Love after Loss

Chapter 42 - Blackbird

Ian

"Woah. Okay, I will tell you. But let's keep this calm okay." He said nothing, only waited. "Okay. Monday 3rd February 2014. Our mission was supposed to be peacekeeping duty in a village. It was a routine mission, our Farsi had improved and we were friendly with the locals. The weekend before, one of the locals had come to us in need of help. Her son was in trouble, and she gave us intel. We trusted her, all she wanted was her son to stay safe. Me and my partner Eddie 'Blackbird' Atkinson—"

"— that's SERGEANT for you." He corrected. This is what I was afraid of. My past.

"Of course, I apologise." At this point, all I could tell was the truth as everything came flooding back.

"Sergeant Blackbird and I knew the informant well, so with her intel we went to our commander. Thing is, we both aren't ordinary soldiers. We are, or at least were, SAS.

"He decided to send us both and a team of his choosing led by an American lieutenant also of his choosing to go investigate. So we went at 0300 hours to the village. Sayma, the lady, told us the rough location of where she thought her son was going during the day. We went there and found nothing. But then, our over watch warned of a 5-man squad of Taliban coming our way. He took down two whilst at the same time we quietly took down the rest. We captured 3, killed two. After some off-the-book persuasion techniques they led us to another village, but something didn't feel right.

"The lieutenant leading gave us all a shoot to kill order. We came under fire, but after a while we managed to defeat them. Me and Sergeant Blackbird were put on guard at the village entrance whilst the rest of our team of 9 went inside to clear out the village of fighters. 30 minutes later..." this part was the worst but. The bit that made me disgusted and feel sick every time.

"30 minutes later, we heard screams of women. They were shouting in Farsi 'leave my daughter alone, she is a child' or they were screaming for husbands or fathers. We saw a woman being dragged round the back of the house and... when I turned back to Blackbird, he was already gone to investigate. I followed him and what we found was horrifying.

"On one side, young boys were lined up against a wall. And I mean children. They couldn't have been older than 14. And on the other side... in the house, I heard screaming and crying. But one of the team members stopped me from going in. 'Just imagine it's never happened, you get used to it' he said. Eddie went up to the lieutenant. 'You don't deserve to be a soldier' he said. 'You're not even human' he said." I started to feel tears brimming. Everything I was in, I thought I had worked to forget, but clearly not.

I sometimes have nightmares of this night, but now I was being forced to live in the moment once again.

"Sir, your son..." I could hear it all. The screams, the shouting, the fire. Everything. "One of the team picked up a pistol with wood on it from a pile of guns they had collected from the dead bodies. He raised it, but your son, somehow he knew exactly how he would move. He pushed the other soldier's arm up and knocked him out, taking the gun. I ran with my knife and tried to take down one of the soldiers whilst Blackbird shot the other. The one I had, she got me and grabbed my weapon, then tried to use it to smash my face in. By then... Blackbird had eliminated her. We heard on the radio LT calling, thenthethree soldiers on the other side of the village calling in, running to see what happened. I picked up a gun and we cleared the house. The screams were still going on. We made it upstairs

"There we found two girls on the landing, terrified. We moved through one room and found a baby. The screams were louder now. Finally we moved through the next. Lieutenant John Hunter. Holding the woman down." Tears were flowing now. I couldn't forget the woman.

"I remember Eddie screaming at him, 'ON YOUR KNEES HUNTER!' Eddie had his gun at him and everything stopped. Silence. The three remaining men ran up the stairs behind us. I turned to face them, luckily they were as clueless as us about what he was going to do to that woman.

"'Well, Sarge, LT. What the fuck is this???' One of them said. But..."

At this point, I fell to my knees. Crying. Sobbing. In pain. Remembering everything. Sound, smell, touch. I remember it all.

"But what?" Steven asked.

"But whilst I had my back turned, Hunter had his sidearm in his hand. Slowly, he rolled and fired 7 rounds. Three into Eddie, one into me, one into someone else, and one we thought was stray. Eddie was strong, he had turned and put four bullets into him, close range. The other men took their guns out too but they were too late. He was dead. And not- (sniffles)- and not just Hunter. Eddie too. Eddie... he looked to us and smiled before falling. I had a bullet in me too but I didn't care. There is no pain worse than losing your partner.

"We tried to save him. We carried him back to the Mastiff and had to try and treat him there. I remember taking two bullets out, just one left. But he couldn't be saved. In fact, he told me that if I ever meet his family, I am to tell them he died doing a service for not this country but mankind. Mankind does not need people like that lieutenant Hunter in the world."

Steven broke down and fell, gun on the floor. I, already on the floor in tears, saw an opportunity. I crawled took the gun and turned the safety back on, before taking the magazine and loaded bullet out, sliding it away to the side.

"ARMED POLICE!!! ON THE GROUND NOW!!!" The door was barged open and the police then Mansoor had come through. I put my hands up and after the police surrounded us Mansoor lifted me away. Or at least that's what I was told in the ambulance. For some reason, I was still seeing it. I was back in Afghanistan, watching my friend die. I wasn't seeing reality.

But then I remembered.

'La Ilaaha IllAllah', I thought in my head. 'Allah has not burdened you beyond that which you can bear, this was meant to happen for a reason!' My heart started to calm itself at this reassurance. Slowly, my breathing got back to normal and I tuned back into reality

"Ian? You okay?" Mansoor asked shaking me. As much as I wanted to say how much pain my mind was in, I replied with a soft yet simple "I'm fine thanks."

The police arrested Steven for possession of an unlicensed firearm. Mansoor took me downstairs and outside. We passed my car. The young lads from before were there, and my car was nice and shiny clean. Mansoor was still holding me, for some reason I wasn't walking straight. And as much as I said I was fine, my head really wasn't.

An ambulance was waiting and I went and sat inside. They said they needed to check me to make sure I was medically okay. Perfect timing though.

My vision was starting to fade. Voices around me were cluttering the space among a radio noises and a beeping that got faster in the background. I was struggling to keep my eyes open. As I sat on the stretcher...

I blacked out.

~~~