Die for You

Chapter 2

It was just two days later that I received my first proper visitor.

Colonel Thomas Williams was one of the highest ranking members of the Provost Service in this area. I never dreamed that he'd be coming to visit me in hospital; this must be more serious than I thought. I dragged myself as straight as I could in the bed as he approached trying to hide my nerves in the usual army smokescreen of formality. He waved a hand at me casually.

He started by delivering the bad news that I was already expecting. He informed me that my unit suffered 70% casualties which is the worst loss of the Close Protection Unit and the British army in one action. He was apologetic when he requested for my side of the story as people and "London" were seeking answers.

So, I began my debrief. I told him everything in explicit detail, from the out journey to the pick-up to the return, our contact with air support, our captain's decision not to have the air escort fly with us to keep things lowkey and what I remember of the ambush and ensuing fire fight.

It's weird that it felt like hours while the bullets were flashing past me, but this whole thing was over in minutes. Minutes to kill most of my mates and hospitalize the rest.

"Well that seems perfectly in order sergeant, your story backs up what we think happened. The ambush you survived appeared to be a well-planned and well-executed mission."

"Now I understand that you're going to be rotated back to the UK for rehabilitation of your injuries. Do you have family in the UK, sergeant?"

"No sir, I only had my mum but she died just before I joined up." The colonel turned to look sadly at me.

"Boyfriend, fiancé?", he continued.

"Girlfriend sir, well I did have..."

I'd met Amanda in a bar, in Ibiza of all places; normally that would be the last place on earth I'd go for a holiday but Paul dragged me when we were on leave, telling me that it would be a "perfect place to fuck our brains out without any messy relationships to worry about."

I never expected her to call back, it was a holiday fuck and nothing more, but she had, and we'd dated for a while. A couple of years almost, though I guess you had to take out my combat tours from that total.

It hadn't lasted though; we'd broken up before I shipped out on this tour.

Just one more combat-induced relationship breakup. We weren't the first and we wouldn't be the last.

To his credit Colonel Williams didn't ask further, he probably knew, or knew of similar; he simply raised an eyebrow at me as I paused to think.

"...she wasn't too happy about me signing up for another tour, Sir. Wanted me to cash myself out and try and join the Police."

Amanda had expressed her desire for us to live together and take our relationship to the next level, but she wanted me to leave the Army in order to do so. During an argument, she accused me of loving my job more than I loved her, and I knew she would leave if I shipped out again.

Despite her pleas, I chose to stay in the Army and knew it would cause us to drift apart. I felt that she never really understood my passion for the military and only liked the idea of being with someone in uniform with her own handcuffs. I realized I couldn't live up to her expectations and that we were better off apart. We never spoke again after she walked away.

Colonel Williams looked me up and down appraisingly and shuffled his feet. "Yes, well. Good luck, Sarocha. Enjoy being home."

I sat up straight in bed at his dismissal and he touched his cap with his swagger stick by way of salute and turned on his heels. I watched as the Staff leapt to her feet again to salute him and he was gone.