War Torn

Chapter Twenty-four

INSIDE THE VECTORS, THE MEN LOOKED AT EACH OTHER AND HELD their weapons closer as the noise erupted around them and they were thrown around by the vehicles’ frantic manoeuvres.Streaky Bacon thought at first it was raining outside. Then he wondered if maybe someone was throwing money at them. Finally he realized it was raining rounds. Without warning he felt waves of nausea running through his body. He caught sight of Binns’s face, blanched white, and he realized that Binman felt like throwing up too.So this was it. A real fire fight against a real enemy. Streaky had played Call of Duty 4 often and well; he’d impressed his instructors at Catterick and if anyone had asked him what he was looking forward to in Afghanistan apart from rapping he would have said fighting.Since arriving he’d been on patrol and he’d heard the other lads’ stories and knew that men at other FOBs had been under fire daily. He’d been disappointed that so far he’d seen very little action. But now they were being ambushed by a real enemy whose object was to kill them. There was no screen between himself and the action and at the end of this game a dead man didn’t get up to fight again.The Vectors found their defensive positions and stood still. The engines were switched off. The firing intensified and, without the engines to mask it, the sound was more frightening. Binns and Bacon exchanged wide-eyed looks. They tried without success to hide their terror.The machine-gunners were operating at warp speed overhead.‘Section! Rapid fire!’ Sol said and their rate of fire doubled. The enemy responded in kind.Streaky saw Binman’s eyes widen still further. There were dark circles beneath them and below the dark circles Binman’s skin was so white it looked like a mask.Streaky would have liked to put his fingers in his ears but he closed his eyes instead. He could hear the thud of the enemy weapons. On top of one Vector was a GPMG and on the other were two minimis and if you closed your eyes and concentrated there was both a rhythm and a beat to the weapons. Streaky reached into his pouch for the stub of a pencil he always carried around with him and the creased piece of paper he wrapped around it and he tried to find some good flow.

fire liar cry die, retire to a nice quiet . . .

head dead sweat

scared . . .

What rhymed with scared? Did anything rhyme with scared?There was a massive crash and a flash that leaped out of nowhere and for a crazy moment Streaky thought they had been struck by lightning. Then he heard Dave’s voice in his ear. It sounded strangely cool and distant inside Streaky’s hot, sweaty head, as if Dave was directing operations from some beachside bar a huge distance away: ‘Get out and get down.’‘What happened?’ Another disembodied voice.‘RPG hit a corner of the truck and bounced,’ someone said.‘Everyone all right?’‘Get out, now!’ Sol yelled.And then men were piling out of the Vectors, their bodies crouching, slinking around the truck while all around them the orchestra of fire played in the theatre of war.Streaky, waves of nausea running up and down his body, got behind the Vector and ducked.

Scared . . . unprepared!That was it. Streaky felt for his pencil. Yes!

I’m scared, I’m unprepared man, for what may lie ahead man . . .He sat down in the dirt and watched rounds bouncing all around the vehicle. It looked as if the ground was cracking. Overhead, the trees were cracking.‘Fucking hell,’ Binman shouted.‘Wish you stayed at Curry’s now?’ Streaky hoped he sounded ice cool but he knew his voice had emerged high and splintered like a kid’s.They crouched down amid the flash and crack and thud of the battle.

Rapid fire, I’m not scared,

No I’m a liar, I’m unprepared

I want to cry, I start to sweat

Mama, I’m still a child inside my head,

Don’t want to show it, don’t want you to know it,

But if I shut my eyes I see me dead . . .

