The white flags of the Taliban fluttered from the crumbling mud walls of the village and people stared at us with blank, hostile eyes as the armoured vehicles rumbled along the narrow, dusty lane. Captain Beaumont was quieter than usual, his mouth set in a grim line beneath three days’ growth of beard. I wanted to ask him what he thought was up but after a week in his company I’d already learnt when to keep my journalist’s mouth shut.
After a few stints embedded with various regiments in numerous war zones, I’d developed a bit of a feel for trouble myself. I guess a kid would call it ‘Spidey sense’. I just called it my ‘Oh shit’ sense.
They started firing at us from the rooftops, a couple of fuckwit snipers with nothing better to do than take pot shots at British soldiers. Bullets pinged off the vehicles, spat in the dust and slammed into walls.
The explosion came from the front of the convoy. Rolling waves of dust funnelled through the alley. Our men returned fire in workmanlike silence but, beyond the uneven tattoo of battle, one man’s screams cut through me like a knife.
I tucked my shaking hands between my knees and prayed there wouldn’t be grenades. We were proverbial sitting ducks in armoured vehicles of dubious construction. There was sod all in the APC to hide under. We just had to sit it out and hope there were no IEDs. At moments like this, it was hard not to imagine my paper’s headline, ‘Journalist Evan Harrison killed in ambush’. I wasn’t ready to die. I was thirty-two and had issues that needed to be resolved.
“Call in air support,” Beaumont barked into the radio. “Tell them to hurry the fuck up. I can’t send the fucking medic in while those fuckwits are firing at us.”
I didn’t hear the reply but, given Beaumont’s choice language, I didn’t think the choppers would be too long. Our lot were doing their best and a sharp, pained yelp made me think one of the snipers was hit but the other kept firing erratic bursts into the shooting gallery. As the long, turbulent minutes passed, my fears of grenades and IEDs faded a bit. The insurgents would’ve used them before now, rather than waste bullets. Perhaps I wasn’t going to make the headlines in the wrong way…this time.
I watched Beaumont. He gnawed at his thumbnail while he peered through the slatted window. His dark eyes were a study in contained agony and fury. I don’t know if I could even begin to understand or try to describe what he was feeling.
The roar of the incoming choppers shattered the impasse.
“Thank Christ for that.” Beaumont spoke into his radio. “All right, send in the medic. We’re clear.” He took his helmet off, ran his hand through his spiky hair and sighed. “I hate this fucking job.”
“Yeah.” There wasn’t much else to say.
* * * *
I couldn’t trail around after Beaumont twenty-four-seven. I had my own tent, a cot and my laptop. The internet connection had been fucked, more or less, since I’d arrived. It meant I could open my laptop and not be inundated with scores of emails or distracted by surfing the net when I should be writing. That’s what I told myself, anyway. Mind, it also meant I finished writing my daily piece in no time, which left me time for sod all. I listened to a lot of music and read one or two books I’d downloaded before I left. But I also had a lot of time to sleep and think.
One night, after a particularly disgusting chicken curry MRE, I couldn’t sleep. I’d finished the books. I’d written my bit for the day. There wasn’t much else to do while my stomach wrestled with the ersatz korma. I opened a file of old photos, curious because it wasn’t labelled. It was an odd collection—bits and pieces—a family birthday, my sister and her kids, a drunken weekend…
It had been a wedding. I didn’t remember whose. Most of the pictures seemed to be of Colin, my best mate. I looked at the photos and tried to remember the last time we’d got together. Jobs and girlfriends kept getting in the way these days. In spite of those obstacles, we’d been best friends since university. I took a long time over those photos, looking at Colin with his messy, black curls, bird’s-wing brows and dark eyes—damn those brown eyes. Seeing him again made me think about things I really tried to avoid—things about myself and where I fitted in the world.
I closed the file, shut down the laptop and tried to sleep. I think it was probably the curry. I know I had some strange dreams and woke with a hell of an erection. I was ashamed that the erection had been fuelled by disjointed images and memories of Colin. I fought the fierce tug of longing and headed for the crooked pipe in a canvas box that served as the camp shower.
The dreams stayed with me as I grabbed some breakfast in the mess tent. It was largely empty, which was good, because I didn’t feel much like talking. I wasn’t sure I knew how. The squaddies almost always talked about the women they’d left behind, or women they fancied. It wouldn’t have gone down so well if I’d told them dreams about my best mate had left me randy.
