War Torn (41 page)

‘Yes.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘They’re waiting for clearance now.’

‘
How long
?’ It was unbearable to hear the agony of the men in the minefield. You just wanted them to stop. And you knew that if they did it would be worse.

‘The Americans can’t operate without high-level clearance.’

‘Oh, fuck, do we have to wait for the President of the United States to find time to OK it?’ yelled Dave.

‘We’re doing our best.’ The boss did not sound defensive. He sounded deflated. ‘We’re going to locate the nearest helicopter landing site for a MERT team, because getting the casualties out and away to a Chinook may be quicker than waiting for the Americans.’

Getting the casualties out may be quicker.

‘Fuuuuuuuuuuck!’ roared Broom. He looked as though he was floating on an island of blood. He was only fifteen metres away and he was as unreachable as a man a thousand miles offshore. He would die from his blood loss unless help reached him soon.

Knowing his voice had to be both strong and severe to check Broom’s yells, Dave bellowed: ‘Stop shouting and start helping yourself, Broom.’

Broom fell abruptly silent.

‘There’s a bloody mess around your right leg so get your morphine out and shove it in at the top of your left. Come on, go for it! Now!’

Broom began to fiddle with his pouches.

‘Get on with it!’ bawled Dave mercilessly. ‘It’s in your left thigh pocket. Do it! Do it now! What about you, Connor?’

Connor responded with an awful cry. It was both the whimper of a small child and the roar of a large, injured animal that knows it is about to die, but it was not the cry of a man.

Dave tried the same tone on him. Connor, however, was past responding to commands.

‘Shit, shit, what can we do?’ Corporal Baker’s face was ashen. His tone picked up the misery of the injured.

Dave looked around him at the nearest men. Shocked faces, shaking hands, a few tears.

‘2 Section doesn’t look safe for this job.’

1 Section, covering the field, were closest.

‘I’m looking for mine-clearance men in 1 Section. I’ll take you, Dermott . . .’

He sent Mara from 2 Section to replace Jamie’s position.

‘Me, Sarge!’ Angus was already leaving his position in anticipation.

Dave sighed.

‘All right, McCall. But just stay behind Jamie.’ He was sending another man up to replace Angus when Finn shouted: ‘That should be me, Sarge.’

Angus turned to glare at him.

‘I’m not taking a section commander or a 2 i/c.’

‘But Angry’s too big and clumsy!’

Dave ignored him. ‘Jamie, you start over here and work your way towards Connor. McCall behind you. Then I need two men to start from over there and work towards Broom. I’ll have you, Binman. And Mal follows.’

The men he had chosen blinked at him as if they had just woken up.

‘Right, Dermott and McCall here, Binns and Bilaal there. Bergens off, bayonets ready, GET GOING.’

The men began to struggle out of their Bergens.

‘Make sure you’ve got water, man behind must have a stretcher, carry only what you need, something to eat but not much. Of course, trauma kit. Give them some extra field dressings, someone. OK, then down on your belt buckles and it’s
look, feel, prod
with your bayonets before you move forward. Remember that one?
Look, feel, prod.
Got mine markers? Got mine tape?’

They were taking off their pouches now, rummaging through them at the same time for mine tape, grabbing their bayonets. Binns looked skinnier and skinnier as the pouches came off. Finn moved in to help him.

The two front men got into position and eased down onto their stomachs at the edge of the minefield.

‘Gently! DON’T HURRY!’ roared Dave. ‘Or you’ll be lying there too.’

At a double moan from both casualties Jamie and Binman from their separate positions began to scrape urgently at the surface of the soil with their bayonets.

‘GENTLY! This is your new-born baby. It’s a bag of fucking eggs. It’s a MINE and it’s going to explode!’

‘They’re coming,’ lads called to the casualties. ‘They’ll soon be getting you out of there.’

Broom was moaning more quietly now he had a shot of morphine inside him. Connor had fallen ominously silent.

‘Ryan’s still breathing,’ shouted Kirk. ‘I can see that.’

