Marsden waited, his hands linked and resting on the unread notes that papered his desk.
‘So, you ready to step up?’ Marsden’s calm voice carried such authority and McLaughlin quickly guzzled his water to reply.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You say that a lot.’ Sam joked. McLaughlin smiled, their friendship already blossoming.
‘Now, while I know you’re keen to get behind the scope, no sniper worth his salt pulls the trigger without spotting for a while. I expect you to listen, to learn, and beyond everything, Private, I expect you to ask.’
‘Ask, sir?’
Marsden turned to Sam, who put his bottle of water down before fielding the question.
‘If you don’t know, you ask,’ Sam said bluntly. ‘I know what it’s like in the barracks and when you guys all first get here. Everyone stays quiet, nobody wants to look like they don’t know what they’re doing or that they don’t belong. But not with me. As far as I see it, if you need to know something, you damn well better ask me. It could be the difference between life and death. You do that and I promise, I will do everything in my power to keep you alive.’
‘Yes, sir…I mean Sam.’ McLaughlin corrected himself with a wry smile.
‘Brilliant.’ Marsden clapped his hands together and stood. ‘Then tomorrow at 0600 hours, you officially join the sniper division.’
‘And by division, he means you get to tag with me.’ Sam joked, drawing a shake of the head from Marsden.
‘Quite. Dismissed.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ McLaughlin nodded, before scrambling from his chair.
‘Sir.’ Sam wrapped his knuckles on the desk as he followed, walking quickly to catch-up with his protégé as they exited the tent.
‘So, private, what do I call you?’
‘Umm…Matt. Matthew. My friends call me Mac.’
‘Then Mac it is.’ Sam smiled, clapping his hand onto the young soldier’s shoulder and banishing any nerves. ‘Mac it is.’
* * *
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
Somewhere behind him, Mac could almost make out Sam’s voice screaming through the blind panic and relentless thudding of the helicopter.
They had been on an outlook, casting their eyes out over the dilapidated town known as Chikari, when their cover had been blown. While Sam had been focused on the dusty road that peered off into the horizon, awaiting the safe return of one of their convoys, Mac had been negligent. He hadn’t been watching as the Taliban mobilised, launching an air strike on their location and sending a helicopter to chop them down.
Sam had told him to stay put.
It was the last thing he remembered before the panic set in.
Survival.
Fight or flight.
Mac decided to fly.
As he pushed himself off from the ground, completely revealing their position, he’d turned on his heels and began to run as fast as he could.
Sam yelled after him, his cries for his friend to remain calm dying in the sheer noise of the aerial assault.
As Mac ran, his heart raced too, his body shaking as the very real threat of death began to reach for him with its unforgiving clutch. The echo of a sniper rifle shook through the sky as Sam attempted to take down the chopper, but it was to little avail.
Mac continued to run, his boots pounding the weeds and dust of the mountainside, his movements erratic, his direction clueless.
Sam called out for him.
Then his entire world changed.
The whoosh of the rocket being launched sounded like an airplane taking off, and it clattered onto the ground a few feet behind him.
The explosion was instant.
As Sam was rushing towards him, it must have blown him backwards, with Mac not realising it had sent Sam spiralling down the uneven cliff face to the unforgiving ground below.
His survival was unlikely.
The blast itself had sent a shockwave through Mac’s entire body, the pain, as uniform and skin were disintegrated by the flames, had been overwhelming. The pain was immediately replaced with a strange numbing sensation, as the shock began to take control. It felt like parts of his body were there only in spirit. His entire right side felt absent. As he lay in the long grass, gasping for breath and any semblance of clarity, his skin was still bubbling from the immense heat of the flames.
The right side of his head was charred, the hairs of his head and eyebrows gone, the layers of skin beneath charred.
As he called out for Sam, his voice caught in his throat, his body trying to reserve its energy as it fought diligently to survive.
‘Sam.’ His voice rasped, no louder than a whisper, and his left eye managed to shoot a glance to his right hand.
The skin was gone, the smooth pink muscles beneath were as visible as the relenting sun.
While the remnants of his right ear hung from his mangled skull, he could hear the faint crunch of footsteps on the rocky cliff face.
Sam.
Come to rescue him.
He had promised he’d look after him.
That he would keep him safe.
Get him home.
Despite the pain, he arched his head up, his left eye squinting in the harsh glare of the sun.
The smell of burning hung in the air like a thick fog and somewhere in the distance, he could hear the thudding of the chopper as it flew away.
The footsteps doubled and it was only when he caught the outline of a thick beard and a white cloth wrapped around the head, did he realise that his prayers hadn’t been answered.
It was the very opposite.
A few more figures emerged, darkened by the shadows of the burrowing sunshine.
As the Taliban soldiers mockingly joked at his expense in their native tongue, he felt hands grasp his legs and slowly, he was hauled across the rough terrain, hoping that he would succumb to his wounds before his captors could reach their destination.
With his chances of survival diminishing, he felt a tear roll down his left cheek as he was slowly and painfully dragged towards his living hell.
* * *
NOW…
Wallace was dead.
When it had been reported on the international news channel that his mentor
