Chapter Thirty-three

‘HOLY SHIT!’ BREATHED Slindon. He was up on the tower but he was not the only one, or even the first, to see the Mastiff crash. The focus of the battle had moved to the other side of the compound now because everyone else was covering Dave’s Mastiff from the courtyard by the main gates.

Sol and Mal had been nagging at the enemy with the gimpys as the Mastiff cut across the desert towards the canal at breakneck speed, pursued by enemy fire. When it was clear that the second Mastiff would not move out of the compound and Dave had aborted the mission, Sol watched and waited for Lancer Dawson to slow the first Mastiff and turn it around. But instead it had continued, at speed, towards the canal.

Tiny Hemmings, Lancer Reed and Binns were still arguing about the stalled Mastiff and hadn’t really got into firing positions. However, Bacon, on top of the useless Mastiff, had been rattling away with the Minimi.

He saw a bolt of lightning, which must have been an RPG. Then there were sparks flying from somewhere under the vehicle like a welder’s shop. A brief pause for the impact on the wheel to take effect. And finally the incredible sight of five thousand kilos of heavy metal rolling on its side once, twice and into the canal.

It settled on its left side, rocking slightly. And then it was menacingly still. Even the enemy was astonished into silence. All weapons at the PB stopped firing.

The men at the base climbed up the Mastiff or gaped through firing holes in the mud walls. They were waiting, waiting, with every corpuscle in their blood vessels, for any sign of life to emerge from the wounded metal monster. But there was none.

Mal erupted suddenly: ‘We’ve got to get out there to them!’

‘We can’t,’ said Sol.

‘We’ve fucking got to!’ shouted Streaky.

Tiny Hemmings, his face distraught, said: ‘The engine’ll start in five minutes. I won’t flood it again. I won’t get it wrong again.’

Lancer Reed was too shocked to contradict him.

Sol said quietly: ‘We’re not giving the enemy any more corpses today.’

Binns had started to shake. ‘They’re not corpses. They’re not dead. Sarge isn’t dead, neither are the others.’

The men fell silent. Those who were not wearing night-vision goggles yet put them on. No one said a word as they watched for some sign of life in the Mastiff. But there was none.

The enemy had opened fire again, gleefully, energetically. In a few minutes they would start moving forward towards the vehicle.

‘Get to your firing positions,’ said Sol. ‘And give them all you’ve got.’

Everything was still inside the Mastiff. Everything was quiet.

Dave experienced total helplessness. He was in a new world without sound and without movement. The depth of silence was something he had never known before. Was this the quiet of the grave?

His life spread itself out before him like a tablecloth groaning with good things. Jenny, tall and strong, a small child on one hip, another at her side, smiling at him. There was love in her eyes. Anger and differences were all forgotten now. This was his beautiful Jenny and he loved her and knew that she loved him. But in a short while she would hear the knock at the door and know instinctively what news awaited her. Then, gradually, over many years, she would age. She would be old one day. Jenny would be old without him there to love her and look after her. The girls would be tall and strong and beautiful like their mother and she would have to learn to lean on them for support.

Here were his mother and stepfather in their allotment, proudly examining some bulging vegetable they had plucked from the neat, fertile rows. His mother’s mobile phone was ringing, the phone call which would bring them the news of his death and shatter their lives. And here was his own father, a sad and hopeless drunk, who had heard the news and was sitting outside a pub, an empty pint in front of him, his head in his hands. They would all be shocked; their lives would break into small pieces. For a while. Then they would regain their strength and start to rebuild. The world would continue in its own way without him.

Dave felt a sudden, piercing pain inside him. He realized he was grieving for his own lost life. And then he opened his eyes.

He could see the inside of the Mastiff, but the vehicle was at a strange angle. A corner of the dusty windscreen in the cab at the front was visible, splattered with round bubbles of water as if pairs of glasses had been dropped all over it. But something was hiding most of it.

He moved a hand. It was trapped underneath him as if it had not kept up with the twists and turns of the vehicle. He disentangled it without difficulty. He waved it in front of his face. It was gloved but it was certainly his hand, and it had life in it.

He remembered his toes. He moved his head into the strange, horizontal position which enabled him to see his feet. There were his boots with his feet inside them, amazingly still attached to his body.

So he was alive. He turned his head through a curious arc and realized that the cold feeling along his left arm was water. It was impossible to understand if the Mastiff was upside down or sideways on but beneath him was water and the water was rising.