Kirk and O’Sullivan were the two members of 2 Section who had been stuck in the minefield when Dave had ordered them to freeze.

‘If I go forward on my stomach from here,’ called Kirk. ‘I can get to Ryan faster than Dermott and McCall.’

‘No,’ shouted Dave. ‘I want you two back safely, not bumping around the casualties in your Bergens in a minefield.’

Kirk started to argue.

‘Shut the fuck up and tell me what you can see from there,’ ordered Dave. ‘How much leg has Broom lost?’

‘About half. Maybe a bit more.’

‘Connor?’

‘Dunno. Can’t see what’s wrong with him.’

‘Shrapnel, maybe. But he’s got two legs, two arms?’

‘I think so, Sarge, but there’s so much blood . . . he could be missing a foot.’

‘All right, Kirk. Now, you and O’Sullivan get your bayonets out, mine markers ready.’ They reached carefully for their bayonets, wobbling dangerously because they could not move their feet.

‘Sarge, I don’t have mine markers,’ called O’Sullivan miserably.

No matter how many times you did kit inspection, no matter how often you reminded men, they were guaranteed not to have the vital bit of kit when they needed it.

‘Why the fuck not, O’Sullivan?’

‘Erm . . . I used them for something else . . .’

‘What else can you do with mine markers? For Chrissake?’

O’Sullivan stood helplessly in the minefield, his face gawping.

‘Oh don’t bother to tell me now. Got anything else you could use?’

‘There’s markers here, Sarge,’ said McKinley. ‘Can I try throwing them over to him?’

‘Can you
fuck
! We’re trying to get him out alive, shithead.’

‘Use your peanuts!’ shouted Corporal Baker to O’Sullivan.

‘His peanuts? His
peanuts
?’

‘Yeah, Sarge. O’Sullivan buys up the peanuts from everyone else’s rations, he loves them, his Bergen’s full of bags.’

‘We need something that will stick in the ground.’

‘He could anchor them with stones. Run a bit of mine tape between them.’

‘It’s better than nothing.’ Dave shouted to O’Sullivan: ‘Got your mine tape?’

‘Yes, Sarge.’

‘Right then, you two. Remember, no hurry. Go slow and live. Now crouch down. Take a look at the ground all around you and then feel it with your fingers. That includes the ground between your feet. Go behind you, go in front, go to the side. Then use your bayonet to prod. Do that until you’ve got a box around you big enough to lie in. So after that it’s down on your belt buckles, sort yourselves out and start moving this way. SLOWLY.’

There was an urgent voice at his side.

‘Sarge, I could start this end and make a path towards—’

‘No, McKinley. I’ve already got eight men out there. I don’t want to lose a ninth.’

On the radio the boss’s voice said: ‘I’ve been trying to get EOD but they’re all tied up. Thought an engineer with mine-detecting equipment would help but we haven’t managed to extract them yet . . . there should be some on their way soon . . .’

‘Yeah,’ said Dave. ‘Yeah. Soon. OK.’

No helicopter, no winch, no mine detectors and no fucking EOD. Just two men bleeding to death and six more in danger.

‘The casualties seem to have gone rather quiet,’ said the boss.

‘Yeah.’

Dave was tired of shouting. He was tired of talking. He was wet with sweat. And he felt powerless. The screams and moans of the wounded had worn him down, as though he had been the one screaming and moaning. Now that the men he had sent were out there doing their jobs, their lives were in their own hands.

His eyes swept across the minefield. The two casualties, baking in their own blood like cookies under the strengthening morning
sun. Jamie, making painfully slow progress on his belly across the field, the large shape of McCall behind him. 1 Platoon, stretched out around the clearing, many backs to the action, searching the woodland for enemy movement. A collection of drawn, anxious faces, chiefly those of the shocked 2 Section, fixed on the two rescue teams. And, most surprisingly, the small, skinny shape of Jack Binns, followed by Mal, ootching with skilful speed towards the body of Ben Broom.

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.’