War Torn

it properly.’It was the boss. Binman swung his body to the left. The brief break had reminded him how hot he was and how dangerous the work. His heart thudded as he rounded the mine. Suppose it was enormous? Suppose he hadn’t swung wide enough? If it exploded under him his innards would be ripped out. There would be a few moments when you knew you were dying. He shut his eyes. Yes, for a couple of seconds, you’d know it was happening. He would feel pain and sadness and loss because he was leaving it all behind. He’d think of his mother and Ally. Then it would all be over. Death would be a sort of blackness where nothing ever happened and he wouldn’t know or care. Ally would cry at his funeral and then marry someone else and have kids and grow old and he wouldn’t see any of it. Because he wouldn’t be there. He wouldn’t exist.He felt sick. His hands became less systematic and then they stopped.‘Binman!’ Mal sounded worried. ‘I know you’re going to sick up. I know it.’Binns could not tell him that he was suddenly, halfway between a casualty and the edge of a minefield, paralysed by fear. Out of the corner of his eye was the distant line of Jamie’s Camelbak, with Angus’s following. They were heading towards Connor at a snail’s pace. Jamie paused and put his head up to drink. He looked over at Binman. His face was filthy. You could see sweat lines running through the dirt even from here. They exchanged distant glances.‘How are you moving so fucking fast, Binman?’ shouted Jamie.Binman summoned all his energy. ‘Hands. And blowing.’‘Blowing. Good idea.’Jamie lowered his body back down, his face distorted in pain. Binns remembered how this man had taken a machine gun round and just carried on working as though nothing had happened. He watched as Jamie disappeared behind some weeds. The field was full of bodies. The casualties were on their backs. And on their bellies, inching in their different directions, inching towards possible death, were Jamie, Angry, O’Sullivan and Kirk.‘Binman!’ hissed Mal. ‘Don’t fuck up. You’re doing a great job. Don’t fuck up now, mate.’Slowly, Jack Binns took his bayonet and pushed it into some soft ground ahead of him which his hands had already massaged. Nothing happened. There was no explosion. He was still alive. Heartened, he began his fast, concentrated work again.‘Sarge!’ shouted Mal. ‘How did you know Binman would be so good at this?’Binns turned briefly to glance at Dave, who was standing at the edge of the minefield. You could see his helplessness. He could yell, warn, cajole. But the situation was outside his control. His face was red with the heat, the effort of yelling instructions and the extreme tension. He had even forgotten, Binns noted, before turning back to his worm’s eye view of the dry earth, to take off his Bergen. Next to him stood the boss. His face was anguished.‘I watched his fingers when he was beatboxing with Streaky,’ Dave called back. ‘In another life, that lad would have been a concert pianist.’Binns heard them talking about him but paid no attention. He felt as though he was inside his own hands as he scraped and prodded. He stabbed another little mine marker into the ground and crawled forward again. Mal was right behind him but he seemed a thousand miles away.‘Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh, get me out of here!’ moaned Broom suddenly. The old blood was drying in the sun, new blood was still flowing, his wounds were sizzling and the swarm of flies around him was growing.‘We’re nearly there!’ said Mal. ‘Go firm, Broom!’ As if Broom was thinking of making a run for it.‘Tell Kylie I love her,’ said Broom.‘You’ll soon be telling her yourself, mate!’Suddenly Connor spoke: ‘It’s OK . . .’‘Hello, hello, I thought you were unconscious, Ryan!’ said Mal.Connor was lying still, staring up at the sky as if it was drawing him to it. He sounded calm. ‘It’s OK, lads. Just leave me to die. I just want to die.’‘Fuck that,’ said Mal. ‘Don’t go dying on us, mate.’Angus, behind Jamie, roared: ‘Fuck that, Connor, we’re nearly there and we’re not buggering about in all this dirt for nothing.’‘Did you get morphine in you, Ryan?’ asked Jamie suspiciously, but Connor did not reply.All four of the rescuers were closing in on the casualties now and they could have a conversation without shouting.From the edges of the field, 2 Section was yelling.‘Didn’t see him take morphine, don’t think he did.’‘Come on, Ryan, don’t fucking give in now, mate!’‘The boys are nearly there!’‘And if they get blown up, there’s a helicopter with a winch on its way!’‘Get your morphine in, Ryan. Go on, get your morphine in!’‘No,’ shouted Dave. ‘If he’s in and out of consciousness, he shouldn’t take morphine now. Is he losing consciousness?’Mal turned and nodded. He was close enough to see that Ryan Connor was in no state to join in this discussion. He lay, without moving, his eyes open, staring at the sky. ‘It’s his arm, Sarge. Still there, but not pretty.’‘Mine!’ yelled Jamie suddenly.He had frozen in his position on the ground.‘Well, I mean, it could be a big stone. Or it could—’‘Divert!’ Dave called. ‘Divert right.’Angus, who had been working on widening Jamie’s path, sat up and glared.