There were two things that were annoying him. The first was the cold. He was cold. When they’d left, it had been over 40C. Even the thin breathable t-shirt he was wearing, had seemed excessive. Now that the sun had set and the sweat had dried, he was shivering. The cloudless skies soaked up the sun’s rays as fast and aggressively as they had deposited them; the hard sun-baked earth remained hard and sun-baked beneath his buttocks, as he sat in a damp patch, straining his eyes.

His feet were no better; socks rubbed against his feet as the exertions of the day’s movements and the sweat of imprisoned feet conspired to produce blisters and fungal infections in the most awkward and chafing of places. He hoped for a chance to wring them out, or maybe even put on a dry pair, before moving on, but it was a vain hope and he knew it.

He looked forward, left, then right methodically and then swatted at an enquiring mosquito. The mosquitoes didn’t help either, not as fast or aggressive as those back home, whose persistence was only matched by the fascinating array of diseases they transmitted and the number of places they could achieve penetration. Flying in at unorthodox angles seeking blood from carelessly exposed flesh and having the gumption to announce their presence as they passed your ears, taunting you with their ethereal hiss.

Mosquitoes here buzzed the buzz, but were sluggish. You could catch them with a swift open palmed sweep. Lazy or just jaded with the heat? It reminded him of a story of why the mosquito buzzes. Apparently in a fit of over enthusiastic romantic ambition, the mosquito proposed to the ear. In between gales of scornful laughter, the ear dismissed the mosquito’s attentions. “You! With your skinny body and spindly legs, you’re practically a corpse already. How much longer do you think you will live?” The mosquito flew off hurt, thus every time he passed an ear, he buzzed as if to say, “See, I am still alive.”

He looked again, there was a swaying in the distance, as if the entire horizon was performing a silent Mexican wave to its own beat. He shivered again and shifted, as his damp scrunched up underwear buried itself deeper into the unfortunate areas it had decided to lodge itself.

There was a sound of a thousand hammers beating a thousand metal plates about 500m to the right. A few seconds later there was an unholy howling from somewhere overhead.

That was the other thing that was annoying him. They were meant to have come from the left, straight across the bridge and in front of this compound, channelled neatly between the stream and the high compound walls. Instead they’d come from the right, using the cornfields as cover. “Well done them” so far, except that the platoon to the right had the field covered and was currently taking full advantage of this, the cannon from the attack aircraft, with its all seeing infra red night vision, had obviously just taken care of those who had escaped the rifle and machine gun fire that had erupted 10 minutes ago. Initially there had been the woosh of rocket propelled grenades, but even this had died down long before air support had rather unsportingly intervened to determine the foregone outcome.
It was rather irritating to lie here for 6 hours freezing and not even engage; maybe they’d pull back and go left through his killing zone. Silence reigned now from the right. Poor fire discipline, maybe, with everyone reloading at the same time? Or maybe good fire discipline, with everyone holding fire until an obvious target presented itself. The shouts of the corporals checking equipment and ammunition carried in the wind, the need for silence negated by the 10 minute turkey shoot. The radio full of reports from ground to ground, ground to air, air to ground and air to air. He couldn’t move yet, just passed quiet whispers down to let the men who were stiff and freezing in their ambush positions know the progress of the engagement. The order came to extract.

This was the unfortunate part of things. It was great in the compound waiting for them to walk into the precise firing lanes and precalculated angles of fire on the narrow track by the stream. In the head high corn, a single one of them could wreak havoc, zipping backwards and forward with nothing, but his rifle and spare ammunition against the body armoured, kevlared men of his platoon. The speed and agility of youth reduced to a sprinting shuffle by 40 kilos of armour plating and equipment.

The corn still swayed, shushing mockingly as the remnants of the last harvest crunched loudly underfoot, as he manoeuvred each of his sections back, each dried poppy stalk sounding like a pistol shot with the Platoon Sergeant’s whispered threats to the next man who stepped on one passing futilely down the line, as the men clumsily moved forward.