‘Get some fire down!’ Sol shouted.Streaky looked up from under his helmet, trying to think of a rhyme for dead . . . bed, said, fed, dread . . .‘What do you think you’ve got rifles for, to hang on the fucking Christmas tree?’ Finn yelled. ‘Use them!’Streaky realized he and Binman were the only ones not firing.He shuffled to the side of the Vector and looked out. He could see rounds flying down the track. One pinged off the Vector and then against his helmet like someone trying to wake him.He ducked behind the vehicle again, pulled his rifle into position and looked through the sights. He was crouching too low to aim at anything except a snake. Reluctantly he got up onto one knee. Binman, at his side, did the same. A round ricocheted off the ground in front of them. Trying to ignore it, his finger shaking, Streaky released the safety.The first time he fired he had no idea where the round went or where it landed. His hand would not stop shaking. He fired again. What was he aiming at? He was staring through the sights. But there was nothing to see.He dodged back behind the Vector. He felt as though he had been exposed out there for an hour. Binman was still behind him. This was Binns’s chance to move forward and take up the firing position Streaky had vacated but he didn’t. His face was a ghastly white, like a vampire in a horror movie.Since Binman was frozen to the spot, Streaky kept his head down, pointed the SA80 up the track behind them and fired intensively. When his shoulder began to hurt he paused. And then he fired some more. He felt his body relax a little. Inexplicably, he wanted to giggle. This wasn’t so difficult. Since the Taliban was invisible, you could aim anywhere and there was a chance of hitting one of them. He heard laughter and realized it was his own. He fired faster and faster to the sound of his own laughter.‘Slow it down, for Chrissake,’ someone shouted, maybe Dave. Streaky paused and looked around. It was a relief to stop firing. Had he really been laughing? He saw that the men with the most firepower and the best positions were high up on the vehicles. But they were also the most exposed.A shout came from Jamie on top. Streaky and Dave both turned in time to see him stagger.‘Shit, come and help,’ Dave shouted to Streaky, scrambling to his feet and diving inside the vehicle. Streaky followed him. They found Jamie already there, his body doubled, hanging onto the side.‘Sit down,’ Dave ordered. ‘What happened?’Streaky helped Jamie down. Gasping for breath, Jamie managed to say: ‘A bloke standing over me with a fucking great sledgehammer brought it down right on my back . . .’His face drained. He closed his eyes. He was going to pass out. Or was he going to die? Streaky felt sick.Dave shook Jamie awake, looking desperate, as though he thought Jamie wouldn’t wake up if he lost consciousness.‘You’ve been hit,’ he said. His voice was strangled and urgent. Streaky looked at his sergeant and saw shock carved into every crevice. Dave was already old: probably in his late twenties, Streaky thought. But now he seemed ten years older even than that.Streaky watched Dave’s face cave in a little as he searched for the wound. He knew that, as far as a sergeant can be close to one of his men, Dave was good mates with Jamie. Personally Streaky found Jamie a strange geezer. He was posh and apparently he had been to college and he obviously should have been an officer but for some reason he had wanted to be one of the lads instead. Streaky had meant to ask him why, when the moment was right. Now it seemed he might never have a chance.Jamie wordlessly pointed to the place and Dave gently readjusted Jamie’s position so they could reach the wound without twisting his body. Dave’s face was frightening Streaky Bacon now. He needed his sergeant to be hard. Invincible. And instead Dave was showing signs of shock because his mate was hurt, just like anyone else.Dave glanced at Streaky.‘Don’t just sit there staring, get the fucking medic!’ he snapped. But the medic was already climbing into the Vector. Streaky was the first to see the deep tear at the bottom of Jamie’s body armour. He pointed to it. Dave swallowed.The medic pushed Streaky aside.‘OK, I’ve got him,’ he said. He was trying to release Dave back out there again. But Streaky could see that Dave, although he was certainly needed outside, did not want to leave Jamie.‘Get someone on the gimpy!’ Jamie said weakly, his eyes closed. ‘They’re closing in on us, I could see it from on top.’‘It’s too exposed up there, everyone has to come down,’ Dave said, and he gave the order.The medic took off Jamie’s armour and pouches and webbing, handing them to Streaky who put them down carefully, almost reverently. When the medic crouched to examine Jamie’s back they could all see the massive swelling appearing on the right side.