War Torn

Chapter Thirty-six

WHEN BINMAN HAD HEARD HIS OWN NAME, STANDING IN THE woods watching the casualties’ blood pump into the soil, he’d thought Dave was gripping him. Because, as usual, he must be doing something wrong. It took a few moments to realize that he’d been selected to clear a mine path to the casualties.As he struggled to find his tape he thought to himself that he must have been chosen because Dave wouldn’t mind losing him. Then he remembered that Jamie Dermott had also been chosen, and Dave would certainly mind losing Jamie. Only then did it occur to him that Dave had picked him to do this work because he might be good at it. And Mal, who was much quicker and better at everything, had been told to follow him! Mal was a fantastic medic but until they got to the casualties he could do nothing more than follow on his belly, maybe widening the mine path a bit, because, incredibly, Binns had been put at the front.By the time Binns was on his knees at the edge of the woodland, liberated from his Bergen, bayonet in hand, he felt lightheaded. He had been selected to do the most difficult job. Along with good-at-everything hot-shit soldier Jamie Dermott. It was incredible.His best mate, Streaky Bacon, clasped his shoulder.‘Good luck, Binman. I’m going to write a rap about this . . .’The seriousness of Streaky’s face reminded Binns of the danger ahead. So did one of the casualties, who gave a sudden, sharp scream of pain.Binns didn’t know Ben Broom well. But he knew he had to save his life. And if he failed, his failure would stay with him for ever. He closed his eyes and thought about what he had to do.Look, feel, prod. Go. He worked vigorously on his knees and was soon able to move forward onto his belly, until Dave gripped him for it.‘Slower, Binns, for Chrissake!’Binman soon decided to keep the bayonet for prodding and use his fingers to feel the ground. It was weird to scrape his hands across the rough Afghan soil. He had helped his grandfather in his allotment at home in Dorset where the soil was nothing like this: it was dark and friable and always damp beneath the surface. This soil had been roasting in the cruel sun for years. There was no moisture. It felt thin and lifeless.The earth was gritty beneath his palms. He swept aside handfuls and let them fall gently. He dug his fingers into it until his nails were packed solid.He heard Dave instructing O’Sullivan and Kirk to do the same.‘Sarge,’ shouted O’Sullivan, ‘can I pull these weeds up? It’ll be easier to feel the soil.’‘No!’ Dave roared back. ‘We don’t know how deep the root system goes.’Binns had already worked that one out. So far he hadn’t encountered many weeds but he worked carefully around them when he did.It took hours and hours to move one inch. It took for ever. Binns concentrated so hard on his hands and the soil beneath them that days might have passed. The rest of his body didn’t exist. He had turned into sharp eyes and gentle hands. Every time one of the wounded let out a cry, he felt himself speeding up.‘Ignore everything except your work, especially ignore the casualties!’ shouted Dave. ‘Don’t hurry. Are you hurrying, Binman?’Binns shook his head but did not speak. He was squeezing the point of his bayonet into earth his fingers had loosened, and then easing his body forward a bit more. Then a bit more. And then a bit more.He heard Mal behind him.‘He’s working fast, Sarge, but he’s being well careful.’To Binman, Mal said: ‘You’re doing a fucking good job. I just hope the Taliban don’t move this way. Because I’m feeling exposed out here.’Binman heard Mal’s words but he was working patiently now on a particularly resistant mound of earth. He scraped at it very, very gently. The earth did not want to move. Was it caked to something solid beneath? He tried a new tactic.‘What the fuck are you doing?’ asked Mal.‘Blowing,’ said Binns.‘Oh. Thought you were just dripping your sweat on it.’Binman became aware how hot he was. His helmet was a metal oven and his head baked inside it. His body was manoeuvring under a hot blanket.‘Binns, have you had any water yet?’ bellowed Dave from the side of the clearing. He sounded further away now, but the casualties looked no closer.‘He hasn’t, Sarge!’ shouted Mal.‘Drink!’ ordered Dave. ‘Get your tube in your mouth and pause.’Binman was blowing harder now on the resistant earth. This time it turned to dust and puffed up into his face. His eyes filled with grit. He shut them and kept blowing. When all the loose earth had gone he found himself staring down a steep indent. Just visible at the bottom was something hard and probably metallic. He stopped. For the first time since he had started this long, slow journey on his belly, he was still.‘Use your Camelbak,’ Mal said.Binns did not move.‘Oy! You going to puke?’Binns lay still, waves of heat rising from the hot soil around him.‘Water!’ Mal prompted him. ‘Now!’Jack Binns tried to speak. But the inside of his mouth was coated with dry soil. His throat was dry. His eyes were dry. The only water was his own sweat, dripping down his face and off his chin.‘Eh?’ demanded Mal.‘Something might be there.’Mal said: ‘Might be. That’s enough for me, mate!’Binns looked up then and managed to find the delivery tube of his Camelbak. He sucked on it long and hard. The water was almost cool and it cleaned out his mouth and as it trickled down his throat he realized he had been concentrating too hard to notice his deep, deep thirst. The joy of the water was so intense that he did not know how long Mal and Dave had been shouting at him.‘Back! Go back!’‘I’m not going back.’‘You have to fucking go back to go round it,’ Mal said, grabbing hold of his feet and dragging him.‘I don’t want to go back!’ said Binns. But he was powerless as Mal pulled him a metre back along the path he had so neatly marked.Binns sat up then to get a better view of the mine and how he should go around it. He saw the bodies of the wounded ahead. He had felt as though he was making no progress at all but now he realized he was a little over halfway to Broom. One of Broom’s legs disappeared into a pool of blood. Flies were gathering around it in swarms.Binns remembered the golden hour. You had to get your casualties to Bastion inside the golden hour. How many hours had he already been here carving this route with his hands? And now he had lost one metre of the few he had gained.Broom lay still. He was so quiet he might be dead.‘He’s still breathing,’ said Mal.‘Go left, Binman,’ shouted voices. A few said: ‘Try right!’ Jack Binns thought of his mother’s living room, how he and his mother and brother would watch TV game shows, shouting at the contestants what they should do.Another voice cut through the others.‘Binns! Cut left and you’ll link up with the path O’Sullivan cleared. Unfortunately it’s marked out in peanuts. You can eat them if you like, as long as you mark it properly.’It was the boss. Binman swung his body to the left. The brief break had reminded him how hot he was and how dangerous the work. His heart thudded as he rounded the mine. Suppose it was enormous? Suppose he hadn’t swung wide enough? If it exploded under him his innards would be ripped out. There would be a few moments when you knew you were dying. He shut his eyes. Yes, for a couple of seconds, you’d know it was happening. He would feel pain and sadness and loss because he was leaving it all behind. He’d think of his mother and Ally. Then it would all be over. Death would be a sort of blackness where nothing ever happened and he wouldn’t know or care. Ally would cry at his funeral and then marry someone else and have kids and grow old and he wouldn’t see any of it. Because he wouldn’t be there. He wouldn’t exist.He felt sick. His hands became less systematic and then they stopped.‘Binman!’ Mal sounded worried. ‘I know you’re going to sick up. I know it.’Binns could not tell him that he was suddenly, halfway between a casualty and the edge of a minefield, paralysed by fear. Out of the corner of his eye was the distant line of Jamie’s Camelbak, with Angus’s following. They were heading towards Connor at a snail’s pace. Jamie paused and put his head up to drink. He looked over at Binman. His face was filthy. You could see sweat lines running through the dirt even from here. They exchanged distant glances.‘How are you moving so fucking fast, Binman?’ shouted Jamie.Binman summoned all his energy. ‘Hands. And blowing.’‘Blowing. Good idea.’Jamie lowered his body back down, his face distorted in pain. Binns remembered how this man had taken a machine gun round and just carried on working as though nothing had happened. He watched as Jamie disappeared behind some weeds. The field was full of bodies. The casualties were on their backs. And on their bellies, inching in their different directions, inching towards possible death, were Jamie, Angry, O’Sullivan and Kirk.