Andy McNab - Last Night-Another Soldier…

A calm female voice came over FOB's loud speaker system. 'Standby. Standby. Firing. End of message.' Sure enough, the rattle and whoosh of two massive rockets kicked off into the sky. We called them 70km Snipers, because they could still reach their targets from that far away. At least this time it was our guys giving the Talis the good news.

Toki shoved everything he'd been sorting through back into John's patrol kit. There was nothing to be found. 'D Company must still be getting a hammering,' he said.

Toki wasn't wrong. D company were getting smashed up big time on the other side of the valley. It was taking all our helis to keep the Talis down. Another rocket kicked off, forcing Si to shout above it as he picked at a new zit on the side of his neck. 'Hey, Briggsy, heard you did a touch of the old Kung Fu Panda with a Tali this morning, right before you head-jobbed him. Good one, mate.'

'Yeah. Sort of.' I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk about it, so I stared into the bin liner I'd just put John's iPod into, in the hope that we could just carry on packing the kit away.

'And?' Si wasn't going to let it go that easily.

'Mate, what happened? Cough up.'

'Well…' I revved myself up to tell the story as best I could.

Si nodded with excitement as I explained what had happened. I tried to tell it as dramatically as I could, because I knew that was what he wanted to hear. 'All I could hear was Toki yelling, "Pistol. Pistol." I was flapping so much I'd forgotten about it. So I reached down to my leg holster and jammed my pistol into his nut and slotted him. Job done. Cheers, Toki.'

'No biggy. I'd have done it for you if I'd been able to get near enough. You were too close to him for me to be able to fire from that far away. Anyway, you did well. Have a dig about for his laptop lead, will you, Briggsy? It might be in with all that stuff in your bin liner.'

I dug around in my sack and pulled out the only lead that looked as if it might work. Si kept looking in my direction, waiting for more of my story. When he realized that was it, he gave me a big thumbs up with both hands.

'Good one, mate. Like you said, job done. Big time!' He beamed at the three of us like he was over the moon I'd killed someone, but maybe he was just pleased that he'd finally burst his zit.

I hoped that would be the end of the conversation, but I should have known he wouldn't leave it there. 'Mate, just think what would've happened if they had, you know, got you? We'd be watching you online getting your head cut off.' Si slid his index finger across his throat. 'Cos you know they'll get one of us one day, don't you? They keep trying. I just hope it ain't me.'

It went quiet for a bit as we all thought about what would happen if one of us got taken by the Talis.

'Hey, Briggsy.' Si still wasn't done. 'You think they'll, you know, give you one before cutting you up?'

Flash lowered the bluey he'd been opening and rolled his eyes. 'You've been watching too much TV, mate.'

Then I remembered something I'd seen on Dave TV about Afghanistan. 'I watched a thing about them playing rugby, but on horses using human heads instead of balls.'

Flash pointed the bluey at me like a school teacher with a ruler. 'It's called buzkashi and it's a game like polo. They usually use a dead goat instead of a ball, but they decided to use Russian squaddies' heads when they were at war with them back in the eighties.'

Si gave a low whistle. 'See, Briggsy, you're lucky.'

I thought Toki would shut them all up at this point. It wasn't really something I wanted to think about. But Toki stopped what he was doing and looked towards the tent flap as if he was going to tell us something he didn't want anyone else to hear.

'They won't stop until they do get one of us alive. If I get cornered, I'm going down fighting. No way are my parents going to see me ripped apart on a computer screen.'

We all looked at the tent flap, too, mostly because we didn't know what to say to that. As usual, it was Si who broke the silence. 'Hey, Briggsy, you gotta keep that as living history.' He jabbed a nicotine-stained finger in my direction. I hadn't a clue what he was on about.

He pointed again. 'Mate, your shirt. You're covered in Tali blood. You got to keep it as a memento.'

I looked down, dropping my bin liner and spilling its contents all over the plastic floorboards that kept out the dust. The right sleeve of my shirt was stained a sticky brown where the Tali's blood had soaked into it. I tugged at my cuff to get it away from my arm, to get the man off me. I don't know how I hadn't noticed it before. I felt sick.

'Jesus!'

I started to rip the thing off my back when Sergeant MacKenzie stuck his head through the flap.

'No, not Jesus. Sergeant MacKenzie to you. But I like your thinking, Briggsy.'

All I wanted to do was get into the shower and scrub the blood off, but I knew there were no showers until just before evening scoff that night. So I was stuck with it. 'Yes, Sergeant.'

I saw MacKenzie look down at my shirt, so I tried a pathetic joke to make myself feel better. 'Better his blood than mine, eh, Sergeant?'

Sergeant MacKenzie didn't miss a beat. 'I'd say there's still some debate on that… Right, listen in, you lot.' He looked at each one of us in turn. 'I want the whole platoon in the cookhouse now. Corporal Tokibaku, get this lot moving.' He turned on his heel and was gone.

Flash gathered up John's stash of blueys. 'You got a cynical mind, Toki. They're all from Julie, right enough. Well, aside from the stack from Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie, of course…'

Flash gently returned them to John's kit bag. He didn't want them all crumpled up for John's wife, who would probably keep them for ever. 'I never met Julie or the kids, but me and John were going to get our wives together after this. You know on holiday.' He looked close to tears and could hardly get the destination out without his voice breaking. 'Tenerife.'

The rest of us looked down, pretending we hadn't noticed, and I got real busy with the bin liner. But the truth is we all felt the same. Flash knew it and made a half-hearted attempt to lighten the mood. 'Si, throw those combats over.'

Flash held them up for all of us to see. 'Look at the size of that waist. No wonder it was tough carrying all that lard onto the MERT heli, eh? Bet those doctors thought they'd never get airborne again!'

We all sniggered but it didn't last long and we soon fell silent again. It was hot in the tent now as the sun was higher. Toki shoved the patrol pack back under John's bed. 'Come on, everyone. Let's go!'

We made our way though the four-inch-thick dust towards the cookhouse. I had to half close my eyes against the bright sun because, as usual, I'd left my sunglasses back in the tent.

We knew exactly why MacKenzie wanted all of us in the cookhouse. By the time we got there, the long trestle tables had already been pushed to one side, and the whole FOB – about seventy scruffy, sweaty soldiers – were standing around waiting for it to start. Toki grabbed four warm beers from the back of the room and handed one to each of us. Like everyone else, we didn't open them, we just stood there holding a can in one hand.

Sergeant MacKenzie stepped forward to face us. His tanned face matched the colour of his totally bald head. He came straight to the point.

'Right, listen in. Rifleman John Hammond is dead. But you lot are still alive. Look around you. Go on, look at each other.'

I looked at Si who stared me out, daring me to blink before he did. I stared straight back at him as MacKenzie continued. 'Remember what we were told before we came out here. One in ten of us is going to be a casualty. So if we don't stay switched on and keep our minds in gear, the next casualty could be the very lad you're looking at now.'