had a lot of time for him. Just under six foot tall, with long, jet-black hair that curled round his neck, he looked like a roadie for the Stones – but since he’d developed two of the world’s biggest boils in the last couple of days, one each side of his neck, we’d nicknamed him Frankenstein. We only called him that behind his back, of course. Gary had a quick temper and none of us wanted to wind up on the receiving end of some friendly fire.
He was in the lead wagon, maybe eighty metres ahead of us.
‘Annabel? Come in, Annabel.’
Standish’s mop of blond hair never seemed to get greasy and never stuck up after a night in a sleeping-bag like ours did. Annabel probably lent him her hairbrush.
He’d come to the Regiment from the Coldstream Guards; all those years under a busby must have given him plenty of practice at looking down his nose on the rest of the world. Every time he opened his mouth it was as if he was about to give a pep talk to the archers at Agincourt. I didn’t think he was ever going to be my new best mate.
Sam, a sergeant with nine years in the Regiment, felt the same way. He reckoned Standish always seemed to be holding back on the full story, like there were some details he didn’t want to bother our little heads with. ‘I just don’t trust him,’ Sam growled. ‘He’s not solid.’
4
I studied the skyline. ‘Jesus, Davy, get a move on. Where the fuck are you?’
‘Don’t take His name in vain, Nick.’
‘Davy won’t mind, mate. I do it all the time . . .’
I thought Sam must be taking the piss, but then I saw the expression on his face. It was like Standish would have looked if you’d told him Beef Wellington wasn’t on the menu tonight.
He lifted his arse, fished in his back pocket and handed me a battered leatherbound book. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘It’s right up your street – sex, violence, revenge, all sorts.’
I flicked open the cover. ‘It’s the New fucking Testament. I didn’t know you were into that stuff, Sam . . .’
I suddenly felt like I’d been locked in the same cell as a double-glazing salesman. Weddings and funerals were the closest I came to the happyclappies, and when people started talking to me about God or country, it just made me run for the hills . . .
His eyes flashed. ‘You’re not really getting the message, are you, son? I don’t like foul language being used alongside the Lord’s name. It’s like me calling your mother a whore.’
I nodded, but still couldn’t work out why it offended him so much. And maybe my mum had been a whore – I’d never met her to ask.
I handed back his Bible. ‘No, thanks, mate, not for me. There’s no pictures. And, besides, I know the ending.’
‘You’ll find out one day what you’re missing.’
‘How do you square all that with being in the Regiment? Hardly turning the other cheek, is it?’
He beamed. ‘I know that what I’m doing is the right thing. Jesus wasn’t some kind of drug-crazed hippie who walked around followed by bluebirds and talking donkeys. He was a revolutionary. He said, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
‘He also said, “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung round his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” That’s him distinguishing the guilty from the innocent, Nick, and telling us whose side we should be on.’
This didn’t sound good. He was confusing himself with Billy Graham. Any minute now he’d be thumping the lectern.
‘People like the high commissioner’s lot down there –’ he waved his thumb towards the skyline ‘– they’d be dead if the likes of us didn’t turn to.’
‘Aren’t the rebels God’s children too?’
‘Of course!’ He beamed again. ‘It’s just they don’t know it yet.’
I kept my eyes down and concentrated extremely hard on de-lumping my Milo. ‘Isn’t killing them a bit against the rules?’
‘No. We’re doing the right thing. If those rebels get killed, God will forgive them at the doors to the kingdom of Heaven, because He knows they don’t know any better.’
‘I see. Kill ’em all, let God sort it out?’
‘Do you believe in God, Nick?’
I shrugged. ‘Dunno. I’ve always thought of Him as an imaginary friend for grown-ups. But maybe it’s smart to hedge your bets. Call me an agnostic.’
If Sam thought that was an open door to try to convert me, he wasn’t going to get the chance to push it. The tinny roar of the 175 Yammy got louder and I saw Frankenstein stand up in his cab to my left.
A second or two later, the machine jumped out of the dead ground, slewed round, and Davy gunned it towards the lead wagon. He looked like a twelve-year-old. He was as skinny as a pencil, and the diet here wasn’t exactly helping to fill him out. He definitely needed to go home and get a few bags of fish and chips down him – though half would probably end up on the floor. He’d lost three fingers from his left hand when he was in the Tank Regiment; his driver’s hatch had decided it wanted to close all by itself. Fuck knows how he’d passed Selection. He should have been modelling for an artificial-limbs catalogue, not fucking about on a 175 that weighed more than he did.
5
Standish came off the back of our wagon like a scalded cat and sprinted the eighty or so metres to the lead wagon.
I entertained the flies round my head as Sam kept adjusting his hat to save what was left of the skin on the back of his neck.
Seconds later, Davy jumped back on the 175 and screamed off towards the other two wagons. Standish hurried back to us and clambered aboard.
‘Listen in.’ He picked up the sat-comms handset as if he was about to make a serious announcement to all of the most important people in the world. ‘The Mercs are still by the house, in the dead ground about two and a half Ks ahead of us. Davy has seen rebels in flatbed pickups. He also saw a body. They’d cut it limb from limb and lined up all the parts outside the gates. He couldn’t tell if it was one of ours.’ He tapped numbers into the dial pad. ‘We’ll have a rolling start line. We’re going to go straight for them – get the wagons into the compound, load up, get out. No roads, cross-country to the coast.’
A cloud of dirty smoke shot from the exhaust of Frankenstein’s wagon, and the other three drivers took their cue. Sam fired the ignition. ‘All aboard the
Standish was still trying to get through. ‘Hello? Hello?’
I watched Davy gun his bike towards the last wagon. They’d rested a plank on the back and he just rode up it and on to the flatbed.
I checked the link one last time, settled the butt into my shoulder, then made sure I had muzzle clearance over the sandbags and wasn’t about to shoot holes in the engine.
‘Hello, High Commissioner? It’s Miles. I sent out a recce patrol and it looks as if they’re still in the building. I’ll send you a sit rep as soon as we’ve linked up.’
The front Renault started rolling. Sam threw us into first gear and the wagon jerked. Standish fell with the set still in his hand. The heat of the engine washed over us as we moved forward.
