Andy McNab - Recoil

I lifted the feed tray of the second gun and cleaned out the gunk underneath it. I checked there was no mud on my sleeve, then gave the inside a good wipe.

Crucial came back with an armful of RPG rounds, dumped them and pissed off again.

Standish and Sam jumped into the backblast channel. You could smell the friction between them.

Standish jabbed the air. 'If we don't use those kids, we're all going to fucking die here. We need fire power, and that's the solution, Sam. Why can't you get that into your godly fucking head? Look, we have three guns, four RPGs. We take the guns, and Crucial trains up the kids on the RPGs.' The words were tumbling out like spent cases from a feed tray. 'If we're all going to stay here and play Mother Teresa, we need to win the firefight, and that's how we do it.'

'Listen.' Sam's voice was dangerously calm. 'You'll only get this from me this one last time. I – will – not – arm – the – kids. We'll stand our ground until we can move. With the extra casualties, first light is still the only option.'

Crucial reappeared with another load of RPG rounds. 'No way the kids, man. I'm not here to sink to the level of those animals.' He thumbed out towards the valley.

Bateman had had enough too. He jumped out of the fire trench, shaking his head like a wet dog. 'For fuck's sake, just get on and make a decision about the little shits, man, before sun-up. We've got a job to do here.' He picked up his GPMG with about twenty link on it, grabbed two of the ammo boxes, and stormed off to his own trench.

Sam could see the cogs turning in my head. 'No, Nick. It's not going to happen. There's enough of us – if we keep together, fight together, we'll hold out. We know what to do with this stuff.' He jerked his head down at the RPGs and the other two guns on the parapet. 'We have three gunners, two RPG men – that's me,' he slapped himself on the chest and nodded at Standish, 'and him.' He turned to Crucial. 'RPG rounds?'

'Twenty-four.'

'There you go – masses.'

I shrugged my shoulders. 'Fuck it. Let's get this over and done with, shall we?'

Standish grabbed the RPG like a spoilt kid snatching back his football after the other side's scored.

Crucial came and stood alongside me. Sam turned to us. 'Right, take a gun each. We'll handle the RPGs. Get everyone out of the tents and squeeze them into the trenches.'

I shook my head. 'Silky and Tim, they're staying. They need light to work on the casualties.'

He hesitated a beat. 'OK, they're big boys and girls.' He glanced at Crucial. 'Get the kids in now. Two in each trench.'

Crucial looked over at Bateman. 'You sure, man?'

'Why not? Let him see what we see every day.'

Standish began to shout at no one in particular, like an old meths drinker on a park bench. 'We should leave now! Now!'

It was so loud even Bateman could hear him. He hollered back, incandescent: 'Shut the fuck up, man! We stay and fight. When we get back, that's me finished. I'm not working for you any more. I've had enough of this shit. You Brits bitch like fucking women!'

That got a laugh out of Crucial.

I kept my AK, picked up the gun and two boxes of ammo and staggered across to my position. The trench was now empty of RPG rounds; the launcher was where I'd left it. So was the jerry-can, with the remaining AK mags stacked on top.

I set the gun on the parapet so the loaded rounds lay on the crate top. Then I went back with my AK and picked up the plunger, firing cable still attached. I looked down at Sam. 'The pigtail was good.'

He nodded. Standish had been the only one to voice it, but we all knew things would have turned out very differently had the device kicked off on command.

I jumped into my trench and started to pull in the two hundred metres or so of firing cable. It only took thirty seconds or so till the two muddy wires at the end were in my hands. I checked that the cable was still well attached to the butterfly nuts, then laid the two wires a millimetre apart on the crate top. Holding them in place with my left hand, I pulled up the plunger handle and pushed it down. A spark arced between the two wires.

It must have been a faulty det, and there was nothing I could have done about that: we didn't have a tester. Either that, or there wasn't enough charge to run down both lengths of cable once I'd joined them. Not that any explanation made me feel any better.

I pushed the plunger out of the way, in front of the trench.

I lifted the lid off the link boxes, pulled out a factory-made belt from the first and attached it to the rounds already queuing in the feed tray. When I fired, the link would flow out of the box like a snake out of a basket.

I tested my arcs, then there was fuck-all else I could do but wait. I picked up the jerry-can, took some more big, greedy gulps, and waited, alone with my thoughts. Anything that bought us time, anything that kept the LRA at bay, or even fucked them off completely, could only be good. Using these kids was better than us all being killed.

Standish had a point. It pissed me off, but he did.

Crucial lowered one kid each side of me. I beamed down at them. 'All right mate? All right?' I tapped my chest. 'Mr Nick, Mr Nick.' I got no response. They squatted in their corners and gave me a bleak stare.

'Your names? What are you called? Me, Mr Nick.'

Still no response. Bet it would be a different story if I had chocolate. The thought made me feel hungry. My stomach rumbled. These two had probably known that feeling for most of their lives. Their eyes were too old for their faces, and their bodies were too young for what they'd been through.

We stagged on, making best use of the occasional splashes of moonlight to scan the area for movement. I couldn't help asking myself the question I always asked whenever I'd stagged on a gun in the still of the night. 'What the fuck am I doing with my life?' Strangely, it gave me a little comfort. I'd been on stag around the world since I was sixteen. Mostly I'd been cold, wet and hungry. At least this time I was warm.

Standish yelled from my right and broke my train of thought: 'There must be more! I don't give a shit if Nick has looked – I'm checking for myself.'

I turned as he stormed past behind my trench. 'What are you after?'

'There's got to be more RPG rounds.'

'Twenty-four, that's all we've got. There's none down there.'

'According to you.' It was like we were back on the team job. He was the captain, I was the trooper. What the fuck did I know?

He carried on heading for the track and I grabbed my AK, leaped out and followed. 'I'll cover you.'

'I don't need babysitting. Stay there.'

And with that he headed off without a backward glance.

20:27 hours There was nothing else to do now but stand behind the gun and try to make sense of the shifting shadows below me.

From time to time I talked to the kids, even though I was pretty sure they didn't understand a word. 'Know what? It wasn't that long ago I was sitting in Raffaelli's with a cappuccino, waiting for her in the tent there to join me for lunch. I know you two don't even know what a cappuccino is, but anyway – now look at me. Stuck here in this trench with you two, the fucking Chuckle Brothers. Bit of a difference, yeah?'

They looked at me as if I was stark staring mad. Well maybe I was.

'And now she's in that tent with someone else, not me, and I'm beginning to wonder if maybe she'll be happier that way. He spends his whole time saving people's lives and helping old ladies across the road, and I'm on stag behind a fucking gun. So what do you two think of that?'

They said bugger-all.

'Exactly. And where the fuck is Standish?'