Andy McNab - Recoil

I closed my eyes and touched the two ends together.

There was no bang. There'd been no residual current in the cable.

I twisted the last two wires together, unwound another couple of metres from its drum, and laid the det on the LRA side of the mound.

Last item to be tested was the plunger. Only then could I be sure that the whole detonation system worked.

I gave the wooden handle a quarter-turn clockwise to release it from the box and pulled it up. I winced as the ratchets inside clicked away like a football rattle.

I pushed down hard, feeling the resistance. The shaft of the handle sank back into the box, generating current to the two terminals – screw shanks jutting from the top of the box and crowned by butterfly nuts – as it went. I watched the needle display beside them jump into the red. The current might still be as weak as rainwater, but it was an encouraging sign.

I turned the handle back to the closed position, untwisted the end of the firing cable that was still on the drum and attached it to the terminals. I fastened the butterfly nuts and gave a little tug to make sure they were secure.

I unlocked the handle again, pulled it up and brought it down.

There was a loud crack, like a subsonic 9mm round, from the other side of the mound.

The checks were time-consuming and a pain in the arse, but detail counts and I wouldn't let myself rush, or be made to rush. When Sam wanted the claymores to go off, there and then, at that moment, I had to be sure that I'd catered for every eventuality.

The circuit was complete. The cable wasn't damaged anywhere in the reel and the plunger had only needed to send enough current down it to overcome about two ohms of resistance in the det. It was nothing in power terms – a fart had more – but there might have been snags: I didn't know what charge the plunger was generating, this thing was ancient, and the cable might have been too long for it, draining current before it reached its destination.

I gathered in the cable and what little remained of the det. I removed the det wires, twisted the cable wires together again, and did the same to the other end once I'd taken it off the plunger. It needed to be re-earthed before I attached a fresh det.

I grasped the two lengths of cord running from the claymores. A distant rumble of thunder from the east made me wish I had some end caps, little rubber fittings that prevent water entering the cord. Moisture can penetrate a couple of inches into the cut ends and contaminate the HE, and if something like that can go wrong, it probably will. I thought about going in search of a Prudence or two, but there wasn't time.

I placed the det six inches from the ends, and bound them all together with a generous length of the sweaty and gooey gaffer-tape, making sure there was really good contact.

The adhesive oozed. My sweaty hands kept slipping from the tape roll and the cords. My head was still thumping. My vision was getting fuzzy. It wouldn't be long before I started losing my hand-eye co-ordination, and then I'd flake out. I badly needed fluid.

All around me the cicadas were still taking over the world, and ahead, just past the mouth of the valley, the river roared. The only other sounds were the laboured rasp of my own breathing and the buzzing of squadrons of insects as they made their final approach before landing on my neck.

The only people to my front now were LRA. I wondered if they were already massed on our side of the river and, like our guys, sitting and waiting. Maybe they were just a couple of hundred away on each side of the entrance, psyching themselves up with an extra couple of rations of ghat. Or maybe they were still dragging themselves across the water with ropes. Some would have drowned, that was for sure, ripped away by the current – especially the younger, smaller ones, who could hardly lift a weapon, let alone carry it and fight the current.

This whole situation was total and utter shite. In some trendy bar in the City, some white-socked trader would be checking tin prices on his handheld while I checked the connections between the detonator and the det cord.

As he and his wife took their kids out to some fancy dinner in the West End, did they spare a thought for Sunday and his mates? Did they fuck. They wouldn't even know about them. But Crucial was right. We had to cut away from all that.

I can't change the world, but I can do something for this bit of it…

The bond between the two lengths of det cord and the dets was good. Everything was ready to go. I had the firing cable wound round a rock to take the strain, and the ends that would connect to the plunger still twisted to make sure they didn't pick up any static while I was on the move.

I didn't need the last slab of HE in the box, or the remaining dets. I twisted their wires and dumped the lot at the business end of the enterprise. It wasn't as if I was going to get a second chance at rigging up this shit.

I hauled the plunger-box strap over my shoulder. The detonation mechanism always stays with the guy who's going to initiate. The plunger would be under my control right up until I handed it over to Sam. That way, there couldn't be any mistakes.

AK under my left arm, I started moving backwards into the valley.

The wooden reel rumbled as the cable trailed out.

I hugged the side of the valley, making use of every scrap of cover. I shuffled backwards, making sure the cable didn't have any kinks to interrupt the current. The sun was behind me, still in cloud, but able to cast the dullest of shadows. The guys inside the sangars weren't stood-to yet, but they were in chest harnesses, and cradled their weapons over their legs. They didn't look happy: like the rest of us, they'd been hoping for a few reinforcements.

I heard mumbling, smelled cigarette smoke, but the area had pretty much fallen quiet. The miners had no tools left to work with; all they could do was sit in their holes, shut up and hope. The squaddies were probably shitting themselves at the thought of what was to come.

I could tell I was approaching the re-entrant. Babies cried and the women somehow managed to wail and talk at the same time. Most of the Nuka mob were in cover, in dugouts or the shafts themselves. One of the Mercy Flight crew ran from one side to the other. He gave me a quick wave, but no smile.

Sam's kids were still huddled together in their dugout, still covering themselves with blankets, like they afforded some sort of protection. Flies landed uninterrupted on their faces. They hadn't the energy to push them away. Their eyes stared out at the gloom, echoing the numbness inside their heads.

I was out of breath now.

A few paces later, I could see the wood at the centre of the spool. I'd run out of cable.

I dropped the reel, turned and, with the plunger still over my shoulder, legged it back towards the dugout as fast as I could. The mud-caked OGs clung to my legs; my feet felt heavier than ever. My whole body screamed for fluid. I fantasized for a moment about sitting at a bar with a frosted glass of cold beer, maybe a beach in the background. I gave myself a mental slapping. Just crack on, shut up and get on with it.

I grabbed another reel of firing cable from the dugout and headed straight back. I tried to twist the two wires together on the move, but my fingers were too slippery.

By the time I reached the empty spool I was panting for breath. I sank to my knees, feeling for a patch of my shirt that was clean enough for me to wipe the sweat off my hands without covering them in mud. I repeated the earthing procedure with the new cable, then got ready to fasten each wire to the ends of the existing cable.