After breakfast I wandered outside and discovered the reason why the mess was so quiet. They’d decided to let the men phone home using the satellite phone. I was glad of that and hoped that Beaumont was able to speak to his fiancée, because he spoke about her so often. It was clear to me that he hurt with missing her. I wandered across the compound, trying to shake off the dreams. I found Beaumont, hands in pockets, kicking a stone through the eternal dust.
“Is everything all right?” I called out to him, needing company and conversation—anything to clear my head.
He wheeled around and stared at me. If ever there was a man who looked sorry and lost, it was him. “Yeah, I suppose so.”
“It can’t be easy, just having a few minutes on the phone like that.”
“No it isn’t.” Beaumont kicked the stone once more. It tumbled across the ground and disappeared in a tiny cloud of dust. “It almost makes things worse. Do you have a girlfriend? Don’t you miss her when you go away?”
I thought of Katy. I knew that, even when we got the internet back, there’d be no emails from her. She had a life of her own when I was gone. It had been that way for months. What bothered me was that I wasn’t bothered. I didn’t miss Katy any more than I missed being stuck on the Hangar Lane roundabout during morning rush hour. “I have a girlfriend but I can’t say I miss her all that much.”
Beaumont raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think that’s a bid odd? Doesn’t that tell you something?”
It told me loads. My mind looked for Katy, instead it found Colin. I would’ve given anything at that moment to be sitting in a pub somewhere with him, laughing over a beer or two. “It tells me that we should break up. I miss my best mate more. When I’m stuck in places like this, I wish I could sit down and drink a few beers with him.” I felt a twist of the gut that had nothing to do with the lingering after-effects of the fake korma.
“How extraordinary. I suppose Grace is my best friend, too.” Beaumont smiled. “I’m not sure I’d be drinking beers if she was here with me, mind.”
I managed a laugh. ”I suppose not.” I stared past him, across the broad sweep of the compound. I just couldn’t shake off those dreams and that scared me more than any ambush or IED. For a moment, I could have sworn I caught a subtle drift of sandalwood aftershave and heard the low bubble of Colin’s laugh. “I’m not sure I would be, either.”
I didn’t want company anymore. I didn’t know what the hell I wanted. I left Beaumont and headed back to my tent. Probably not the healthiest thing I could’ve done but I just didn’t want the company.
* * * *
“Are you feeling any better today?” Beaumont took a long sip of his water and stretched his legs out, grinding his boot heels into the dust.
We sat outside his tent and stared across the compound. It wasn’t too cold and it was better outside than cooped up in the mess or a tent.
“I don’t know. I sometimes think that boarding school screwed me up in the head in certain ways, you know?”
To my surprise, he laughed. “Oh, I know. How to screw up your kid—send them to boarding school with a bunch of testosterone-challenged boys.”
“Where did you go?”
“Berkstead. How about you?”
“Small world, so did I. I left there fourteen years ago.”
“Twelve for me.” Beaumont smiled and shook his head. “I knew there was a reason I liked you. Christ, that place was a shit hole.”
“Yes, it fucking was.”
We sat and talked for a while about Berkstead—the teachers, the gossip, the rituals and the fagging. Oh, yes. Don’t believe for a moment that fagging died out with the nineteenth century. Not at Berkstead, anyway. The shared memories were enough to lower whatever journalist-versus-soldier barriers remained between us. After that conversation, whenever Beaumont had downtime we’d sit and talk. Not just about school but about our lives beyond our jobs. I learnt a lot about Beaumont and about his fiancée, an assistant racehorse trainer. All the captain wanted was to finish this tour, leave the army and spend the rest of his life with Grace.
“What about you?” he asked me one evening when the cold wind had driven us to seek shelter in a quiet corner of the mess tent, away from a rowdy game of cards. “I take it you won’t be marrying your girlfriend?”
“No. I may even kick her into touch when I get home.”
“What’s the problem with her? Are you bored? Just not feeling anything?”
Where did I start? I looked down at the mug of tea I was drinking. “All of the above, I suppose. We’ve been together for a few years and I’m away a lot. She’s got used to that and I’m certain she’s finding other ways to occupy her time, other men. What worries me is that it doesn’t really bother me. I don’t care what she does anymore.”
“Ouch.”
“Nah, not really. In a way I can’t blame her. The job comes first. She’s always been fine with that. I think she likes the idea of dating a journalist.”
