Andy McNab: War torn

THE SUN HUNG DIRECTLY OVERHEAD, BAKING THE DESERT LANDSCAPE around them. Inside the hot, dark Vector, 1 Section, 1 Platoon had sand up their noses, sand inside their mouths. And when they drank from their Camelbaks, they could feel the grit against their teeth.

The journey across Helmand Province had been long and, despite taking turns on top, the lads had moaned into the sergeant's ear every inch of the way. Rifleman Jordan Nelson had been up there on the GPMG throughout. Now Sergeant Dave Henley joined him for the last leg of the journey.

Dave could see the town just ahead of them. Beyond it, another stretch of flat desert separated them from their destination. The incongruous straight lines and right angles of Forward Operating Base Senzhiri sliced across the distant foothills. The rest of the platoon was behind them, looking less like a convoy than a huge, rolling dust cloud.

1 Platoon was to spend the next six months in FOB Senzhiri. They were the advance party; the rest of R Company would be arriving by air later today. The men sat sweating in the gloom of the Vectors, pinned down by the heat. They fell silent as they approached the town. The men on top watched the ancient mud walls grow higher as they got closer, swelling like bread in an oven.

The trees cowered limply in the sunlight. Nothing moved.

Where was everyone?

Dave could smell danger and feel it in the air.

This town wasn't like the others they'd passed through. It was too empty. Where were the curious kids in dark doorways, tugging against their mothers' burqas? Where were those mothers, trying to keep their heads covered as they dragged their reluctant offspring indoors? Where were the people walking home from the bazaar with bulging bags, the old men crouching on steps, chewing and staring?

He felt a sensation of intense heat near his face. Molecules of air and dust ricocheted off his cheek. They had been rearranged by a small mass of such speed and power that it cracked the air as it passed. Dave instantly pushed the safety catch on his weapon. And then enemy fire was bursting and blazing all around him.

The boss gave HQ a sit rep from the Vector behind. 'Zero Alpha, this is Romeo One One. Contact. Wait. Out.'

Noise, dust flying and muzzle flashes everywhere, but when Dave scanned the place for movement, there was none. The walls stared back at him, monumental and impassive. He scrutinized the tops of the palms and fruit trees beyond them for shadows, motion, any unnatural regularity. Nothing. A fire fight was erupting on all sides but the enemy was invisible.

Then, amid the crack and thump of small arms, came the angry boom of a grenade.

'Cover! Cover!' Shouts from further down the convoy.

Dave's heart beat faster. Up ahead, buried inside a dark slit in the wall, he had seen something glint. He recognized the dull sheen of a worn weapon, its black surface rubbed away. He didn't take his eyes off it. He focused through spiralling clouds of dust, raised his weapon until the target was in the sights and then fired. He couldn't actually see the result, but he felt a small sense of satisfaction.

'Zero Alpha, this is Romeo One One. Grid…' The boss paused. He was at the front of his Vector, his nose probably buried in his map. Dave noticed that his voice was perceptibly higher than normal. And no wonder. The boss had walked more or less straight out of Sandhurst into this shitstorm.

'Grid 883 492. Taking fire. Light weapons. Rocket-propelled grenades. No casualties. Request air support. Wait. Out.'

Far away, in an air-conditioned cabin in the sprawling NATO base at Kandahar, Troops in Combat would be flashing up onscreen. Dave hoped his mate Sam Chandler was on duty and not lounging around in the base coffee shop or beating up a treadmill in the gym. Once a TIC showed red on the plasma, Sam or one of his colleagues would be legging it in his flying suit into the wall of heat outside, straight to a waiting Harrier. Dave had watched Sam do this only a few days ago, when R Company had first arrived in Afghanistan. It was a reassuring image.

A voice from HQ, crisp and low-key: 'Roger that. Air support. ETA eight minutes. Out.'

The Vector jerked forward again and the dust thrown up by its wheels thickened into dense clouds. He could smell cordite and hear the ceaseless percussion of gunfire but couldn't see further than the end of his nose. He couldn't see the enemy. And now he couldn't even see the flash of their weapons.

The brown dust seethed between the brown Vector and the brown walls. Dave was firing into a brown void. He paused. Behind him he heard the crackle of the other Vectors' machine guns, fast, urgent, high-pitched against the more sporadic chatter of light weapons. Next to him was the deep thrumming of Rifleman Nelson's GPMG. What the fuck was everyone firing at? Could any of them see anything? Or did it just feel better than not firing?

He listened to the crack of the bullets and the thump as they landed, gauging the gap between the two sounds. He estimated that the enemy were mostly within 100 metres, some very close indeed. But the roar of the Vectors and the echoes around the walls could distort your judgement.

He searched the blank clouds of dust for a target. The Vector rumbled on. And then, without warning, the dust curled in a new direction. Suddenly there was a crack in the brown cloud and he could see through it. Low shop fronts loomed close by him, their metal shutters rolled down, then a narrow side street. Empty. No, it wasn't empty. A figure. Several doorways along, half hidden in the shadows.

Dave took in two things about the man: the way his pale blue robes flowed around him like water, and the fact that he was carrying an RPG. Dave raised his weapon until the optic sight cut into his line of vision. He focused into the post sight. He was aiming at the target's centre of mass: the man's chest. He squeezed the trigger just as the Vector jolted.

Shit.

The man dropped his RPG but did not fall to the ground. He grasped his leg. Then instinct overcame pain and he hopped towards his weapon. Dave's finger curled around the trigger again but the moving parts of his SA80 were suddenly stubborn.

'Stoppage!'

He slid down into the other world inside the Vector, tilting his weapon left as he did so, pulled the cocking handle back and saw the empty case.

Fourteen stone of combat gear at his side moved to take his place. Rifleman Steve Buckle. Capable, fast, reliable.

'Get up there!' Dave yelled. 'RPG down that side street!' The barrel of his weapon was scalding hot. He had brought the smell of scorched metal and cordite into this small, burning space. It clawed at the back of his throat. He blinked. After the blistering light of Helmand Province, midday, it was midnight in here. The enemy rounds bouncing off the Vector's armour sounded as though someone was throwing their money around.

He bent over his rifle. With the working parts back he stuck his finger into the hot weapon. He felt his skin burn as he eased out the empty case and let the working parts slide forward again. Fixed. But too late.

He could make out the faces of his men now. Their bodies were dirty, their necks, their clothes were sculpted out of dirt. Sweat had carved river deltas through the dirt on their faces. Dirt encrusted their lips.

Above, Steve's silhouette was firing in the direction of the RPG.

'Did you slot him?' Dave asked on PRR. Instead of a reply there was a bang. The loudest fucking bang. The most agonized scream. The world's scariest roller-coaster plunging off the tracks. A superhuman force threw Dave to the front of the Vector. His shoulder smashed against the side of the vehicle. He looked up. The sky was a deep, deep blue. Its beauty was punctured by shards of metal.