‘Seen. Looks nice.’ Tom couldn’t miss it. On a low rise, the compound dominated the landscape. It was in open fields, with other compounds a hundred, two hundred metres away from it. The route there would be easier; at least they wouldn’t be tied to Glasgow.
The CO said, ‘I want you in intimate support of Vixen. Just like you did at Shah Kalay. Pilgrim are knackered so I’m going to use Vixen and Frenchie for this one, with Pilgrim as rear security. I’ll be with you all the way. I want us in there by tonight. Now where’s that search team?’ He looked over to the south. The REST were only two hundred metres away. ‘Good. All going OK. Right, Jules, what I want now is—’
An explosion threw them against the compound wall. Tom hit his head and blacked out for a couple of seconds. Ten metres away dust and smoke flew into the sky, and a pile of straw was vaporized around them. ‘Contact explosion, contact explosion!’ came a scream from nearby as Tom, Jules and the CO picked themselves up, checking themselves for wounds. They had none, but the blood pounded in Tom’s head. The CO made to run over but was held back by Jules. ‘No, Colonel, stay here, stay here. Stick to the cleared area.’
Through the dust as it settled and as he struggled out of his concussion Tom saw what was happening. Two bodies lay surrounded by people tending to them. He could see blood flowing freely from the stump of a leg, while the other casualty seemed to have lost his entire face. Someone was screaming, a sickly, high-pitched shriek that cut through the smoke and dust. The three of them picked their way along the safe lane back to the radio at Tac. Jules got on to BG Main in Newcastle and, as if completely disconnected from the explosion, organized the casevac. Tom, not sure where he should be with the safe lane blocked, stayed next to him in a kind of trance.
He watched with a detached gaze as the casualties were put onto stretchers. The one who had had his leg blown off he recognized as a sergeant from the infantry who was friendly with Trueman. He had lost his leg at the knee, and the bone blinked out of the stump beneath the tourniquet wrapped tight around his thigh. He was white with shock and his teeth were chattering as he was carried out of the compound to an HLS being cleared for the MERT. The other stretcher had a tarpaulin over it, which fell away from one side to reveal a naked and bloody arm covered in tattoos.
The MERT soon arrived, landing outside the compound, its downdraught throwing up bits of straw. Tracer came over their heads as the Taliban fired at the Chinook. The stretcher party ran on to the heli, dropped off the casualties, and the Chinook lifted away again, sending more straw into the air as though it was a ticker-tape parade for the dead boy. As it disappeared down the valley, the contact continued. Tom climbed a ladder on to a roof to join some of the infantry, and lay alongside them firing with his rifle. A few metres down from him one of them was setting up a Javelin. Once it was ready he scanned the horizon.
His platoon commander shouted across, ‘You on, Kez?’
‘Yeah, boss. Two gunmen in the treeline. Three metres apart from each other. I’ve got ’em clear as day.’
‘Then Jav ’em. Jav ’em.’
‘Roger. Firing now.’ He pulled the trigger and the rocket popped out, its motors fired and it flew high into the sky before crashing down into the treeline with a sharp bang. Some of the boys on the roof cheered; others kept firing until the platoon commander told them to stop. Tom left the roof, jumped down into the compound and almost landed on Tac.
The CO turned to Tom and said calmly, as though the last thirty minutes hadn’t happened, ‘Right, Tom boy; back to your wagons. We move out of here in twenty minutes. I want to take Round House by nightfall.’
‘No dramas, Colonel.’ The safe lane back to the door was clear again, and so Tom left the compound. He passed the crater from the explosion and noticed dried blood splattered over the wall. In a corner one of the infantry was crying; the others just looked exhausted. They still had to clear the rest of the compound, and were doing so nervously and slowly. They had found four devices already, each now marked with red spray-paint and fenced off with tape. Tom wanted to get out of the compound as quickly as possible and ran back through the field to the wagons. GV looked down from his turret and said, ‘Fuckin’ shit, boss, eh?’
‘Too right, GV.’
‘We’ll fuck ’em up proper when we go up. Those Talib chippy cunts gonna pay.’
‘Yeah. Yeah. They’re going to pay.’
