Die for You

Chapter 1

Cover photo: Sgt Freen Sarocha

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I wake up to find myself in bed in a clean white ward. There's a needle jutting out of my arm and bandages all over my body. Dragging myself upright I pull at the tubes that are dripping shit into me and try to yank them out.

I fucking hate needles.

Suddenly there's a QARANC handbag holding me down and one of the medics reprimanding me sharply.

"Sergeant Sarocha, you will lie there and not touch that equipment do you hear me? It's there for your own good."

I lay back and scowled at her, instinctively checking her rank badges. "Yes, Staff," I reluctantly reply.

"That's better Sarocha. Now you've had some very serious injuries and lost a lot of blood. You were in surgery for four hours and you are a lucky soldier, Sergeant; the bullet in your leg just missed the femoral artery. If it had hit, well, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

"You have damage to your left shoulder," she continued, "but the bullet passed cleanly through without striking bone; you also have a nice hole in your upper arm and two fractured ribs for your trouble. So..."

"My unit?"

"I'm sure someone will be along soon to tell you about that, for the moment however you are in my charge and that means that your only responsibility is to lie there and do as you're told."

On some other occasion that'd be funny. I'd laugh about it with the guys later; we'd probably swap some lewd jokes about being ordered around in bed by one of the Red Caps. I knew exactly what they'd be saying as well.

"Did she give you a bed bath Corporal?"

"Where does she like to put her thermometer?"

...and more than a few medically explicit ones that I'd tried to blank from my memory.

That's what me and the guys were like when we were out and about in civilian bars on leave and off-base. We let our hair down, literally in my case, and shared everything. That's what being a team was all about...no secrets, not from them. They were my boys and they were my family, or they were... until Paul, my best friend, got shot and died. Then it all changed, they became my unit and my team and no more.

But that was okay, because we were the best, are the best.

Except for the fact that I had no idea how many of the team were still alive after the fucking ambush. No one was telling me anything. Except to lie still, keep calm and try to heal.

Like I could ever do that.

Just under four years of living on your nerves and watching your friends die does that to you...blood and dust, sometimes that's all this place seems to have.

I guess I'd better introduce myself... Sergeant Freen Sarocha - Royal Military Police, currently serving with the Close Protection Unit, stationed in Grishk, Afghanistan. I was born in Thailand and moved to the UK at five years old with my mum when she landed a job there. I never met my father since he died when I was in my mum's belly. My mum basically raised me all by herself.

I joined the military police straight from school, don't ask me why.

The army's been good to me, gave me a place to live after my mum died, gave me a good education along the way and has given me some pretty good times. Some bad times as well; you can't serve in an active duty station and not lose friends and I'd lost more than a few.

It seems like half of the people that I came over here with have gone home in bags or in bits. The fucking Taliban are far too good at building their IEDs and those roadside bombs are the plague of our tours.

I'd always wanted to join the army, wanted to make a difference and at the time, the armed forces seemed the way to go. I'd applied to join the Red Caps after deciding that someone needed to keep the rest of the army in check. Plus no one likes us, we're pretty much loners within the British Army and that's fine with me. I've been a loner all my life.