The FOB was just a big square fort really, a bit like the US Cavalry outposts in the westerns I used to watch on Sunday afternoons. Only, instead of wood, they were made of Hescos. Hescos are ma.s.sive, drum-shaped sandbags with a wire frame and they stood as tall as me. The engineers filled them with sand and stacked them up to make the FOB's perimeter walls, then they made buildings with them for protection against IDFs (indirect fire, rocket or mortar attacks). We didn't actually sleep in the Hes...o...b..ildings. We slept in tents surrounding them. We'd be too hot otherwise.

There was no air-conditioning and barely any plugs either. We used Solar Power Monkeys to keep our iPods and laptops charged up. It wasn't like there was a shortage of sun, if you know what I mean. I hadn't seen a single cloud since I'd been here. We were in the middle of the desert with nothing around us for miles. It was all generators, water wells and powdered milk. But you know what? It was great, I loved it. I even got thirty minutes of free phone calls home every week.

I pushed through the tent flap and into the cookhouse. Big mistake. About twenty lads all stopped chatting, farting and watching the telly, ready to take the p.i.s.s out of me. There was a general chorus of 'Wey hey!' Then all the funnies started.

'It's the man with two a.r.s.eholes!' shouted Si with a big fat grin on his face.

'Not good, mate,' jeered Flash as he looked up from his magazine. 'Women ain't going to be impressed with that war wound.'

'Guinness Book of Records for you, mate,' shouted Jonesy without even looking away from the television. He was a lad from another platoon and he was a bit strange. No one understood his so-called joke, but then again we never understood what he was on about. for you, mate,' shouted Jonesy without even looking away from the television. He was a lad from another platoon and he was a bit strange. No one understood his so-called joke, but then again we never understood what he was on about.

I felt the colour rise in my face as the p.i.s.s-take continued. 'Nah, don't! Leave it out.'

Toki banged his chipped Best Dad in the World mug down on the bench and grinned up at me. 'Too late, mate. She was straight on the radio.'

Si, with half a jam sandwich stuck in his hand, plonked himself down on the bench beside Toki. 'Mate, s'pose you're going to be using twice as much bog paper now.' He obviously thought it was funny as he burst into a fit of hysterics.

I sat down opposite them both and resigned myself to hours of ritual torment. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got any more?'

'Woah! Quiet, everyone.' Flash leapt over to the TV and turned the sound up. A blonde news presenter in a pink dress was going on about a famous singer being admitted to hospital for a suspected drug overdose. Apparently she had threatened to take legal action against some nightclub owner because his nightclub staff had let her get so drunk that she couldn't control her habit. A blonde news presenter in a pink dress was going on about a famous singer being admitted to hospital for a suspected drug overdose. Apparently she had threatened to take legal action against some nightclub owner because his nightclub staff had let her get so drunk that she couldn't control her habit.

The news presenter than moved onto her second item of the day: 'Last night, another soldier was killed in southern Afghanistan. The latest British casualty died from wounds sustained during a clash with the Taliban ...' After this very brief mention, the presenter went on to a story about their news team finding a talking dog in Southampton.

Si was not impressed. He strode up to the TV set, still munching on his sandwich, and turned the sound down. Spit and breadcrumbs fired out of his mouth as he shouted at the TV screen. 'That it? John's in bits and that's all he's worth? Shoved between a slapper and a dog? Don't they get what's going on out here!'

Flash looked unsurprised by the report or Si's outburst. 'Course not, mate. Come on, calm down and finish your sandwich.'

Si wasn't interested in finishing anything other than his rant. 'What do they think's happening? Patting kids on the head and giving out sweets? That all he's worth? Ten poxy seconds?'

Toki remained as calm as ever. 'What government would want people to know what's going on out here anyway?'

Si was about to respond with another furious outburst when Flash b.u.t.ted in. 'They want them to see the sweets and the smiling Afghans. They don't want them to see us burying a lad's foot when we find it two days after his body has been sent back home. Not good PR, mate. I can understand that.'

Toki nodded at Flash. 'That's right. You've just got to get used to it, lads. Same as Basra. No one understands because they don't really know.'

'They don't want them to know,' added Flash as he pulled Si back to the table in front of his mug and the second half of his sandwich.

They both had a point. 'Yeah, MacKenzie got that about right this morning.' It was beginning to feel like MacKenzie was on the Star Ship Enterprise Star Ship Enterprise or something, because suddenly he materialized behind me. or something, because suddenly he materialized behind me.

