Andy McNab - War torn

She instructed the waiting engineers to return with the gravimeter while Martyn shrugged helplessly at Weeks. The boss ordered the men to pack up.

'Congratulations, sir,' Dave said.

'Fucking well done, sir,' agreed Kila. The boss blinked in surprise, since Kila had never called him sir as if he meant it. 'That was one hell of a handbagging.'

Weeks was still red-faced. He did not reply. He was thinking that if standing up to Emily won him this much respect, he wished Asma had been here to see it.

As the convoy prepared to leave, Martyn Robertson climbed into the front of the Vector with Weeks.

'There's no way I'm travelling at the back with Enemy, she'll be moaning all the way.'

Their route took them across the empty dustbowl of the desert, around the strange shapes of the Early Rocks which jutted eerily from the flat landscape. Gordon Weeks studied their distant outlines.

'I'd sure like to visit that place,' Martyn said. 'It's a weird formation. Natural although it looks manmade.'

'Reminds me of Stonehenge,' Weeks said.

'Those rocks are so big they'd make Stonehenge look like it was made out of pebbles. You can't tell the size of them when there's nothing near to compare them with.'

At that moment a shabby, dusty car, driven by a man but full of women passengers, their brightly coloured headwear flapping from the open windows, cut across the desert. As it neared the rocks the massive outlines towered over the car as if it was a tiny toy.

'Pilgrims,' explained Martyn. 'The place is some kind of holy shrine, that's why we aren't allowed to go there.'

Weeks made a mental note to ask Asma about the Early Rocks.

After this landmark the desert was featureless, apart from the occasional town or village, until the straight lines of FOB Senzhiri were visible in the distance. Usually they could expect some enemy fire if they approached to the east past a small, hilly zone but today they continued unhindered.

It was strange, thought Weeks, the way no one took a potshot at them when the civilian wagon was in the convoy. Without the civilians, they were guaranteed at least some token firing.

Martyn was evidently thinking the same thing.

'They sure leave us alone these days,' he said. 'Must have finally understood that there's nothing to gain from getting in our way.'

Weeks was silent. He feared Martyn was wrong.

JEAN AND ASMA LAY ON THEIR COTS IN BODY ARMOUR AND HELMETS listening to almost incessant firing. They shared a room in one of the safer areas of the base. Reinforced with concrete, it nestled inside thick Afghan mud walls.

Jean said: 'I'm sure the enemy waits for the contractors to leave the base before they start this.'

'But only a couple of the contractors went out today,' Asma said. 'Martyn's still here because he's coming to the shura.'

'Well, the Taliban don't know how many are in the civvies' Vector.'

At that moment their beds were shaken by a particularly loud explosion. Small, powdery pieces of wall scattered over them.

'Toenail time,' said Jean.

Asma nodded and reached for her makeup bag. They always painted their toenails during intense fire on the grounds that military morticians probably wouldn't bother with toenails before their corpses were carried through Wootton Bassett.

Jean was pulling off her boots.

'Not much chance we'll get out for the shura now.'

'It'll be all over by then.' Asma chucked a tiny bright red bottle over to Jean's bed and shook a similar pink one herself.

'Is your mate Gordon Weeks coming again?' asked Jean.

'No,' said Asma. 'We've got a different platoon today.'

'Shame. That rifleman from 1 Platoon who stood by the door last time is really nice.'

'There'll probably be another nice rifleman today for you to smile at.'

'Well I like that one. Got chatting to him about skiing in the cookhouse. It's amazing how thinking about snow can make you feel cooler in these temperatures.'

Asma was placing a piece of foam between her toes. 'That's an achievement. You chatting with a rifleman. Considering how they all hate monkeys.' Now she had begun to follow the line of her nails slowly and carefully with the tiny brush.

'Well, when he'd got over that one he was all right. His name's Jamie. I worked for one season in Val d'Isere and he used to go every year with his family and it turns out we were there at the same time.'

Asma looked up from her toes at Jean for a moment and raised her eyebrows comically.

'Skiing with his family every year? And he's a rifleman?'

Jean pulled a face. 'And he's married.' She opened the red bottle. 'But he's all right.'

They both concentrated on their nails, pausing only briefly when another explosion shook their cots.

'Do you think Iain Kila's all right too?' asked Asma.

'Yuck!' Jean stopped painting and sank inside her body armour like a tortoise. 'Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck.'

'He likes you,' Asma said.

'He's scary. Imagine him in a narrow alley on a dark night when he's had a few.'

'All these big hard men are softies underneath. They just need a good woman to help them show their feelings.'

Jean guffawed. 'And the last good woman was called Trudi.'

'Did he tell you that?'

'Nope. Her name's tattooed on his arm.'

Asma changed feet. 'Well, at least he's got an Underslung Grenade Launcher tattooed on his other arm.'

'Are you kidding?'

'How cool is that?'

'You are kidding!'

'Yes,' giggled Asma. 'But he's the sort who would.'

Jean giggled too.

'I think you like him,' said Asma.

'I do not.'

'You're always talking to him.'

'That's because every other soldier avoids me. Apart from Jamie. They all think I'm trying to arrest them.'

Asma had finished her toenails. She screwed the brush back into the bottle and then tipped the contents of her makeup bag onto her cot. She bent over, sifting through everything, so that tiny bottles fell against one another with soft clinking noises. She said: 'Well, you did make a big fuss about that guy they shot in the ditch.'

Jean was only starting on her second foot now. 'The OC's promised he'll investigate and write a report. I know they want to sweep it under the carpet but I'm not going to let them. The fact is, they filled a wounded man with bullets.'

'Course he was wounded. They shot him.'

'It's uncivilized,' insisted Jean. 'Soldiers storm compounds and see people living cheek by jowl with their animals and wandering around in flipflops. So they decide the Afghans are a bunch of savages. They should look at their own behaviour sometimes.'

'Keep going with that one and you'll drop a popular sergeant in the shit.'

'It's good to remind people about the RoE,' said Jean. 'Keeps their baser instincts under control.'

'OK, but don't expect them to like you for it.' Asma was applying mascara now, holding a little mirror up with the other hand.

'Well, Iain Kila still likes me. I wouldn't talk RoE to him, though.'

Jean finished her toenails and sat up and watched her friend's dexterity with the mascara. 'Are you putting on your face to impress that tribesman you fancy at the shura?'

Asma giggled. 'I wouldn't say fancy. But he's a very attractive man. And he makes Afghanistan seem a very attractive place.'

'In other words, you fancy him.'

Asma giggled again and shifted the mascara brush over to the other eye. 'Think I could be his fourth wife?'

'You'd get a bit bored stuck at home all day with the other three.'

'No, I wouldn't, because I'd be busy having at least ten kids.'

'So that's something about Afghanistan you don't find so attractive, then?'

'If my mum and dad hadn't got out, I'd certainly have six kids by now and another on the way. So I'm glad I'm English. But Afghanistan's always going to have a pull over me.'