‘Fucking hell!’

It was the voice of Angus McCall. That’s how Dave knew for sure he was alive.

‘Fucking, fucking hell,’ breathed Angry again.

‘You all right?’ Dave asked him gruffly over the sound of sudden and renewed firing. It came from the enemy. It came from the base.

‘What happened?’ asked Angus.

‘IED?’ suggested Doc Holliday. Dave was glad to hear the medic’s low, grating voice.

‘No, RPG,’ he said. ‘I saw it.’

Rounds were bouncing off the Mastiff’s armour. He could hear the rattle of angry answering gimpys from the base.

‘The ragheads must think it’s Christmas,’ came the gloomy voice of the medic again.

So Angus and Doc were talking. Dave felt something like electricity flow through his body and brain when he realized they had heard nothing from Finny and Dawson in the cab. The electricity powered him. He jumped up. How long had he just been lying here feeling the water rise along the left side of his body when he should have been checking on his men and getting them off the besieged vehicle? A minute? Or sixty minutes?

He was upright now. His right leg hurt but he didn’t care. He was tearing at the big box which blocked Finny and Lancer Dawson into the cab. It contained ammo for the .50 cal and it weighed a tonne and neither his pulling hands nor his shoving shoulder shifted it.

He peered around it. Dawson was under water. Finny was on top of the driver, his head not quite submerged.

Yelling their names he continued to tug at the box. It remained firmly wedged, even though Angus had released himself from his harness and had wrapped his fingers around one corner and was tearing at the box with all his strength.

‘Pull!’ yelled Dave but even a concerted effort could not move the ammo.

Angus peered through the crack.

‘Finny’s sort of moving,’ he reported. He yelled Finny’s name.

Dave felt panic and desperation start to pound deep inside him but he did not indulge it.

‘Open the back. Angus, lay down fire; Doc, get round the front to Finny and Dawson.’

But of course Doc had anticipated this. He already had the rifles out and, armed with his, he had succeeded in opening the back door. The enemy had seen him and were firing with renewed zeal. Dave heard the rat-tat-tat of a PK machine gun. It was answered by a GPMG from the base.

‘Don’t get out there until Angus can cover you!’ yelled Dave, but he was too late. The door had been opened up in the air and the medic was leaping out. He turned smartly to run around the back of the Mastiff where enemy fire could not reach him. Angry grabbed a rifle and followed, Dave behind him. Dave had no time to look at the PB but it seemed to him that a roar of delight at their emergence had gone up from the boys. Maybe he imagined it. It was hard to hear because the lads were firing energetically back at the enemy.

The mighty Mastiff lay on its side, half submerged in the canal like a great, fallen beast. The left front wheelbase had been taken out by the RPG: it must have zoomed right under the vehicle.

Doc had climbed on to the side of the Mastiff and was wrestling to open the door through the vehicle’s armour. Angus, crouching in the dark shadow of the wagon in a pocket between the cab and the back, fired almost continuously.

Dave vaulted up just as Doc opened the door upwards. By now Finny, inside the cab, had worked out which way was up. He was righting himself, his eyes wide and shocked. Had he released himself from his harness? Or hadn’t he been wearing it?

Dave slipped into the cab, wedged one foot against the windscreen, and helped him stand. It smelled very wet in here. And Dave had the sudden idea that he could smell death.

Finny began climbing out, helped by Dave and pulled by the medic.

‘Shit, Sarge,’ he said. ‘Shit. I think I hit his head with my helmet when we crashed.’

‘All right, Finny, I’m getting him out now,’ said Dave, diving into the murky canal water which half filled the cab. This wasn’t the moment to ask Finny if he had been wearing a harness. If not, it would have been easy for him to plummet into Dawson, knocking him unconscious. An unconscious man could drown in rising water in a few minutes. Doc would have to be a fucking magician to bring a man back from that.

He reached for Dawson’s chest and pushed the release on his harness. Nothing happened. He banged it again, this time forcefully, but it continued to hold the man fast. He felt for the harness-cutting mechanism. He could not move it. After a moment he ran his finger along the belt of the harness. It remained uncut.

He would have to cut Dawson out. As he surfaced, he found Dawson’s hand. The second he felt it, he knew the man was not alive. He recognized the strange, rubbery feel of the recently dead. The hand did not resist him and it was not stiff yet, but it was without humanity.

