Rain (14 page)

Frenchie and Brennan, in the back of the Sultan, flinched each time a round smacked into its side as Frenchie constantly tried to coax air support from Brigade. When he got some again the attacks melted away, and the helis hovered over the town with the whole squadron willing them to find a target to destroy. But none appeared; the moment a heli arrived the gunmen hid. Nothing was happening in the town that day. No farmers were in the fields, no children played. The place was completely given over to the contact.

Progress on the vehicles continued, even under fire. Frenchie himself helped out, leaving Jason in charge of the squadron to help fix the track of One Two. It started to rain
again, and the shooting subsided a bit. The boys kept working, their dull eyes blinking over chain-smoked cigarettes.

In the south Tom gathered his car commanders in the lee of his wagon. He was still retching, still needing to shit twice an hour, but he felt re-energized. He looked at Trueman, Jesmond and Thompson, filthy, unshaven, all somehow still grinning. They all smoked and shared out some boiled sweets as Tom and Trueman discussed the stag roster. Tom decided he could sacrifice two guns. They had to get some sleep and agreed that two crews would kip for two hours while two crews would stag on, and rotate like that. The wagons were close together anyway. Tom could see the relief in their eyes at the prospect of sleep, any sleep at all. They had been awake now since the morning of the move out from Bastion – forty-eight hours without sleep for most of them.

They went back to their turrets, Trueman and Thompson to sleep, Tom and Jesmond to keep methodically scanning their arcs, firing now and again at the occasional muzzle flash. Two hours later they swapped, and Tom and Dusty slumped in their seats over their sights. Not even the distant RPGs or Trueman’s cannon only five metres away from them could wake them. For a hundred and twenty minutes they fell into a coma, their brains completely shutting down, their mouths dribbling stalactites of drool.

Finally, in the late afternoon, things started to improve around the bogged-in wagons. After managing to fix the Samson, Prideaux, with his immense strength and unflagging determination, turned back to Ealham’s Scimitar, finally replaced its rear idler, and the boys heaved the track on to it an hour later. They had been static now for twenty-four hours. Bullets still sang around them, but amazingly no one had been hit. At 1800 the column started to move again, and limped its way out of the cluster, the tracks of the wagons
struggling to get going again, grinding through the mud that had glued the running gear over the past day. Three Troop at the back moved out with their turrets facing to the rear as deterrents against any final contact.

None came, and soon the column was back in the safety of the open desert, heading north. The town refilled with children and its normal bustle resumed as scared families emerged from their homes. The farmer whose field they had been stuck in took his plough again to the furrows and evened out the earth around the hole. By dusk he had levelled the field again. It was as though they had never been there.

The further they got from the town the worse Tom began to feel again. The illness returned after its slight abatement, and as the wagons went through the dark moonscape of the desert he had to shit over the side of the Scimitar, Dusty holding him by his shoulders and Davenport keeping the pace as steady as he could. Over the intercom Tom murmured, ‘Christ, this is undignified,’ and he and Dusty laughed deliriously at his wretchedness.

Eventually, with thinning clouds scudding across the moon, the exhausted thread of vehicles pulled itself over the final rise before Loy Kabir. FOB Newcastle was a beacon in the middle of the silvery town. Lit by floodlights, it stood out for miles. Around it was no light at all: no street lamps, no electricity in the compounds. It was as though no soul existed outside it.

At 0200 the column pulled in to Newcastle, where the CO was waiting. Laughing, he clapped Frenchie on the back. ‘Well, you did it, you madman, you did it.’

Frenchie looked at him vacantly, his hair woollen with dust. ‘Thanks, Colonel. I can’t quite believe how, but we bloody did it. It’s all down to that man really.’ He pointed to
Prideaux, who was sitting on the front of his Samson wolfing a bowl of stew that the RSM had made sure was prepared for their arrival.

The REME staff sergeant noticed them, braced up in acknowledgment of the CO and raised his bowl. ‘Never again, sir. I’m off to go and join the Taliban. At least those twats don’t have any vehicles to fix.’

