War Torn

‘Get some fire down!’ Sol shouted.Streaky looked up from under his helmet, trying to think of a rhyme for dead . . . bed, said, fed, dread . . .‘What do you think you’ve got rifles for, to hang on the fucking Christmas tree?’ Finn yelled. ‘Use them!’Streaky realized he and Binman were the only ones not firing.He shuffled to the side of the Vector and looked out. He could see rounds flying down the track. One pinged off the Vector and then against his helmet like someone trying to wake him.He ducked behind the vehicle again, pulled his rifle into position and looked through the sights. He was crouching too low to aim at anything except a snake. Reluctantly he got up onto one knee. Binman, at his side, did the same. A round ricocheted off the ground in front of them. Trying to ignore it, his finger shaking, Streaky released the safety.The first time he fired he had no idea where the round went or where it landed. His hand would not stop shaking. He fired again. What was he aiming at? He was staring through the sights. But there was nothing to see.He dodged back behind the Vector. He felt as though he had been exposed out there for an hour. Binman was still behind him. This was Binns’s chance to move forward and take up the firing position Streaky had vacated but he didn’t. His face was a ghastly white, like a vampire in a horror movie.Since Binman was frozen to the spot, Streaky kept his head down, pointed the SA80 up the track behind them and fired intensively. When his shoulder began to hurt he paused. And then he fired some more. He felt his body relax a little. Inexplicably, he wanted to giggle. This wasn’t so difficult. Since the Taliban was invisible, you could aim anywhere and there was a chance of hitting one of them. He heard laughter and realized it was his own. He fired faster and faster to the sound of his own laughter.‘Slow it down, for Chrissake,’ someone shouted, maybe Dave. Streaky paused and looked around. It was a relief to stop firing. Had he really been laughing? He saw that the men with the most firepower and the best positions were high up on the vehicles. But they were also the most exposed.A shout came from Jamie on top. Streaky and Dave both turned in time to see him stagger.‘Shit, come and help,’ Dave shouted to Streaky, scrambling to his feet and diving inside the vehicle. Streaky followed him. They found Jamie already there, his body doubled, hanging onto the side.‘Sit down,’ Dave ordered. ‘What happened?’Streaky helped Jamie down. Gasping for breath, Jamie managed to say: ‘A bloke standing over me with a fucking great sledgehammer brought it down right on my back . . .’His face drained. He closed his eyes. He was going to pass out. Or was he going to die? Streaky felt sick.Dave shook Jamie awake, looking desperate, as though he thought Jamie wouldn’t wake up if he lost consciousness.‘You’ve been hit,’ he said. His voice was strangled and urgent. Streaky looked at his sergeant and saw shock carved into every crevice. Dave was already old: probably in his late twenties, Streaky thought. But now he seemed ten years older even than that.Streaky watched Dave’s face cave in a little as he searched for the wound. He knew that, as far as a sergeant can be close to one of his men, Dave was good mates with Jamie. Personally Streaky found Jamie a strange geezer. He was posh and apparently he had been to college and he obviously should have been an officer but for some reason he had wanted to be one of the lads instead. Streaky had meant to ask him why, when the moment was right. Now it seemed he might never have a chance.Jamie wordlessly pointed to the place and Dave gently readjusted Jamie’s position so they could reach the wound without twisting his body. Dave’s face was frightening Streaky Bacon now. He needed his sergeant to be hard. Invincible. And instead Dave was showing signs of shock because his mate was hurt, just like anyone else.Dave glanced at Streaky.‘Don’t just sit there staring, get the fucking medic!’ he snapped. But the medic was already climbing into the Vector. Streaky was the first to see the deep tear at the bottom of Jamie’s body armour. He pointed to it. Dave swallowed.The medic pushed Streaky aside.‘OK, I’ve got him,’ he said. He was trying to release Dave back out there again. But Streaky could see that Dave, although he was certainly needed outside, did not want to leave Jamie.‘Get someone on the gimpy!’ Jamie said weakly, his eyes closed. ‘They’re closing in on us, I could see it from on top.’‘It’s too exposed up there, everyone has to come down,’ Dave said, and he gave the order.The medic took off Jamie’s armour and pouches and webbing, handing them to Streaky who put them down carefully, almost reverently. When the medic crouched to examine Jamie’s back they could all see the massive swelling appearing on the right side.