So he was too late. His own torso, his arms, his legs, his whole body, was suffused with a new weight, as though sadness was a heavy, toxic metal released into his blood stream.

Doc Holliday hung down inside the cab as Dave grabbed his bayonet to cut Dawson out of his harness. Dave was soaking and not just because he had been immersed in water but because he was sweating profusely. He could feel sweat rolling down his cheeks and more sweat streaming down his back in hot rivers.

He kept sawing at the harness and suddenly it gave way. Lancer Dawson was released into his arms. The body floated up through the water but it retained the shape of a man driving, his arms stretched to a ghost steering wheel.

‘He’s dead,’ Dave said.

‘Get him out!’ shouted the medic. Without consciously thinking about it, Dave was aware of the rattle of the enemy machine guns getting closer. As he tried to lift the body, Doc’s words echoed in his head: ‘The ragheads must think it’s Christmas.’

‘It’s too late.’ Dave heard the lifelessness in his own tone but he continued to heave Dawson towards the pair of hands reaching for him. The body banged against the open hole to the sky and the medic let it sink back down.

‘Shit, we’ll have to turn him around. This isn’t good!’

‘Can you get down and do your medic stuff in here?’

The medic paused to consider this.

‘Not really. I need a floor not a fucking swimming pool.’

Dave managed to turn the body through ninety degrees and then lift it again. Lancer Dawson was a big man and now he was a big deadweight. Dave gritted his teeth. His arm muscles strained and bulged the way they did at the gym when he was too ambitious with the free weights. He knew what the pain was saying: this is too much for you to lift. And he knew he had to lift the body anyway. Just in case the medic really could work his magic and bang some life back into Dawson.

Every muscle in Dave’s body tensed and swelled to bursting point. Just when Dawson was almost out of the Mastiff, the huge machine rocked. At that moment a 7.62 gun round made a distinctive deep plonking noise, hitting the vehicle’s armour right by them. Dave did not know if it was the rocking vehicle or an instinctive attempt to duck that threw the medic off balance.

‘Shit!’ Doc roared, breathing out, releasing the body and buckling slowly. ‘Shit, my fucking knee!’

Dave wedged Dawson’s body against the battered seating inside the Mastiff. It was a relief to ease the load. Except that by now he was so tense that his muscles remained taut.

‘Did it get you?’ he demanded.

‘Nah.’

The medic’s face had disappeared inside his own pain. He closed his eyes. He could barely speak.

‘What then, Doc?’

At last Doc said: ‘Old injury.’

So that was the injury which had pitched Doc out of Special Forces. There were a lot of rumours about the nature of the problem and the way it had happened.

Dave roared: ‘Angus, you help me get the driver out! Doc, cover us!’

‘I can cover,’ said a voice which sounded like Billy Finn’s, only a bit fainter than usual.

Dave felt his heart pump hopefully. Billy Finn was back in business.

‘Two minutes ago you were fucking dead,’ he grunted.

‘I’ve already got my rifle, Sarge,’ said Finny, firing to prove it.

The medic slid gratefully down the side of the Mastiff and disappeared beneath it where the shadows had already joined together to make deep night.

Angry clambered up to help Dave, drawing renewed firing from the enemy. He was bigger and stronger than Doc and he and Dave gritted their teeth and groaned and between them pulled Dawson’s body out. Even though Dave was sure he could not be revived.

A round whistled past Angry and skimmed the edge of the driver’s arm.

Angry yelled: ‘Did you see that! Fuck it, he’s been hit!’

Dawson did not bleed.

‘He’s already dead,’ Dave said, lowering the body to the ground where Doc waited under the Mastiff.

The medic leaped on the body and dragged it beneath the vehicle like a big animal tearing at a piece of meat. He began the vigorous process of resuscitation, pumping at Dawson’s chest.

‘Looks more like he’s killing him,’ said Angus. His hand was shaking.

Suddenly the medic stopped and some water came out of the dead man’s mouth.

Angry jumped as though he had received an electric shock.

‘He’s alive, fuck it, he’s alive!’ It should have been a shout of joy but there was horror in his voice. His words were punctuated by gunfire reverberating around them, from the base on one side to the enemy on the other and from Finny’s rifle nearby.

‘He moved!’ shouted Angus.

The medic shook his head.

‘Nah. I’m getting nowhere. Wasting my time.’

Finny stopped firing.

‘We had to try,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ agreed the medic. ‘We had to try.’ He flopped down by the side of the body.