“It sounds like you need to knock it on the head.” Beaumont sipped his tea, made a face and set the mug down. “So what’s this about your best mate? You’re not a closet gay are you?”
If someone had asked me that a few weeks before, I probably would’ve laughed or thumped them, depending on who was doing the asking. There was something about Beaumont that invited trust and confidences, though. Perhaps it was those brown eyes. They reminded me of Colin.
“I don’t know.” I thought of the last time I‘d seen Colin. ”I’ve known him ever since university. We were flatmates and we always got on. When I get home, he’s always the first person I phone. If I have an inbox full of emails, his are always the first ones I read and reply to.”
There was a memory, one that came sneaking back like a thief, one I’d kept hidden away. A memory of a night we’d both been stood up by our respective dates and had ended up in our squalid, little flat watching porn on satellite TV. We’d drunk a few beers and laughed at the bad acting, the bouncing boobs and the non-existent plots. The last film in the marathon had been about a bodybuilder who worked in a gym. He fell in lust with one of his clients, a banker who wanted to improve his physique. The foreshadowing was about as subtle as a charging rhino and I didn’t know where to look at first when the two guys went at it hammer and tongs in the showers. What I did remember was the ache in my groin and hugging a cushion to hide the sudden, raging hard-on. Colin went quiet, too. When the film was over, he was still quiet, sitting there staring at his empty beer can while moving his fingers over the cushion he held.
Perhaps we’d had too much to drink. I know neither of us said anything. Colin put his arm around my shoulder and kissed me. It was sweet and hesitant at first then, when I didn’t put up a fight, he deepened the kiss. I turned and found myself kissing him back. He tasted of beer and his stubble rasped against my skin. I don’t know how many girls I’d kissed but none of them had got me going the way Colin did. I curled my fingers into his hair and couldn’t even object when his hand drifted to the front of my jeans, rubbing my already throbbing cock.
I groaned into his mouth and pushed the cushion away from his lap. It was a relief to find he was just as hard. I slid my hand beneath his jeans, beneath his shorts and that was all it took. The kissing never stopped. It became more heated, more frantic. I unzipped his flies, he unzipped mine. Our hands moved in rapid unison, pumping hot, desperate flesh until we both exploded in a sticky mess of wet T-shirts and embarrassed silence. The beer buzz disappeared. We looked at each other in the silence, mumbled goodnight to each other and disappeared to our respective rooms. It took me ages to get to sleep because I kept thinking about Colin lying in his bed and wondering if he was thinking about me.
By the next morning, we’d been back to talking about football and nothing had ever been said about what had happened, ever.
Beaumont interrupted my reverie. “I seem to have struck a nerve.”
I pushed my cold tea away. “Yeah, I think you did.” My cheeks burned. “Perhaps I am. Perhaps that’s why I can’t get pissed off when I know Katy plays away.”
“I think you have some things to sort out when you get home, my friend.”
I looked at Beaumont, surprised to see sympathy in his eyes. “I think you’re right.”
* * * *
When the IED went off, none of us expected it. I guess that’s why those Taliban bastards use the buggers. They love their little surprises. This one certainly worked. For a split second, everyone in the convoy stopped and gawped at the blossoming cloud of dust and smoke. I grabbed my camera then stopped. It was bloody hard to maintain good, old-fashioned journalistic neutrality when the blast had hurled Captain Beaumont through the air.
Fucking hell, I thought that only happened in films.
Men shouted at each other up and down the convoy. While the dust and smoke from the explosion were fading, the air was now alive with the wasps’ hiss of bullets, pinging against the lorries.
Guardsman Walker grabbed my arm and wrenched me to the ground. “For fuck’s sake, man, get the fuck out of here.”
No arguments from me.
I did my best impression of a combat crawl, across the dirt and small stones, under the lorry to the ditch on the other side of the road. I didn’t even swear when scraps of sharp rock bit into my skin. I just wanted to be away from the worst of the gunfire. At least the ground there was open, nowhere for the gutless little bastards to hide. Nope, they were entrenched on the other side, hunkered down behind a crumbling mud wall.
Lucky them.
Walker peered around the front of the lorry, raised his rifle and let off a round. All along the line of trucks and armoured vehicles, soldiers fired back at the enemy with a fierce calm that scared the hell out of me. I expected mass panic, shouting, erratic, wild gunfire and calls for air support. Nope—they just picked up their guns and did their best to get the job done.