‘You’ve been hit.’‘I know that.’‘You’re a lucky boy. I think it was a high-calibre round. I’d say it’s a 7.62mm.’‘He’d be dead if one of them hit him,’ Dave said, his face still a caricature.‘I’ve heard of them bouncing off,’ the medic said. ‘The ceramic plates inside this body armour are amazing.’‘Maybe I am dead,’ Jamie said weakly. ‘And you’re all dead too.’‘Not me,’ Streaky said. ‘I’m still here—’There was a huge crash outside the Vector.He added: ‘I think.’‘So we’re all dead and something the bishop forgot to tell us about heaven is that it’s one long fire fight with the Taliban,’ Dave said.‘You’re winded and a bit shocked and you’re going to have one helluva bruise. But you’re alive,’ the medic told Jamie.‘You could have fooled me,’ he said.‘And,’ the medic added, ‘you’re a lucky man. A few centimetres higher and it would have been right through your neck.’‘Just stay sitting down quietly,’ Dave told him.‘Well, if I’m alive I’m OK to get back on the gun so give me my kit.’‘Oh, no, you’re not OK,’ the medic said.Dave was already carrying the GPMG down and setting it up on the ground outside.‘Get a belt loaded,’ he yelled at Streaky, a command which was causing Streaky some panic when Jamie staggered out of the Vector. His exposed body drew a burst of fire. He didn’t so much duck as fall behind the gimpy.‘You probably should sit inside, mate,’ Dave said gruffly.‘Don’t talk shit.’ Jamie sorted out the belt for Streaky and edged Dave away from the machine gun. Dave watched him for a moment then the boss arrived at their side.‘When the fuck is the air support arriving?’ Dave asked. ‘Because we’ll soon be standing here with nothing to throw at them but bottles of water.’‘We’ll have to slow our rate of fire to make it last longer,’ Weeks said.‘They’ll notice and move in.’‘They’re already moving in,’ the boss shouted back, over the whoosh of an incoming RPG. ‘If we get really low then we might have to try blowing up the IED and exiting forward over the bridge.’‘No!’ Dave shouted back. ‘They’ll have left an IED on the other side too.’Binman appeared from behind the Vector to help Jamie with the machine gun and Streaky returned to the fire fight with renewed energy.‘Slow your rate of fire!’ Sol ordered him a few minutes later. Streaky nodded and paused and then forgot. Now the machine gun was back at work he tried to keep his rifle firing almost as fast, which was impossible of course, but made him feel more effective. He paused at last, his weapon burning in his hands. He looked around. So where exactly were the flipflops?He watched enemy rounds bouncing like hailstones, threshing the leaves and dust into something like fine confetti. He searched for muzzle flashes. He listened. He decided the flipflops must be everywhere. He swallowed. They were heavily outnumbered. And if they weren’t surrounded yet, they soon would be.As the fight intensified, Streaky saw the boss push the woman interpreter into the back of the Vector. She obviously didn’t want to go but she climbed inside and Streaky glimpsed the medic in there with her. Everyone else, including Dave, including the signaller, including the boss, was outside firing back at the ambush.Mal vacated a prominent firing position to refill magazines and Streaky stepped into it. He swallowed, raised his weapon, released the safety and started to fire once more. When he stopped, he watched a round bounce along the track in front of him and estimated that it had come from a tree only about fifty metres away. Fifty metres! He fired at the high branches of the tree. No body fell but, all the same, it felt good to have something to fire at. He fired again and again and again to make sure.On every patrol so far, Streaky had submitted to a sense of helplessness. He didn’t think about what he did. He followed orders. He didn’t know where he was, in what direction they were driving, how far from the base they were or what the reason for their mission might be, even if the boss had tried to explain it. He just expected other people to tell him what to do.Now, with his hands hot from his weapon, the smoky, sulphuric smell of the battle filling his nostrils and its noise all around him, his senses were heightened and so was his understanding. He understood that the enemy was to the rear and on two flanks. If they succeeded in moving forward of the convoy then the Vectors would be totally surrounded. That was a thought so uncomfortable it was enough to induce streams of sweat all of its own, separate from the sweat induced by carrying a lot of kit in sweltering heat, separate from the sweat of the battle itself.