The HDRs dropped in Afghanistan were yellow, like they’d been in Bosnia, before it was realized that the packages were the same colour and roughly the same size as American cluster bombs, which were being scattered like confetti. They changed them to orange-pink.
Inside would be a couple of meals like lentil stew and pasta with beans and rice. There were also fruit pastries that reminded me of Pop Tarts, and shortbread, peanut butter, jam, fruit bars — even boxes of matches decorated with the American flag, a nice moist towelette and a plastic spoon. For some reason, every HDR also included a packet of crushed red chilli.
The US Navy must have airdropped this lot. They were somewhere offshore, and their helicopters had overflown the camp now and again. Some of the packets weren’t so empty. Not even the Indonesian Army could flog pork and beans on the black market.
Mong clambered across the wreckage. Wriggly tin buckled and groaned under his weight. BB leant on the bonnet as he watched him, checking his watch like we were missing a crucial meeting.
Wrinkled pictures were pinned to wood on what was left of a wall on the other side of the road. Dolls, toys and picture frames were laid out on the ground. The locals had been putting together whatever personal effects they found for others to see. For some, it would be all they had to remind them of a dead family member.
Two rounds kicked off deeper in the city and there was a faint wail of sirens. BB looked at his watch again.
‘It’s all right, mate, we’ve got another five hours until first light. It’s only going to take him ten minutes.’
11
I could tell things weren’t good as soon as Mong reached the cockpit. ‘For fuck’s sake …’ He stuck his head out of the smashed window. The leg dangled beneath him. ‘I’m going to need a hand here.’
BB pushed himself off the bonnet. ‘The kid’s alive?’
Mong ignored him and disappeared inside. I climbed the crumbling concrete blocks and hauled myself onto the boat. The deck was clear. The waves had taken everything away.
Mong was easing the leg gently out of the window frame. It didn’t belong to a child but a young woman. And crunched into the opposite corner of the cockpit was a man. A wedding ring glinted on a hand that was twisted up around his shoulder. His head had been crushed on the metal shelving just above him. There was no blood. The sea had washed him clean. The wound looked like a Hallowe’en makeup kit without the ketchup.
It was the same for the young woman, and the newly born boy who lay between her legs, umbilical cord attached and placenta still inside her.
BB followed me onto the deck, face screwed up in disgust. No way was he going to enter the cockpit. ‘This is fucking gross …’
Mong didn’t look up as he pushed aside the tangle of kit covering mother and child.
BB put his hand to his mouth.
The husband’s head twisted a little and fell forward as Mong tugged out a sodden blanket and laid it on the deck as best he could. ‘While you were fucking about at the Carphone Warehouse we were surrounded by shit like this. Women desperate to give their babies a chance before they died themselves …’
‘I don’t give a fuck. Let’s get out of here. We’re going to catch something.’
I knew Mong was talking about the Balkans. Muslim women in the villages who knew they were going to get raped and killed went into premature labour as the Serbs advanced.
He gathered up the tiny body, pruned from its prolonged soaking, and cupped it in his hands. He finally raised his head. ‘If you’d spent a bit more time actually soldiering instead of just playing at it, you’d understand what’s been going on here.’
‘Yeah? Well, fuck you.’ BB spun on his heel and disappeared over the side. The corrugated iron buckled and creaked as he made his way down to the wagon.
More shots kicked off in the distance.
Mong laid the baby on the mother’s breast and started to tuck a corner of the blanket around him like a shroud.
I lifted her legs so we could get the blanket underneath her. ‘Mate, we won’t be taking them with us.’
Mong raised the mother’s head and placed the blanket around it.
‘We’ll leave them here, mate. Tell the army or whoever when we get back. They can come and mark them up.’
He was vibrating with anger. ‘She shouldn’t have been left like that. Leg hanging out. It’s not right. That fucker would just have left her …’
‘Mong, mate, you need to calm down. BB’s on the team, and we’ve still got a job to do.’
I went over to the husband. The meat on his legs was squidgy. It wouldn’t be long before his body started to decompose.
Mong got out of the way so I could drag the poor bastard next to his wife and his child. Somehow it seemed important to have them touching. He tucked the woman’s hair into the blanket so she and the child were totally shrouded.
We both stood there silently for a minute or two.
He looked across at me. ‘Feels good, doesn’t it, doing something halfway decent for once, instead of arsehole jobs like this?’
I put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Mate, the arsehole job’s still waiting.’
12
Beyond the flood line, every football field was crammed with refugees — thousands of them — in makeshift camps. The city had suffered the magnitude nine ’quake and was now trying to cope with the magnitude six aftershocks.
There was no electricity, and therefore no light. More fires were dotted about in the darkness. Haunted eyes peered out at us from the shadows, unsure of who lurked behind our headlights. At this time of night it wouldn’t be aid workers, which left looters or the army, both bad news.
We eventually hit the main bridge crossing from west to east. The mood in the wagon wasn’t good. BB was expecting to go down with cholera, measles or some other fatal disease at any minute because we’d had physical contact with the family.
He had a point. It was monsoon season and rained for a couple of hours every day. The mosquitoes were out in force, raising the risk of dengue fever and worse. Thousands of corpses, hanging in trees or washed up on beaches, were rotting in the tropical heat. With open wounds and no food or clean water, the survivors wouldn’t survive for long.
‘Shit!’ BB slammed on the brakes.
Our headlights had picked out a pair of Saracen APCs, six-wheeled monsters that had probably been bought off the Brits. BB kept us tight in to the right as they rumbled across the bridge towards us.
Mong and I exchanged a glance. As young infantrymen we’d both done too many tours of Northern Ireland stuck in the back of those fuckers.
‘Three times I was blown up in one of those, Mong. Three IEDs in two years. You?’
BB’s knuckles went white as he clenched the wheel. ‘Fucking hell.’ He swung his head round. ‘Shut up, both of you. I don’t want to hear your old war stories. I’ve had enough of that shit.’
‘Calm down, mate. It wasn’t a dig.’
Mong looked as though he was about to join in but I shook my head. We had to cut away from this shit. I was glad BB was going to bin it after this. With luck I’d never have to share a vehicle with him again.
The Saracens were closing. They bristled with 40mm grenade launchers and.50 cal machine-guns, Tannoy systems and searchlights. Lads in olive green stuck out of the mortar hatches, armed with M16s. In this part of the world they would have been Singapore-made, under licence from Colt. The searchlights burst into life and played across us.