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‘Perfect.’
It was strange, going back to normal work. Living at the barracks, being among a larger group, having to be clean and orderly with your kit in pristine condition, sitting in classrooms for hours, taking orders, learning how to march in formation, being just a number again, rather than the individuals they had become on the front line. Off duty, they were strangely wary of each other. The more confident ones would brag about the things they’d seen and done in Afghanistan, but those who’d had the really tough experiences, like Jess, tended to keep themselves to themselves.
She went through the days in a haze, as if seeing everything through a gauze curtain. She steeled herself to make an appointment with her officer in command and told him she was applying for early release. She had promised Nate. They would live a civilian life – what he called a ‘normal life’ – together.
Her boss set up a further meeting with his boss, the commanding officer, and she filled in a dozen different forms to set everything in motion. The CO tried to persuade her to stay, of course, but could see that she was quite determined and simply ended the conversation with the usual pat phrases about how sorely she would be missed. Chances were, she’d only have to serve three further months after the POTL before starting her seven months ‘resettlement leave’. She could be in her new job at the Ambulance Trust as early as April next year.
Four days later was Remembrance Sunday, where they were to represent the regiment at the annual service held at the town’s War Memorial. For Jess, it was a welcome opportunity to honour James and now Jock, Baz and Millsie. She’d been every year since she’d turned fifteen, first as St John volunteer and later as a rookie soldier. The crowds of people gathered to remember the dead, the proud, stoical faces of the veterans with their medals weighing down fragile frames, the stirring sounds of military bands, the solemn hymns, the two minute silence and the pathos of the bugle sounding the Last Post never failed to move her.
It was miserable and overcast that day, with a spiteful wind and short vicious showers lashing them as they marched down the wide high street, with its handsome Victorian buildings disguised behind tacky shop fronts. This weather was almost enough to make you long for the heat of Kandahar, Jess thought, standing to attention in her combat uniform, perhaps for the last time. The day after tomorrow, she would make her way to Suffolk to see her parents for a few days by the sea before heading back to London for a long weekend with Nate. She found her mouth watering as she thought about the meal her mother had promised to prepare for dinner – roast lamb with all the trimmings.
On their last night at Camp Bastion she’d been sitting side by side on the ground outside her tent with her friend Siobhán, after a long day of packing and debriefings, having a final cigarette before turning in. ‘Vorny’ was a tough Catholic girl from Belfast so different from Jess in so many ways that they’d never have become friends in civilian life. But the two had worked alongside each other during some really horrific moments, and become so close that she felt like a sister.
Their conversation had turned idly to the meals they’d missed on tour. ‘Gotta be an Ulster Fry,’ Vorny said. ‘With the proper soda bread and black pudding. What about you?’
‘Roast lamb, roast potatoes, two veggies and gravy with red currant jelly.’
‘Not even a proper fry-up is gonna make up for missing you lot, though,’ Vorny said. ‘And the lads.’
‘Me too,’ Jess had replied, keeping her eyes to the ground. If she looked at Siobhán she might start to cry. ‘Tough one, that.’
They’d both gone quiet, then Jess lit up another cigarette. ‘We’ve had some good times though, eh?’
‘What are you most proud of?’ Vorny asked.
‘Finding that bleed under Gav’s armour,’ Jess said. ‘I was so scared he was going to die.’
‘But you saved his life, didn’t you? Bloody good call that was.’
Gavin had been moaning about the minor foot injury he’d sustained, and they’d been busy attending to other more serious casualties when Jess noticed that the kid had stopped complaining and begun to go pale. She knew immediately that something else was wrong, something they’d missed. Checking him out, she discovered that a bullet had entered just beside his armpit, in the crack between the plates of Osprey body armour, and was probably causing all kinds of unseen havoc in his chest.
‘Sucking chest wound, possible internal bleeding,’ she’d yelled at once, applying a chest seal to the hole before checking his back for an exit wound. ‘Cat A, he needs to be out of here urgently.’
Only later, when she heard that Gavin had emerged safely from surgery with no anticipated long-term effects, did she realise that she had saved her soldier and fulfilled her promise to James. It made her feel wobbly all over again, just thinking about it.
‘What about you?’ she asked.
‘The time we nearly died in that field, that was probably my worst moment,’ Vorny said.
‘Christ, me too. That was a bad one.’
