long – in Moscow, the last I heard – and suddenly you’re on our doorstep, minutes after some serious shit has happened behind the wire in H, involving Harry’s boy …’
He let his words hang in the air between us.
‘Also, we know you’re not here for the kava, and you’ve got a pistol in your waistband …’
It was my turn to look embarrassed. ‘Sorry, Ken. I didn’t mean to treat you like an idiot. I’m just not sure who I can quiz about this.’
‘No apology necessary, man.’ He sat back and smiled his Zen smile. It reminded me why I’d always liked him, and why I was there. ‘I’m flattered that you want to talk to me, eh? It means you still trust me, and trust is a big thing for people like us, especially at a time like this. It’s a pity this new DSF doesn’t seem to understand that.’
He took a long swig of his brew before continuing.
‘But I also know it means you can’t risk contacting any of your old mates on the inside, especially not the Head Shed, or your not-so-friendly friends at the Firm, because they stopped sending you Christmas cards way back. So that leaves us black fellas, eh?’
It wasn’t really a question, but I answered it anyway. ‘The white fellas are taking the piss big-time right now. This won’t be the official version, but one of them took off Trev’s head with a Dragunov in the Black Mountains two days ago, then tried to do the same to me.’
‘Did he succeed?’
‘Funny.’ I knew Ken was as keen not to think about what had happened to Trev’s head as I was. ‘He got close. But he won’t be sending any more Christmas cards either.’
His eyes narrowed and he nodded slowly. ‘Like I said, man, none of us believes in coincidences.’ He paused
. ‘And what I’m going to tell you isn’t one either. Fred’s in town. We’ve asked him to join us, eh?’
Ken may have looked like a giant teddy bear, but he was still switched on. Fred was his nephew, currently at Credenhill, and a key member of what the lads now called Fiji.com. He was also high on the list of people I needed to speak to.
3
Fred Marabula arrived in time for the first beer of the evening. He was a smoother, more aerodynamic version of his uncle, with a finely tuned engine and go-faster stripes. His hair was slicked back and shiny, and his jawline was sharply chiselled, but there was also something charmingly old-fashioned about him. He even called me ‘sir’ a few times, though I told him not to.
Fred was content to swap small-talk for as long as we were in the mood, while one Fijian delicacy after another arrived at the table for dinner. I’d never met him before, but his reputation travelled before him, and not only because Ken was his number-one fan.
From the moment he’d arrived in the UK, Fred seemed destined for great things. Before we could blink, he’d got himself a degree in politics, philosophy and economics and played fly-half for the Scots Guards. He passed Selection the same year as Sam. They’d both spent six months in Afghan with B Squadron last year.
I asked him how well they knew each other.
He didn’t answer immediately. ‘As you don’t need me to tell you, sir, we depend on each other completely in the battle space. But the truth is we’re not that close. Sam spent most of his time with Scott Braxton and the boss, Guy Chastain, especially after Kajaki. We used to call them the Three Amigos.’
At first glance, Fred seemed to have been less affected by the Afghan experience than Harry’s boy. As the evening drew on, though, I began to realize that was only skin deep. He didn’t turn into a rug-chewing maniac, but once we’d dispensed with the usual Camp Bastion banter and I asked him what had rattled Sam so badly, a haunted look came into his eyes.
‘Kajaki?’
He nodded. ‘You know how important that installation is. The livelihood of the surrounding area depends on it.’
‘What happened?’
‘It started as a pretty routine night op. The engineering crew were due in before first light to complete maintenance work on one of the dam turbines.
‘The Taliban were well aware that it had to be fixed at some point, and we’d heard they were aiming to take the repair team on once it was in place. Two Rifles were tasked to secure the high ground before the boiler suits arrived with a platoon-strength escort to get to grips with the hardware.
‘Then Intelligence got wind of a couple of big Taliban players planning to be there to co-ordinate the attack. It was a golden opportunity for us to cut off two of the serpent’s heads with one blow, so we were tasked to be at the dam six hours ahead of the infantry. The plan was to be there in plenty of time before the players appeared, then ID and lift them.’
‘How many of you?’
‘One eight-man patrol. Guy was in charge.’
‘Sam and Scott were on the team?’
‘Sure.’ His expression clouded. ‘And Chris Matlock.’
Chris, who had died doing what he loved …
I was suddenly aware that Ken and Fred were both looking at me slightly strangely. I must have spoken aloud. ‘What went wrong?’
There was a long silence.
‘Everything.’
4
‘The Chinook dropped us ten Ks away from our target and we tabbed in at last light. You know what it’s like up there. Whoever has control of the high ground is king, especially around the mouth of the dam, and we wanted to be dug in well before the players showed up.’
I could tell from Fred’s body language that a part of him was already back there.
‘Some hope. The Taliban were already waiting, precisely where we wanted to be. God knows how many of them. We started taking fire seconds after we got in the zone.
‘We knew we wouldn’t get anywhere near the players without top cover, so we took cover beneath an outcrop, Guy got onto the task commander back at Bastion, and he sent in the Apaches. Then we split into two groups, to work our way around each flank in time to cut off their escape.’