'That's right, Briggsy, I always do.' He bent down and poked me in the chest. 'That's why it's Sergeant MacKenzie to you.'

'Yes, Sergeant,' I mumbled.

It seemed even Sergeant MacKenzie couldn't resist taking the p.i.s.s: 'So, seeing as you are always talking out of your a.r.s.e, are we all going to hear twice as much s.h.i.t from you now?' He tipped back his head and roared with laughter at that one, and of course everyone else joined in.

I braced myself for more banter, but luckily MacKenzie had more important things on his mind. 'Shut up, everyone, and listen in. Warning Order. We are going back into the zone to finish the job. Orders at eighteen hundred, and no move before twenty hundred. All fatigue parties to have their jobs done before midday scoff so we have the afternoon to get prepped up. Let's go!'

'Sergeant ...' I mumbled again. It was now or never. I didn't get a chance to get my sentence out, though. He already knew what I was going to say.

'No, Briggsy. Get yourself fit, then we'll get you back on the ground. Don't worry, we've still got another three months to go yet, mate. Now, get out there and burn those t.u.r.d drums. We don't want yesterday's scoff floating about in them for too long, do we? Cookie might want to recycle.'

Chapter Seven

I hobbled over to the toilet block where Si and Flash were ready and waiting, armed with a couple of jerry cans of fuel. The bogs were pretty basic just four fifty-gallon oil drums that had been cut in half for the Army to squat over. And once they were full of the FOB's s.h.i.t and p.i.s.s, it was our job to get rid of it all.

I lifted the cap off the jerry can I was holding and poured the fuel into the first drum. Flash did the same with the second.

Si watched us both as he giggled away to himself. 'You see the faces of those Yanks in here last week? When they saw we had oil drums to dump in, they couldn't believe it. Bet they get proper portaloos with, like, soft toilet paper and little Andrex puppies running around.'

He was probably right, but then that meant they weren't getting extra pay to burn them out like we were. Thirty-five quid extra a week we got for volunteering for this job. Good stuff! I'd already managed to save up two and a half grand since joining the army, and the extra money was going to add to my savings.

My big plan was to buy a brand-new, black metallic Ford Focus ST. It was going to have the lot. Shiny badge on the front, eighteen-inch alloys, tinted windows, LEDs and the biggest woofer banging it out that Peckham had ever heard. I couldn't wait!

I wasn't the only one saving. Si was doing the same, although his purchase wasn't half as exciting as mine. Good. It was my chance to take the p.i.s.s out of him for once. But I had to set him up for it first.

'Si, what colour's your new sofa gonna be?' I asked.

He beamed with pride. 'Red leather from DFS. Love it.' Si made it sound like he was buying a red BMW.

Flash slapped me around the back of the head.

'That's what happens when you get married. You sign up to a new boss; IKEA.' Flash spoke with the voice of someone who had been at it for years. 'Ain't that right, Si?' He was busy laughing as I rubbed the back of my nut.

'Yep. And I've got tons of kit to get. Sofa, leather chairs, and I wanna get a proper cot for the baby.'

I couldn't let that one go. I was in for the kill. 'See! Only nineteen and under the thumb already. What a sucker.'

Si leapt to defend himself as Flash gave me another slapping. 'Mate, I had to get married before coming out here, didn't I? Jakob's only six months old. What's gonna happen if I get zapped and we ain't married? Anna will go back to Poland and the boy won't even have my name. I had my mum's name because she never married my dad and that ain't happening this time.'

He had a point, so I decided to give up on the p.i.s.s-take. Besides, Flash's slaps were getting harder every time. I signalled to the other two to stand back, then I took a box of matches out of my pocket. I struck one and threw it into the first stinking drum and we legged it fast. There was a big boom, then a whoosh as the flames roared into life and the t.u.r.ds began to burn.

Flash walked over to the second drum and took out his box of matches. 'You still got her picture inside your helmet, Si?'

'Yeah. And the boy's too.'

Flash chucked his match in and ran back to join us. We were still close enough to the heat and the stench of the burning drums for me to feel sick rise in my throat, but I swallowed it down. 'What you saving for, Flash?'

'Not saving, mate, surviving. I keep telling you lads. There's a recession on out there. I'm here to help out my boys. Joe's getting married next year and Sam's got the world's biggest student loan. I'm definitely going regular after this. Get the kids sorted and get me and me missus a nice married quarter. Happy days.' It sounded like a good plan to me and I nodded my head in approval.