All around, the boys ate, the food not touching the sides of their throats, sitting beside their vehicles as though scared to leave them after the shelter they had provided during the contact. Their eyes blinked underneath the floodlights, making them look shell-shocked. Tom was the last to get out of his wagon, methodically shutting down the turret with Dusty, unloading the gun and switching off the radios. He wearily climbed down, and as the CO came over to welcome him he braced up to attention, then his legs buckled and he fell unconscious to the ground, face first onto the sand. The boys lifted him on a stretcher and took him to the medics.

For four days he was quarantined in a small compound at the rear of the FOB, which while still inside the wire felt as though it was miles away. Eight small rooms looked out onto a central yard, and he was alone. The others who had been ill were only there for a day; his cut hand had combined with the D & V into a full-blown illness. His room was furnished with a camp bed, a bucket and a jerrycan of water. In the middle of the muddy yard were four latrines. Tom lay naked on the camp bed, the bucket next to him for when he couldn’t make it outside in time. He had his pistol with him, and a T-shirt and trousers were on a small ledge next to a few books left by previous occupants, but Tom didn’t have the energy to read them and simply lay there, losing all concept of time, only registering night when he felt cold and had to get into his sleeping bag.

The doc and a medic came to see him every morning to take his blood pressure and temperature and bring him more water and a tiny bit of food. Tom lost nearly a stone, and on the fourth day he could see his ribs poking through his skin. Gaunt, with a week’s beard, his muscles felt empty. That afternoon Trueman appeared, alone, unsolicited and against all the rules. He stood at the entrance to Tom’s hovel. ‘Knock, knock. Hi, sir. You look in a shit state. Like what you’ve done with the place. What is it, Helmand chic?’

Tom could only mumble weakly, ‘Hello, Sergeant Trueman. What are you doing here? Don’t come any closer; you’ll get this wretched plague.’

‘No fear, sir. I’m staying right here. Funny thing is, Dusty, who basically spent three days living a metre away from you, is absolutely fine. Constitution of an ox, him. Here’s some post that arrived for you. He threw over a couple of e-blueys, and Tom’s eyes lit up. ‘Ha! Knew that’d raise your morale.’

‘Thanks, Freddie,’ said Tom, scrabbling up the letters from the dust next to his bed and seeing with delight they were from Constance and Will. He felt a pang that there wasn’t one from Cassie. ‘That’s awesome. How are the boys?’

‘Bored. We’ve just been on the wagons tinkering since we got back in. Rumour’s going around we ain’t going to use them much anyway and get on those Mastiffs. The leader’s working out some kind of rotation, from Mastiffs to Scimitars.’

‘What, so we go through all the hassle of getting those things up here, and we’re not even going to use them?’

‘I know. I know, boss. Everyone’s pretty pissed about it. Anyways, I’m going to love you and leave you; don’t want any more of your toxic fumes. When you going to come back to the fold?’

‘Soon, I hope. As soon as I can keep some food down without vomming it up. I feel like properly jack lying here monging it.’

‘Don’t, boss. You can’t help it. I had it on the last tour and was out for eight days. Just a matter of time before I’m where you are anyway; everyone gets it at some point. No hurry though, yeah? The Taliban ain’t gonna run away within a day. They ain’t going anywhere. Take care then, boss.’ He looked around the dim bare room, lit only by whatever light came through the tiny doorway. ‘Try not to go too stir-fry crazy in here.’ And then he left.

Tom looked at the e-blueys with glee and read Will’s first.

