Andy McNab: Last Night-Another Soldier…

'That's right, Briggsy, I always do.' He bent down and poked me in the chest. 'That's why it's Sergeant MacKenzie to you.'

'Yes, Sergeant,' I mumbled.

It seemed even Sergeant MacKenzie couldn't resist taking the piss: 'So, seeing as you are always talking out of your arse, are we all going to hear twice as much shit from you now?' He tipped back his head and roared with laughter at that one, and of course everyone else joined in.

I braced myself for more banter, but luckily MacKenzie had more important things on his mind. 'Shut up, everyone, and listen in. Warning Order. We are going back into the zone to finish the job. Orders at eighteen hundred, and no move before twenty hundred. All fatigue parties to have their jobs done before midday scoff so we have the afternoon to get prepped up. Let's go!'

'Sergeant…' I mumbled again. It was now or never. I didn't get a chance to get my sentence out, though. He already knew what I was going to say.

'No, Briggsy. Get yourself fit, then we'll get you back on the ground. Don't worry, we've still got another three months to go yet, mate. Now, get out there and burn those turd drums. We don't want yesterday's scoff floating about in them for too long, do we? Cookie might want to recycle.'

I hobbled over to the toilet block where Si and Flash were ready and waiting, armed with a couple of jerry cans of fuel. The bogs were pretty basic – just four fifty-gallon oil drums that had been cut in half for the Army to squat over. And once they were full of the FOB's shit and piss, it was our job to get rid of it all.

I lifted the cap off the jerry can I was holding and poured the fuel into the first drum. Flash did the same with the second.

Si watched us both as he giggled away to himself. 'You see the faces of those Yanks in here last week? When they saw we had oil drums to dump in, they couldn't believe it. Bet they get proper portaloos with, like, soft toilet paper and little Andrex puppies running around.'

He was probably right, but then that meant they weren't getting extra pay to burn them out like we were. Thirty-five quid extra a week we got for volunteering for this job. Good stuff! I'd already managed to save up two and a half grand since joining the army, and the extra money was going to add to my savings.

My big plan was to buy a brand-new, black metallic Ford Focus ST. It was going to have the lot. Shiny badge on the front, eighteen-inch alloys, tinted windows, LEDs and the biggest woofer banging it out that Peckham had ever heard. I couldn't wait!

I wasn't the only one saving. Si was doing the same, although his purchase wasn't half as exciting as mine. Good. It was my chance to take the piss out of him for once. But I had to set him up for it first.

'Si, what colour's your new sofa gonna be?' I asked.

He beamed with pride. 'Red leather from DFS. Love it.' Si made it sound like he was buying a red BMW.

Flash slapped me around the back of the head.

'That's what happens when you get married. You sign up to a new boss; IKEA.' Flash spoke with the voice of someone who had been at it for years. 'Ain't that right, Si?' He was busy laughing as I rubbed the back of my nut.

'Yep. And I've got tons of kit to get. Sofa, leather chairs, and I wanna get a proper cot for the baby.'

I couldn't let that one go. I was in for the kill. 'See! Only nineteen and under the thumb already. What a sucker.'

Si leapt to defend himself as Flash gave me another slapping. 'Mate, I had to get married before coming out here, didn't I? Jakob's only six months old. What's gonna happen if I get zapped and we ain't married? Anna will go back to Poland and the boy won't even have my name. I had my mum's name because she never married my dad and that ain't happening this time.'

He had a point, so I decided to give up on the piss-take. Besides, Flash's slaps were getting harder every time. I signalled to the other two to stand back, then I took a box of matches out of my pocket. I struck one and threw it into the first stinking drum and we legged it fast. There was a big boom, then a whoosh as the flames roared into life and the turds began to burn.

Flash walked over to the second drum and took out his box of matches. 'You still got her picture inside your helmet, Si?'

'Yeah. And the boy's too.'

Flash chucked his match in and ran back to join us. We were still close enough to the heat and the stench of the burning drums for me to feel sick rise in my throat, but I swallowed it down. 'What you saving for, Flash?'

'Not saving, mate, surviving. I keep telling you lads. There's a recession on out there. I'm here to help out my boys. Joe's getting married next year and Sam's got the world's biggest student loan. I'm definitely going regular after this. Get the kids sorted and get me and me missus a nice married quarter. Happy days.' It sounded like a good plan to me and I nodded my head in approval.

'You know what?' Flash gave a big grin. 'I don't mind being the oldest Rifleman on the planet and you lads giving me a hard time. It's ten times better than doing nothing back home, having to beg for money from the social. Getting made redundant has done me a favour.'

He jutted out his chin as if a heli was coming in to land on it. 'I like it here.'

I thought I'd had it bad being binned from the kebab shop in Peckham after only a week. They'd sacked me because I couldn't work the till properly. That's why I joined the army. Like Flash, I thought that's what you did when no one else wanted you. Mind you, it was beginning to sound like maybe I had it better than him.

'I like being here too.' I smiled back at him. 'It feels like something special.'

Flash nodded back at me. Talking with Flash was like having a big brother, something I didn't have back home. It was just me and Mum.

'You know, Flash, we're here doing something that no one I know back home will ever do. Know what I mean.'

We were obviously getting a bit too tree-huggy for Si. 'Oi, Richard and Judy, yous finished or what? Let's get on with it, there's still two more drums to do. It's nearly scoff time.'

I was standing in the cookhouse queue, starving as usual. No point asking Cookie what was for midday scoff. It was always the same two choices. Have it or leave it. Great sense of humour, old Cookie.

Mind you, there was one thing we definitely had better than the Americans and that was the food. We got ration packs to eat just like them, but the difference was, we had cooks to cook them up for us when we were in the FOB. Cookie worked wonders with a bag of powered egg and a tin of stewed beef. We also got fresh flown in from time to time. Stuff like spuds, bacon and fresh fruit. On the other hand, we didn't get fridges like the Yanks did. Most of the time you'd be seriously up for murdering your granny for a can of cold Coke.

Sergeant MacKenzie was hovering about like a vulture, shouting at each and every one of us to wash our hands before we ate. Brit soldiers must have the cleanest hands of all soldiers across the world. Vomiting and diarrhoea spread fast, and the whole company would go down if it wasn't controlled, so washing your hands was a really big deal.

Funny really, seeing as the rest of us was in rag order. Sweating so much our clothes stuck to our skin, and caked in dust like we'd gone ten rounds with a giant bottle of brown talcum powder – our hands were spotless though. We were made to wash them every chance we got, and always before eating or after having a dump. We got one shower a day for exactly three minutes. One minute soak, one minute soap, one minute rinse. But it was clean hands that mattered most.

The system seemed to be working so far. The company hadn't had an outbreak of the squirts and shits since the lads got out there. Rumour said that the sergeants had a bet on between them about whose platoon was going to get the squirts first, and MacKenzie was definitely not going to be the one to lose that.