He hopped on to each of the wagons to brief the crews, and when he jumped back into his own Dusty looked at him. ‘Fuck me, boss, what the hell happened in there? You OK? You look pretty spaced.’
‘I’m OK, Stardust, I’m OK. Banged my head, that’s all. No one knows what happened. No one knows. They think one of them stepped outside the safe lane. Either that or the safe lane hadn’t been swept properly. I just don’t know.’
‘Fuck. And now?’
‘We take Round House.’ Tom clenched his teeth. ‘And we destroy them.’
Dusty patted the back of the 30 mil. ‘We like the sound of that.’
Twenty minutes later they set off. The REST had linked up with them now, and so the engineer tractors were able to start work on the new PB. The Pilgrim callsigns stayed put, and now the ANA company took the lead, with Frenchie’s squadron in reserve. Three Troop led the advance over the fields, and immediately another contact started from the cluster of compounds around Round House. The Apache had been called away off station, so they had no air support. The Scimitars picked out targets and poured fire onto them which the ANA used as cover to work through ditches and get closer. Tom’s turret was soon filled with cordite as he and Dusty laid down round after round. Often they fired just for the sake of firing; it was impossible to see anything of their targets other than muzzle flashes.
Tom was lost in the contact, and his concussion meant that he only caught brief moments of the afternoon. Two hundred metres before the objective there was a lull, and Tom saw BG Tac in a ditch, the CO and Jules having a face-to-face with Frenchie. Jules again called him over. Tom left the turret, ran across and slithered into the ditch next to them, finding himself up to his thighs in filthy water. They all looked at him and smiled. Frenchie punched him on the shoulder. ‘You OK, Tom? Quite an afternoon!’ He was smoking, serenity personified.
‘Yeah. Yeah.’ Tom couldn’t help grinning back. ‘It’s a hell of a day.’
Over their heads came an RPG, quickly followed by another, which both smacked harmlessly into a compound wall fifty metres behind them. Above the ditch Dusty’s 30 mil barked back. The contact was on again. The CO crawled up to the lip of the ditch to get eyes on and clicked his fingers for the FOO, who gulped and then squirmed up next to him. Tom, Frenchie and Jules stayed at the bottom of the ditch, and Frenchie offered his cigarette to Tom, who took it gratefully and drew three long drags. Above them he could hear the FOO jabbering to the CO.
‘Yeah, I’ve got them. I’ve got them, I think. Fire coming from the base of that white-painted tree.’ He called the mortars at Jekyll. ‘Hello Pilgrim Five Five, this is Witchcraft One Two. Fire mission. Over.’
Next to them in the ditch was the CO’s interpreter, ridiculous in a Liverpool football shirt underneath his body armour and wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses that made him look like Hunter S. Thompson. He was listening to his ICOM scanner, and Tom could hear the chatter from the Taliban on it, excited at some points, calm and businesslike at others. ‘What are they saying?’
The terp looked up, smiling. ‘Nothing much at the moment. One of them just boasted about firing the RPG, saying he killed two of us with it.’
‘Bollocks they did. Christ these guys are jokers.’ Jules laughed. Five sharp cracks flew over their heads, and the CO and the FOO quickly ducked down into the ditch again.
‘Bloody hell, someone’s angry up there. That’s an RPK,’ said the CO with an almost detached amusement. They put their heads up again over the lip and continued the fire mission. Three large crumps came as the mortar rounds hit. The firing stopped.
<
br /> The ICOM came alive, and they all looked to the terp again. ‘They’re asking Rashid if he’s OK.’ Another voice. ‘Yes, he says he’s OK. He’s laughing and saying, “The idiots are firing at the white tree a hundred metres to my left.” ’ The interpreter was interrupted by more firing. A round pinged off the Scimitar above them and whistled into the sky.
The FOO looked delighted. ‘Well, is he now? What a good lad, helping us out. Hello Pilgrim Five Five, Witchcraft One Two. Correction. Left one hundred.’ He waited for their read back, and then said gleefully, ‘Three rounds, fire for effect. Out.’ Again the mortars tore into the treeline. They all looked at the terp.
‘They’re asking for Rashid again.’