'You know what?' Flash gave a big grin. 'I don't mind being the oldest Rifleman on the planet and you lads giving me a hard time. It's ten times better than doing nothing back home, having to beg for money from the social. Getting made redundant has done me a favour.'

He jutted out his chin as if a heli was coming in to land on it. 'I like it here.'

I thought I'd had it bad being binned from the kebab shop in Peckham after only a week. They'd sacked me because I couldn't work the till properly. That's why I joined the army. Like Flash, I thought that's what you did when no one else wanted you. Mind you, it was beginning to sound like maybe I had it better than him.

'I like being here too.' I smiled back at him. 'It feels like something special.'

Flash nodded back at me. Talking with Flash was like having a big brother, something I didn't have back home. It was just me and Mum.

'You know, Flash, we're here doing something that no one I know back home will ever do. Know what I mean.'

We were obviously getting a bit too tree-huggy for Si. 'Oi, Richard and Judy, yous finished or what? Let's get on with it, there's still two more drums to do. It's nearly scoff time.'

Chapter Eight

I was standing in the cookhouse queue, starving as usual. No point asking Cookie what was for midday scoff. It was always the same two choices. Have it or leave it. Great sense of humour, old Cookie.

Mind you, there was one thing we definitely had better than the Americans and that was the food. We got ration packs to eat just like them, but the difference was, we had cooks to cook them up for us when we were in the FOB. Cookie worked wonders with a bag of powered egg and a tin of stewed beef. We also got fresh flown in from time to time. Stuff like spuds, bacon and fresh fruit. On the other hand, we didn't get fridges like the Yanks did. Most of the time you'd be seriously up for murdering your granny for a can of cold c.o.ke.

Sergeant MacKenzie was hovering about like a vulture, shouting at each and every one of us to wash our hands before we ate. Brit soldiers must have the cleanest hands of all soldiers across the world. Vomiting and diarrhoea spread fast, and the whole company would go down if it wasn't controlled, so washing your hands was a really big deal.

Funny really, seeing as the rest of us was in rag order. Sweating so much our clothes stuck to our skin, and caked in dust like we'd gone ten rounds with a giant bottle of brown talc.u.m powder our hands were spotless though. We were made to wash them every chance we got, and always before eating or after having a dump. We got one shower a day for exactly three minutes. One minute soak, one minute soap, one minute rinse. But it was clean hands that mattered most.

The system seemed to be working so far. The company hadn't had an outbreak of the squirts and s.h.i.ts since the lads got out there. Rumour said that the sergeants had a bet on between them about whose platoon was going to get the squirts first, and MacKenzie was definitely not going to be the one to lose that.

I held out my plate and Cookie slopped a ladle of mince and a splat of spuds on it, one beside the other, followed by a bit of green pond life around the edge of the plate. One of the things I loved about the army was the queuing system because I got to go to the front. Us riflemen got fed first, then NCOs like MacKenzie, and officers got fed last. When it came to food and kit, the lads always came first. At least there was one advantage to being low-life.

I picked up a knife and fork from the cutlery bin at the end of the counter. Everything was made of plastic plates, cups, knives and forks so everything could be chucked away in bin liners after every meal. It was cleaner that way, and would definitely go towards helping MacKenzie win that bet.

Just like the toilet waste, all used plastic was burnt too. Greenpeace would do their nut if they saw the black smoke that came out of our FOB. Mind you, if they wanted to worry about plastic, there was a lot worse for them to worry about in Afghanistan. The plastic high explosives the Talis used to make IEDs (Improvized Explosive Devices) did a serious amount of damage. The battalion had had more lads killed by IEDs than they ever had killed through getting zapped.

Cookie offered me spotted d.i.c.k for afters, but I refused on the grounds that he said that to all the lads. He didn't bother to reply, just rolled his eyes skyward. He'd heard it all before, of course, but it was the law that you had to try and wind him up anyway, just for the fun of it.

I couldn't stop thinking about IEDs. Those things were just out there, buried in the ground, waiting for you to drive over them or step on them out in the field. Rumour also said that if you stepped on one, the last thing you'd hear would be a click as the connection was made between the electric charge and the detonator. I was more worried about IEDs than about getting zapped. I suppose it was because you had no control, no choice, you couldn't even fight back. It just happened or it didn't.