‘You’ve been hit.’‘I know that.’‘You’re a lucky boy. I think it was a high-calibre round. I’d say it’s a 7.62mm.’‘He’d be dead if one of them hit him,’ Dave said, his face still a caricature.‘I’ve heard of them bouncing off,’ the medic said. ‘The ceramic plates inside this body armour are amazing.’‘Maybe I am dead,’ Jamie said weakly. ‘And you’re all dead too.’‘Not me,’ Streaky said. ‘I’m still here—’There was a huge crash outside the Vector.He added: ‘I think.’‘So we’re all dead and something the bishop forgot to tell us about heaven is that it’s one long fire fight with the Taliban,’ Dave said.‘You’re winded and a bit shocked and you’re going to have one helluva bruise. But you’re alive,’ the medic told Jamie.‘You could have fooled me,’ he said.‘And,’ the medic added, ‘you’re a lucky man. A few centimetres higher and it would have been right through your neck.’‘Just stay sitting down quietly,’ Dave told him.‘Well, if I’m alive I’m OK to get back on the gun so give me my kit.’‘Oh, no, you’re not OK,’ the medic said.Dave was already carrying the GPMG down and setting it up on the ground outside.‘Get a belt loaded,’ he yelled at Streaky, a command which was causing Streaky some panic when Jamie staggered out of the Vector. His exposed body drew a burst of fire. He didn’t so much duck as fall behind the gimpy.‘You probably should sit inside, mate,’ Dave said gruffly.‘Don’t talk shit.’ Jamie sorted out the belt for Streaky and edged Dave away from the machine gun. Dave watched him for a moment then the boss arrived at their side.‘When the fuck is the air support arriving?’ Dave asked. ‘Because we’ll soon be standing here with nothing to throw at them but bottles of water.’‘We’ll have to slow our rate of fire to make it last longer,’ Weeks said.‘They’ll notice and move in.’‘They’re already moving in,’ the boss shouted back, over the whoosh of an incoming RPG. ‘If we get really low then we might have to try blowing up the IED and exiting forward over the bridge.’‘No!’ Dave shouted back. ‘They’ll have left an IED on the other side too.’Binman appeared from behind the Vector to help Jamie with the machine gun and Streaky returned to the fire fight with renewed energy.‘Slow your rate of fire!’ Sol ordered him a few minutes later. Streaky nodded and paused and then forgot. Now the machine gun was back at work he tried to keep his rifle firing almost as fast, which was impossible of course, but made him feel more effective. He paused at last, his weapon burning in his hands. He looked around. So where exactly were the flipflops?He watched enemy rounds bouncing like hailstones, threshing the leaves and dust into something like fine confetti. He searched for muzzle flashes. He listened. He decided the flipflops must be everywhere. He swallowed. They were heavily outnumbered. And if they weren’t surrounded yet, they soon would be.As the fight intensified, Streaky saw the boss push the woman interpreter into the back of the Vector. She obviously didn’t want to go but she climbed inside and Streaky glimpsed the medic in there with her. Everyone else, including Dave, including the signaller, including the boss, was outside firing back at the ambush.Mal vacated a prominent firing position to refill magazines and Streaky stepped into it. He swallowed, raised his weapon, released the safety and started to fire once more. When he stopped, he watched a round bounce along the track in front of him and estimated that it had come from a tree only about fifty metres away. Fifty metres! He fired at the high branches of the tree. No body fell but, all the same, it felt good to have something to fire at. He fired again and again and again to make sure.On every patrol so far, Streaky had submitted to a sense of helplessness. He didn’t think about what he did. He followed orders. He didn’t know where he was, in what direction they were driving, how far from the base they were or what the reason for their mission might be, even if the boss had tried to explain it. He just expected other people to tell him what to do.Now, with his hands hot from his weapon, the smoky, sulphuric smell of the battle filling his nostrils and its noise all around him, his senses were heightened and so was his understanding. He understood that the enemy was to the rear and on two flanks. If they succeeded in moving forward of the convoy then the Vectors would be totally surrounded. That was a thought so uncomfortable it was enough to induce streams of sweat all of its own, separate from the sweat induced by carrying a lot of kit in sweltering heat, separate from the sweat of the battle itself.

