War Torn (15 page)

‘If you’d moved when I told you to then you’d be there by now,’ the major yelled.

The tension on the net was palpable. Dave’s eyes were fixed on the field, but there was still no sign of Angry.

‘I’ll have to tell them what’s happened,’ Dave said. He felt hollow. He felt sick. This was a massive and embarrassing failure for his platoon. ‘Sir—’

‘Look!’ Mal shouted.

A puff of something that looked like smoke but must have been pollen was rising from the edge of the cannabis field. Angus had stepped out of it and was running towards them, still bent double. He was carrying his rifle and the shotgun. His presence drew a volley of fire which Jamie on one side and gunners from 2 and 3 Sections soon silenced.

‘Yes?’ the major said wearily. ‘What is it you’re trying to tell me, Sergeant? I have a feeling that you’re about to cock up today’s action.’

‘Not at all, sir,’ Dave said. ‘The ECM’s working now and we’re ready to move forward.’

‘Well thank Christ for that!’

When he reached them, Angus handed the shotgun across Dave to his mate.

‘Listen, Angry, thanks . . .’ Mal said weakly. ‘You shouldn’t have—’

‘You fucking shithead!’ Finn shouted.

‘No time for that here,’ Dave thundered. ‘I’ll deal with you two when we get back. Now just get on with the fucking job.’

The section made its way along the ditch towards the compound.

DAVE DIALLED HOME ON THE SATELLITE PHONE. WHEN IT
connected he listened to the ringing tone without hearing it. His head was ringing already from the bollocking he’d just given Riflemen McCall and Bilaal.

Mal shouldn’t have left the shotgun. But Dave knew he’d been overcome by the cannabis plants. For Chrissake, he’d fallen asleep himself.

But there was no such excuse for Angry McCall’s dash to save the shotgun. It was so insane that, deep inside, Dave couldn’t help admiring the lad’s bravery and commitment to a friend. Especially since that friend had recently been merciless in his criticism of Angry’s own mistakes.

Dave had threatened to send Angus home, threatened anything he could think of, and the huge lad had hung his head and bitten his lower lip in silence.

‘You said you were going to prove yourself,’ Dave reminded him. ‘And you will. But today you didn’t. I’m putting you on shit duties for a week.’

He was just about to dismiss the lad when McCall said: ‘Sarge?’

Dave waited, hands on hips.

‘Sarge, I did it because I thought it was what my dad would have done.’ He looked up briefly, then back at the ground.

Dave sighed. ‘You’ve got to learn to be your own man—’

The phone’s insistent ringing snapped him back into the present. It was going on too long. Jenny should be at home because Vicky
would be in bed. So why wasn’t she answering? The ringing gave him a hollow feeling. Had there been an emergency? No, he would have been told.

This sound of the unanswered phone was a sound more empty than silence. He forgot Mal and Angry and with each ring his mind and heart were pulled a little closer to home. He was tugged back to England, to Wiltshire, to the camp, to his street, to his house and to Jenny, Vicky and their unborn baby. The journey made him tired and tense. He had reached that point in his absence when it was better not to think about them too much. And now he had gone all the way back for Jenny. And she wasn’t there.

Dave held the phone to his ear even though the ringing had stopped. He was standing behind the place where soldiers washed their socks in the CQMS’s green bowls, behind the showers, behind the civilian area. Nobody was washing now but he could see a few socks and shirts and pairs of underwear hanging limp and forgotten in the Afghan darkness. This was the most private place he could get a signal to ring Jenny. He’d wanted to tell her he loved her. He’d meant to explain that the reason he didn’t phone more was that he tried not to think about her too much. Because too many home thoughts could make life here unbearable. He’d wanted to say all that. But she wasn’t there.

Jenny had put Vicky to bed. She was so tired she’d gone to bed herself soon afterwards. At first the ringing phone was a ringing phone in her dreams, reinforcing her sleep instead of disturbing it.

Finally she was jolted awake. Her heart pounded. The telephone. And it must be the middle of the night. A night sound more ominous than silence. Maybe it was bad news. She tried to roll over to reach the receiver but she did not like to roll onto her pregnant belly. She had to shuffle to the edge of the bed instead.

Just as she grabbed the receiver, the ringing stopped.

‘Dave?’ she said. Even though she knew he’d gone. ‘Dave?’

She heard her own voice in the empty room, talking to no one. She closed her eyes and turned on the light and when she opened her eyes the bedroom filled up the dark with familiar things. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t still dark really. One switch of the light and it would be there again.

She dialled 1471. We do not have the caller’s number. It had certainly been Dave. She’d missed his call. She felt an acute sense of loss. She’d missed his call. She started to cry. She’d missed his call. God knows when he might get his hands on the satellite phone to ring again. There were times when he barely rang once in ten days and now she’d missed his call.

And it would have been a close, intimate, night-time call when they might have said the things they were supposed to say, instead of the breezy daytime calls interspersed by shouting and chuckling from Vicky. She would have been able to tell him how she wanted him, no, needed him, to leave the army.

She felt the heat of her tears as they ran down her face and onto the pillow.

She hoped he’d call again. She lay awake, waiting. It seemed to her now that she’d spent the whole of her married life waiting for the phone and the reassuring sound of Dave’s voice. It also seemed to her that the other wives received more calls when the lads were away than she did. Leanne often got two calls in a week. So did Adi. At this thought, her tears flowed faster.

