Authors: Andy McNab
Crisis Four (6 page)
I managed to get my boots interlocked, and at last I could squeeze and push down with my legs, at the same time twisting up with my arms as hard as I could. I kept on turning as we both screamed at each other. The fucker didn’t like it; he knew what was going on, but fortunately for me he was too old and too fat to do much about it.
His neck went without too much of a crack. He slumped down, and there wasn’t much noise coming from him; there wasn’t even a body jerk. He just went very still. My hands were covered in blood, snot and saliva. I rolled over and kicked him off.
My weapon was only about five feet away. I picked it up and checked that the magazine was on tight, and that I still had a round in the chamber. I started to move back to Sarah, then stopped. I ran back to the Syrian. I could hear firing again, and people screaming and shouting, both Brits and Arabs, maybe just thirty metres away. It’s funny how these details take a back seat when you’re worrying about other things.
I scrabbled around and eventually found the piece of my ear still in his mouth. I couldn’t be arsed trying to stop the bleeding on the side of my head because I knew it wouldn’t; capillary bleeding goes on for ever. It would sort itself out. But I would want to get the severed bit sewn back on. It wouldn’t be too good with a chunk missing because I’d have a VDM (visual distinguishing mark); but worse than that, I knew a couple of people with bits of their ear missing, and it looked fucking ugly. The only alternative was to have a 1980s Kevin Keegan haircut to cover it up.
I got back to the room and banged on the door. ‘Sarah, it’s me. I’m coming in, I’m coming in.’
Glen was still at the end of the corridor. When he heard my voice he shouted, ‘Come on, for fuck’s sake! Drag her fucking arse out… now!’ He was right.
Enough was enough, we were all going to die here soon.
I pushed it open and Sarah was still standing over one of the PCs with her laptop plugged into some other shit. I looked over at the Source. He was sitting in the same position I’d left him in, as if he was watching the TV.
A small amount of blood was trickling from a hole in his shirt, but it was the one in the front of his head that gave the game away. Blood was oozing out like lava flow. The back of his head lolled against the sofa; it had ballooned out slightly, but the skin was keeping all the fragmented bone in place. It looked like a car windscreen that’s been punched; the glass goes out in the shape of a fist, but it’s still held together. Blood and gooey grey tissue were dribbling onto the sofa. You didn’t have to be George Clooney to know this boy wouldn’t be surfing the net any more.
Not even looking at me as she manipulated the keyboard, she said, ‘He tried to attack me. But he is happy – God would have sent him
seqina
.’ She knew I wouldn’t have a clue what she was on about, and added, ‘Tranquillity.’
seqina
.’ She knew I wouldn’t have a clue what she was on about, and added, ‘Tranquillity.’
I looked at him again. He hadn’t moved from where he’d been when I’d left the room and there was no look of tranquillity on his face. He hadn’t attacked her. So what; as if I gave a fuck. It was probably part of the alternative brief she’d been given. AK fire called me back to the real world.
‘Come on, let’s go. Now, Sarah!’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m going to be a few seconds more.’
The incendiary devices were still on the table. One of my jobs, unless she was going to tell me that had changed too, was to destroy any equipment on target.
She hit the final key. ‘OK, we can go.’ She started to pack herself up. I went to the sofa, pulled the Source away and let him roll onto the floor. Picking up one end of the sofa and dragging it across the room, I leaned it against the bench of computers. I got the waste-paper bin, scattered the contents on the bench top and added a rug from the floor and a couple of chairs. I wanted as much flammable stuff as possible near the incendiaries.
I said, ‘Are you
sure
you’re ready now?’
sure
you’re ready now?’
It was the first time she’d looked at me since I’d returned to the room. I saw her studying the red mess on the side of my head. I pulled the pin of the first device and positioned it on the table between two VDUs. The handle flew off, and by the time the last one was placed two were already burning fiercely. I could feel the heat, even through my jump suit.
I ditched the bergen; everything I needed now was in my belt kit. The air was filling with the noxious black fumes of burning plastic. I grabbed hold of Sarah, who had her repacked bergen slung over her shoulders, and headed for the door. I opened it a couple of inches and shouted to Glen, ‘Coming through! Coming through!’