I’m weaker in emotion than in arms and fire aim

The smoke I’m inhaling isn’t keeping my mind sane,

It feels like rehydration’s a better soldier’s game . . .

On Streaky’s left, Angus was firing rapidly. Streaky tried to copy him. He fired round after round after round. You could lose yourself in firing. It was as though you ceased to exist and your body became a part of your weapon. It was good to think of yourself as a weapon. It made you feel invulnerable. It made you feel like a killing machine.When at last he paused there was a rap forming in his head.

We’re pinned down

It’s a sin to frown, I wish I could grin but it’s grim in this town

No houses no streets no shops and no women

Just choking on the smoke and no joking I need water,

water water water . . .

What rhymed with water?There was the sodium glare and the crash of an RPG, so powerful it made Streaky duck. With his head down, words inserted themselves into his brain.Water . . . daughter, sorter, halter . . . no good, none of them, not one of them was any good.The grenade had missed the Vectors and was landing on the track in front of them. There was a pause. Everyone, including the enemy, was waiting to see if it had hit the IED.‘Cover!’ Dave roared.But the grenade fell short and firing resumed.‘We’re short of ammo,’ Dave told everyone. ‘Watch and fire. Watch and fire. Conserve ammo.’Streaky didn’t hear him.

Water, transporter

Good rhyme.

Water, mortar

Yes! Even better!