They’d been caught in ferocious cross-fire trying to get a couple of casualties to the helicopter and the pilot had pulled away at the last moment, realising that it was too dangerous to land. The lads carrying the stretchers had managed to get down into a ditch, but Vorny and she, lugging the men’s heavy kit, had fallen behind. When the crackle of firing started, all they could do was drop to the ground, face down, below the level of the meagre, patchy crop, and pray they couldn’t be seen.
‘I thought we were going to die.’
The firing seemed to go on for hours, but was probably only about ten minutes. They were completely pinned down with their faces in the dust, unable to make any move or noise for fear of attracting Taliban fire. All those gunmen had to do was tilt their barrels fractionally, raking the field with bullets, and it would have been all over.
At that moment, Jess felt quite sure she would never get out of that field alive and in her head began apologising to Nate, her mum and dad, and Jonathan for being so wilful as to insist on this insane venture. She remembered the letter she’d written, the one they would receive if she died: ‘Forgive me. It’s something I just have to do …’ Her chest felt as though she was being sat on by an elephant. Then she realised she was hyperventilating, and knew that she had to concentrate on something to stop herself panicking and passing out.
And then … oh God, then … she’d lifted her eyes and seen the poppy.
Most of the crop was dried out and dull brown, but right in front of her nose was a late bloom, a green stem topped by a single red flower, and she fixed her eyes on it, like a totem. She noticed how the papery crimson petals were stained dark, like dried blood, where they joined the stem, how at its centre the delicate white stamens fluttered on their stalks. The seed head itself, the part of the plant that held the white liquid harvest which had so much to answer for, the drug that drove this war, was beguilingly beautiful, with an intricately symmetrical star pattern on the top and elegant vertical lines down its bowl-shaped sides.
The crackle of fire started again, interspersed with terrifying booms of exploding grenades. A volley whistled a few inches above them and she’d dropped her head to the ground, closing her eyes and praying fervently to a God she had never really believed in. When the firing stopped, she reopened her eyes and looked for the poppy.
It had gone.
For a moment she thought that she must have moved, but then her eyes caught the green stem, still in front of her, trembling from the assault. It was then she realised that the flower – just beside where her own head had been a few seconds before – had been blown off by a bullet and shattered into a thousand fragments.
She could hear a faint keening sound, and thought at first that Vorny must have been hit. It was only when the other girl reached across the dirt, shoving a hand into her face to shut her up, that Jess realised it was her own voice. Her mind had gone almost completely blank with fear and she seemed to be losing control of her body. She could feel her heart skittering under her ribs, her legs and arms trembling, her bowels churning dangerously. Christ, the last thing she needed was to shit herself out here.
Slowly, with desperate caution, to avoid disturbing any plant stems or rustling any dead leaves, she reached out her arm. They found each other’s hands and squeezed tight, like clinging to a life raft, and this was enough to help her hold it together until the firing and explosions stopped, almost as suddenly as they had begun. The Taliban fighters could slip away like smoke, only to regroup and reappear again where they were least expected. These surprise tactics, along with their paradise-blinded perseverance and a constant resupply of willing martyrs, were surprisingly effective against even the heavy arms of the allied forces.
The rescue helicopter – the MERT – returned and landed this time, the casualties were airlifted away for treatment, and the rest of the troop dragged themselves back to the compound. At first everyone was silent in their own thoughts, taking drinks, lighting on cigarettes; and then the backchat began, as they tried to make sense of what had just happened and reassure each other about Scotty and the other casualties: ‘The lengths some will go for a jammy ticket home, the bastards.’ But beyond the banter, everyone knew it had been a very close call.
That evening Jess tried to eat and drink but had no appetite, she felt sick and shivery as if going down with the flu. Sleep was impossible – the video loop of those moments in the field replaying over and over in her head until the compound lightened into grey dawn. She told no-one about the poppy, not even Siobhán. She’d locked the memory away ever since.
And now … she glanced down at the bright red plastic flower on her lapel, glittering with raindrops. Remembering the terror of that day, all over again, made her feel dangerously sick and lightheaded. Forcing herself to take deep breaths – just as she had in that field – she fixed her eyes ahead, towards the ranks of veterans, councillors, scout leaders, army reps, all waiting reverently in the rain, some holding wreaths ready to lay at the memorial. Those wreaths made of hundreds of red poppies with their black centres, just like the poppy in that field. The one that got the bullet instead of her.
