Andy McNab - War torn

'Binman's going for the land speed record,' Mal told him.

Binns's heart beat harder. This had been the longest, slowest, hottest fifteen metres of his life. And he was nearly there. His hands sifted soil faster, his bayonet poked energetically.

'Not too fast, mate,' said Mal behind him.

And then it happened again. Another strange clod of earth, clinging, lumpen, reluctant to move. Like an arrow pointing downwards to draw his attention to something. This time Binns didn't blow on it, not even lightly. He knew.

'What's up?' asked Mal.

'Another one.'

He heard his own voice, faint and hoarse like an old man who'd smoked all his life.

'Oh, fuck it. We're nearly there. And it's right by Broom. How are we going to get him out with that in the way?'

Binns felt defeated. He put his face down in the dirt for the first time, feeling it crunch and crumble beneath his cheeks. He closed his eyes. He felt far from home. And home wasn't even England right now. It was twelve metres away with his mate, Streaky Bacon, and all the others.

Mal was up on his knees surveying the scene.

'OK, you'll have to go left again. Then we'll go in around Ryan's side and it might help getting Ryan out too.'

Binns was a mine-clearing machine. Mal dragged him backwards and he started looking, feeling and prodding to the left before Mal had let go of his legs.

'What's up? What you doing?' shouted Dave.

Mal knelt and explained. He turned to the others watching at the side of the field.

'What about that explosion?'

'We're OK. But it ripped a tree to shreds like lettuce, that's all,' shouted Streaky.

It took for ever to arrive at Broom. Crawling around the last mine was the longest, slowest part of the longest, slowest journey.

'You're doing well, Jamie's nowhere near Connor yet,' said Mal.

'It's not a race,' said Binns.

But they were there and Broom was still alive, although his eyes were closed and his breathing shallow. Mal began to move into position.

'Stop!' yelled Dave. 'Just be careful. You must clear the position all around the casualty before you treat him. You must do that!'

Binns and Mal could hardly stop the forward momentum of their bodies towards Broom. Dave had to yell at them three times to prevent them touching him. So Binman began to worm his way around the wounded soldier, around the blood, around the buzzing swarms of flies and around the landmine that was lying painfully close by. Mal taped it off. He was kneeling with his tourniquet and dressings at the ready, waiting to pounce on Broom's trauma kit as soon as they were clear.

He talked nonsense in a soothing voice.

'Two minutes, mate, just two minutes… and the man you have to thank for our speedy arrival today is one Binman, now better known as Snakeman because he crawled all the way here on his fucking belly. He was chosen for the job because he's got the smallest belly in the whole platoon. You should have seen him slithering up the minefield…'

Broom did not respond.

'OK,' said Binns at last, and Mal moved in to the bloody mess where Broom's leg should have been.

Binman sat still for a moment and watched Mal in action. Despite his haste, Mal's movements were smooth and experienced. He used the tourniquet with strength and wrapped dressings with a rapid professionalism. He ignored the flies swarming all around him.

The nausea that always seemed to be waiting inside Binns swept up through his body to his throat again.

'Write on his forehead that he's had his morphine, will you?' said Mal. Without looking up, he added: 'And if you puke all over the casualty, I'll cut you, Binman. I mean it.'

Binns swallowed and said shakily: 'Come on, Ben, wake up, mate. We're going to get you out of here now…'

There was no time for Binns to be sick because Mal had shaken out the stretcher. Broom looked small and light without his kit but when they lifted him Binns thought his arms would fall out of their sockets.

'He doesn't look this heavy!'

'Deadweight,' replied Mal shortly.

'But he's not dead!'

'Doesn't matter. Still a deadweight.'

Binns tried to take Broom's Bergen but Mal rescued him and handed him Broom's weapon instead, a rifle with UGL. They lifted the stretcher carefully and carried it gingerly around the taped mine.

Afterwards, Binns remembered the journey back down the path with the stretcher in slow motion. It could only have taken a few minutes. But with Broom's weight breaking his arms, the heat suddenly blinding and the flies following them, it felt like an hour.

Many hands were waiting at the side of the woods for the stretcher. Kirk and O'Sullivan, covered in dirt, were the first to grab it as soon as it was clear of the minefield.

'Fucking good job, you two. Fucking fantastic work, Binman.'

Gasping for breath, Binman was clapped on the back by Dave. He blushed and nodded. He looked for Streaky who was covering across the minefield. Streaky gave him a big smile of approval and a thumbs-up.

The boss was there, talking on the radio.

'We've decided to get this casualty off now,' he told Dave, 'and bring the Chinook back for Connor.'

'How far away is the HLS?'

'Five minutes,' said the boss. 'Let's get Broom moving there now.'

'What happened to the Black Hawk?' asked Dave.

The boss gave a snort of humourless laughter.

'How many men can I have to cover the stretcher team?'

'Take 2 Section, they're not doing much good here.'

Binman watched Jamie and Angus at work. They had just found another mine and were diverting once more.

Dave said quietly: 'Binman, relax now. Just sit down and drink!'

But he was too late. Binman was already walking back up the cleared mine path.

Dave yelled at him to come back but Binman knew he had to continue his work because in the time Jamie could work his way around this mine, Binns was sure he could connect his own path to Connor.

He lay down in the place Broom had lain, avoiding the huge bloodstain, now feasted on by flies. He started his work again. This time his hands hurt. He realized they were blistered. It was worse than cracked heels but he could ignore the pain if he concentrated. He rubbed his palms over the soil with a touch that now felt light and experienced, the way Mal had been with the dressings.

He realized someone was behind him.

'Don't rush, mate.' It was Mal. He had ignored Dave's warning and come back too. Binns suddenly felt happy. He did not know why. 'Just get your water tube in your mouth. And don't listen to Sarge doing his nut down there.'

Binns silently, doggedly, worked his way towards Connor. There was a lot of shrapnel from the two exploded mines here, glass and bits of metal. He twice cut his hands and Mal yelped in pain as he knelt on something sharp. But nothing could stop Binman now. As the unmoving shape of Ryan Connor got closer, he speeded up.

'Fuck it, I can't see him breathing,' said Mal.

Angus had his hands on his hips. 'Hey! You're going to get to him first!'

Jamie barely looked up. He was working like Binns, face close to the dirt, hands just in front of his face, bayonet used only for the final prods before he advanced. He said: 'We could all be too late.'

Dave had stopped yelling at Binman and Mal for returning to the minefield and wanted to know the state of the casualty.

'If he's alive it'll be mouth to mouth as soon as we get there,' called Mal grimly. 'He's in shreds. I mean, his arm. Down to the bone. And there's a lot of shrapnel just below his body armour… Not sure about his foot…'

'Clear the position before you touch him! Remember!'

But Binman had already begun his slow shuffle around Ryan on his belt buckles. He was almost all the way round and Mal was ready with equipment when Binman's long, thin fingers felt the strange thickening of the soil which told him something lay beneath. He was a few inches from Ryan Connor's shoulder.