He yelled back, ‘Shut the fuck up and run! Run!’
I didn’t look left or right, just ran for the door by the same route we’d come in. Within less than a minute I was in the cold night air, my eyes peeled for the gap in the fence. It was pointless worrying about getting shot; I just ran in a stoop to make as small a target as possible, keeping Sarah in front of me.
I caught a glimpse of Glen behind me, plus another bloke still further back. They followed as we sprinted towards the fence, rounds thudding into the ground around us. The Syrians were firing far too many rounds in one burst and couldn’t control their aim.
Reg 1 pulled open one half of the upside-down V. Sarah slid into the gap like a baseball player going for base. I prepared to do the same. I caught up with her as her slide stopped on the other side, and kicked her out of the way so I wasn’t blocking the gap for the other two.
‘Move! Move!’ I expected them to do the same to me. Nothing happened.
Reg 1 had already seen the reason why: ‘Man down! Man down!’
Looking back through the gloom, I could see a shape on the ground about twenty metres away. Whoever was with him already had his hand in his loop and was trying to drag him towards the fence. Each of us was wearing a harness, a large loop made of nylon strapping between our shoulder blades with which a downed body could be dragged or hooked up to a heli winch for a quick extraction.
‘Stay here – don’t move!’ I could see from Sarah’s expression that for once she was going to do as she was told.
I ran out to the dragger, and between us we pulled Glen towards the hole in the fence line. He was moaning and groaning like a drunk. ‘Shit, I’m down, I’m down.’
Good. If he was talking, he was breathing.
I could see that the legs of his coveralls were shining with blood, but we’d have to look at that later. The first priority was to get him, and us, out of the immediate area.
I slid through the fence, turned on my knees, got hold of Glen’s harness and dragged him through the gap. Sarah said and did nothing. Her bit was done; she was way out of her depth now. Reg 1 and 2 were waiting with her; the other two patrol members were giving covering fire from the olive-grove side of the fence as we moved towards them, letting off double taps at anything that moved. They needed to conserve ammo; we didn’t have Hollywood mags.
Reg 1 was shouting commands. ‘Move back to the FRV, move back.’ He had a sat comm out, its miniature transmission dish pointing skyward, telling the world that we were in the shit. I didn’t know who he was talking to, but it certainly made me feel better.
Every other man carried a poncho stretcher – a big sheet of green nylon with loop handles – as part of his kit. Reg 2 laid his on the ground as I removed Glen’s belt kit and bergen and put it on my back. So much for travelling light. As we rolled him onto the stretcher he was still conscious but, if he hadn’t already, he’d soon go into shock.
It was then that I heard an ominous slurping noise in time with his breathing. He had a sucking wound to his chest: air was being sucked inside his chest cavity instead of going through his mouth. It was going to need sorting out quickly because otherwise the fucker was history. But there wasn’t enough time to do it here – that way we’d all die. We’d have to wait until we reached the FRV.
Reg 2 heard the noise, too. Grasping Glen’s hand, he placed it on his chest. ‘Plug it up, mate.’ He wasn’t that out of it, he understood what he needed to do. With a chest wound we couldn’t give him morphine; he was going to have to take the pain.
Two of us got hold of him, one either side of the stretcher, and started to hobble along with him as quickly as we could, Sarah following at my heels. I didn’t look at what was going on behind us, but I heard the rate of covering fire from Reg 1 and 2 step up as we moved off.
We hit the tree line, Glen’s moans distorted by the jolting as we ran. We got further into the grove, and only then moved to the right, under cover. He was still conscious and breathing noisily as we laid him on his back. The light from the target area was just enough to see my hands moving as they worked on him. There was no need to worry about clearing his airway, but his hand had fallen from his chest. I put my hand over the wound to form a seal. Hopefully, with his chest now airtight, normal breathing would return. I could see the anguish in his eyes. His throat spluttered as he coughed and fought the pain. ‘What’s it like? What’s it like? Oh shit.’ He screwed up his face even more as Reg 2 moved him. It was a good sign: he could still feel it, his senses hadn’t given way yet.