Almost without warning, her stomach turned inside out and she was suddenly, violently sick onto the ground in front of her boots. No-one in the ranks around her turned a head or put out a comforting hand, all standing to attention with their eyes forward. These sorts of things – vomiting, passing out – happened on parade more often than anyone would admit: all in a normal day’s work for the Army. They’d all been drilled how not to react, how to resist the normal human impulse to help someone in need.
Jess straightened her back, wiped her mouth with her hand and swallowed the disgusting taste of bile as best she could. She stood to attention, her face burning with humiliation, eyes swimming with tears, as the bugler flawlessly sounded the long, mournful notes of The Last Post.
Chapter Two (#u1b060469-86bc-5910-b283-ab87400613d0)
‘It’s good, this Pinot. Another bottle?’
They were the last customers left in their favourite Sicilian restaurant, just round the corner from Nate’s flat. The chef had joined the waiters for a game of cards at a distant table in the corner. This was supposed to have been a romantic evening to celebrate Valentine’s Day, although the date itself earlier in the week had already been marked with declarations of love on the phone, a card for Nate, a large bunch of roses for Jess.
‘Not for me thanks, work tomorrow. Time we were getting back,’ he said.
‘You’re such a wuss.’ She checked her phone. ‘It’s not yet eleven. I’ve got work tomorrow too. All I want is one more drink, is that okay?’
He held her gaze, trying to make her back down.
‘And don’t say “don’t you think you’ve had enough?”, like you always do,’ she taunted, waving the empty bottle in the direction of the waiters. Nate shook his head with disapproval and she pounced, feeling the familiar hot surge of anger rising up the back of her head.
‘Can we just drop the morality police act? Let me be myself, for once. I’ve spent the past two years leaping to attention the moment anyone says jump, and I’m enjoying being irresponsible and silly. I’m only twenty-six, for God’s sake.’
The waiter brought the bottle and she took it from him, defiantly pouring herself a glass and sloshing some on the tablecloth.
‘Cheers,’ she said, holding it up in front of Nate’s stony face. He sat back in the chair and closed his eyes, clenching and unclenching his fists helplessly beneath the tablecloth. Whatever he said now would prompt a stand up row, and he hated conflict.
The ‘self medication’, as she liked to call it, had started around Christmas when the nightmares began to get out of control, so bad that she’d become afraid of sleeping. Curiously, the poppy field barely figured in her dreams. They were almost always a variation on the same scenario: being confronted with the raw flesh of a dismembered limb. Sometimes the limb was unattached and she found herself carrying it, trying to run on leaden legs as she searched desperately for its owner. Other times it was attached to a body and she might wake to find that she was holding her hands over her ears to block out the terrifying, visceral howls of a man in extreme agony. The worst times were when she knew the victim: it could be her brother, or Nate, or another male friend. Curiously, she never dreamed about James, or the real-life victims she had treated: Gav, Scotty, Dave … there had been so many.
Tourniquets usually featured, stretching and breaking like cooked spaghetti when tightened, the clips or Velcro refusing to stay fixed; also dressings, which might take flight and hover beyond her reach or, absurdly, turn out to be white bread instead.
But each variation had a constant theme: panic, the sort of extreme panic which freezes your brain and threatens to stop your heart. She would wake fighting for breath in a tangle of sheets damp with sweat, and sometimes weeping because she had failed to save the injured man.
She tried over-the-counter sleeping pills but, although they helped her get to sleep, they had little effect in preventing the nightmares. The only thing which seemed to work was booze – whisky or vodka seemed to work best, but almost any alcohol would do. She took to taking a couple of shots before cleaning her teeth each bedtime.
The anger thing started on the last day of their holiday.
They’d had such a joyful, exhilarating week. Both were absolute beginners but had, in their different ways, quickly mastered the art of skiing. Although never elegant, Nate’s muscle-power helped him stay upright even on the toughest terrains. She, with her lower centre of gravity and fine-honed fitness, quickly mastered the art of carving a stylish turn. Her graceful stance regularly earned their otherwise dour instructor’s weather-beaten smile, and his call of ‘Ottimo, Jessica! Bellissimo!’ had become a catch-phrase between them, even away from the slopes.
Elated by their success, the physical exertion, the breathtakingly beautiful mountains and the cold, bright air, they found themselves drinking a bottle of wine at lunchtime, meeting up with fellow chalet guests for several glasses of glühwein at teatime, imbibing more wine with dinner and at least one or two brandies as a nightcap. Jess slept better than she had in months – a whole week without a single nightmare.