Try again, Dave! she thought, and she thought it so hard that maybe he would read her mind from the other side of the world.

DAVE DECIDED TO TRY AGAIN, JUST IN CASE JEN HAD BEEN SLOW
picking up. But a voice interrupted him.

‘Er, Sarge . . . you finished, then? It’s just . . . it’s my bird’s birthday and . . .’

You were never alone in an FOB. There was no privacy anywhere. He saw Rifleman Broom from 2 Section hovering awkwardly at the edge of the light.

‘Here you are, mate.’ Dave handed over the phone.

He strode back to the tent he shared with the sergeant major and the other platoon sergeants.

Sitting on his cot he joined in the talk about the day’s success. By the time the company had left the area all resistance had been silenced and Major Willingham was confident that they’d foiled any Taliban hopes of taking the river crossing. And they’d done it without air support.

‘So we won it for a day,’ Dave said. ‘How do we know they won’t be back tomorrow?’

The others shrugged. It was a question most of them preferred not to ask.

‘What was all that crap on the radio when you couldn’t move forward?’ asked Sergeant Barnes of 3 Platoon.

Dave groaned and told them how Angus had gone back for Mal’s shotgun.

‘I take it you’ve bollocked them both,’ Sergeant Somers of 2 Platoon said.

‘Yep.’

‘Why the hell did he do it?’

‘He screwed up on a foot patrol early on and he’s been trying to make up for it ever since. But that’s not the reason he gave me.’

‘What reason did he give, then?’

‘He said it’s what his dad would have done.’

Everyone groaned. There was no one in the company who hadn’t heard Angus McCall talking about his war hero father.

‘Actually,’ CSM Kila said, ‘I don’t blame McCall.’

All faces turned to him.

‘He was wrong, of course, and you had to bollock him. But all he did was use Taliban tactics against the Taliban. Unlike us, the choggies don’t move around in fucking great platoons with enough hardware to sink a ship. They don’t have men out there carrying eighty pounds of equipment. They run around in their sandals with a rifle slung over one shoulder and maybe a mobile phone, and one of them can halt seventy-five British soldiers just by planting a booby trap in the right place.’

Some agreed they could fight better in smaller, lighter units, like the Taliban. Others preferred the safety of a large company.

‘But,’ Iain Kila said, ‘the real difference between the way we fight and the way the Taliban fight is down to RoE.’

Everyone looked at Dave.

Kila said: ‘They aren’t going to let you get away with that bloke in the ditch.’

Dave had been questioned twice about the man Mal had shot.

‘That pretty monkey is still insisting to the OC that you ordered Bilaal to kill a wounded man. She wants you investigated,’ Kila warned.

Dave looked around the tent. ‘Would anyone here have casevaced out a bloke you’d shot and were body-searching for dead? If he was barely showing signs of life? And if carrying him back to the convoy would put your own men’s lives at risk? Would anyone here really have done that?’

Everyone shook their head except Sergeant Somers. The ensuing discussion was lively. Dave had meant to get back to the satellite phone and give Jenny one last try but when the talk at last petered out he fell asleep instead.

SERGEANT JEAN PATTERSON OF THE ROYAL MILITARY POLICE SHARED
a room with Asma at the base. As soon as they had met each other they had both known it would be one of those friendships that would long outlast their time at Sin City. Today they were interpreting at a
shura
requested by local tribal elders.

‘We’re working with that blond platoon commander,’ Jean said in her soft Scottish lilt as they approached the convoy that was going to take them into the town. ‘And he can’t keep his eyes off you.’

‘Which one? They’re all blond.’

‘The one whose men need to pay a bit more attention to the RoE.’

‘Oh, whatsisname who’s learning Pashtu. You nearly made him cry the other night when you were going on about that bloke in the ditch.’

Jean grinned. ‘His name’s Gordon Weeks. And he wouldn’t turn down a few Pashtu lessons from you in private.’

‘I don’t teach Pashtu,’ Asma said. ‘And especially not to him. He’s the geezer who was moaning about the way we interrogated the detainees and he really pissed me off.’

They arrived at the convoy of waiting vehicles and were met by a smiling Gordon Weeks.

‘
As salaam alai
kum,’ he said enthusiastically.

‘Morning!’ said Jean, her voice friendly. Asma did not dignify his Pashtu with a reply.

They climbed on board the Vector. The Officer Commanding
appeared with a Royal Engineer and the civilian oilman, Martyn Robertson.

When everyone was ready, the boss gave the signal and the convoy set off.

‘Now remember,’ Major Willingham said as they rumbled through the desert. ‘The tribesmen have invited us to this meeting and that is a very good sign. They want to hear exactly what you’re doing, Martyn, and you need to impress on them the benefits your work can bring to the area. But don’t let’s miss a chance for information-gathering.’ He glanced at Asma. ‘Any intelligence will be very welcome. Especially if they can help us pinpoint the exact location of that Taliban compound.’

The headman’s house was extensive. The entire complex, house and yard, was bounded by high, thick walls. Shady trees were visible over the top. It was a tantalizing sight from the hot, dusty world outside.

‘OK, dismount,’ Dave said. His soldiers positioned themselves around the walls.