Water, slaughter!The best! Despite the battle all around him, Streaky smiled.Nearby, the boss was asking over the radio when the air support was coming. It sounded as though they were giving him the brush-off because the fragments of his reply Streaky could catch were: ‘. . . outnumbered . . . supplies . . . seriously overexposed . . .’There was a pause.‘And when will it be available?’ the boss demanded.Binman’s face appeared, chalk white and smelling of vomit.‘Shit,’ he said to Streaky.‘Listen, bruv,’ Streaky said, ‘I was going to sick up and then I started firing and I felt a lot better when I had something to do and now I’m loving it. I just keep on firing, that’s what I do.’But Binns rolled his eyes in his white, white face and did not speak. The medic climbed out of a Vector to take his arm.‘Come on, sprog,’ he said to Binman. ‘You’re in shock. And I’m not surprised. Your sarge says you’ve never done this before. It’s what they call a baptism of fire.’Binns was getting into the Vector just as the woman interpreter jumped out.Streaky sneaked around the side of the Vector to fire more rounds, very quickly. He began to feel confident despite the knowledge that nothing they had done, not the constant rattle of their machine guns or the full force of their small arms, lessened the enemy’s strength. In fact, the Taliban firing positions were getting closer. They seemed to be moving in around the sides of the Vectors now so that even crouching behind the vehicles you could feel exposed.Nausea gripped Streaky again. If the flipflops slipped forward of the Vectors, 1 Section would be completely surrounded. He knew there was an IED up there. He hoped it was enough to keep the Taliban back. Involuntarily he glanced towards it and saw a shadow flicker through the distant undergrowth. Streaky came from the vertical world of high-rise flats in Wolverhampton and he was alert to any horizontals. Here was something the wrong shape moving swiftly through the woods. He readjusted his position to see it better.Someone next to him was raising their weapon too. It was the woman interpreter, with her SA80. She had seen the shadow and was taking aim. Suddenly anxious to beat her, Streaky fired again and again, as fast as he could. The shadow fell.‘We’ll never know,’ said the woman, ‘which of us did that.’Since she had only fired a few rounds, Streaky thought it was certainly him. But he smiled at her anyway. She smiled back.‘What are you doing?’ the boss thundered behind them.‘Using our weapons,’ said the woman. ‘We saw the enemy trying to sneak forward.’‘Just slotted a flipflop!’ Streaky said gleefully.For some reason the boss didn’t seem to share his excitement. ‘Get over the other side, will you, and slow down the ammo rate,’ he snapped.Streaky could hear the conversation as he went. The boss said: ‘Asma, I asked you to stay in the Vector. The OC prefers women not to engage in frontline fighting.’And the woman was saying: ‘Frontline? Where the fuck is that? They’re all around us!’Streaky ran across to the back of the other Vector. He glanced behind him at the woman and saw the boss trying to persuade her to return to the wagon. Then he slipped into a firing position and started again. He let round after round rip into the nearby trees and undergrowth. If there was any living thing there, it must soon be dead.What rhymed with enemy? Absolutely nothing. It was impossible to find a word in the English language that rhymed with enemy.He saw an RPG flying high overhead. He stepped behind the Vector, watching the grenade’s bright, graceful arc. It had a sort of beauty. Dave saw it too. He knew, from its height and its trajectory, exactly where it was going to land. He shouted: ‘Cover!’Some firing continued but everyone who’d seen the RPG sailing towards the river, including the enemy, stopped and waited. And then came the explosion.Streaky felt the heat of the blast wave and the force of its punch in his chest. He was blown against the side of the Vector. The ground rocked, the world rocked and, when he looked up, the sky was rocking too. It was breaking into a thousand tiny pieces and falling on their heads. Some men were flung to the ground, others threw themselves there. A few grabbed the Vectors for security, but the Vectors were rocking with the shock too.Streaky was on his stomach, helmet down.Enemy . . . destiny! Yes! It wasn’t perfect but it would do. The two words worked well together. Enemy, destiny, yes.Branches, leaves and plants were still flying through the air, smoke rose upwards in a steady column from the riverside, and it felt like minutes before the world began to steady itself. Even the enemy was quiet.The silence that followed the blast brought with it a small window of calm. And then the firing started again and most of 1 Section understood at once that the enemy had used the distraction to move still further forward.Dave shouted: ‘Fix bayonets!’Streaky’s heart sank. Bayonets were what you used when the enemy was just a few metres away. Bayonets were what you plunged into people’s bodies while you looked into their eyes. He fumbled with his, trying to imagine what it would be like to run at a man and shove a bayonet into his chest. He thought he might not be able to do that.He tried to scramble to his feet, fighting against the weight on his back which kept dragging him back down. Finn, who had managed to remain standing through the blast, grabbed his hand to help him. Streaky saw the boss helping the woman to her feet. The blast had thrown the boss on top of her. Or perhaps he had thrown himself there to protect her.‘We now have a way out,’ the boss said to Dave, his voice full of dust.‘No,’ Dave said.‘There’s a bit of a crater but we can get round it and over the bridge!’ Weeks insisted.‘No!’ Dave repeated. ‘There’ll be more.’‘More what?’