‘Binman!’ hissed Mal. ‘Don’t fuck up. You’re doing a great job. Don’t fuck up now, mate.’Slowly, Jack Binns took his bayonet and pushed it into some soft ground ahead of him which his hands had already massaged. Nothing happened. There was no explosion. He was still alive. Heartened, he began his fast, concentrated work again.‘Sarge!’ shouted Mal. ‘How did you know Binman would be so good at this?’Binns turned briefly to glance at Dave, who was standing at the edge of the minefield. You could see his helplessness. He could yell, warn, cajole. But the situation was outside his control. His face was red with the heat, the effort of yelling instructions and the extreme tension. He had even forgotten, Binns noted, before turning back to his worm’s eye view of the dry earth, to take off his Bergen. Next to him stood the boss. His face was anguished.‘I watched his fingers when he was beatboxing with Streaky,’ Dave called back. ‘In another life, that lad would have been a concert pianist.’Binns heard them talking about him but paid no attention. He felt as though he was inside his own hands as he scraped and prodded. He stabbed another little mine marker into the ground and crawled forward again. Mal was right behind him but he seemed a thousand miles away.‘Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh, get me out of here!’ moaned Broom suddenly. The old blood was drying in the sun, new blood was still flowing, his wounds were sizzling and the swarm of flies around him was growing.‘We’re nearly there!’ said Mal. ‘Go firm, Broom!’ As if Broom was thinking of making a run for it.‘Tell Kylie I love her,’ said Broom.‘You’ll soon be telling her yourself, mate!’Suddenly Connor spoke: ‘It’s OK . . .’‘Hello, hello, I thought you were unconscious, Ryan!’ said Mal.Connor was lying still, staring up at the sky as if it was drawing him to it. He sounded calm. ‘It’s OK, lads. Just leave me to die. I just want to die.’‘Fuck that,’ said Mal. ‘Don’t go dying on us, mate.’Angus, behind Jamie, roared: ‘Fuck that, Connor, we’re nearly there and we’re not buggering about in all this dirt for nothing.’‘Did you get morphine in you, Ryan?’ asked Jamie suspiciously, but Connor did not reply.All four of the rescuers were closing in on the casualties now and they could have a conversation without shouting.From the edges of the field, 2 Section was yelling.‘Didn’t see him take morphine, don’t think he did.’‘Come on, Ryan, don’t fucking give in now, mate!’‘The boys are nearly there!’‘And if they get blown up, there’s a helicopter with a winch on its way!’‘Get your morphine in, Ryan. Go on, get your morphine in!’‘No,’ shouted Dave. ‘If he’s in and out of consciousness, he shouldn’t take morphine now. Is he losing consciousness?’Mal turned and nodded. He was close enough to see that Ryan Connor was in no state to join in this discussion. He lay, without moving, his eyes open, staring at the sky. ‘It’s his arm, Sarge. Still there, but not pretty.’‘Mine!’ yelled Jamie suddenly.He had frozen in his position on the ground.‘Well, I mean, it could be a big stone. Or it could—’‘Divert!’ Dave called. ‘Divert right.’Angus, who had been working on widening Jamie’s path, sat up and glared.‘It only might be! If it’s a stone, we’re wasting time diverting for fucking hours.’The boss yelled: ‘And then you’ll have the rest of your life to think about how you took a short cut and lost your leg!’Dave put his hands on his hips and his face reddened still more as he roared: ‘Plus let me tell you something about these Soviet mines, Angry . . . they weren’t all designed to kill a man. A lot were designed to take away what matters most. Which for some of us is our bollocks.’There was a shocked silence. Every face turned towards the casualties. Angry stopped arguing and dragged Jamie back and Jamie continued working his way forward at a wider angle.Binns was aware of all this as though it was a TV programme other people were watching. He was working his way through a weedy area now and the dry weeds smelled pungent. It was harder to feel the soil. He cut some down to ground level with his bayonet, being careful not to disturb the roots. But he was close to Ben Broom, close enough to see his boots through the undergrowth.The crack of fire took him by surprise. For a moment he thought a mine had exploded. Then he realized that he had focused so hard on mines that he had forgotten that other threat: the ragheads. Maybe everyone had. He