War Torn

Chapter Fifty-five

JAMIE AND DAVE WERE ON STAG. THE CAMP WAS QUIET. ONLY THE air moved a little, descending slowly down the hillside. When it reached Dave’s cheeks it felt like hot breath. He watched a piece of litter, lying inside the wire fence below them. It didn’t even flutter.He looked out across the plain and then back to the hills. Nothing moved. He looked inside the camp. Nothing. He knew Emily was in her lab. There was no sign of any other civilian at work. The soldiers who weren’t on duty were under their ponchos, asleep. He glanced over at the major’s poncho. The soles of two feet were visible beneath it.‘Thank God we’re going home tomorrow,’ said Dave, realizing he had just called Sin City home. But compared to this Godforsaken piece of nowhere it was full of comforts. The cookhouse, with tables to eat at. A phone to call Jenny from. The chance of seeing pictures of the baby on the OC’s computer. Even the Colour Boy’s bowls seemed like a luxury if they had some cool, clear water in them for a good wash. But most of all he wanted to speak to Jenny.There were strange, unpredictable moments, just standing here on stag or sitting in the ops room, when he got what felt like an actual physical ache in his heart for Jenny. He always meant to tell her about those aches next time he spoke to her. Although he never did.‘You’re definitely first in line for the phone when we get back,’ said Jamie, as though he could read Dave’s mind.‘Yeah. For once I won’t be waiting.’‘And I want to get the phone after you. I really want to talk to Agnieszka.’‘Going to try to sort things out?’‘Yeah. I’m hoping we’ve just got our wires crossed. Or she was just having a bad day last time we spoke.’‘You’ll probably find that everything’s all right,’ said Dave. ‘It’s easy to read too much into a short conversation when you’re this far apart.’‘But after six months, she’ll have changed. And so will I. So will Luke.’‘Yeah. Nothing’s ever exactly the same. You have to work hard to find your place in the family again.’‘It’ll be different for you at home.’Involuntarily, Dave smiled.‘Two kids. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to.’The silence returned. The half-hearted breeze gave up and stopped completely. Nothing moved at all in the intense heat. Even Jamie, at Dave’s side, was as still as a reptile. Was there life somewhere in that vast expanse of sand? Small mammals, bugs? Maybe they burrowed down deep where the earth was cooler and went to sleep until last light.It would be easy to fall asleep on stag in this heat and have the piss taken out of you for ever. Except that suddenly Dave felt wide awake. His back straightened. His senses strained.Jamie looked at him.‘What’s up?’‘There’s something happening.’Jamie looked around at the camp with its hardware and soft tents. The flat desert plain was so still that even the dust lay pinned to the ground by the sun. The Early Rocks rose like statues. And on the other side of the camp were the hills and then the purple shadows of the mountains.‘Can’t see anything.’‘Over there.’Dave’s back was stiff now and his face alert.‘But it’s so quiet and—’‘It’s the wrong sort of quiet.’Jamie put his head on one side and Dave knew he was considering whether it was possible that his trusted sergeant had finally cracked.‘Don’t look at me like that. Look at the hills. Look across the camp to Three Boulders and then right and down some. Now stare.’There was a long pause.‘I’m staring. And I’m not seeing anything.’‘Keep looking at the shadows. They seem still but they’re not. They’re moving. Very, very slowly.’Jamie watched.Dave said: ‘I only saw it when my eyes started to glaze over a bit.’‘What are your eyes, fucking infra-red?’ There was admiration in Jamie’s voice and Dave knew that he could see it too now.‘Doesn’t look right, does it?’ Dave said.‘It’s like watching a ship going over the horizon. You think it’s still, then it disappears and you realize it was going all the time.’Neither man moved. Their eyes were fixed across the camp to the side of the hill.‘I reckon Angry McCall might have been right,’ Dave said. ‘I reckon there’s someone—’But he was silenced by an extraordinary sight. A small, hunched figure in shirt sleeves and body armour but without a helmet was walking outside the perimeter wire towards the hillside.