‘IEDs. On the far side of the bridge.’‘The enemy is now extremely close. I mean, I think there are some only twenty metres away,’ the boss said. Dave didn’t reply. He kept on firing. Streaky did the same. But a few minutes later, he heard Dave and the boss arguing again. It seemed they had been told an Apache was arriving and the boss wanted to put down smoke now.‘No!’ Dave said.‘The pilots will need it,’ the boss insisted.‘Too soon!’ Dave said.‘But surely we—’Dave interrupted him. ‘No, no, no! If we put smoke down now we’ll just get a load more incoming. I don’t have time to explain!’The urgency in his voice made Streaky increase his rate of fire.‘How many times,’ the boss roared in his ear, ‘do I have to tell you we’re running out of ammo? Use less, for Chrissake!’‘Oh yeah . . .’ Streaky slowed his rate a fraction.At the sound of a rhythmic, distant thudding, he felt relief flood through his body. It was almost over. He’d been both surrounded and outnumbered in an ambush and it was almost over at last.Enemy fire was ceasing a little. 1 Section immediately eased their firing too. The bonds that had glued them to their weapons began to loosen.‘I’ve never been so fucking happy to hear a rotor blade,’ Finn said, his voice filtered through dust.‘OK, now smoke,’ the boss said, glancing at Dave.‘Wait . . .’ Dave said. ‘Mini flares are a lot better.’Sol explained: ‘Smoke hangs around for too long.’‘It gives every Tom, Dick and Harry Taliban our position,’ Dave said. ‘Just make sure you’ve got the pilot’s attention . . .’When the helicopter was chopping up the air overhead, they sent up a flare.Remaining alert to catch any fleeing insurgents, the men watched the massive metal bird begin its hunt from the sky. Two scrambling, anxious figures jumped from trees that were only ten metres from the Vectors.‘Too fucking close,’ Dave said.Before they could run, Angus McCall took aim without hesitation and killed one. Mal took the other. Angus could not resist turning to catch Dave’s eye. Dave nodded at him. Whatever had held Angus back before had evaporated in this fight for his life.‘We were lucky. They didn’t have many RPGs and they weren’t very handy with them,’ Dave said. ‘If they’d had mortar we wouldn’t have stood a chance.’‘And if we’d had mortar it would have helped,’ the boss said quietly.‘An HMG would have been good, too.’ Dave went over to Jamie. ‘I wish you’d sit down, mate.’‘I’m all right,’ Jamie insisted.‘You don’t look all right; your face is a weird colour.’The medic appeared. ‘We’ll have to get you to Bastion. We need to check for internal injuries.’‘You can forget that,’ Jamie said. ‘No one’s taking me away from my mates for no good reason.’Sol said: ‘I really don’t want to lose you, but you have to be checked out. You know the score.’Jamie sighed. ‘Listen,’ he said to the medic. ‘I’m OK. I’ll let you know if I’m not OK.’The medic shook his head. ‘We’ll have to give you a proper examination back at the FOB, then.’‘OK,’ said Jamie, ‘but I’m not going anywhere. Unless it’s in a body bag. And someone else can carry the machine gun back on top for me now.’Angus heard this and picked it up at once.Before following him on board the Vector, Jamie said: ‘You have to admire the flipflops. They don’t give up, do they? They must have known that air support would come sooner or later and try to finish them off. But they didn’t stop.’The boss said: ‘They don’t care if they die. That’s the most frightening thing about them.’Asma nodded. ‘We’ve been fighting for our lives. But they’ve been fighting for Allah.’‘If you don’t mind me saying so,’ – Finn turned to her with admiration – ‘I never would have expected a lady to get a grip in a fire fight like that.’Asma raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m no lady,’ she said. ‘I’m from Hackney.’Finn laughed and held out his hand.‘That explains everything.’They were still shaking hands when the boss appeared.‘Please stay alert, Finn,’ he said briskly. ‘The second AH is arriving shortly and insurgents may flee too close for the Apache to fire at them.’Dave turned to Asma. ‘Well done. Nice one.’She looked pleased and glanced at the boss. He turned away.The second helicopter arrived and they sent up another flare. One Apache put down fire along the treeline. The other flew over the adjacent fields, targeting leakers as they ran away from the scene.The soldiers watched for any who tried to seek protection from the helicopter by lying close by. It was a relief to be still at last and not to feel hot metal burning their hands. Streaky knew he’d thought of some good lines during the fire fight and was now scribbling furiously, although he’d already forgotten some of them.Binman, colour returning to his cheeks, crawled from the Vector with the medic to see the Apaches hunt the insurgents from the sky. The boss and Asma stood side by side, watching.Dave sat down and leaned his back against a wheel of the vehicle and closed his eyes. He drank some water and waited as the Apaches did their work.About half an hour ago he had reached for some gun oil and found Jenny’s letter in the pouch next to it. He had thought he had left it with the other mail, since bringing anything personal out of the base was strictly forbidden in case of capture. He must have stuffed it in the pouch without thinking. But, now it was here, he wanted to read it.With his eyes shut, he tried to pretend for a moment that today had just been a training exercise on Salisbury Plain. He tried to imagine that he’d be home this evening to find Vicky in her high chair and Jen manoeuvring her belly around the little kitchen. But the image had the unreality of a dream. For an ugly moment the woman with the belly was a figment of his imagination. She was nothing to do with him. She barely existed.Alarmed by this, he reached into his pouch for her letter.