dared to take just one quick look around before he got his head down. There were rounds tearing up the ground all around him. Dust rose, weeds flew, earth shook.From the lads at the side of the field there was a rapid, angry and intense response.Mal, behind, said: ‘Fuck it, this could set one of them off . . .’His voice was scared. Binns felt nausea rising up through his body. He was lying in a minefield. A round could hit him. A round could set off a mine. His hands could detonate a mine. The danger was immense. Death almost certain. So he might as well get on with his work. It was better than lying here doing nothing.He did not raise his head but laid his chin on the gritty soil, placed his hands ahead of him and took some comfort from the familiar feel of the dirt as he ran his fingers over its surface.‘Fucking hell, Binman!’ Mal’s voice was high-pitched, as if someone was strangling him. ‘I felt something bouncing off my body armour.’Binman escaped from his own nausea, the agony of the wounded and the terror of Mal by slipping inside his own hands. Look, feel, prod.‘Fucking bastards!’ the lads were yelling at the Taliban as they fired. ‘We fucking hate you for that!’One round did set off an explosion. Binns was aware of it as a massive flash and plume of smoke in the corner of his eye. He did not stop. He did not want to think about it. If anyone was hurt there were plenty of others to deal with them. Look, feel, prod.The firing ceased as suddenly as it had begun.‘Thank Christ for that,’ said Mal. ‘I just hope Ben or Connor didn’t take any of it.’Binns continued to work. He was aware that men on the side of the field were busy, moving around, but he didn’t look up. He could feel his closeness to Broom now. He had gained speed when he had briefly taken over O’Sullivan’s mine path, checking the ground with his fingers and replacing the peanuts with markers. Mal was eating the peanuts and was on his fifth packet.‘Don’t rush it at the end!’ roared Dave.‘You there already?’ called Jamie, looking up.‘Binman’s going for the land speed record,’ Mal told him.Binns’s heart beat harder. This had been the longest, slowest, hottest fifteen metres of his life. And he was nearly there. His hands sifted soil faster, his bayonet poked energetically.‘Not too fast, mate,’ said Mal behind him.And then it happened again. Another strange clod of earth, clinging, lumpen, reluctant to move. Like an arrow pointing downwards to draw his attention to something. This time Binns didn’t blow on it, not even lightly. He knew.‘What’s up?’ asked Mal.‘Another one.’He heard his own voice, faint and hoarse like an old man who’d smoked all his life.‘Oh, fuck it. We’re nearly there. And it’s right by Broom. How are we going to get him out with that in the way?’Binns felt defeated. He put his face down in the dirt for the first time, feeling it crunch and crumble beneath his cheeks. He closed his eyes. He felt far from home. And home wasn’t even England right now. It was twelve metres away with his mate, Streaky Bacon, and all the others.Mal was up on his knees surveying the scene.‘OK, you’ll have to go left again. Then we’ll go in around Ryan’s side and it might help getting Ryan out too.’Binns was a mine-clearing machine. Mal dragged him backwards and he started looking, feeling and prodding to the left before Mal had let go of his legs.‘What’s up? What you doing?’ shouted Dave.Mal knelt and explained. He turned to the others watching at the side of the field.‘What about that explosion?’‘We’re OK. But it ripped a tree to shreds like lettuce, that’s all,’ shouted Streaky.It took for ever to arrive at Broom. Crawling around the last mine was the longest, slowest part of the longest, slowest journey.‘You’re doing well, Jamie’s nowhere near Connor yet,’ said Mal.‘It’s not a race,’ said Binns.But they were there and Broom was still alive, although his eyes were closed and his breathing shallow. Mal began to move into position.‘Stop!’ yelled Dave. ‘Just be careful. You must clear the position all around the casualty before you treat him. You must do that!’Binns and Mal could hardly stop the forward momentum of their bodies towards Broom. Dave had to yell at them three times to prevent them touching him. So Binman began to worm his way around the wounded soldier, around the blood, around the buzzing swarms of flies and around the landmine that was lying painfully close by. Mal taped it off. He was kneeling with his tourniquet and dressings at the ready, waiting to pounce on Broom’s trauma kit as soon as they were clear.He talked nonsense in a soothing voice.