War Torn (75 page)

‘I’ll hang around for him while he does all his unloading,’ Jenny said. ‘It’ll take an hour or so and you lot won’t want to wait that long.’

‘All right, love,’ said Dave’s mother, ‘don’t you worry about the baby, just stay with Dave.’

‘We’ll have the food on the table when you two get back,’ his stepfather said.

It seemed the bus would never appear, but the carnival atmosphere persisted. Some people passed around union jacks. Children ran in small circles and then larger ones, in and out of the waiting adults. Some mothers, wives, but especially girlfriends, wore new clothes and carefully applied makeup. As they waited longer and longer their feet began to ache in the unaccustomed heels, their makeup ran or smudged or wore off and their hair required re-brushing and rearranging.

Jenny fed the baby and watched as the tiny eyes closed and she fell asleep. Jenny just hoped that she didn’t need another feed or a nappy change or a little shout at exactly the moment the bus came in. She laid her in her pram without waking her. Then it was back to waiting and looking and waiting and wanting.

She caught sight of Steve Buckle in uniform, standing with the rear party.

‘Just a minute,’ she said.

She went over to Steve.

‘Leanne here?’

‘Not sure.’

‘Come and stand with us then. Because Dave might not see you over there and he’ll be pissed off if he misses you.’

Steve looked around at the other men.

‘I’m not sure . . .’

‘Oh, come on,’ she said.

Steve touched a red-haired lad on the arm. ‘Jen, this is Ben Broom . . . he’s still on crutches.’

Jenny gave Ben a broad smile.

‘I’ve heard all about you, Ben. Can you hobble over here to my family? I know Dave’s going to want to see you when he gets off the bus.’

Steve and Ben didn’t look too confident walking through the crowd. Jenny moved ahead of them, clearing as much of a path as she could.

As they arrived back with the family, Leanne appeared, a twin hanging on each leg. They saw their father and ran to him.

Steve’s face lit up. ‘Batman! Robin!’

Jenny looked at Leanne. She grinned back. ‘He’s doing okay with the boys, anyway.’

‘How about you?’

Leanne bit her lip.

‘We’re managing. Most of the time. Today’s hard for us, of course, because Steve should have been one of the lads getting off the bus.’

‘It was big of you to come,’ said Jenny. ‘Big and brave.’

The crowd was getting impatient.

‘How much longer?’ children asked.

‘Soon, soon,’ their mothers said.

And then, there it was.

This moment, when the first bus pulled into the square, had been anticipated, imagined and longed for so many times that, when it happened, Jenny felt it was the rerun of an old movie instead of something that was really taking place.

She saw Dave disembark and she waited for him to find her in
the maelstrom. She saw him walking through the crowds. And she knew that there was only one face in that crowd for him and it was hers.

She waited as he threaded his way through the people, waited for him to see her. More waiting. It had been six months of waiting, she was good at it now. And she was not going to cry. She was going to smile. It was very important to smile and not cry.

Their eyes met and she never did know if she smiled or cried or did both at once. She felt his arms around her and his lips on hers. Completely enveloped by him she felt something deep inside her weaken. The weighty animal of anxiety she had been carrying around every day for six months, invisible but ever present, loosened its hold on her and slunk quietly, rapidly away. Dave was here, they were both safe, they were a unit standing together again, instead of two people fighting different battles far apart.

When they drew back and each examined the face they had thought about but not seen or touched for six months, they saw how much change there had been and they both knew how hard they would have to work to understand the changes and adapt to them.

Dave smiled. He was thinking that he had missed the joy at his baby’s birth. But now he had it tenfold.

‘Stop crying,’ he told Jenny.

‘I can’t.’

‘You are so beautiful. I forgot how beautiful.’

Then there was Vicky, smilingly held aloft by a man she didn’t recognize but who her mum seemed to like a lot. He held her while he gazed at the sleeping baby. Next came Trish. Dave knew his mum and stepfather would understand why they had to be last. They were crying when he got to them. He held them both close to him in a double embrace.

Jenny pulled his arm and he turned and saw Steve. This was so unexpected that Dave stared for a moment without comprehension.

‘Christ! Steve!’

He gave his mate a bear hug and then feared that he had literally knocked Steve off his foot. He drew back.

‘It’s OK! I can stand. I can run. I can probably run as far as you!’ said Steve.

‘Shit! You’re looking so good! Put on a few pounds . . .’

‘That’s the fine food at Headley Court.’

‘You can run, you can really run?’

‘I’ll race you. Now don’t throw your arms around Ben because he’ll fall over.’

Dave hugged Ben gently.

‘The last time I saw you . . . well, you were a lot of spectacular shades of red, Broom. Now you’re just the one . . .’ He tousled Broom’s hair.

‘I’m getting my new leg soon, Sarge,’ Broom said proudly.

‘Shit!’ said Dave. ‘This is a fantastic surprise.’

‘So did you put my leg in your Bergen, mate?’ asked Steve.

‘Er . . . what?’

‘My leg. From the cookhouse freezer. You did bring it?’

For a moment the smile faded from Dave’s face.

‘Oh . . . so you heard about that . . .’

Steve started to laugh, then. So did Dave, partly with relief. He was still laughing when he put an arm around Leanne and planted a huge kiss on her cheek.

‘You’re looking good, Leanne!’

But by now Jenny had picked up the baby and handed her to Dave. He stared into her eyes and simply loved her. It wasn’t complicated. It wasn’t maybe. It was love.

‘Yeah,’ said Dave to the baby. ‘Yeah. I’d like you to be called after Jamie.’

Jenny was watching him. She said: ‘How you’ve changed, Dave.’

He smiled. He looked around the field of men and their families, at the banners and the tears, the wounded and the whole, the joy and the relief. He thought he heard the same phrase on every pair of lips. The men were saying it about their wives, about their children. The families were saying it about their men. Everyone, in Wiltshire and Helmand, had faced experiences that only those who were with them could understand. The words echoed around the people, the buses, the buildings, the barracks, the banners and the monument to the men who hadn’t come home, until it seemed to Dave, his new baby named after his dead friend in his arms, that these were the only words he could hear. You’ve changed, you’ve changed, you’ve changed.

Andy McNab joined the infantry as a boy soldier. In 1984 he was ‘badged’ as a member of 22 SAS Regiment and was involved in both covert and overt special operations worldwide. During the Gulf War he commanded Bravo Two Zero, a patrol that, in the words of his commanding officer, ‘will remain in regimental history for ever’. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army’s most highly decorated serving soldier when he finally left the SAS in February 1993. He wrote about his experiences in three books: the phenomenal bestseller
Bravo Two Zero, Immediate Action
and
Seven Troop.

He is the author of the bestselling Nick Stone thrillers. Besides his writing work, he lectures to security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and UK. He is a patron of the Help for Heroes campaign.