Other bodies swarmed over Pete and Terry but they were going down fighting. There was nothing I could do for them until I was free.
The screams, gunfire and Warrior engines receded into the background as I jerked left and right, pushing my head back to nut him, anything to get the fucker off me.
My knees buckled. I fell to the ground and he collapsed on top of me. I kicked, pushed, punched, anything to get him off so Barney — anyone — could take a shot.
I kicked out but this boy was massive and he kept hold. Wet with shit, his hair slapped against my face. We tumbled into a shallow ditch. I made a grab for his head and tried to butt him.
We rolled over and over in the shit puddles. I saw the stars, and the next thing I knew my face was in the mud. I tried to keep my mouth shut, but I had to breathe. It was like holding your mouth and nose as a kid after taking a deep breath, then carrying on until it becomes unbearable and keeping on going a few seconds past that.
I felt a stabbing pain in my eyes and ears. I felt pressure in my chest and throat. I thrashed and bucked, but only succeeded in burrowing my head further into the slime.
My body was telling me to breathe, but it wouldn't let me inhale water. I jerked and convulsed like a madman. After ten or fifteen seconds more I felt like I was in a vice that was being gradually tightened across my breastbone and spinal column. Water seeped into my lungs, my body was a mass of pain and I knew I was dying.
I didn't even sense the other body appearing above us, or jumping down into the ditch, or the boot that must have come in fast and hard and smacked against the Iraqi's head. All I heard was a bone-crunching thud, then the man crushing me spasmed and relaxed. Next thing I knew, his weight was pulled off me. My lungs roared as I filled them with air.
Another kick barrelled into my assailant as I gulped and coughed.
The boot was Pete's. I could see him through the blur of mud and shit that covered my face. And then I heard the loud bang as he followed up with just one round from Terry's weapon into the Iraqi's head.
'Staying down there all night, mate?'
His free hand was outstretched. He hauled me to my feet.
Sniper rounds whistled overhead, thudding into the warren. I fought for breath and spat shit from my mouth.
A few metres away, Terry was kicking another dead body off him. He scrambled to his feet and stepped over the one Pete must have dropped.
'Man on! Man on!' The screams came from the snipers.
I spun round to see more bodies closing fast.
Pete didn't miss a beat. Terry's SA80 went straight into the shoulder. 'Go, go!'
I turned and ran, pushing the boy ahead of me. Pete put down a series of short sharp bursts that punctuated the stream of sniper fire above me.
I stopped halfway and turned back, letting Terry go on. AK muzzle flashes strobed in the darkness as Pete kept firing.
'Enough, Pete. Come on!'
My body jerked as if somebody had swung a pickaxe handle into my chest. I was hurled back. My hands were flung into the air and I fell, pain searing my arm. The force spun me round and I crumpled, face down.
I lay there, a bundle of pain, fear and disbelief. Like Dom with his invisible forcefield, I'd thought I'd never get shot again.
I didn't have as much as a nanosecond to start crawling before Pete caught up with me. He managed one short burst before he ran out of rounds.
He dropped the SA80 into the shit next to me and his bony hands grabbed my good arm and pulled. His grunts sounded louder than the gunfire.
Bodies surged from the warren; the patrol was taking on the insurgents as they moved back towards the alley.
The Manc lad stood his ground in the middle of the wasteground, his shoulder rocking back with the recoil from his weapon. The moment we were in the alley, Terry helped get me over Pete's shoulder in a fireman's lift.
'You're all right, Nick. Sonia'll sort you. See you later, Tel.'
He turned towards the Bulldogs and legged it.
My forearm jolted with pain each time his feet hit the ground. I looked down. The skin was punctured big-time, but it wasn't flapping about. Maybe the round that had hit me hadn't smashed the bone. I couldn't tell.
Sonia had the back of the wagon open and ready. Pete threw rather than loaded me in. Rounds from both sides of the street smashed against the armour. The GPMGs returned fire. The gunner above me gave it max.
Sonia jabbed an autojet of morphine into my arse and tore at my T-shirt with scissors. She pulled a face. 'I might let off the odd fart, but I don't bloody shit myself!'
I could hear Pete laughing with sheer relief as he and Dom jumped in for cover. 'Fuck me, mate. You're supposed to be looking after us!'
Another burst slammed against the armour plating of the wagon and I heard two Warriors scream up alongside us.
18
Somebody leant over me, high collar and batwings silhouetted against the red light. His hand was in the air. His fingers were gripped round a plastic bottle. A tube ran down from it and into my good arm.
A cannon kicked off a few rounds. Everything jerked as we moved off again. The guy holding the saline cursed as he tried to keep his balance.
I could see Warrior seats. I must be on the floor, between the two benches.
We lurched off again and my head rolled to the right.
Dom and Pete looked down at me. Pete was filming.
'You'll thank me for this later, mate. One for the family get-together…'
I sort of saw a smile behind the lens.
My head bumped on the steel floor and I realized I didn't have my helmet on. I couldn't remember it being taken off. Not that it mattered. My head didn't hurt. Morphine rules.
One minute, two minutes, five minutes, an hour later, for all I knew, the wagon stopped and the door was pulled open. Scouse voices echoed in the darkness.
'Get them out of there! I'm not fucking waiting out here all day, you cunts — get them out!'
The guy with the saline shouted back, 'This one first!'
Hands gripped me and floated me on to a stretcher. Red night-lights and dark shadows had been replaced by shot-to-fuck HESCOs and a sky speckled with stars.
My new best friend with the drip stayed alongside the stretcher as I jerked up and down. Dom and Pete were nowhere to be seen. Boots crunched over a stretch of rubble-strewn ground. Seconds later I was blinking under blindingly white light.
White tiles, white floors. Maybe six or seven others lying on stretchers, bound up with awesomely white dressings over filthy combats and body armour.
A medic with rubber gloves on swam across my vision. He was Ospreyed up and helmeted. Wherever I was, they must be taking incoming as well.
It had to be OSB. The place was permanently under siege from indirect fire, small arms and RPGs. One of their sangars held the record for having the most contacts in the whole of Iraq. The Chindits had even built earth ramps up to the HESCO walls so their Warriors' 30mm cannon could join in the firefights.
My stretcher was lowered on to a table. Within seconds somebody was cutting off Sonia's field dressing.
'It's OK, mate. It didn't hit a bone. Just a meaty hole, that's all.'
A mortar landed close by and I must have flinched. The guy doing the cutting was a Jock. 'It's OK. They'll get bored in a minute.'
Automatic fire kicked off from somewhere above me. Maybe it was that record-breaking sangar.
Through the blur, I could see Dom and Pete in the room.
The Jock was cleaning my left hand now. The liquid stank.