‘And?’
‘No reply. I think you got him.’
Frenchie reached into a pouch, took out another cigarette and lit it. ‘What a legend. Bringing the rain onto his own position. With enemies like that, who needs friends?’ They all laughed, long and loud.
The advance continued. In a blur the next two hours disappeared, and then suddenly, in the late afternoon, they found themselves in Round House. It was a collection of several compounds all deserted earlier that day. The last embers of a fire burned in the middle of one of them, but apart from that it was as though no one had ever lived there.
The CO briefed them over the radio. Even after two days’ solid fighting his voice sounded fresh and keen. His instructions were simple: at dawn they would push on to Fast Pace; Tom was to hold his Scimitars in Round House until the contact started and then bring them forward to help out. They were to be in Cocked Pistol by evening. Meanwhile Tac and Frenchie’s company were in the northernmost compound with the ANA company. Tom and Jessie’s wagons were in a compound with a platoon from Pilgrim which had come up, and Trueman and Thompson’s Scimitars were to go to another one. As they split that evening Tom walked with Trueman over to his wagon as O’Shea gunned the engine, anxious to get to the new compound and sleep.
They shook hands, and Trueman climbed on board to get into the turret.
‘Not long now, boss. Sleep well; see you in the morning. You gonna be all right without me? Don’t let the bedbugs bite.’
‘Course I’m going to be all right. You’re not that good, you know.’
‘Yeah, I am. Without me, boss, you’re like a car without an engine.’ His teeth flashed through his dry lips, his heavy stubble darkened with oil and cordite.
Tom wondered how he would ever manage without him but shot back, ‘I don’t think so. You’re more like the fluffy pair of dice hanging from the mirror. I mean, quite good banter but pretty superfluous really.’
‘Fighting talk! Nah, boss, I’m the engine, mirrors and the driver. You’re the annoying kid in the back asking if we’re there yet.’
‘Ha! OK, OK, you got me. See you in the morning.’
Trueman changed his tone. ‘Yeah. Shall do. We’re going to be all right, boss.’ He buttoned on his helmet, gave a final smile and then drove off with Thompson behind him, leaving Tom outside the compound waving after them.
Tom and Jessie made sure their wagons were good to go for the morning and then started to relax. There was nothing much to do after scoff and putting up the crew shelters, so Jessie organized a left-handed throwing competition in the compound to pass the time. Soaking with sweat, Tom took off his body armour, sat on his turret and watched them as they played it, feeling happy as the sky turned red and a warm breeze fluttered and dried out his T-shirt. He took out a few blueys from his side bin and started to write a letter to Constance. He wanted to sum up what he was feeling. He sat for half an hour writing away, and when it got dark he wound it up.
At eight, just as night was about to envelop the town, Sergeant Williams and his Mastiffs came up the newly cleared Route Glasgow to resupply them and dropped off some 30 mil shells, gimpy link and a few jerrycans of water. As he was leaving Tom opened the back door of his Mastiff. ‘Sorry, Sergeant, are you going back to Newcastle now?’
‘Yes, sir. We’re dropping some stuff off with Freddie, but then we’re going down and ferrying stuff back up all through the night. Gonna be a long one.’ He looked absolutely broken. The Mastiffs had been on the move all operation, carrying supplies and people up and down Glasgow. He hadn’t had a wink of sleep.
Tom held out the letter. ‘Can you pop this in the postbag when you get there? It’s for my ma.’
Williams looked at him kindly, took it and put it carefully into his thigh pocket. The oldest of the sergeants, while he lacked Trueman’s spark and charisma, he was a steady, avuncular figure. ‘Sure thing, sir. No problems. I’ll make sure it gets in there.’
‘Thanks, really appreciated.’
‘No dramas. We’ve got to go. No rest for the wicked.’
‘Safe journey.’ Tom shut the door and the four Mastiffs rolled away, their headlights flicking and bumping over the fields. Tom went back inside the compound and found Dusty and Davenport next to the crew shelter. They got inside, wormed into their sleeping bags and within a minute had all passed out.
Do not forget me.
Do not forget me.
Please don’t forget me.
