The chain gun ceased fire. The Kingsmen swarmed down into the wadi.
Dom made to follow, but I grabbed him and pulled him on to his knees. Another flurry of illume kicked off over the town and the cannon opened up again. I had to scream into his ear: 'They said not to go forward until they call us! Wait. Let them get on with it.'
The Kingsmen vanished for a few seconds in the dead ground of the riverbed, before reappearing on the far bank, screaming and shouting all sorts of Scouse shit they probably didn't even understand themselves.
They kicked their way through a series of old wooden doors and into whatever chaos lay the other side.
2
The sun had risen enough to chuck out a bit of heat, but not enough to coax me out of the oversized fleece I had on over my body armour. I ran my tongue over my furred-up teeth and gave my greasy, stubbled face a rub.
Dom and Pete sat among steel ammo boxes, day sacks and general wagon shit the other side of the idling Warrior. Pete fucked about on his Mac laptop, editing the bulletin Dom had made during the attack. He wasn't one of those bunker journos who gave their action-packed report from the safety of a Green Zone balcony. And that was my big problem. I spent every waking hour either pulling him down or away from someone or something that could kill him.
Paul, one of the recce platoon, was top cover with a Minimi; he had to stand between us with his head and shoulders sticking out through the open mortar hatch. Sand and all sorts showered down each time he moved.
I brushed some desert off my fleece. It got cold out here at night and I was a bit of a lizard. I liked to keep warm, even if it meant wearing something Pete described as the colour of shite after a bad vindaloo. I hadn't got it from an outdoors store; I always ended up throwing my kit away every few weeks because it got so minging, so I'd treated myself to a trip to Oxfam. Three and a half quid as opposed to thirty; a bargain whatever the colour.
Last night had produced an insurgent body count of eighteen, at a cost of two wounded Kingsmen. Now a Challenger and our three recce-platoon Warriors had been tasked with setting up a vehicle checkpoint on the eastern road out of town to see what got caught in the net.
Looking out of the open rear door, I could see the wadi the guys had run through during last night's attack. It was littered with carrier-bags, dog shit, drinks cans, water-bottles; all kinds of trash that wouldn't be washed downstream until next year when the rains came.
A pack of scabby old dogs were kept at bay by the heat blasting from the grilles of the Challenger's massive turbo-charged diesel engine. Like the Warriors', its hull and tracks were caked with mud and dust. No call for spit and polish here: they were fighting a war. The bar armour surrounding the lower hull and tracks looked like a series of buckled and scorched farm gates. That was because it was doing its job, deflecting RPGs.
Now it was light, I couldn't see too much flame from the blazing oil wells, just thick black pillars of smoke on the horizon. It was going to be a long time before this place was stable enough for the conglomerates to come and start sucking out black gold.
The Challenger pointed its big fuck-off barrel at the town like it was giving the locals the finger. Come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough. It wouldn't take a genius to get the message.
A helmet jutted from its turret. Tank crews wore dark green covers to blend in with their vehicles; light desert camouflage would make a perfect target for a sniper or any half-decent shot who'd bothered to zero his weapon.
The Kingsmen had five VCPs covering all the roads in and out of town. After last night's attack they dominated the area. At first light they'd started searching and questioning every male of fighting age. Notionally that was fourteen to sixty. The reality was that if you could lift a weapon you could fire it, so the guys had massaged the age bands. Terrorists, insurgents, whatever the government had decided to call them this week, to the Kingsmen it was academic. Out here on the ground, politics meant nothing. Even kids and old men were firing AKs and RPGs at them, and they were firing back.
There was never any doubt who was in command. I could hear Rhett right now, out on the VCP, giving shit to the platoon.
It was easy to tell the guys at the sharp end from the rest of the army, even though they wore the same uniform. They were in shit state. Their boots were hammered and fell apart before they ever got a clean. Their uniforms were dirty and ragged, their camouflaged helmet covers and body armour so worn and ripped it was hard to see the pattern.
The Challenger wasn't the only one with its engine running. All three Warriors had theirs idling so the big square boiling vessels inside could heat water.
I pushed the button at the bottom of our BV and made three brews.
'Here, mate.'
Pete took his white, no sugar. Fuck knows why, but this lot called it a Shirley Temple. I passed the mug to him round Paul's legs.
He took it without looking up and settled it on the steel floor beside him, pausing only to blow sand off his keyboard.
The Kingsmen thought Pete was weird for not taking sugar. 'He worried about his figure or something?'
Dom took sugar, but as far as they were concerned he was still from a completely different planet, not because he was a Pole but because he drank only three brews a day.
To make up the shortfall, I threw Pete a Yorkie bar from the ration packs. He glanced at the wrapper and gave a little chuckle. Where it normally read 'It's Not For Girls', the army ration pack version had 'It's Not For Civvies'. Now that he'd been let in on the joke, it never ceased to amuse him.
Paul's brew was next. Like the whole of recce platoon he took it NATO standard: white, two sugars. Me too. Not because I liked it that way any more but so I could join the others taking the piss out of Pete for being a girl.
I tugged at his trousers and a leather-gloved hand whisked the plastic mug on to the roof.
'Cheers, la'.' Pete's accent would always be more Bermondsey than Scouse, but he needed to level the score.
Paul muttered something back and Pete laughed. The banter had been ricocheting between them for the last two days.
Paul's tone changed suddenly. 'I got movement… in the wadi… three fifty. They're carrying…'
Radios crackled and another Warrior from a VCP south of us opened up with its cannon.
I watched through the rear doors as the ground round the bodies erupted in clouds of dust. The small figures scattered.
Dom grabbed Pete's camera and almost fell out of the wagon. He was nearest the door and Pete still had his iBook on his lap.
Paul got a lead on one of the runners. He kicked off a short burst and the empty cases cascaded on to Pete's head as he hunched over his screen.
Then Rhett yelled, 'Check fire, check fire!'
Paul froze.
'It's kids!'
3
The radio net went ballistic as everyone was told to stop firing.
Rhett paced angrily as the net commanded a call sign to go and check if any of them had been hit. 'Little shites!'