Dave looked up. Night had fallen across the desert now: the shadows had grown longer and longer until they were spun together in a dense, dark fabric. He wanted to sit and watch the night deepen and wonder exactly how Dawson had died. He hoped he had drowned quietly and unconsciously, without struggle, panic or pain. He looked down at Dawson’s strangely peaceful face.

‘Sarge?’ It was Finny, speaking to him as though to wake him.

‘OK, we can’t stay here.’ His own voice sounded a long way off again. He had the strange sensation that someone else was talking. Who was this quick, decisive commander? And what was he going to propose next? ‘We’re under fire and they’ll soon be closing in on us. Get ready to move.’

‘Sarge, I’m pretty sure they’re closing in on us already,’ said Angus.

Finny agreed.

‘Are we going home, Sarge?’ asked Angus.

‘Where’s home?’ Finn asked. ‘You talking about that load of shit and mud compound?’

‘PB Boston Red Sox,’ Angry said. ‘That’s the place I’m calling home right now, mate.’

He turned and looked longingly towards the muzzle flashes which defined the dark base. There was extremely heavy enemy fire aimed at the Mastiff and the base was firing back with the two GPMGs. And when there was a dip in the enemy’s energy, Dave noticed that Sol kept the boys going, creating all the cover they could. Because Sol had worked out that they had no choice but to run for it.

‘Keep firing so the boys know we’re still here,’ he told Finny.

Doc Holliday asked: ‘Where are we heading, Dave?’

‘Back to Red Sox?’ said Angry.

‘No,’ said Dave. ‘We’re dead meat if we do that. And we’re dead meat if we stay here. We came out of those gates for a reason. And now that we’re a man down, it’s even more important to finish the job.’

Finn stopped firing again and looked up from his rifle butt. Angus stared back at Dave, expressionless. Doc Holliday nodded.

‘We’re going to run across the desert to the relief party? To help McKinley?’ asked Finn. He straightened. His tone was unconcerned and matter of fact. He sounded relaxed. ‘Right, Sarge.’

Angus looked more nettled than Finny. Dave looked at him with concern. He remembered how, near the start of his first tour, Angry had panicked a couple of times. Since then he had been brave to the point of foolhardiness. All that big man talk must have been hiding panic and fear. Dave would have to grip him, or it could surface.

Now Angus said: ‘If we run to the relief, we’re running right into the arms of the enemy!’

They stopped talking as the air around them turned from falling night to wild, effervescent daylight. Dave estimated that the fireworks were caused by two RPGs from the enemy and a rocket from the base, all exploding more or less simultaneously. When the darkness came back, it seemed deeper. There was silence all around them. Dave knew it would not last. It was one of those battle spaces which just happened, as if everyone was taking a deep breath.

‘There’s a lot of mines hidden under this desert. They go back years,’ came the medic’s voice, calm and sensible, as if there had been no interruption.

Dave said: ‘That’s one reason we can’t cross it. We have to move through the Green Zone. We’ve seen children, goats, camels, on the other side of this canal – it’s clear.’

Angus looked horrified now.

‘They’ll find us in the Green Zone, Sarge. Even if it’s dark. That’s where they fucking live and they’ve all got fucking dogs.’

Dave said: ‘McCall, stop talking and get any ammo for the SA80s that you can find, and get the day sacks too. Everyone should have their night-vision goggles on in two minutes. Do it now.’

Angus did not move. Dave thought: Shit, I’m losing him. He had seen men overcome by fear before but he could not afford to carry such a man now. They were all shocked – by the crashing Mastiff, by the death of Dawson, by the danger which lay ahead – but shock would have to wait. Four men could not move through this terrain, surrounded by the enemy, if one of them was paralysed by fear.

‘Get on with it, mate,’ Finn told Angus. ‘I’ve been firing all by myself.’

‘Move,’ Dave ordered.

‘Yes, Sarge.’ Angus dropped, picked up his rifle and slithered along the metalwork of the Mastiff. Dave was relieved that he looked more like a soldier and less like a panicking kid who was going to get them all into a lot of trouble.

Then Angus stopped and looked back. ‘Sarge, why can’t we just stay here?’

Dave said: ‘In fifteen minutes this vehicle will be taken by the enemy.’

‘Oh. Yeah.’ Angus continued his journey along the great slumbering vehicle.

When he was almost lost in darkness, Dave called sharply: ‘I want you back here within two minutes, McCall.’