Dear Tom,

Mate, it was really good to get your bluey a couple of days ago. I’m glad things are OK and I really hope you guys are staying safe. It’s weird; just as you guys are getting used to being out there I’m finally starting to get used to being back. It’s been a hell of a lot harder than I thought it would be. On tour all you looked forward to was POTL – we would dream about it and have huge conversations about what we were going to do, where we were going to go, what we’d eat, etc. – but when it came to it, and we were free to go after the medals parade, I just couldn’t make up my mind what to do with myself. It was ridiculous; six months of minute-by-minute decision-making and there I was completely unable to make any decision at all. In the end I went with two of the other subbies to this hotel on Lake Como, the kind of place where honeymooning couples go, so we looked a bit strange as a group of three lads. We basically spent the entire week getting absolutely slaughtered every day. We would open the day with a drink, drink through lunch, pass out for a couple of hours and then smash on through supper. I don’t think we were model guests necessarily, but it helped us to unwind a little bit.

At the moment I’m back in Mum’s flat in London, doing nothing. I wake up at about ten, sit on the sofa watching Jeremy Kyle in my boxers, watch about three DVDs, and then go out and get hammered with whoever’s around. It helps you remember. It’s so strange how quickly you lose stuff from tour. My tan has gone, and I’ve put on all the weight that I lost. Essentially I now look as though I’ve never been away at all. And you start to forget it all so quickly – the heat, the dust and the noise. But when I drink, somehow it all comes rushing back then. But don’t worry; I’m not a complete dipso (yet!).

I go over to
Headley Court
quite a bit to see the wounded lads. They’re the only people I’ve seen since I’ve got back who you don’t need to explain anything to. I just sit by their beds and we read the magazines that I’ve brought along in silence for about an hour.
It’s funny; the last time I saw them they were in pieces, bloody and mauled as we put them onto whichever
MERT
after whichever contact. And now they’re in this anodyne ward, wearing tracksuits with their stumps and scars, looking immaculate as though they’ve always had them. At the moment the adrenaline is carrying them through, the adrenaline of coping with their new lives and meeting the new challenges of trying to walk again on their new pegs. But I wonder what happens in a few months, or years, when they can walk really well, or as well as they will ever be able to. They’ll reach the point when they realize the exact extent of what it is they can do, and the huge unattainable expanse of what they can’t do, and I wonder what it will be like to come up against that wall. Yeah, they’ll go and do marathons and climb the Matterhorn or whatever, but it must be truly a lonely moment when they realize they’ll never, never, never, be able to pick up the remote control for the telly again or play kick-around in the garden with their son.

The ones with wives and children I feel less sorry for, as at least they don’t have to go and try to impress girls; they’ve already got a captive audience as it were. But the eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds in the wards at Headley? Some of them are triple amputees for heaven’s sake. They still think like eighteen-year-olds – they still want to go to nightclubs and cop off with hot babes – but will they ever be able to do that? When they’re back home out with their mates on a Friday night, away from the military, is any girl going to even throw them a second glance as they sit in the corner in their wheelchair? No, of course not. And then one day these boys lose their looks, their youth, their freshness, which is about the only thing they’ve got going for them, and it’ll be ten years’ time. We’ll all have forgotten about Afghan, but these lads will still be triple amputees – fat, unshaven, jobless. And no one will care. I look at these lads in the ward and just think about the last few months, the ridiculous game of chance we played. Some of us, most of us, won; we came through. For these boys, they lost, and some of them have lost really big.

I’m not sure whether it would have been better for some of the really bad ones just to have bled out. To have had the medic overdose them on morphine, loosen the tourniquets and let them just slip away in peace, surrounded by their friends, instead of facing decades of pity that will give way sooner or later to apathy. People won’t even give them a second glance; they’ll look right through them. I do it myself already with old tramps. I look at them and see a ghost, a beardy, scruffy cripple. But I bet you when he got the injury that made him eventually wind up homeless he was fit and strong, a good lad, a hard worker. A somebody. That’s going to be what happens to these boys once the music stops, once Afghan’s over, and once we’ve stopped parading them out in public, presenting the FA Cup, being at the front row of film premieres, all that gubbins. It’s almost unfair we’re doing this to them, as when reality bites they’re going to feel the drop dreadfully.

