Andy McNab - War torn

What rhymed with scared? Did anything rhyme with scared?

There was a massive crash and a flash that leaped out of nowhere and for a crazy moment Streaky thought they had been struck by lightning. Then he heard Dave's voice in his ear. It sounded strangely cool and distant inside Streaky's hot, sweaty head, as if Dave was directing operations from some beachside bar a huge distance away: 'Get out and get down.'

'What happened?' Another disembodied voice.

'RPG hit a corner of the truck and bounced,' someone said.

'Everyone all right?'

'Get out, now!' Sol yelled.

And then men were piling out of the Vectors, their bodies crouching, slinking around the truck while all around them the orchestra of fire played in the theatre of war.

Streaky, waves of nausea running up and down his body, got behind the Vector and ducked. Scared… unprepared!

That was it. Streaky felt for his pencil. Yes! I'm scared, I'm unprepared man, for what may lie ahead man…

He sat down in the dirt and watched rounds bouncing all around the vehicle. It looked as if the ground was cracking. Overhead, the trees were cracking.

'Fucking hell,' Binman shouted.

'Wish you stayed at Curry's now?' Streaky hoped he sounded ice cool but he knew his voice had emerged high and splintered like a kid's.

They crouched down amid the flash and crack and thud of the battle. Rapid fire, I'm not scared, No I'm a liar, I'm unprepared I want to cry, I start to sweat Mama, I'm still a child inside my head, Don't want to show it, don't want you to know it, But if I shut my eyes I see me dead…

'Get some fire down!' Sol shouted.

Streaky looked up from under his helmet, trying to think of a rhyme for dead… bed, said, fed, dread…

'What do you think you've got rifles for, to hang on the fucking Christmas tree?' Finn yelled. 'Use them!'

Streaky realized he and Binman were the only ones not firing.

He shuffled to the side of the Vector and looked out. He could see rounds flying down the track. One pinged off the Vector and then against his helmet like someone trying to wake him.

He ducked behind the vehicle again, pulled his rifle into position and looked through the sights. He was crouching too low to aim at anything except a snake. Reluctantly he got up onto one knee. Binman, at his side, did the same. A round ricocheted off the ground in front of them. Trying to ignore it, his finger shaking, Streaky released the safety.

The first time he fired he had no idea where the round went or where it landed. His hand would not stop shaking. He fired again. What was he aiming at? He was staring through the sights. But there was nothing to see.

He dodged back behind the Vector. He felt as though he had been exposed out there for an hour. Binman was still behind him. This was Binns's chance to move forward and take up the firing position Streaky had vacated but he didn't. His face was a ghastly white, like a vampire in a horror movie.

Since Binman was frozen to the spot, Streaky kept his head down, pointed the SA80 up the track behind them and fired intensively. When his shoulder began to hurt he paused. And then he fired some more. He felt his body relax a little. Inexplicably, he wanted to giggle. This wasn't so difficult. Since the Taliban was invisible, you could aim anywhere and there was a chance of hitting one of them. He heard laughter and realized it was his own. He fired faster and faster to the sound of his own laughter.

'Slow it down, for Chrissake,' someone shouted, maybe Dave. Streaky paused and looked around. It was a relief to stop firing. Had he really been laughing? He saw that the men with the most firepower and the best positions were high up on the vehicles. But they were also the most exposed.

A shout came from Jamie on top. Streaky and Dave both turned in time to see him stagger.

'Shit, come and help,' Dave shouted to Streaky, scrambling to his feet and diving inside the vehicle. Streaky followed him. They found Jamie already there, his body doubled, hanging onto the side.

'Sit down,' Dave ordered. 'What happened?'

Streaky helped Jamie down. Gasping for breath, Jamie managed to say: 'A bloke standing over me with a fucking great sledgehammer brought it down right on my back…'

His face drained. He closed his eyes. He was going to pass out. Or was he going to die? Streaky felt sick.

Dave shook Jamie awake, looking desperate, as though he thought Jamie wouldn't wake up if he lost consciousness.

'You've been hit,' he said. His voice was strangled and urgent. Streaky looked at his sergeant and saw shock carved into every crevice. Dave was already old: probably in his late twenties, Streaky thought. But now he seemed ten years older even than that.

Streaky watched Dave's face cave in a little as he searched for the wound. He knew that, as far as a sergeant can be close to one of his men, Dave was good mates with Jamie. Personally Streaky found Jamie a strange geezer. He was posh and apparently he had been to college and he obviously should have been an officer but for some reason he had wanted to be one of the lads instead. Streaky had meant to ask him why, when the moment was right. Now it seemed he might never have a chance.

Jamie wordlessly pointed to the place and Dave gently readjusted Jamie's position so they could reach the wound without twisting his body. Dave's face was frightening Streaky Bacon now. He needed his sergeant to be hard. Invincible. And instead Dave was showing signs of shock because his mate was hurt, just like anyone else.

Dave glanced at Streaky.

'Don't just sit there staring, get the fucking medic!' he snapped. But the medic was already climbing into the Vector. Streaky was the first to see the deep tear at the bottom of Jamie's body armour. He pointed to it. Dave swallowed.

The medic pushed Streaky aside.

'OK, I've got him,' he said. He was trying to release Dave back out there again. But Streaky could see that Dave, although he was certainly needed outside, did not want to leave Jamie.

'Get someone on the gimpy!' Jamie said weakly, his eyes closed. 'They're closing in on us, I could see it from on top.'

'It's too exposed up there, everyone has to come down,' Dave said, and he gave the order.

The medic took off Jamie's armour and pouches and webbing, handing them to Streaky who put them down carefully, almost reverently. When the medic crouched to examine Jamie's back they could all see the massive swelling appearing on the right side.

'You've been hit.'

'I know that.'

'You're a lucky boy. I think it was a high-calibre round. I'd say it's a 7.62mm.'

'He'd be dead if one of them hit him,' Dave said, his face still a caricature.

'I've heard of them bouncing off,' the medic said. 'The ceramic plates inside this body armour are amazing.'

'Maybe I am dead,' Jamie said weakly. 'And you're all dead too.'

'Not me,' Streaky said. 'I'm still here-'

There was a huge crash outside the Vector.

He added: 'I think.'

'So we're all dead and something the bishop forgot to tell us about heaven is that it's one long fire fight with the Taliban,' Dave said.

'You're winded and a bit shocked and you're going to have one helluva bruise. But you're alive,' the medic told Jamie.

'You could have fooled me,' he said.

'And,' the medic added, 'you're a lucky man. A few centimetres higher and it would have been right through your neck.'

'Just stay sitting down quietly,' Dave told him.

'Well, if I'm alive I'm OK to get back on the gun so give me my kit.'

'Oh, no, you're not OK,' the medic said.

Dave was already carrying the GPMG down and setting it up on the ground outside.

'Get a belt loaded,' he yelled at Streaky, a command which was causing Streaky some panic when Jamie staggered out of the Vector. His exposed body drew a burst of fire. He didn't so much duck as fall behind the gimpy.