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