Dear Dave,If my writing looks funny it’s because I have to stretch over the bump to get the pen on the paper because there’s no way the bump will fit under the table any more. This baby’s big but it’s a lot quieter than Vicky was. Sometimes I panic that it’s not kicking. I nearly drove up to the hospital for them to check today, it was so quiet down inside my belly. And just when I was thinking about getting in the car, kick, kick. Hey, Mum, it’s me. So I think this baby’s going to be a laid-back sort of person. I mean, like you, Dave. Not always running around in circles like me.

Dave read the words but they did not penetrate. He knew that this was a letter from his wife, whom he loved, about the baby, whom he also loved although it wasn’t even born yet. But there was a disconnect between this world of bumps and kicking and kitchen tables and this world that was Afghanistan.

Well I’ve been good and I haven’t told anyone about the man who’s hanging around A. That’s not a secret code. I just can’t spell her name. I went round to her house a little while ago because she dropped Luke’s mug in the park. But I didn’t knock because the red Volvo was outside. Then I phoned her later and she said that the repair man had just left. Not sure what he was repairing.

Dave glanced over at Jamie. He was back up on top now with the machine gun, watching the Apache’s high-precision operation intently. His face looked a deathly white and battered and bruised as though the round had bounced off his cheeks. When it seemed that the helicopter had found an insurgent hiding at the edges of the track, Jamie got ready to fire if the man tried to escape by running towards them, but the Apache pilot fired first.Here was a man, thought Dave, whose heart and soul was concentrated in the work he’d been trained for. He must be in a lot of pain right now but his commitment was undiminished. Agnieszka’s antics with some bloke in Wiltshire could never hurt Jamie the soldier. But she could destroy Jamie the man, who was made of marshmallow.

Dave, I didn’t really want to write about what A’s up to. I wanted to write about us. It’s much easier to write it than to say it.I can’t go on like this. I’m pregnant and I need you here. I don’t mean I need you to help with things, even though I do. I mean I need you here. And you’re not. And so long as you’re in the army you never will be. I can just about cope with the fact that you won’t be there when the baby’s born. Just about. But it’s knowing you can’t get home if you’re needed, that’s one of the worst things.Worse even than that is knowing you might never come home. You can’t imagine what it’s like. You don’t know how awful it is to think there’s a possibility this baby will never know its father and Vicky won’t remember you except from pictures. And that’s another thing. I wish I had a really nice recent picture of you instead of wedding pictures and quick snaps. Because that’s what you are for me at the moment, a man in a wedding album and in lots of snaps but not a man who’s here. And I love you and I want you to be here.So I want you to leave the army, Dave. I want you to really think about what matters in your life and understand what the army is doing to us. Think about what I’ve said, darling, and please would you . . .

Her neat writing continued over the page. Dave closed his eyes. He was in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, and that other world in Wiltshire could not influence events here or influence him. It was something that happened concurrently but separately. The camp there, with its wives and children, was a treacherous sea of emotions waiting to drown him. Here, life was clear and straightforward. You were under fire. Your life was under threat. You fired back.He stuffed the letter back in his pouch. He hadn’t meant to bring it anyway.Soon afterwards they were cleared to exit the area. Technical officers and support were coming to check for further devices. But 1 Section could go home to Sin City.Dave sometimes saw the cases of enemy rounds at the base of trees as they rumbled past. Once he saw a sandal. He wondered if its owner was sitting dead in the branches but he couldn’t be bothered to stop the Vector to look.‘Tell me something,’ the driver said as they bumped back along the track. ‘How the fuck did you know there was an IED there?’Dave yawned. ‘The interpreter said something about it.’‘Yeah, but that was after you’d told me to stop. You’d already said there was one ahead. But I couldn’t see the fucker for love nor money.’‘The surface of the track didn’t look right.’‘I don’t know how you saw that. I thought you’d gone AWOL for a minute. You were sweating like a pig.’‘Who isn’t sweating like a pig? But OK, I’ll admit it was a guess. I’d have felt pretty fucking stupid if I’d been wrong.’‘You weren’t wrong, though. From now on I’m going to make sure I’m always driving you.’