But it wasn't just Taliban IEDs that blew our soldiers up, it was the Russian mines too. They'd been buried in Afghanistan years ago, but they were still active. The Russian mines were called legacy mines, not that it mattered much to us who laid them or when. All that mattered to us was that there were thousands of them out there just a couple of inches under the ground and no one knew exactly where they were. Except, I suppose, some old Russian back in Moscow with the world's biggest map of Afghanistan stuck full of drawing pins.

Chapter Nine

I sc.r.a.ped my chair in next to Flash, who was using a spoon to get the mouthfuls in quicker. Si couldn't keep his eyes off the TV screen at the back of the room. Football repeats, of course, but he'd watch anything a hundred times over before even thinking about turning off the telly.

Flash stuffed a giant spoonful of meat into his mouth. 'Mmmm. Not bad. Not as good as me dad's mince, though. He makes the best.'

I picked up a fork and got stuck in too. 'Your dad cook, then?'

'Yeah. Better than me mum, even me missus. He does roast beef with big fat yorkshires every Sunday.'

Sounded good to me, but I couldn't really chip in with the Happy Childhood Memories game. 'Never saw my dad cook. Never saw him do anything really. He legged it before I started school.'

Flash always listened to what I had to say. 'Yeah? He was in the Falklands, wasn't he?' He barely got the words out before the spoon was loaded up and heading for his mouth again.

'Yeah. In the Guards.'

Si's eyes flicked away from the screen and he began pumping his arms up and down like he was marching. 'Oh the Guards ... left, right, left, right, left, right ...'

Flash lowered his spoon for a second and glared at Si before it was his turn to get a slap around the back of the head. 'Shut up, Si! d.i.c.khead.' Si grinned and went back to his TV viewing. 'Go on, Briggsy, your dad was in the Guards?'

'Yeah, but I don't really remember anything about him, except that he was always drunk. Well, that's what my mum says. He used to come back home from the pub, give her a good slapping, and then disappear for days on end. My mum reckons the day she did a runner with me was the best day of her life. I don't think so, though, she still gets upset about it.'

Flash finished his meat and turned to his mashed potatoes. 'Harsh, mate. Harsh.'

Si looked away from the screen towards me. He'd obviously been listening as well as watching and eating. 'Poor little Briggsy,' he said in a sing-song voice, but his eyes didn't turn back to the telly.

I took a forkful of mince. 'Nah, it was all right. Mum got a job in the biscuit factory and we moved to a different estate. I got my own bedroom and everything, know what I mean?'

Flash was spooning so fast he'd got a big blob of mash stuck on his chin. He rubbed at it with the back of his hand, but the potato only spread out even more. 'Did your mum help you with your reading then, what with you having dyslexia and all that?'

'Nah. She didn't really notice. She was out working too much. She sort of feels guilty now, like it's her fault I'm in the army. The schools weren't any help. I didn't even know I was dyslexic until I joined up. I thought I was just thick! Well, I am ...'

Flash started to rub his chin with two fingers in a more determined effort to get the spud off. 'You're not, mate.'

'I know, I know. Just a reading age of ten. Ain't good, though, is it?'

'How's the coursework going? Those educators squaring you away?'

'Yep. They've told me they're going to sort it. I've got loads of homework. Toki's still giving me a hand.'

'Good news. Listen, if you need any more help, give us a shout. Whatever you need.' Flash licked the mash off his fingers and was now moving on to the green stuff. Weird how he ate everything in separate portions, never mixing the different foods together.

'Thanks, but I'm doing all right. Know what? Joining up was the best thing I've ever done. Getting educated, being out here, doing the business.'

Someone scored a goal and the TV crowds roared. Si turned his attention back to the screen. He slapped his palm across his forehead, feeling the pain of the goal all over again, then he switched his focus back to us, his mates.

'If I hadn't joined up, I reckon I'd be in prison by now. That's where most of my old mates are. We were always getting into trouble. Just for stupid stuff, shoplifting, nicking cars, nothing serious. But then I started, like, getting p.i.s.sed off with lads who had new cars, motorbikes, stuff like that. So I started to kick 'em in instead of nicking 'em. Smashed people's shops up just because they had stuff and I didn't. So I ended up in a detention centre down near Portsmouth when I was sixteen. Soft in the head, or what? Joining up was a good move, know what I mean?'