Christ, this is depressing. I’m sorry to unload on you like this, mate, but I know you’ll understand. Just remember what I told you at that party when you smashed that bloke’s face in: make sure they all come back. Please don’t let any of your lads be injured mate, please.

I’ll write again soon; POTL ends in five days’ time and then it’s back to Battalion in London. I’m looking forward to seeing all the fellas again.

Take care, mate. Thinking of you,

Will

Tom retched into the bowl again but could only manage to produce green saliva.
What’s happening to Will?
The last few months, ever since he had arrived in Afghan back in March, had seen him descend into a spiral of depression. Tom knew he was hiding the extent of his drinking. He wondered what exactly Will was getting up to in London when he went out. He wouldn’t be remotely surprised if he went picking
fights with people, people who he’d accuse of cowardice for not being in the army, people he’d accuse of shirking because they’d decided to avoid the chance of getting their balls blown off in a Dark Ages desert five thousand miles away.

Tom picked up Constance’s letter, and a surge of guilt came. Why had he not spoken to her for so long? He must get to a phone as soon as he could. He opened it.

My darling Tommy,

We are having the most glorious autumn back here. The trees are a fantastic colour, and already there are huge great piles of leaves beneath them that you would love to go and kick up. I wonder what autumn is like in Afghanistan. I hope it is as nice. I look at the BBC website to see what the weather is like in Kandahar and it says that it is 30 degrees. I hope none of you are getting sunstroke. There has been a bumper crop of blackberries and raspberries in the garden, and I have been making some jam for when you get back on leave. Sam has picked what seems to be the world’s supply of sloes as well and is currently making sloe gin in great big glass containers to send some out to you. I hope it will remind you of home when you taste it.

It was so good to get your letter. Is it possible for you to send any pictures back in an email? It would be so nice to see what the countryside looks like and what your day-to-day life is like. And also it would be good to see how you are looking. I hope you haven’t lost too much weight. Dear me, I do bang on! I will stop.

Zeppo is well, but he obviously knows you are away and so sometimes looks sad. I am keeping myself very well; there is all sorts of stuff happening in the village at the moment. It looks like we might soon be getting a new vicar, as Reverend Moore seems to be persona non grata for some reason with the archdeacon. Something about some kind of ‘financial irregularity’, whatever that means.
Why can’t they just come clean and say they think he’s been a crook? Honestly, why people never call a spade a spade is beyond me.

Everyone in the village is wearing their poppies with pride, you will be pleased to hear. And when I go into the village it is amazing how many people know you are away. I am getting all sorts of free stuff from the butcher, etc. and the newsagents sometimes let me have the papers for free! They all ask after you; I feel a bit like I am some kind of celebrity. The man in the delicatessen – Mr Booth – you know, big white hair – told me the other day that his weekly prayer group always says a prayer out loud for you and your soldiers.

And how are they? I hope they are well. You won’t believe it, but I had a very kind letter from Lance Corporal Miller asking directly for some more chocolate brownies. He sounds like a nice boy, not like the mini-thug you sometimes say he is, what with all his tattoos. He sounds very well mannered. His spelling isn’t great though; could you use the next few months to help him out with that kind of thing?

I am so looking forward to seeing you again, Tommy. I know your father will be very proud of you, and will be watching down on you. I do miss him and you so much.

I am so excited to think that you will soon be in the kitchen eating all this jam I have made; you will be sick to death of it by the time leave is up.

Take care please!

Your loving Mummy

Dusty! What an absolute wretch
, Tom thought, then grinned at him going behind his back like this. He reached to the side of the camp bed, had six huge gulps from the jerrycan, laid the letters down on his chest and went to sleep. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. At dusk he woke again, pulled his clothes over his bones and wriggled into his sleeping bag. He was asleep again within a minute. As he slept a rat came into
the room and sniffed the speckles of vomit around the bucket, unafraid of his steady, quiet breathing. Tom slept until the morning crumbled away the darkness. He hadn’t dreamed a thing. He might as well have been dead. There was a surge of power in his limbs that he hadn’t had for days. He was better.