Taking a midnight walk on the final evening, arm in arm, the snow crunching beneath their feet and clouds of warm breath mingling in the freezing air, Nate had stopped in his tracks and grabbed both of her hands.
‘When you get out of the Army, shall we move in together?’
‘Oh my God, Nate. Do you really mean it?’
‘Of course I bloody mean it. Hurry up and say yes before we freeze to death.’
‘Then of course I will, you idiot.’ She jumped into his arms and knocked them both to the ground, finding herself flooded so powerfully with joy that she almost forgot to breathe. How lucky she was to be alive, so happy, with the man she loved and all their lives in front of her.
But even as they lay there, flat on their backs in the soft snow at the side of the track, looking up at the stars, the memories intruded into her consciousness. She was reminded of the times she and Vorny would lie in the dust of the compound looking up at those same ribbons of brilliance in the blackness of the desert night sky, and how the lads used to tease them for it. Where were they all tonight, those boys, how were they adjusting to life at home? She hoped they were happy, too.
And then, out of the blue, she was hit by a wave of anger about James and the others, for the fact that she would never see them again, that they would never experience the joy of lying in the snow on a starry night with the person they loved. The anger quickly cooled into sorrow, and she began to weep silently, only this time the tears were from profound, irretrievable loss.
Where did these crazy, over-the-top emotions come from? She’d always prided herself on being level-headed, not prone to over-dramatics. These days her reactions seemed to be all over the place. It must just be the ‘adjustment’ they all talked about, she said to herself, it would pass, just as soon as she got back to work. She wiped away her tears, leaned over Nate and kissed him. ‘I love you,’ she whispered. ‘More than you will ever know.’
The following day, for no reason she could fathom other than she had a hangover and their lovely holiday was over, she found herself becoming irritated by tiny, silly things: the way he insisted on tying a red ribbon on the handle of his suitcase so that he could recognise it on the luggage carousel, the way he opened every drawer and cupboard in their room to make sure nothing was left behind, the way he checked the hotel bill carefully, item by item.
Why should such small and perfectly reasonable acts annoy her so much? She simply couldn’t understand it but, each time, she felt the anger prickling the back of her head, the nauseous churning of her stomach. She cursed herself for being so impatient – he was only taking care of her, after all.
‘You okay? You’re a bit quiet this morning,’ he said, on the bus to the airport.
‘Oh I don’t know. I feel a bit rough, but it’s probably more the thought of having to go back to work,’ she said.
‘I know what you mean. Year Nine first thing on Monday,’ he said. ‘At least you’ve only got three months to go, haven’t you? Light duties and all?’
She grimaced. The prospect of ‘light duties’ made her feel even more irritable. She would be stuck in barracks, away from Nate all week staffing a daily clinic for malingering squaddies with sore throats and ingrowing toenails, being on the rota for out-of-hours emergency call-outs, serving time until her early release came up. Now they knew she was on the way out, there’d be no more advanced training courses, no going out on exercise, no requirement to keep fit.
She’d just have to grin and bear it. A job with the London ambulance service was waiting for her after Easter, she would move in with Nate and they could start to plan their future together. It’s all good, she told herself, firmly. Stop being such a misery.
But grinning and bearing it did not come easy.
The clinic sessions at the barracks were as dull and dispiriting as she’d feared. Time dragged more slowly than ever as she examined a succession of soldiers’ smelly feet with their blisters, veruccas, and minor sprains or, for light relief perhaps, a touch of man flu, earache or tonsillitis. The highlight of her first week was being called out late one night to the Military Police cells for a soldier covered in blood and so drunk he could barely speak. He had a six centimetre gash from one ear to the back of his neck, obviously from falling backwards onto something hard.
The last time she’d seen this much blood was after a Taliban RPG had landed in the compound, knocking her out and sending shrapnel flying everywhere. She’d come round to a scene of carnage, lots of head wounds and blood everywhere because the soldiers had been at rest and not wearing helmets or body armour. Ignoring her own dizziness, she’d scrambled to her feet and set to work. When she and Vorny had finished checking everyone over they discovered that, by some miracle, most of the injuries were shallow cuts which needed only simple stitching. Only a couple of lads were more seriously hurt and needed evacuation, and they later heard back that both of them had survived and weren’t likely to suffer any long term after-effects. ‘Saved their bloody lives, those two lassies of yours,’ the surgeon told her CO later.
