3. Carl
3. Carl
24 December, Christmas Eve
We ended up leaving camp two and a half hours later than planned, delayed by a monster sandstorm. We holed up in the canteen, not that any of us had any appetite.
Sarah, Jenni and Caroline joined us, Caroline clambering over my lap and Fridge’s outstretched legs to squeeze in next to Jobbo, Jenni trying to make us all laugh with a pair of light-up reindeer antlers.
Sarah smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. Something seemed wrong; she looked preoccupied, worried. Or maybe it was just that the innocence which had marked her out as new to camp, back when I first met her in August, had gone.
Waiting to go out on patrol was never fun. The anticipation. The fear. The tightness in the pit of my stomach. The endless clock-watching because I just wanted the waiting to end so I could get on with whatever I was going to have to deal with out there.
Caroline slipped her hand into Jobbo’s, and he gave it a reassuring squeeze. ‘You okay?’ she whispered, and he nodded, pulled her closer towards him.
Sarge, cigar in mouth as always, could sense the mood and was doing his best to keep our nerves at bay by distracting us with stories about his missus. ‘I love that woman with all my heart,’ he was saying. ‘She’s a great wife and a wonderful mother. But my God, she’s a shocking cook. Gravy so thick it needs spreading, and don’t even get me started on her turkey. I’d rather eat my own biceps.’
Everyone laughed. Sarge could always be relied upon to rally everyone’s spirits. He was a great ox of a man who loved life, the army and cigars. He was fiercely loyal, considered no sentence complete without at least one swear word in it, and was a force to be reckoned with in the bar.
But despite Sarge’s best efforts, it’s fair to say we were all more on edge than usual by the time the storm finally passed and we were given the all-clear to get going.
‘Come on, then, lads,’ Sarge rallied as his walkie-talkie crackled into life. He stood up, tucked what was left of his cigar behind his ear, then reached for his helmet. ‘Let’s get to work.’ The delay in starting the patrol meant the sun had almost set. It was that eerie sort of orange light that presaged day becoming night, and cold, like the biting Yorkshire winds back home.
As we settled into the back of the truck I looked at Fridge, his eyes just visible beneath the lip of his helmet. He was staring straight at his rifle, his jaw clenched. I wanted to talk to him but he had his game face on, and I knew better than to bother him.
I’d seen that look so many times. I saw it that first day I met him, aged eight, sitting next to him in class, watching as he painstakingly wrote his name in his new exercise book.
As the years passed I witnessed that very same look before every football game, every exam, every military training exercise. The mask that came down over his features. The mask that told the world he was ready. He was on a mission.
I knew that kid better than I knew myself. I knew his favourite song was ‘Life Is A Rollercoaster’ by Ronan Keating, even though he pretended it was ‘Going Underground’ by The Jam.
I knew he lived for Leeds United, could quote every line from the first two Rocky movies, that his favourite meal was spaghetti Bolognese, and that the small scar above his upper lip wasn’t a battle scar. It was from the morning when, aged five, he’d decided to use his dad’s razor to give himself a shave.
And I knew there was something wrong now.
I’d heard him on the phone to Angela earlier that day, back in the mess. He’d been laughing, telling her she must look like a Christmas pudding, and she must have been laughing too, and then suddenly she can’t have been laughing any more – because he was pleading with her to stop crying.
‘Please, Ange. Please, babe,’ he’d begged. ‘I can’t stand it when you cry. I promise I’ll be safe, I promise I’ll come home.’
I’d flinched as he said it. None of us ever promised that.
We were driving past what had once been the town’s grand mosque, now just a giant hole in the ground. Only the pole with the loudspeaker that announced the daily calls to prayer stood defiantly intact.
It was the route we always took when we headed out into insurgent country, but tonight I had a funny feeling as I looked at that mosque-shaped hole and the rubble that surrounded it.
Suddenly we lurched wildly to the left and Danny fell sideways into me. I caught sight of the expression on his face as I reached out to help him back into his seat. It was a look of sheer terror.
‘You’re all right, lad,’ I told him. ‘It’s just a pothole.’
He sat back in his seat and started to hum quietly. He always hummed to himself when he was nervous.
Listening to him then, I felt overcome with a sense of protectiveness. A need to see him home safe. To see everyone home safe. I ran my hand over my grenades and ammunition for reassurance.
Hyper-aware now, I scanned the countryside for signs of an ambush, even though I knew I wouldn’t see any. The insurgents were too sophisticated to let themselves be seen. They had become expert at rigging up invisible tripwires, then waiting for a military vehicle to pass by before detonating the bomb using radio or mobile phone signals.
Danny hummed the first verse of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ and then he started to sing. Quietly at first, but then Sarge joined in, and a moment later Cherub.
After that, we all did, belting out the words from somewhere deep within us. By the time we got to the second round of ‘Oh tidings of comfort and joy’, Danny no longer looked scared, and the shadow that had clouded Fridge’s face earlier had completely disappeared.
Fridge had always been a sucker for Christmas. I thought back to when we were little boys, dressed up as shepherds in the school Nativity play, wearing old dressing gowns. Fridge had got into trouble for wearing a Leeds United shirt underneath.
Our eyes locked and he grinned at me – a big, contagious grin that illuminated his whole face.
Nothing ever felt as frightening when Fridge was with me. Best mates since we were nippers, bound together by the highs and lows of our lives – the good, the bad, and everything in between. I was so glad to have him out here with me.
I smiled back.
‘Happy days,’ he said.
Then:
BOOM!