He leaned back and massaged his right knee.
‘It was never going to be easy fighting our way uphill.’
I nodded. It never is.
‘It was almost vertical in places. We should have brought belaying ropes and crampons. We were in our regular kit, hanging on with our toecaps and our fingernails. But by then we were committed.
‘My group managed to stay together. Guy’s …’ Fred concentrated hard on ripping the lid off another bottle of Cobra. He wasn’t thirsty. He just needed to buy himself some time. ‘Guy’s team weren’t so lucky.’
He gripped the beer bottle but rotated it on its base instead of raising it to his lips. ‘They found their way into a gully. Like a lift shaft, in cover, all the way to the top. They piled up it, thinking all their Christmases had come at once.
‘When we heard the Apaches, we thought we were back in the driving seat. They started to hose down the high ground and the Taliban scattered. The four of us had skirted around the back of their position, as we’d planned, and were laying down some fire …’ He closed his fingers around the neck of his bottle like he was trying to throttle it. ‘Then we heard Chris lose his footing over the PRR …’
Chris Matlock had been bringing up the rear. Maybe he got careless. They heard him say, ‘Fuck,’ then a scrabbling sound, then nothing. They reckoned that either his headset had become disconnected or his radio had been shunted off his body armour as he bounced back down the mountain.
‘He must have fallen thirty metres, Nick, maybe more. The Amigos couldn’t call down to him without giving away their position, and he couldn’t call up.’
‘Sam went after him. But he wasn’t quick enough. The Taliban got there first. At least a dozen of them, Sam told us. All over Chris, like maggots. And they carried him off. He didn’t even fire a round. He must have damaged himself or got separated from his weapon on the way down as well.’
Fred went silent again, staring right through me. Ken moved in closer to him and clapped a party-size arm around his shoulders. After a moment, he continued.
‘The Taliban kicked off two or three RPGs at the Apaches and they lifted away. The helis with the bayonets weren’t due to show up for another couple of hours. Everything went quiet.’
They could see movement below them through their NVGs, but couldn’t be certain where they’d taken him. The ground dropped away in a series of terraces. They headed back downhill, away from the reservoir. But the main enemy force had dug themselves in a couple of hundred or so further on, and had no intention of letting Fred’s lot get any closer.
They knew that the Taliban were up to something, but every time they raised their heads, they got brassed up. The Three Amigos were in a similar position, five hundred further along the bank of the reservoir.
Then the screaming began.
First it carried to our guys through the night. Then Chris’s captors got his PRR working again and fed it straight into their heads.
Fred swallowed hard. ‘I’ve never heard a sound like it. I hope I never will again. His cries drilled into my soul. But his whimpers were almost worse. His cries were filled with pain, but also defiance. The whimpers were filled with desperation, then despair.
‘About fifteen minutes in he was pleading with them to end it.’
The distress on Ken’s face was something I’d never seen before. He was hurting more for Fred than he ever would have done for himself.
‘We finally hooked up with the Amigos at first light, when the Two Rifles helis arrived. The screams had stopped well before then, and the enemy melted away.’
They made their way down, keeping eyes on the ground for booby-traps and on the hill for snipers. There was a massive overhang at the bottom of the escarpment. Beneath it, they found Chris’s body nailed to a w
ooden cross. Not a Jesus-type cross – a diagonal cross, so his arms and legs were splayed.
Fred sucked a lungful of air through his nose, trying to keep the memory at bay. Then he focused on me again. ‘You know the colour of that terrain, Nick? The deepest rusty red, the colour of blood. It was like every drop of Chris’s blood had been soaked up by the Helmand dust. His flesh was like raw chicken meat …’
I knew what was coming.
‘Those fuckers had skinned him alive.’
Ken tightened his grip on the boy as his shoulders started to heave. Fred chewed on his upper lip and started to shake his head, as if he could shake away the images that had been seared into his mind.
It wasn’t working.
‘Jesus Christ, Nick … Those bastards had even peeled off his eyelids.’
5
I got up and went outside. He needed some space. They both did.
My breath billowed in the cold night air and the frosted grass crunched beneath my feet.
I watched Ken and Fred through the window. They weren’t talking much. There wasn’t much to say. Jill came through with a big pot of coffee and gave her nephew a hug. I left them alone for another quarter of an hour or so before going back to my seat.
‘Sorry, Nick …’ For the first time since he’d arrived, Fred couldn’t quite meet my eye.
I waved it aside. It was time to bin the emotional shit. ‘I’ve only really kept track of Sam’s career through Trev, who never claimed to be the world’s most objective judge …’
Fred smiled, relieved to have escaped Kajaki. ‘Sam thought the world of you.’
I frowned. ‘We hardly knew each other, mate …’
Ken sparked up: ‘But you have history, man. Harry passed away when Sam was only a kid, but he used to talk about you all the time, eh? Said he wouldn’t have made it through Iraq without you.’
Fred chipped in again: ‘Sam takes you people very seriously, you must know that. But it’s not all good. You cast a long shadow. A lot to live up to. Guy felt the same way. His dad set the bar really high. He never stopped beating himself up about it.’
