Andy McNab - War torn

Kila grinned back. 'Women. You just need to know how to handle them.'

'Not much chance here for you to practise your handling skills.'

Kila's grin broadened meaningfully. Dave squinted at him.

'Well I knew the boss was after the Intelligence Corps bird but I didn't think you…'

'I'm not interested in that iceberg. Or Professor Sex Grenade. That only leaves one.'

'Not the monkey!'

Kila leaned forward and spoke quietly. 'There's a limit to how far I can go here at the base of course. But between you and me, I wouldn't say no to a bit of monkey business.'

BOSS WEEKS WAS EXHAUSTED. THE DAY'S ADRENALIN HAD DRAINED out of him, leaving him feeling like a hollow shell. He had taken something for the thumping headache from the bomb's blast wave and was too tired now even to look at the pictures of the ambush that kept playing inside his head. He only knew one thing. He wanted to be with Asma. The ambush had been a terrifying, intense experience. She had shared it. Even if they didn't talk about it, he wanted to be near her.

In the wagon she had mentioned she liked to walk around the perimeter after dark, looking at the stars. So now he was walking the perimeter, hoping. He passed other people. But none of them was Asma.

He saw a firefly. Then he realized it was the red tip of a cigarette, lighting up as the smoker pulled on it. And finally he saw that the smoker was Asma.

Gordon Weeks was so pleased that he tried not to be disgusted by the cigarette.

She smiled sheepishly.

'OK, I didn't happen to mention that my little night-walking habit was connected to my little smoking habit. But I only have three a day. One in the morning, one at lunchtime if I can and one walking around the hesco at night. That's not so bad, is it?'

He was thinking of a reply when she went on.

'Look, most people would've smoked a whole fucking packet after what happened today. But this is only my third, I swear.'

He could not imagine feeling this way in the UK about a girl who smoked. In fact, he couldn't think of any girl he knew who smoked.

'Does Jean smoke too?' Whenever he saw Asma in the cookhouse or around the camp, Jean was always there. He looked over his shoulder for her now.

'No, she disapproves just like you do,' said Asma.

'Did I say I disapprove?'

She laughed then. How had he done it? He had made her laugh without trying at all. When he tried he was lucky to get a half-smile out of her.

'Well, you do, don't you?'

'Er… er…' And it gave him great pleasure to hear her laugh again.

'I thought so,' she said, drawing on her cigarette. 'I'm trying to give up. But an FOB where everyone smokes may not be the right place. Although Jean says there's never a right place to give up.'

'You seem very good friends with Jean.'

'Yup,' she said, throwing down her cigarette stub and stamping on it fiercely. They were in the darkest part of the camp now and, although their eyes were accustomed to the night, they could barely see each other. But Weeks could sense her. He could sense the warmth of her body. As well as, regrettably, the smell of the extinguished cigarette.

'Listen, it's obvious you're not keen on Jean. But you don't know her.'

He was silent.

'She takes her job seriously and she gets pissed off here. We both do. We're used as interpreters at this FOB but we're trained to do a lot more. Jean's Royal Military Police. That's what she joined up to do. She didn't join up to interpret for engineers who want to talk about fucking wall-building.'

'But,' said Weeks, 'without her interpretation the school wall would never get built.'

'She thinks it's a waste of her skills because a local Afghan interpreter could handle it. And you want to know something, Gordon? She's right.'

'What about you? Do you feel your skills are wasted?'

'I could be doing a lot more at Bastion. Listening to intelligence, helping piece it altogether, getting something useful done.'

'So why have you both been sent here?' asked Weeks.

'Because of the civilians. It's part of the contract that top-level interpreters are on hand for them.'

'Top level, eh?'

They had completed a circuit now and their faces picked up the light from some of the brighter tents and reflected it. She was ridiculously beautiful. He could not understand how she could stroll around the hesco without a line of panting men behind her. Except that she was so skilled at freezing people out. The only man he'd seen her respond to warmly was the tribesman at the shura, the one with the moviestar looks. When he thought of the way Asma had talked to that man he felt a stab of something which might have been anger. Although it was probably jealousy.

She was smiling now. 'Yeah, top level, that's us. Which means we speak Pashtu and our English is a lot better than the locals'.' She giggled, adding: 'Innit?'

So she had detected how irritating he found innit. Weeks smiled too.

They walked on towards the darkness. Overhead the Afghan night was a canopy of stars. The constellations were the same as at home, of course, but they stood out less here because they were saturated by thousands more.

'Oooh, it's so fucking beautiful!' said Asma.

Weeks thought that her English may be better than the locals' but it still left a lot to be desired.

He took a deep breath.

'Is that why your friend Jean gets so hot under the collar about one half-dead Taliban fighter in a ditch? Because she's looking for police work?'

'Well,' said Asma, 'yeah. But she's right. You should keep gripping your blokes about the RoE.'

'But she's gripping an exceptionally good sergeant. It does nothing for morale when someone so respected gets a public dressing-down.'

'That geezer they shot would probably still be alive today if, say, 2 Platoon had found him. Sergeant Somers is a bit different from Sergeant Henley.'

Since arriving in Afghanistan everything the boss thought he knew or understood had been challenged. But in this strange, new world, there had been one rock-solid certainty. And that was Dave Henley. Of course, he was the boss and Dave was the sergeant. But they both knew that Dave was in charge. Dave handled the men when he could not. And thanks to him they had escaped serious harm on more than one occasion. Weeks had felt the foundations of his world crack in a few places but he could not allow any cracks in the foundation that was Dave.

He said stiffly: 'Over the weeks I have known him I have learned to respect him and trust his judgement totally.'

'He just might be a bit weak on the RoE,' said Asma.

'He is both an exceptional sergeant and a good man,' the boss insisted. 'The Rules of Engagement are very hard for soldiers on the ground to apply when their lives are in danger during a contact. We tell them this isn't a war. But it's difficult for them to understand why we're here.'

'So why are we here?'

He stopped walking in surprise.

'To support the reconstruction of Afghanistan by encouraging democracy and keeping the Taliban at bay.'

She swung round to look at him in the dark.

'If you learn Pashtu for the rest of your life,' she said, 'you'll never do more than talk bollocks in two languages. You'll never, ever understand this place and neither will any of the fucking politicians who sent us here.'

'But… well… then… what are you doing? Working with the British Army?'

She hung her head.

'I don't know sometimes.'

He waited for her to speak. His heart was thumping. What was she trying to tell him? That she was a security risk?

'I'm going to have another cigarette,' she announced rebelliously.

'So that would be four today?'

'Yeah.'

She lit up and held the cigarette lightly between her long fingers and began to walk again, inhaling deeply.