Fortress

11

The hold of the Starlifter was almost empty, a giant aluminium airborne metal cave. Before it had finished the climb out of Afghanistan, Tom, too wired to sit or sleep, unstrapped himself and paced the length of the plane’s vast hold while the events of the last twenty-four hours replayed themselves over and over again. Oblivious of the thunder from the engines and the temperature at this altitude, he was numb.

But one thing he couldn’t shut out, couldn’t stop replaying, was Dave’s death. Wherever he looked, his face gazed back at him, the inert glassy stare in the semi-darkness where he had found him, his features frozen for ever in the moment he must have known his charmed life was about to come to an end. Had those eyes seen his assailant? The devastating slash to his throat suggested he had been killed from behind. The fact that Qazi had appeared not to be blood-spattered supported that, with just the tell-tale stain on the thigh of his fatigues where he’d wiped his bloodied hand.

So here he was on his way home. What would that mean at the other end? An inquiry, a court-martial, a quiet word? Tom realized he didn’t care. Something had snapped. The unimaginable had happened. The Army, which he had loved, which had been his second family, had turned on him.

Even the prospect of being reunited with Delphine didn’t lift his mood. He was in limbo, his world pulled from under him. Yet he’d been in dark places before. Collecting body parts of men he’d been playing poker with the previous night. Coming upon an entire house of dead — a village wedding feast, the guests lying sprawled, mixed up with the dead livestock. He needed to reach into wherever he kept the resources to deal with bad stuff — if he still had any. In the meantime, however, he needed a distraction.

On a stretcher surrounded by aeromedics was Rifleman Cliff Blakey. Tom thought he might prefer to be left alone, but Blakey tipped his head, indicating for him to come nearer. The whites of his eyes were completely red from conjunctival haemorrhages, which gave him a vampiric appearance, but other than that he looked all right.

‘Never die a virgin.’

Tom surveyed the apparently intact frame beneath the sheet. ‘Why?’

‘Cos in Heaven they’ll make you fuck a suicide bomber.’

Blakey managed a wheezy giggle at his own joke. Tom laughed. Blakey had an audience.

‘What you call a gay suicide bomber? A poof.’ More laughing that descended into a cough.

One of the aeromedics gave him a weary look.

‘Hundreds more where that came from. Was gonna be a stand-up comic — but now… Geddit?’

Tom grinned. ‘Still got your right hand, then. That’ll be a relief.’

Blakey liked that. But as the medics finished changing his drip they rolled him onto his side, and Tom saw that his body — though visually unmarked — was, from the chest down, a lifeless sack. ‘Fuckers didn’t finish the job did they, eh? Just shattered me spine. Fuckin’ useless twats.’

The blast of the IED had pulverized several vertebrae and severed his spinal cord.

Blakey winced, a jolt of pain in the part where he could still feel.

‘Sorry, Cliff, be done in a jiffy.’

Blakey was doing his level best to put a positive steer on his situation but Tom wondered how long he would keep it up. He lifted his head to free his hand and pointed at a laptop balanced on top of his bergen. Tom picked it up, opened it and put it on Blakey’s chest as he indicated. Then he tilted the screen towards Tom and stroked the track pad. The image sprang to life: a flaming car being pushed down a half-destroyed street towards retreating mounted police.

Blakey’s expression changed and his eyes filled with tears. ‘That’s my fucking estate. How’m I gonna protect my mum from that? And they’re letting even more in! It’s totally fucked up.’

Tom tried to think of some consoling words, discarding them as they came to him. It was one thing to be facing a life in a wheelchair, another when the home you were coming back to had become a war zone. ‘It can’t go on like this. It’ll run out of steam.’

That was the line he had taken with Delphine, to no avail. With Blakey it also fell wide of the mark. He snorted, his face reddening with rage. ‘And where’s the cops? I’m like this from fighting these bastards — and now they’re fucking taking over at home. They don’t deal with them, someone else is gonna have to.’