She checked the drunken squaddie over, swabbed him down, shaved an unnecessarily wide strip of hair on either side of the wound, stitched him up and told them to wake him every half hour to check for concussion, with a bucket of cold water if necessary. That’ll teach him, she thought to herself.
One day she diagnosed a case of ‘housemaid’s knee’. The spotty lad gazed at her in confusion: ‘I ain’t been doin’ no housework.’
‘It’s an inflammation of the tissues in front of the kneecap. You just need to take it easy for a couple of weeks and it’ll sort itself out.’
‘Can’t tell me sergeant I’ve got housemaid’s knee,’ he muttered. ‘Never bloody live it down.’
She would normally have found this funny, but for some reason his pathetic embarrassment irritated the hell out of her. She took a deep breath, wrote ‘Prepatellar Bursitis’ on a note and passed it to him. ‘Will that do?’
He tried to pronounce the Latin and gave up.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said, with a brazen smile. ‘Fancy a drink sometime?’
‘Get lost, you cheeky bastard,’ she said, showing him the door.
‘I just can’t cope with the pettiness of it all,’ she shouted to her mother as they struggled along the shingle beach in the face of a bitter cold wind whistling off the North Sea. She’d been given a few mid-week days off and, to be honest, was pleased to have her parents to herself. ‘Their stupid little complaints. I feel like slapping them, telling them to man up.’
Her mother had suggested the walk after she’d come downstairs at three in the morning to find Jess watching the shopping channel with a large glass of her father’s whisky on the table in front of her.
‘What’s up, love?’ she’d asked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Jess noticed for the first time that her mother’s hair, the gingery side of auburn like her own, was turning grey.
‘Can’t sleep. It’s just too quiet here,’ she replied, trying to make light of it. ‘What are you doing up, anyway?’
‘Saw the light on when I went for a pee.’
Jess had been looking forward to a few days by the seaside, where she could take long walks in the sea air and hopefully knock herself out with physical tiredness, but it hadn’t worked like that. For the second night running she had lain awake for hours before giving up and going downstairs to raid her father’s drinks cabinet.
‘You shouldn’t drink so much of that stuff,’ Susan had said, looking pointedly at the glass.
‘Don’t worry,’ Jess said. ‘I’ll buy Dad another bottle. Go back to bed. I’ll be fine.’
Later that morning, out on the beach, she found herself almost enjoying the distraction of physical discomfort as the wind slashed at their faces.
‘Tell me about this drinking,’ her mother had started.
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ Jess said. Admitting the nightmares to her mother would only make her more anxious – better to gloss over it. ‘Just fed up with work. It’s so boring. I can’t wait to get out.’
‘You haven’t got long to go now, have you?’
‘Four weeks, that’s all. I can deal with it. Thanks for being so understanding, Mum.’
But that evening she lost it again. Her father had insisted on doing a barbecue in spite of the fact that it was still only February, and bitterly cold. The wind had dropped, he said, and besides the barbecue was under cover of the patio awning. He would be perfectly dry, and once everything was cooked they could eat inside. Except that it began to bucket with rain, and while Jess tried to persuade him to abandon the idea, Susan had been placatory.
‘He does it all the time, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘He enjoys it, and the food tastes so much better on the barbecue. You’ll never dissuade him, so you might as well give up trying.’
‘But it’s pouring, Mum. He’ll get soaked, and so will the food.’ She felt her chest tightening, the tell-tale heat tingling at the back of her neck, and tried to take deep breaths, but it came out anyway. ‘He could perfectly well come inside to cook, and we could have a lovely meal but he’s just determined to spoil our evening with his pig-headed insistence. It’s so fucking stupid,’ she shouted.
‘Watch your language, young woman,’ Mike called through the patio door.
She exploded then, shouting, ‘I can’t bear to watch. I’m going out.’
She’d stomped off to the only pub in the village, hoping there would be no-one who recognised her or engaged her in conversation. Fortunately the place was deserted, so she sat by the fire and read a dog-eared red-top newspaper, sickened by the photos of semi-naked women on what seemed like every other page, while downing three double whiskies in quick succession. She paid the pub premium for a bottle to replace her father’s Johnnie Walker and hid it inside her coat as she headed home.
Her parents were watching a nature documentary on television.