‘Two minutes, mate, just two minutes . . . and the man you have to thank for our speedy arrival today is one Binman, now better known as Snakeman because he crawled all the way here on his fucking belly. He was chosen for the job because he’s got the smallest belly in the whole platoon. You should have seen him slithering up the minefield . . .’Broom did not respond.‘OK,’ said Binns at last, and Mal moved in to the bloody mess where Broom’s leg should have been.Binman sat still for a moment and watched Mal in action. Despite his haste, Mal’s movements were smooth and experienced. He used the tourniquet with strength and wrapped dressings with a rapid professionalism. He ignored the flies swarming all around him.The nausea that always seemed to be waiting inside Binns swept up through his body to his throat again.‘Write on his forehead that he’s had his morphine, will you?’ said Mal. Without looking up, he added: ‘And if you puke all over the casualty, I’ll cut you, Binman. I mean it.’Binns swallowed and said shakily: ‘Come on, Ben, wake up, mate. We’re going to get you out of here now . . .’There was no time for Binns to be sick because Mal had shaken out the stretcher. Broom looked small and light without his kit but when they lifted him Binns thought his arms would fall out of their sockets.‘He doesn’t look this heavy!’‘Deadweight,’ replied Mal shortly.‘But he’s not dead!’‘Doesn’t matter. Still a deadweight.’Binns tried to take Broom’s Bergen but Mal rescued him and handed him Broom’s weapon instead, a rifle with UGL. They lifted the stretcher carefully and carried it gingerly around the taped mine.Afterwards, Binns remembered the journey back down the path with the stretcher in slow motion. It could only have taken a few minutes. But with Broom’s weight breaking his arms, the heat suddenly blinding and the flies following them, it felt like an hour.Many hands were waiting at the side of the woods for the stretcher. Kirk and O’Sullivan, covered in dirt, were the first to grab it as soon as it was clear of the minefield.‘Fucking good job, you two. Fucking fantastic work, Binman.’Gasping for breath, Binman was clapped on the back by Dave. He blushed and nodded. He looked for Streaky who was covering across the minefield. Streaky gave him a big smile of approval and a thumbs-up.The boss was there, talking on the radio.‘We’ve decided to get this casualty off now,’ he told Dave, ‘and bring the Chinook back for Connor.’‘How far away is the HLS?’‘Five minutes,’ said the boss. ‘Let’s get Broom moving there now.’‘What happened to the Black Hawk?’ asked Dave.The boss gave a snort of humourless laughter.‘How many men can I have to cover the stretcher team?’‘Take 2 Section, they’re not doing much good here.’Binman watched Jamie and Angus at work. They had just found another mine and were diverting once more.Dave said quietly: ‘Binman, relax now. Just sit down and drink!’But he was too late. Binman was already walking back up the cleared mine path.Dave yelled at him to come back but Binman knew he had to continue his work because in the time Jamie could work his way around this mine, Binns was sure he could connect his own path to Connor.He lay down in the place Broom had lain, avoiding the huge bloodstain, now feasted on by flies. He started his work again. This time his hands hurt. He realized they were blistered. It was worse than cracked heels but he could ignore the pain if he concentrated. He rubbed his palms over the soil with a touch that now felt light and experienced, the way Mal had been with the dressings.He realized someone was behind him.‘Don’t rush, mate.’ It was Mal. He had ignored Dave’s warning and come back too. Binns suddenly felt happy. He did not know why. ‘Just get your water tube in your mouth. And don’t listen to Sarge doing his nut down there.’Binns silently, doggedly, worked his way towards Connor. There was a lot of shrapnel from the two exploded mines here, glass and bits of metal. He twice cut his hands and Mal yelped in pain as he knelt on something sharp. But nothing could stop Binman now. As the unmoving shape of Ryan Connor got closer, he speeded up.