The only real sense of panic seemed to come from the cluster of men at the front of the convoy who, quite rightly, were frantic to try to rescue Beaumont. I couldn’t see where he’d landed but I guessed it was somewhere on the wrong side of the road, right in the line of fire between them and us. I didn’t fancy his chances much.
“What’s going to happen to the captain?” I looked at Walker, who swore when a bullet whizzed past him and slammed into the ditch beyond.
“Fuck knows. I hope they can get him out.”
What’s left of him.
It was bloody difficult to keep a professional journalistic indifference. I really liked Beaumont. All those talks we’d had during downtime. I felt like I’d been kicked in the guts and I was scared shitless for him.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I’d done first aid training. Some of the places I’d been sent to in the past hadn’t had much in the way of medical care, so I’d learnt to make do with DIY doctoring.
“Just stay there.” Walker let off another round. The noise from his rifle was deafening.
I didn’t want to stay there. I wanted to help Beaumont.
Down at the front of the convoy there was more shouting, followed by a rapid, venomous exchange of gunfire. Moments later, the first casualty was carried past me. I recognised Guardsman Roberts only because I saw the intact side of his face. The other side was a mess of red and exposed bone that bore little resemblance to a human face. I leaned over the ditch and threw up. Two more wounded men followed in short order then, after another furious bout of gunfire, Captain Beaumont was hauled up the line.
I followed the medic into the lorry where the wounded men were being treated.
“Give me something to do,” I told him. I’d already seen too much of the ambush.
The medic sighed and ran his hands through his hair. The confined space reeked of blood. One man screamed. I swallowed my rising gorge. Sometimes it fucking stinks being a journalist.
“If you’re not too squeamish”—he threw me a pack of gauze—“you could apply some pressure to Guardsman Riley’s leg wound. He’s bleeding like a stuck pig.”
Blood I could stand. I felt guilty I didn’t have to see to Roberts. The medic went to Beaumont, swearing when he cut away the trouser leg.
I can’t say I remember much after that. Riley’s leg was bloody—I don’t know how many gauze pads I used. All I know is, by the time the helicopters arrived to finish off the insurgents and evacuate the wounded, the floor around my feet was littered with bloodied gauze and my hands were sticky with gore.
I never wanted to see anything resembling an ambush again.
* * * *
Back at the base, the CO decided I’d seen enough. I was sent out with the next chopper back to Bastion. The first thing I did, after dropping my belongings in my lodgings, was find the hospital.
I blagged my way in, waving my press card, and found Beaumont’s doctor.
“Do you know him?”
“I just spent three weeks in his company. I was worried about him.”
The doctor sank onto a chair and rubbed his eyes. “His leg is a bit of a mess. We’ve cleaned it up as best we can and as soon as he’s stabilised he’ll be sent home.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Is he conscious?”
“In and out.”
“Any chance I can pop in and say goodbye?”
“I don’t see why not. You might as well write about this place.”
“I will.” It was all part of the same story. We send the lads out to hell, they get shot up, and sent to Bastion to let the docs there try and fix what’s broken. It just didn’t seem right to go home without seeing Beaumont, conscious or not.
A frame covered his mangled leg and a labyrinth of tubes ran all over the place. I sat by the bed for a moment and looked at him. He didn’t much look like an officer at that moment, with his dark beard. He’d grown it because he’d thought it would make it easier for him to connect with the locals. It had worked, to some degree. I’d been on patrols with him when he’d stopped in the nearest village to the base. I’d sat with him, cross-legged on a faded rug, while he had listened patiently to complaints—complaints about the insurgents, complaints about food, water, electricity, governments, war lords. All the time he’d listened, nodded in the right places, offered words of comfort and sympathy through the interpreter. Sometimes, he’d even spoken to them in their own language, careful, laboured words. They had liked him for that, too, because he’d taken the trouble to learn their ancient tongue.
War always fucked over the good ones.
Beaumont stirred and mumbled something. I waited and watched his eyelids flicker. I hoped he was doped up with the best painkillers Her Majesty’s army had to offer.
“What the…?” His eyes were like brown glass. “How’d you get in here?”
“The doctor let me in. I wanted to see how you were.”
He took a deep breath and winced. “I’m buggered up.”
“I’m sorry but, yes…probably.”
“I want Grace.”