Angus leaped into the back of the Mastiff just as the firing started again. It burst out of the base with gusto. The enemy returned it at once. Finny joined in the fray.

‘How long before the FOB gets someone out here?’ Dave muttered to Doc Holliday, who was sitting by Dawson’s body, his legs flat out in front of him. It was a rhetorical question so he was surprised when the medic answered.

‘Hours and hours. As soon as we lost comms they would have started to worry but the dust storm has to end at Bastion or the firing has to stop at the FOB. I reckon nothing’s going to happen before morning. So the best chance for McKinley is still us.’

Dave listened to the crack of enemy weapons. In the distance a dog barked. Above them the night sky was brighter, as if layer upon layer of stars was being peeled back.

‘You’ve chosen the right plan,’ said Doc Holliday. ‘I reckon that’s why Sol’s leading the battle out there. He’s giving us a chance to move off.’

Dave looked down at Dawson. The dead man’s face seemed to glow white in the dark.

‘Shit, I hate leaving him here.’

‘I hate leaving his rifle for the bastards.’

‘We’ll take it and hide it in the canal.’

‘Wish we could hide the fucking HMG.’

Dave asked Finny: ‘How is the HMG?’

‘Wet,’ said Finny. ‘Very wet.’

Angus reappeared at that moment with the day sacks. ‘Wet? It’s under fucking water. Just like these day sacks were.’

Finny opened his and reported: ‘My night sights are useless, Sarge. They’re wet through.’

‘Everything’s wet, fucking wet,’ said Angus.

Dave pulled his out. They were dry. Why? Because they were in the canoe bag along with the camera Jenny had given him. Fucking well done, Jenny. He remembered opening the camera at home. He had said something sarcastic like: Waterproofing’s a sound idea in the desert. Did she have second sight or something? Jenny. His Jenny. So far away, doing God knows what, but always inside his fucking head. No matter what stupid thing she had done back home in Wiltshire, she was a girl worth fighting for.

He pulled the GPS out from his webbing. He remembered that when the Mastiff had rolled, flinging him about, there had been crunches around his body. He had wondered, fleetingly, if it was ribs or equipment. Now he knew. It was the GPS. It was both crushed and wet. So he would be navigating using his sense of direction. That snowy, cold night in Brecon reappeared inside his head again, the whole platoon lost and exhausted. Training. Training with no enemy around except possibly his own platoon commander. It seemed like some kind of a game now.

Doc was ransacking Dawson’s wet webbing.

‘I’ll get his ammo,’ said Dave, stuffing some of it into his own sack and throwing some of it at Angus.

Finny found space and Doc took a lot more. They rearranged the contents of their day sacks and stuffed rations into their webbing while Dave spoke to them.

‘The enemy’ll realize we’ve left the vehicle when we stop firing. The moment they get here they’ll send their dogs after us. So we’ll have to throw them off the scent by wading down the middle of the canal.’

‘We’ve got a lot of kit here,’ said Finny.

‘If we can’t carry it, we’ll have to dump it. They’ll expect us to head south towards the relief vehicles. That’s why we’re heading north.’

It seemed to Dave that under the Mastiff there was complete silence at that moment, even though Sol and the enemy were at full throttle just a few hundred metres away. He could see the eyes of Finn and Angus, shining in the dark, staring at him in disbelief.

Then he heard the reassuring voice of Doc Holliday: ‘Good plan.’

‘We’ll tab back to the relief party through the Green Zone.’

‘Right, Sarge,’ said Finn. It sounded as though he was trying to make his voice firm and strong. But underneath Dave knew it was wavering.

‘They’ll find us! What are the chances we can go tabbing for miles and miles without no one seeing us and no dog smelling us?’ demanded Angus, that undertone of panic audible again.

It was more of a statement than a question but Dave had begun answering it in his mind before Angus had even opened his mouth. He had decided they had a 50 per cent chance at most, probably a lot less, of reaching the relief party alive. He would have liked to ask Doc’s opinion. But not in front of Finny and Angus.

‘Odds are looking good,’ said Finny rapidly.

Angus blinked at him. Doc looked surprised.

Dave explained: ‘Billy Finn’s our platoon’s gambling expert.’ He did not add that Finn had been banned from taking bets all the time they were away.

‘Anyone who wants a flutter on our survival chances is welcome to lay a bet,’ said Finny. ‘I’m offering nine to four on.’