‘Fuck it, I can’t see him breathing,’ said Mal.Angus had his hands on his hips. ‘Hey! You’re going to get to him first!’Jamie barely looked up. He was working like Binns, face close to the dirt, hands just in front of his face, bayonet used only for the final prods before he advanced. He said: ‘We could all be too late.’Dave had stopped yelling at Binman and Mal for returning to the minefield and wanted to know the state of the casualty.‘If he’s alive it’ll be mouth to mouth as soon as we get there,’ called Mal grimly. ‘He’s in shreds. I mean, his arm. Down to the bone. And there’s a lot of shrapnel just below his body armour . . . Not sure about his foot . . .’‘Clear the position before you touch him! Remember!’But Binman had already begun his slow shuffle around Ryan on his belt buckles. He was almost all the way round and Mal was ready with equipment when Binman’s long, thin fingers felt the strange thickening of the soil which told him something lay beneath. He was a few inches from Ryan Connor’s shoulder.He stopped.‘Oh fuck!’ said Mal. ‘Tell me no!’‘Maybe.’ He blew very gently on the earth and saw buried metal.‘Don’t mess with maybe,’ said Jamie from ground level. He was close to them now.‘We could clear a wider position over your side,’ said Binns. ‘Then we can pull him over away from this mine.’Jamie had reached Connor’s feet. Binns circled back around his head. He and Jamie worked towards each other, widening the cleared area around the unmoving body when simultaneously they both found something. Two more mines, within a metre of each other. They stopped. They knew this must be the heart of the minefield.‘What a load of shite,’ said Jamie. ‘We can’t move him this way. Or that way.’‘If I have to do mouth to mouth I could just about kneel over there . . .’ said Mal. He reached across from his safe spot and found Ryan Connor’s wrist. He felt a very faint pulse.‘He’s alive!’ he shouted down the field. ‘Just!’‘You’re not doing anything to him six inches away from an unexploded mine, mate,’ said Jamie. ‘All we can do is get him onto a stretcher and out of here. Even that’s going to be fucking dangerous.’‘There isn’t room for four people,’ said Binman. He was staring at the bloody mess which was Ryan Connor’s body. He remembered how Ryan had flown out from Bastion with him and Streaky and how they had arrived in the FOB and everyone had been looking at the colour of Connor’s hair for some reason Binman had never discovered. Ryan’s hair didn’t look so red now that it was surrounded by the surreal red of his own blood.‘There’s not even room for two,’ said Jamie. ‘Especially if one of them’s Angus.’‘I can pick Connor up by myself,’ said Angus.‘Yeah, gorilla, but can you pick him up without putting any weight on the ground there, or here, or here?’‘Yeah, I can do it,’ said Angus.‘You can’t,’ Binns told him. ‘We didn’t come all this way for you and Connor to get blown up.’ He spoke as though he had travelled a hundred miles.Jamie said: ‘Two of us can probably do it. We lift him straight out of this area and onto a stretcher over there.’Binman knew one thing. He would not be lifting Connor.‘I’ll take his Bergen,’ he said. He was starting to shake. Four men and a casualty were standing or lying within a metre of three mines they knew about and maybe more they didn’t. He felt as though all his nerve endings were shredded, like the tree Streaky said had turned into lettuce. Maybe he’d used up all his good luck and there was none left for the near impossible extraction of Ryan Connor.‘We’ll have to lift him with his kit on, too fiddly to get it off here,’ said Jamie.Mal and Jamie discussed which of them would help Angus pick up Connor. Finally they agreed that Jamie was in a better position. Mal took Connor’s gimpy. Binman followed him back along the mine path.Binman was aware of all the faces looking at him from the woods as he neared. Embarrassingly, inexplicably, he wanted to cry. But their eyes were drawn away from him. Now that Binns and Bilaal had cleared, Jamie and Angus were attempting to lift the heavy body of Connor and remove it with surgical precision.‘What the hell is going on?’ Dave asked Mal as soon as he and Binman reached the edge of the field.‘Three mines. Two on one side and the other by his left shoulder. No room to get his Bergen off, no room for a stretcher. So they’re lifting him out and—’‘No!’ yelled Dave up the minefield. ‘Christ, no, no, no! Are you fucking crazy? Stop right now!’Binman had just stepped into the woods when the flash of an explosion, bright enough for him to see it without turning around, lit up the world.