Andy McNab - War torn

They sneaked around to the small, solid house. It looked deserted. Outside there was a thin irrigation channel, which fed the vegetable garden. There were no carrots but there were grapes. Finn picked a couple.

'Mmm, Streaky. Just try these.'

The grapes were small. Sweetness exploded in their mouths.

'Oooh, juicy!' Streaky picked some more.

A goat hung its head in one corner and nearby was the doghouse. There was no barking from inside it.

'What do people do with their dogs in this country if they never put them in their kennels?' asked Finn. Streaky was busy munching and so he answered his own question. 'Put their hostages inside.'

He walked towards the small ornate kennel.

'The Jedi will have searched there,' said Streaky, reluctant to leave the grapes.

'I know,' agreed Finn. 'I'm just nosy.'

He approached the house carefully in case one of the huge Afghan fighting dogs he had heard about was asleep in there. Crouching, in case the dog bounced out on him, he pulled open the door.

The first thing he saw was a pair of legs. He thought they must belong to a dead body since they did not move at his arrival. His heart thumping, he squatted down and peered up the legs and saw they were attached to Martyn Robertson.

'Fuck me! Marty! I was looking for you. But I didn't think I'd find you.'

Martyn lay with his eyes half open.

'Oy! You alive, mate?'

He still did not move. Finn felt for a pulse.

'Shit, Marty! Don't be dead!'

'Hi, Huckleberry Finn,' Martyn said weakly, without surprise.

'Hey! They've all gone looking down a hole for you!'

'Uh-huh. Well, I've been down a few holes.'

Streaky looked over from the vines.

'Finny?'

Finn turned and gave him a thumbs-up.

'Go and get someone!'

'Is it him? Is it Topaz Zero? I know this is a joke, Finny!'

'Find someone. They won't believe me if I put it out on PRR.'

Streaky ran over to the doghouse to make sure this was no wind-up. Then he rushed out of the garden and back inside the rock circle. The first person he saw was an SAS man with a mug of tea in his hand.

'He's here! He's fucking here!'

The man smiled at him kindly.

'Oh, yeah? And what's your name, kid?'

'Bacon, sir. Streaky Bacon.'

'You must be the only fucking bacon in Afghanistan. Got a mate called Pinta Lager?'

'He's here. Martyn! Topaz Zero! The hostage! He's over here!'

Back in the doghouse, Finn was trying to help Martyn to his feet.

'Shit, Martyn! They were going to kill you in two days' time.'

'I sort of hoped I'd die soon anyway, just to ruin their fun.'

'While we're waiting for the others, let's talk about that job you were thinking of offering me…'

Martyn's face creased itself into something that might have been a smile.

'What odds did you give on finding me?'

'Hundred to thirty at the beginning, shortened down to fifteen to eight when we found your last doghouse in town. Then this morning on the way here I was offering eleven to eight! That was generous but nobody took me up on it. Ha! In five minutes they'll all be kicking themselves, eh, Marty?'

Martyn said: 'You've got yourself that job, boy.'

Finn looked round and saw Streaky advancing with a disbelieving SAS man still holding his mug of tea.

'It's all over. You'll be all right now, Marty, old mate and future boss. The cream of the British Army's come to save you.' The stretcher was red, painted with Jamie's blood. Two medics seized it and were almost immediately working with a tourniquet and dressings along his left side, where his arm and his leg should have been, except there wasn't an arm and there wasn't much of a leg and Dave wasn't even sure there was a lot of left side.

'Jamie, Jamie, the fucking bastards got you again – they got you again! Don't let them finish the job this time! Come on, Jamie, for Chrissake!' Whose voice was that? His own?

He wanted Jamie to open his eyes. He wanted it with a desperation that took over his whole mind and whole body as if he could will Jamie's eyes to open if he wanted it hard enough. He was Jamie's sergeant. Now he was ordering him to live.

'It's not over till it's over,' said one of the medics, without looking up, as he reached for another bandage.

Dave was certain it would soon be over but he refused to look at that certainty. He clung to the medic's words instead. His hand held Jamie's wrist and searched for a pulse. He couldn't feel one.

'It's there but it's very, very faint,' said a medic. 'Did you see what happened?'

'RPG. Went straight through him.'

'No one can survive that,' said Iain Kila.

'It didn't detonate,' Dave said.

'Well, fuck me!' said Kila.

'It certainly touched him but it went straight on and then hit some rocks about thirty metres later.'

'He's in with a chance, then.'

'This man survived a round from an AK, he survived a round from a machine gun…'

The other medic said: 'The grenade sliced his left side off but there's a chance it missed his vital organs. He must have been squatting over the gimpy because it went through the top of his leg and the bottom of his arm. But he can live without an arm and a leg…'

'A few centimetres further left and he'd certainly be dead,' said the other.

'MERT will be here in four more minutes,' reported Kila. 'He'll be at Bastion inside the golden hour.'

Dave leaned over the stretcher, looking at the unmoving face.

He tried to imagine Jamie without an arm, a leg and God knew what other body parts. Always trying to hide the pain. Making the best of it. Loving Agnieszka as she pushed him around in a wheelchair. Some people can live like that, Dave thought. But Jamie can't.

If Jamie heard what the medic just said, then he can hear me now.

Dave moved close to the thin face. Eyes closed, it showed no pain. He grasped the still fingers.

'Shit, Jamie Dermott,' he said softly. 'You're the last man I can afford to lose. But I know that you're a soldier through and through. And, Jamie, you're the best. You've lost half your body. But you could never be half a soldier. I understand if you want to go now. So go, if you must, mate. You've done a great job soldiering. You've got a lovely kid. You've got a wife who does truly love you – I know that for a fact, whatever you think. So, if you want to, go peacefully. Good luck. I'll never forget you.'

Of course Jamie did not respond. He couldn't.

'Not looking good!' said one of the medics suddenly.

'Are we losing him?'

'Can't be… but we are.'

Dave closed his eyes and fell back to let the medics do their work.

'No! No way!'

'See for yourself!'

'Shit! I thought we had him!'

'Resuscitate.'

'Clear, everyone, please.'

Dave turned his back, walked away and stared out at the endless expanse of desert. His face stung. His eyes stung. Sand in his mouth, sand in his eyes, sand in his heart. A Chinook had already arrived for the casualties. Another arrived for Martyn almost immediately and the hostage was taken aboard by the waiting medics.

The OC was there.

'Martyn is very important but since he is a T3 we must ask him to wait while we load a T4.'

Finn could not stop grinning. He had been clapped on the back by everyone around him and he and Streaky had already told the story again and again of how they had gone to steal grapes and found Martyn.

He heard that there was a T4 and wondered briefly who it was, but he was really looking for Dave. Where was he when Finn was enjoying a bit of glory for once? And it would be nice to have Sol, Angus and Jamie here offering a few words of congratulations, too.

The group of soldiers around the Chinook fell suddenly silent. Finn turned to see his mates approaching. They were carrying a stretcher. The body on it was covered. So this must be the T4. Even then it did not occur to Finn that there had been a death in his own section. It was only when they were close enough for him to see their faces that he suddenly felt cold. His buoyant, triumphant mood turned inside out and left all the raw places exposed.