‘It only might be! If it’s a stone, we’re wasting time diverting for fucking hours.’The boss yelled: ‘And then you’ll have the rest of your life to think about how you took a short cut and lost your leg!’Dave put his hands on his hips and his face reddened still more as he roared: ‘Plus let me tell you something about these Soviet mines, Angry . . . they weren’t all designed to kill a man. A lot were designed to take away what matters most. Which for some of us is our bollocks.’There was a shocked silence. Every face turned towards the casualties. Angry stopped arguing and dragged Jamie back and Jamie continued working his way forward at a wider angle.Binns was aware of all this as though it was a TV programme other people were watching. He was working his way through a weedy area now and the dry weeds smelled pungent. It was harder to feel the soil. He cut some down to ground level with his bayonet, being careful not to disturb the roots. But he was close to Ben Broom, close enough to see his boots through the undergrowth.The crack of fire took him by surprise. For a moment he thought a mine had exploded. Then he realized that he had focused so hard on mines that he had forgotten that other threat: the ragheads. Maybe everyone had. He dared to take just one quick look around before he got his head down. There were rounds tearing up the ground all around him. Dust rose, weeds flew, earth shook.From the lads at the side of the field there was a rapid, angry and intense response.Mal, behind, said: ‘Fuck it, this could set one of them off . . .’His voice was scared. Binns felt nausea rising up through his body. He was lying in a minefield. A round could hit him. A round could set off a mine. His hands could detonate a mine. The danger was immense. Death almost certain. So he might as well get on with his work. It was better than lying here doing nothing.He did not raise his head but laid his chin on the gritty soil, placed his hands ahead of him and took some comfort from the familiar feel of the dirt as he ran his fingers over its surface.‘Fucking hell, Binman!’ Mal’s voice was high-pitched, as if someone was strangling him. ‘I felt something bouncing off my body armour.’Binman escaped from his own nausea, the agony of the wounded and the terror of Mal by slipping inside his own hands. Look, feel, prod.‘Fucking bastards!’ the lads were yelling at the Taliban as they fired. ‘We fucking hate you for that!’One round did set off an explosion. Binns was aware of it as a massive flash and plume of smoke in the corner of his eye. He did not stop. He did not want to think about it. If anyone was hurt there were plenty of others to deal with them. Look, feel, prod.The firing ceased as suddenly as it had begun.‘Thank Christ for that,’ said Mal. ‘I just hope Ben or Connor didn’t take any of it.’Binns continued to work. He was aware that men on the side of the field were busy, moving around, but he didn’t look up. He could feel his closeness to Broom now. He had gained speed when he had briefly taken over O’Sullivan’s mine path, checking the ground with his fingers and replacing the peanuts with markers. Mal was eating the peanuts and was on his fifth packet.‘Don’t rush it at the end!’ roared Dave.‘You there already?’ called Jamie, looking up.‘Binman’s going for the land speed record,’ Mal told him.Binns’s heart beat harder. This had been the longest, slowest, hottest fifteen metres of his life. And he was nearly there. His hands sifted soil faster, his bayonet poked energetically.‘Not too fast, mate,’ said Mal behind him.And then it happened again. Another strange clod of earth, clinging, lumpen, reluctant to move. Like an arrow pointing downwards to draw his attention to something. This time Binns didn’t blow on it, not even lightly. He knew.‘What’s up?’ asked Mal.‘Another one.’He heard his own voice, faint and hoarse like an old man who’d smoked all his life.‘Oh, fuck it. We’re nearly there. And it’s right by Broom. How are we going to get him out with that in the way?’Binns felt defeated. He put his face down in the dirt for the first time, feeling it crunch and crumble beneath his cheeks. He closed his eyes. He felt far from home. And home wasn’t even England right now. It was twelve metres away with his mate, Streaky Bacon, and all the others.Mal was up on his knees surveying the scene.‘OK, you’ll have to go left again. Then we’ll go in around Ryan’s side and it might help getting Ryan out too.’Binns was a mine-clearing machine. Mal dragged him backwards and he started looking, feeling and prodding to the left before Mal had let go of his legs.‘What’s up? What you doing?’ shouted Dave.Mal knelt and explained. He turned to the others watching at the side of the field.‘What about that explosion?’‘We’re OK. But it ripped a tree to shreds like lettuce, that’s all,’ shouted Streaky.It took for ever to arrive at Broom. Crawling around the last mine was the longest, slowest part of the longest, slowest journey.‘You’re doing well, Jamie’s nowhere near Connor yet,’ said Mal.‘It’s not a race,’ said Binns.But they were there and Broom was still alive, although his eyes were closed and his breathing shallow. Mal began to move into position.‘Stop!’ yelled Dave. ‘Just be careful. You must clear the position all around the casualty before you treat him. You must do that!’Binns and Mal could hardly stop the forward momentum of their bodies towards Broom. Dave had to yell at them three times to prevent them touching him. So Binman began to worm his way around the wounded soldier, around the blood, around the buzzing swarms of flies and around the landmine that was lying painfully close by. Mal taped it off. He was kneeling with his tourniquet and dressings at the ready, waiting to pounce on Broom’s trauma kit as soon as they were clear.He talked nonsense in a soothing voice.‘Two minutes, mate, just two minutes . . . and the man you have to thank for our speedy arrival today is one Binman,