Tom and Jessie’s wagons pulled out of Round House and screamed up the track in a race to Fast Pace. Two hundred metres to the right were Trueman and Thompson, tearing over the fields, flinging up sand behind them. The sun in the east threw a golden halo around the wagons as the light bounced off the dust around them, and the sky above streaked with orange and purple cirrus as the day opened. Trueman raised his arm in salute to Tom as they charged north across the fields together. Tom felt adrenaline surge through him. Ahead, even above the roar of the engine, he could hear the beat of machine-gun fire as Vixen engaged the Taliban.
Tom leaned over the sights and bent his knees to the jolts and rhythmic rocking of the wagon. ‘Stardust, you ready?’
Inside the turret Dusty traversed the Rarden from left to right. ‘Ready as I’ll ever be, boss. In it to win it. This is going to go large.’
‘Too right. When we get there, and I get you on, I want six rounds automatic at the first target we get. Nothing like a dose of 30 mil to wake these fuckers up.’ The firing sounded closer now and Tom tightened the chinstrap on his helmet. ‘Right, Dav, down you get.’
‘OK, boss,’ replied Davenport, who lowered his seat and drove using his periscope.
‘I’ve got you. Keep going, keep going.’
They rounded a compound and there ahead of them was Fast Pace. Tom could see ANA around its southern side preparing to assault and muzzle flashes beyond it. He felt a fizz above his head and ducked down into the turret.
‘Right, that’s contact, that’s contact. Dav, stop there, stop there.’ The wagon halted abruptly, and twenty metres to his left Jessie’s did the same. ‘Dusty, we’re in business. Traverse left, traverse left, steady, on. Base of tree, muzzle flash.’ Every movement he did now was automatic; all fear had been swept away by the action.
‘On. I got him, boss. I see him. Base of tree. Lasing. Six fifty.’
Tom flicked the switch at the back of the Rarden to automatic. ‘Loaded fire. Six rounds automatic. Fuck him up.’
‘Firing now,’ came Dusty through the intercom, sounding a thousand miles away even though his and Tom’s arms were touching. Through the sight Tom watched the six rounds hammer into the treeline where he had seen the muzzle flash. He slammed six more rounds into the feed tray, scraping the skin from his knuckles as he did so. ‘And again, Dusty. Loaded fire.’
‘And again, boss. Firing now.’ Again six rounds ploughed into the trees.
Tom put his head out of the turret. ‘Target stopped. Well done, Stardust. We got him, we got him. Right, Dav, let’s push up.’ They drove up to the south of Fast Pace. Inside the compound he could hear grenades but he felt safe, as though what was going on inside was a different war, self-contained and miles away.
Frenchie and Brennan were talking in the shelter of one of the compound walls, a
nd next to them was an ANA soldier who had had a finger shot off. He was screaming and thrashing about as the medics tried to restrain him. Eventually four of them pinned his limbs to the stretcher; one stabbed him with morphine, and the screaming died down. Tom jumped down and sprinted over to them. He crouched next to Frenchie, who looked at him proudly. ‘Hey there, John Wayne. That was some gun show you gave us there. Nice one. You get him?’
‘Yeah, we got him,’ Tom replied, getting his breath back. The ANA soldier on the stretcher was now just gurgling.
Frenchie glanced at him briefly. ‘Don’t worry about him. He’s going to be all right. Big girl’s blouse. It’s just his pinkie. Doesn’t even need a MERT. What I need from you, Tommy, is more important.’ He pointed over to the east, to the ridge that skirted the town. ‘CO wants you up there. I agree with him. Get up there, and you can give cover for the entire rest of the day. Four Scimitars on that will dominate the town and give us an easy run-in all the way to Cocked Pistol. You got me?’
‘Yeah, I got you.’ Tom couldn’t help feeling relieved to get out of the green zone with its unseen threats and to spend the rest of the op in the open. ‘No dramas. When does he want me there?’
‘About ten minutes ago. As soon as you can. Schnell machen.’ Inside Fast Pace two more grenades exploded and someone started screaming.
Next to them a sniper shot into the treeline, shattering the comparative quiet outside the compound. Brennan asked him, ‘You get him, Sammy?’
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