Reg 2 finished checking him. ‘No exit wound.’
First you’ve got to plug the leaks, then you have to put in fluid to replace what’s been lost. I watched as Reg 2 grabbed the field dressings from Glen’s belt kit and ripped them open. You always use the casualty’s own dressings; you might need yours later. The packaging was Israeli, but they looked the same as ours, like big fat sanitary towels with a bandage attached. Their job, in any language, is to block up wounds and stop bleeding by the application of direct pressure.
A round from an AK had also ripped through the muscle mass on his thigh, like a butcher’s knife slicing open a side of beef. He was losing blood fast. Reg 2 started to cavity-pack the wound.
The downside of Glen still breathing was that we couldn’t shut him up. Over and over he groaned, ‘What’s it like? What’s it like?’
I looked down at him. He was covered in sweat, and the dust had caked onto his face. ‘Shut the fuck up,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing, we’ll fix it.’ You should never let a casualty see you looking concerned.
Sarah was several paces behind me, watching the route we had just taken, weapon out. I half whispered, half shouted, ‘Sarah! Come here!’
She moved towards me. I said, ‘Put the heel of your hand over this hole when I take mine off, OK?’
He was losing consciousness. Close to his ear, I said, ‘It’s OK, you can speak to me now.’ There was no response. ‘Oi, come on, speak to me, you fucker!’ I pulled on his sideburns. Nothing.
I pulled up the left sleeve of his coveralls to expose the six-inch band of tubigrip on his forearm. Underneath that was the catheter, already inserted in a vein before we left Delhi. You’d have to be mad not to; a bit of anti-coagulant in the catheter to stop the blood from clotting and it will last for a good twenty-four hours. You are a bit sore afterwards, but it will save your life. It’s hard to get a vein up to insert a catheter once you’ve lost fluid, especially under fire and in darkness.
Reg 2 had nearly finished packing the thigh wound. It would have been no good just piling bandages on top, because the muscle underneath was still going to bleed. You have to really pack the cavity, keeping direct pressure on the wound, and that, in turn, will stop the bleeding. That done, he now needed fluid.
Glen’s breathing was very rapid and shallow, which wasn’t a good sign. I felt the pulse on his neck; same problem there. His heart was working overtime to circulate what fluid was left around his body.
Shots were now being fired at us from about a hundred metres away but all my attention was focused on Glen.
Reg 2 shouted at Sarah. ‘Watch him and tell us if his breathing starts to slow down. Got it?’ She nodded and started to take notice.
I pulled the plasma expander from his belt kit, a clear-plastic half-litre container shaped like a washing-up-liquid bottle. I ripped it out of its Israeli plastic wrapper and threw that on the ground. I bit off the little cap that kept the neck of the bottle sterile. Fuck hygiene – infections could be sorted out in hospital. Let’s keep him alive so he can get to one first.
By now I also had his IV set out of its protective plastic coating, and was biting off the cap to the spearhead connector and jabbing it into the self-sealing neck of the bottle. I undid the screw clamp, took off the end cap and watched as the fluid ran through the line. I heard it splash onto Glen’s face. He didn’t react. Bad sign. Rolling the screw clamp on to stop the flow, I wasn’t concerned about air bubbles in the line; a small amount doesn’t matter – certainly not in these circumstances. Let’s just get the fluid in.
There was more gunfire from the target area, too close for comfort, and for the first time since we’d been in the trees our blokes fired back. The Syrians had found us.
Reg 1 was still in command. He was down at the tree line waiting for us to sort Glen out. ‘How much longer up there?’
Reg 2 called back. ‘Two minutes, mate, two minutes. I need your fluids.’ As he jumped up with his weapon to collect the kit I unscrewed the end cap of the catheter and screwed the IV set into it.
Sarah was still plugging the hole. I could hear her breathing quickly in my ear as she leant over Glen. ‘Nick, listen to me. Let’s leave them to it, let’s go.’
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