My aperture was filled with stars. I changed the frequency of the photons that entered my vacuum tube so their signature was amplified as a noisy green image.
BA5799 shifted from one knee to the other. As he moved I wobbled on the mount that attached me to his helmet and the stars blurred as I failed to maintain resolution. He lifted a hand and slotted me into position. My green light reflected off the glassy bulge of his retina and his eyelashes flicked across the surface of my lens as he blinked.
The stars were replaced by a dark horizon and the ridges of a ploughed field. He scanned across it. The grey-green shapes of kneeling figures snaked forward into the distance, disappearing into a dark thicket.
Each figure held his weapon rested on a knee or in the crook of a shoulder and peered into the gloom, each one turned in the opposite direction to protect the single file. Their eyes glowed against pale skin.
Ahead there was the sound of coughing.
We waited. BA5799 looked out at the jumble of houses and brick walls flat in the middle distance. There was no movement. His knee ached and the straps of his day-sack pressed down through his body armour that encased him in damp heat. He was hot, but now that we had stopped he shivered.
Ahead the line moved, lifting away and extending until the man in front of us levered up and walked off. When there was a gap BA5799 stood up, turned and walked backwards holding out a thumb, and the figure behind followed.
We went onto a track covered with foliage and I struggled to enhance any light in the dark. A droplet of sweat collected off BA5799’s eyebrow, swung around my rubber cuff and dripped onto his cheek. We edged across a plank bridge above inky water and headed out over another field.
In front a figure stumbled with a stifled curse and the weight of his equipment pulled him down into a ditch. Two others helped him up. We walked on towards it, the man ahead swept his arm out to indicate the hazard and BA5799 did the same for the man behind.
We stopped regularly and the line concertinaed together and then stretched away as they moved on to each pre-decided feature. We waited near a motionless village and a dog barked and another echoed in the distance.
BA5799 adjusted a dial on my side and I increased the contrast of my output. He focused me on deep patches of shadow and then moved on to the next, looking for a silhouette or sudden flash. He knew they must be there, watching the single file of soldiers laden with weapons cross the open fields, alerted by the dogs and the shuffle of their clothes and buzz of radios that seemed so loud.
We stayed in the same place for a long time and he was frustrated by not knowing what was happening ahead. He lifted me up so I pointed at the stars again, swept his sleeve across his eyes and dropped me back into position. He yawned: his adrenaline was spent.
Finally, the man in front whispered that they were at the rendezvous. BA5799 understood from the plan that they would now move between two buildings and form a defensive triangle so the others could find them. He signalled the message to the man behind him and it murmured down the rest of the line.
A soldier who knelt beside the track counted us through. We passed the legs of those who were in position, lying flat behind their weapons, and dropped down. We were in a ragged triangle, all facing out. A dog started to bark again.
BA5799 was uncomfortable: a stone pushed into his ribs and my weight pulled his helmet forward so he had to arch his back painfully to see. He shifted and drank some water from a pipe protruding from the top of his day-sack.
He knew from the plan that they would appear from the direction he faced. And after his back had numbed, an infrared light emerged that he could see only through me. It bobbed up and down as a soldier walked out across the field, followed by another single file of dark figures. BA5799 lifted me and could see little through the murk without my enhancement, then dropped me back down so the line of men reappeared.
They stopped alongside an earth mound that divided two fields. A soldier left our position and went out to greet the lead figure.
The man next to us slid over and hissed in BA5799’s ear. “Looks like this is me then, boss,” he said. “Let Lieutenant Baker know I’ll be warming his bed.”
“Mark’ll be chuffed, I’m sure,” BA5799 breathed back. “Good luck, Sarnt Collins.”
Men lifted themselves off the ground, overcoming the weight of their kit, and moved out of the triangle to join the others. Once men had arrived to replace them and the line of soldiers had disappeared, there was a soft double pat on BA5799’s day-sack and we stood and followed off between the two buildings.
We took a different route back and the pace quickened as we neared safety. A band of light was seeping from the horizon when we stopped for the final time a few hundred yards from a squat, silhouetted watchtower. BA5799 pushed fingers up to itch below his helmet and then adjusted me against his eye.
We entered the camp and a guard at the gate counted us in. Men broke off to different tents and buildings, the smell of cigarette smoke trailing them. BA5799 unloaded his weapon and ducked under a camouflage net into a building with aerials and a generator that rumbled outside.
A man leant against the doorframe. “How was that, Tom?” he asked.
BA5799 unclipped his helmet and I swung wildly down to his side. My sensor was overloaded by light from the room in front of us. “Morning, Dave. Seemed to go smoothly,” BA5799 said.
“I just heard on the ops room radio they got to the checkpoint fine, by the way. Not a peep all night. The insurgents never seem to like the dark. But I’m sure they must know we’re moving about.”
BA5799 put his helmet on a bench and I pointed up at him, bright green in the light of the door. “It was pretty eerie,” he said. “Good to get out in the dark for the first time though.” He slid his day-sack off and removed his armour, ripping the Velcro at the sides. He pinched his wet combat shirt away from his skin.
“That’s your third time out, isn’t it?” the man said. He held a mug that waved as he spoke. “We’ve got a framework patrol tomorrow. You can join in if you want. It’ll probably be a short one to check some empty compounds to the east.”
“Fourth, if you include the one last night.” BA5799 picked me up and unscrewed me from the helmet mount. “Any news on when the relief in place is due to start?”
“We talked to HQ earlier—it’s still planned for two days’ time, largely by road but a few helicopter loads too. Most of your lot should be in by midweek,” the man said. “I’ll be in the last packet out, leaving on Thursday.” He drank from the mug. “We still need a couple more sessions in the ops room to complete the handover. Fancy a brew now?” He pointed the mug at BA5799.
“No thanks,” BA5799 said and flicked my off switch. I was blind. He placed me in a small pouch. “I’m going to hit the sack. What time’s the next patrol?”
“Be prepared from ten hundred.”
“I’ll get a few hours then. See you later, Dave.”
“Catch you in a bit.”