Stephen Leather - The Hunting

Several of the men laughed uneasily, and Bell grinned, but it was crystal clear that he wasn’t joking.

CHAPTER 13

The pick-up truck turned off what passed for a main road onto a single track that was rutted and pot-holed. They slowed down but the air around the back of the truck was still full of dust. ‘So what brought you to Syria, Raj?’ asked Sid. He had wound his black-and-white scarf around his mouth and nose to keep out the worst of the sand being kicked up by the tyres.

‘I just wanted to help,’ said Raj. ‘The people here need it.’

‘It’s a shithole, that’s true. But yeah, respect to you for doing that.’ He took his right hand off his weapon and made it into a fist. ‘Respect,’ he repeated, and fist-bumped Raj. He gestured at the man sitting next to him. ‘This is Salmaan, we call him Sal. He’s from Somalia but says he’s Dutch, but don’t hold that against him.’ Sal also fist-bumped Raj. ‘His mate Abdullah is in the cab, he’s a Dutch Somalian as well. Or is it Somalian Dutch?’ He laughed. ‘Who gives a fuck, right?’

The two other men introduced themselves. One was Erol. The other was Jaffar. They both leant over and fist-bumped Raj.

‘You’re from England, too?’ Raj asked them.

Sid laughed. ‘They’re from Bradford, not sure that counts as England any more.’

Erol and Jaffar laughed.

‘And you’re what, ISIS?’

Erol grinned. ‘Fuck, yeah.’

‘So you’re here to fight the Syrian government?’ Raj frowned. ‘Why would you do that?’

‘It’s not about fighting the government here. It’s about fighting for Muslims everywhere in the world. Our faith is under attack and we have to defend it.’

Raj shrugged but didn’t say anything.

‘You’re Muslim, right?’ said Erol. ‘You know what it’s like.’

Raj stayed silent. He wasn’t a Muslim, he was a Hindu. Religion had never played a large part in Raj’s life, even less so once he’d become a doctor, but he figured now wasn’t the time to own up to not being a follower of Islam.

Sid leant over and patted Raj on the knee. ‘Mate, don’t worry. No one’s going to hurt you. We just need you to patch up our brothers and then we’ll take you back to your hospital. It’s all good, innit?’

‘You give me your word?’ Even as the words left Raj’s mouth he knew that there was nothing that Sid could say to reassure him. They had shot an innocent man on the operating table, they wouldn’t think twice about putting a bullet in Raj’s head out in the desert.

‘Of course, bruv,’ said Sid, patting him on the knee again. ‘It’ll be fine. Trust me.’

Raj didn’t trust the man at all but he forced a smile. ‘So tell me what sort of injuries they’ve got,’ he said.

‘They were standing next to a suicide vest when it went off,’ said Sid. ‘There was a lot of metal flying around and the guys nearest it were blown to pieces.’

Raj shook his head. ‘What the hell were they thinking?’

‘Bruv, they were thinking that they were going to learn how a suicide vest works. They had no idea it was going to go off. One of my mates was standing right by it when it exploded. Amer. He was from Kilburn, too. I don’t think he even knew what happened. One second he was looking at the vest, the next … gone.’

‘Somebody fucked up?’

‘Obviously,’ said Sid. He looked over his shoulder. ‘We’re nearly there.’

‘What sort of facilities have you got?’

Sid looked back at him, frowning. ‘Facilities?’

‘Medical facilities.’

‘There’s a first aid room. With the basics. Bandages and antibiotics.’

‘That’s it?’ said Raj. ‘Mate, I’m not going to be able to treat bomb victims with bandages and antibiotics.’

‘We’ve no choice, bruv, we can’t take them to a hospital. The government troops will finish the job with bullets.’

Ahead of them was a hill and in front of it a collection of concrete buildings. Raj shaded his eyes with his hand. ‘That’s it?’

‘That’s the camp,’ said Sid.

‘How do you manage for water and sanitation? Electricity?’

‘There’s an underground well they pump water up from. Sanitation is a hole in the ground. Electricity comes from generators. It’s not a fucking resort, it’s a military camp.’

The truck drove by a sentry block where two sentries holding Kalashnikovs waved a greeting. Sid waved back and the driver beeped his horn. They pulled up in front of a single-storey block where there was a line of men lying on blankets.

A man in his forties with a greying beard, wearing a knitted skullcap and a grey thobe, was standing by the entrance. He walked over as they climbed down from the back of the truck. ‘This is Faaz,’ said Sid.

The driver climbed out of the cab and Sid gestured at him with his Kalashnikov. ‘And this is Mohammed Elsheikh. We call him Mo.’ Mo nodded and grunted.

‘You are a doctor?’ Faaz asked Raj.

‘I am. How many casualties do you have?’

‘There are the twelve you see here. We have eight dead, but obviously they don’t concern you. The most serious are inside. The ones who weren’t seriously injured we have patched up and sent to the barracks.’

‘How are we placed regarding blood if we need transfusions?’

‘We have no stocks because we don’t have refrigeration. But almost everyone here has been blood-typed so we can get blood as and when we need it.’

‘Plasma?’

‘No.’

‘You have an operating theatre?’

‘We have a room where you can operate.’

‘Sterile?’

Faaz waved his arm around the camp. ‘We are in the desert, my friend. Nothing here is sterile. But we have antiseptic and we can boil as much water as you need.’

Raj walked along the line of injured men. Most had shrapnel injuries and were holding bandages or strips of material over their wounds. One man had a bandage over his eye. Raj moved it to get a better look. The eye had a piece of metal sticking out of it. The injury wasn’t life threatening but it would take a miracle for the man not to lose the eye. Raj patted him on the shoulder. ‘We’ll get to you soon,’ he said.

Several of the men were burnt and would have hideous scars, but most of the wounds just needed cleaning and dressing. Once he had checked the victims outside, he went into the building with Faaz.

There were three wounded lying on blankets on the floor of a corridor. One was unconscious, two were in shock. The unconscious man had lost most of his left hand. A tourniquet had been applied just below his elbow. Raj looked at the bloody stump and loosened the tourniquet. ‘I have some injectable morphine. And some oxycodone and fentanyl. And anti-inflammatories,’ Raj said to Faaz. ‘What do you have here in the way of painkillers?’

‘Paracetamol, and morphine pills,’ answered Faaz. ‘And some heroin.’

‘You use heroin as a painkiller?’

‘Morphine is difficult to acquire. Heroin is easy to get.’

Raj gestured at the three casualties. ‘What have you given them?’

‘All three have had a morphine tablet each.’

Raj checked the other two casualties. One had severe burns on his face and neck but didn’t seem to have any shrapnel wounds. Raj had seen countless IED injuries and sometimes, as here, they defied logic – the man had been close enough to the explosion to get burnt but hadn’t been hit by any shrapnel. The third man hadn’t been so lucky – bits of metal had ripped through his chest and abdomen. A large dressing had been taped across his chest and it was soaked in wet blood. ‘This one is going to need blood, what’s his blood type?’

‘We will find out,’ said Faaz. ‘It will be in his records.’