‘Yeah, I’ll bet a thousand that we arrive,’ said Doc quickly. ‘Since you won’t be collecting your winnings if we don’t.’

‘That’s enough,’ said Dave. ‘We should go while Sol’s covering us. Knee OK to move off now, Doc?’

Doc shrugged dismissively. Probably because he knew that, even if he was in agony, they had to move.

Dave said: ‘Finny at the front, then me, then Doc, then Angus. Complete silence. If you have to say something or stop, tap the man in front. Use hand signals. Keep checking the guy behind you.’

He looked around at their faces: Finny’s battle-sharp, Angus’s blanked by anxiety, Doc’s expressionless.

Finn asked: ‘Should we fix bayonets, Sarge?’ His eyes moved quickly in the starlight.

‘No, but keep your bayonet where you can get your hands on it fast,’ Dave ordered. ‘Before we go, let’s give them a fireworks display for a few minutes and use up some of the ammo which we can’t carry. So they don’t get it. And so they know we’re still here.’

They had been under assault from the moment they had left the base. Ever since the Mastiff had pitched into the canal the enemy had been attacking them with glee, like the fans of a football team two-nil up who knew the ref was about to blow his whistle. Dave had been too busy with a dead man, an injured medic and a near-panicking rifleman to focus on the constant ping and whistle of Taliban rounds coming too close for comfort, bouncing off the Mastiff’s armour, throwing dust up in the ground nearby. But now it felt good to return some of that fire.

The two gimpys from the base joined in and for a while the enemy were silenced by the concerted British effort. They might have assumed, Dave realized, that the wrecked Mastiff was in some kind of radio contact with the PB as well as the FOB. Maybe they had no idea that a dust storm in Bastion meant no help could come from the air. It probably didn’t occur to them that out here were four soldiers who were as isolated as the great metal wreck which lay by itself at the desert’s edge.

For a grand finale, he switched Dawson’s rifle grimly to automatic and pretended it was a machine gun. He changed the magazine once and the weapon got so hot that he thought the barrel was drooping. He wouldn’t do it to his own rifle but this one would soon be in the canal anyway. He turned up the night sights and gazed at the rocks where the muzzle flashes were coming from, at the base of a ridge to the south-west. Then the goggles picked up a man, his loose clothes flying behind him, running from one rock to the next through the dark, exposing himself to enemy fire for about three seconds. When the man fell, Dave hoped it was his shot which got him. Although it could have been one from the gimpy at the base behind.

‘OK, let’s leave it to Sol now,’ Dave ordered reluctantly after a few minutes, looking up from his rifle. He realized that the men had stopped firing and were watching him, ready and waiting to go. Finn immediately moved forward under cover of Sol’s gimpy fire. Maybe Sol guessed what they were doing, or maybe his night vision told him that the distant, silent forms were slipping away from the side of the vehicle, but the gimpys were now in overdrive. Dave hoped the barrels wouldn’t melt.

Swinging left when they reached the canal might confuse the dogs and confound their handlers. For a while. The drainage in this area had mostly been built by the Americans and they favoured the grid pattern of American cities, so finding your direction was as easy as east on Third Street and then north on First Avenue. After about ten minutes down the canal, they were to climb out on the right side and cross the fields going east. When they hit the next drainage channel, they would turn left and go north again. They would walk for at least an hour through the water where the dogs couldn’t smell them. Only then, if all was quiet, could they consider looping back through the Green Zone to the relief party.

Dave estimated that the silence meant the enemy would realize the Mastiff was deserted within five minutes, ten at the most. And, despite Sol’s efforts, within another fifteen they would be swarming all over it, stealing its weaponry, learning its secrets. He wished he could blow it up instead of leaving such a fat prize for the enemy. Less than ten minutes after they took the Mastiff, the Taliban would get dogs here to sniff out the trail of the departed men. Which meant that the four of them could be caught within thirty minutes.

He decided that he would rather be dead. If the Taliban came close enough to catch them alive, he would give each man a choice. They could hope the enemy would be kind to them. Or they could accept his offer to kill them first. Dave hoped he would have time to kill himself too. It would be better for Jenny to learn from a knock at the door that he was dead than to watch his brutal execution online.

Dave took a last glance at Dawson. He saw the others do the same, all except Angus, who ignored the still body. Then they rounded the great, lumbering shape of the Mastiff and, as they did so, Dave decided that the enemy were welcome to it. But he was fucked if they were having any of his men too.