“I’m sure you’ll see her soon.” I didn’t envy his fiancée the mess she’d be coping with.
“She might not want to see me.”
“I doubt that. Judging by everything you’ve told me about her, I don’t think she’s the type to walk away from anything.”
He sighed, a bit of groan mixed in with it. “We’ll see.” He closed his eyes and was gone again.
I sat with him for a while longer but he didn’t regain consciousness while I was there.
I left the hospital and returned to my room, feeling sick and tired of the mess that was Afghanistan. I flipped open my laptop to check for any emails I might have missed. There were quite a few. I worked my way through them. Some were from my boss, who was enthusiastic about the pieces I’d sent him so far. There were a few from other colleagues, saying the same. My sister had filled my inbox with her usual chain email crap—“If you want good luck, pass this on to ten of your best friends.” None from Katy.
There was a single email left over after I’d deleted or moved all the rest. This time, I’d saved his for last.
Hello, mate.
I suppose, since I keep getting your answerphone, that you’re still in Afghanistan. It seems like ages since we last talked. I’ve been reading your pieces and they’re the best you’ve done. Sounds like a bloody nightmare out there. Let me know when you get back, I fancy a good drinking session. Get your arse up to Oxford and we’ll get pissed and try and put the world to rights. It’s been a long time since you’ve been up here.
As you’ve probably guessed, me and Michelle are finished. She reckoned I wasn’t giving her my all. I think she was expecting me to shower her with poems and flowers. It seems to be a common misconception with all the people I end up with, male or female. They all seem to think that an English professor should write poetry and be perpetually lost in a fog of romance. I wish I knew how to disabuse people of that notion, it would make life a lot easier for everyone. Anyway, Michelle is gone, and I’m keeping my dick to myself for a while. I really am fed up of all the turmoil and other people’s toothpaste clogging up my sink. To be honest, I’m enjoying the peace and quiet.
Give me a call when you get back. It would be good to see you again, assuming you make it back in one piece.
Later,
Colin.
I’d given up trying to keep track of Colin’s romances years ago. I couldn’t even remember names. Katy always had something to say about them all, but I kept my silence, mildly annoyed by her pronouncements on my best friend’s love life. She was a fine one to talk, my little faithless cat, always in search of a decent fuck. This time, when I got back, I was going to put an end to it. If nothing else, I wouldn’t have to worry about forgetting birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas presents. I wouldn’t have to summon up an erection because Katy was finally in the mood. The absence of emails from her said it all. So, no, she was in no position to comment on Colin’s occasional soap operas.
As for me, I had no idea why Colin flitted from one Great Love to another. He was obviously searching for something but, after ten years, he still hadn’t found it. It didn’t matter—not to me—it was just the way he was. I enjoyed the long, drunken autopsies when they were over.
I wanted to see him. I wanted to make sure that the dreams I’d had were just that—a curry-crazy mind-fuck. They still nagged at me and I needed to put them to rest. I hit the reply button.
Bloody hell, again?
I never even got to meet this one.
Ah, well, I’m sure you’ll find someone one of these days. It’s probably time I kicked Katy into touch. I’ve been out in the sticks for weeks and haven’t heard so much as a whisper from her. I’m sure she’s kept herself entertained, which is part of the problem. I’m tired of keeping up the pretence and the habit.
So, yeah, when I get back and get everything squared away at work, I’ll give you a call and make arrangements to come up to Oxford. God knows, I could use a decent pint and a good meal. I’ve spent the last three weeks making do with MREs, supplemented with eggs from the chickens the men keep at the base. I’m probably heading home in the next day or two.
Try not to fall in love in the meantime.
Catch you later.
I hit ‘send’ and turned off the laptop. I wanted to be back home, back in my flat. I wanted to hear the everyday buzz of traffic and rain spattering against the windows. I was lucky—I could leave this place, walk away from the biting winter wind, the dust and the carnage. Better still, I could walk away in one piece. I thought of Beaumont, Roberts and the others who’d leave with everlasting memories and scars. There’d be bits of shrapnel that the surgeons couldn’t remove, reminders that would set off airport scanners and nag painfully in damp weather.
Afghanistan was a mess that we Brits would probably have to live with for a long time. There was much more to the story than IEDs, broken men and troop surges. A labyrinth of threads twisted back through time, across borders, across oceans. My work here was done, but there were other paths to follow. I had ideas.
I pulled out my notebook and started to write.