Each section leapfrogged the other until they got out of the valley and began the climb to base, leaving behind them broken stalks and broken bodies. A mortar bombardment whistled overhead hoping to catch anyone moving around the ambush site. Only two types of people were out on dark moonless nights in the valleys, and neither type countenanced leaving their dead or wounded behind. Both types knew it and cheerfully exploited it.

“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” intoned the boy in front of him; a slight church going boy, who was bullied all the way through school, and still shrunk from the boys who picked on him when he went home. Yet he always volunteered to push forwards when the shadow of death loomed darker and sent his emissaries whipping by like harassed wasps.

They moved out again just after dawn escorting a convoy. In between report writing, guarding, cleaning kit and weapons, sleeping had come a poor third.

The mountains and the lush valley bordering the river gave way to endless deserts, until new valleys and canyons of sun-baked adobe walls of compounds and dirt roads appeared. The front vehicle was at least 100m ahead of them bristling with weaponry, the gentle beep and hum of radios and jammers in the back of his vehicle reminding him of the necessity of staying close, but not too close, as they moved through the strident channels.

The funny thing about an explosion is that when it is some distance away, you see it first before you hear it, so it’s like an unreal eruption of dust, fire and smoke. Then the noise follows and wakes you out of your delighted reverie. Quite bad form to blow up the lead vehicle though. It definitely stops the convoy, but everybody knew destroying an obvious command vehicle festooned with aerials would have stopped the convoy and paralysed the platoon. Thinking back to his days as an instructor that would have been a C grade for the unfortunate cadet who had executed it.

The lead vehicle was performing a rather bad tempered somersault, the top gunner not really appreciating the awkward symmetry of it, turning and turning as he was on a widening gyre, landing a few metres away from where the vehicle eventually landed on its roof, the entire front a mangle of steel and iron bars

The smoke was forming a neat lingering plume now, hanging and rising slowly, as if made lazy by the oppressive heat or scared to leave the confines and comfort of high adobe walls of the village

He finally realised his mouth was giving orders, as his eyes sucked in the scene, pulling the rest of the vehicles back, ordering the men to dismount and check the area for other devices, before allowing the medic to go forward and assess the casualties. He pushed more men forward of the destroyed vehicle, carefully checking for more devices and then sent back a detailed report to base requesting a helicopter to pick up the casualties. He looked at the map for a suitable landing site; there was a field about 100m to the rear of the convoy which was perfect. Maybe too perfect.

He looked again. The road was actually wide enough, just ahead of the destroyed vehicle, to accommodate a helicopter. He pushed more men forward to check, and as they reported back that it was clear, he checked on the casualties. The top gunner was alive and screaming, the vehicle commander had had both legs chopped off by a flying piece of shrapnel, which had continued its journey upwards through the driver’s head.

He looked at his men, looked at the crater and looked at where the charred fragments of the wire led off to. “The helicopter’s only 5 minutes away,” he reassured the injured men, as he helped carry them into the shade of the vehicles and gave them water. The screams of the top gunner began to grate. He walked round to check the men were still in position and then heard the helicopters before they made radio contact. He directed the escorting attack helicopters to fly low fast and aggressively around the village, hopefully deterring any watching enemy.

The medevac helicopter fit in the road perfectly; the casualties were loaded on, and they were off within 3 minutes of touching the ground. He wondered whether the slight feeling of pride at the slick professionalism of his control of the incident was something to be ashamed of.

The funny thing about an explosion is that when it’s close by, you feel it, before you hear it or see it. The pressure buffets you for a micro second, before the fiery wave follows through the path of least resistance tearing limbs away from the Kevlar protected central body mass. As he lay in the evening cool, listening to the NCOs’ screaming orders and pulling the rest of the men and vehicles back, before coming forward to grab the spare radio and call for help, the first lazy mosquitoes had woken up, buzzing past his ear as if to say, “See, I am still alive.”