Last Night Another Soldier by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online

row on his bed. There was no sign of Flash and Si, but Toki was sitting on one of the plastic fold-up chairs with John’s laptop resting on his knees. He must have carried on sorting through John’s stuff during scoff. His fingers tapped and paused, tapped and paused on the laptop keys.
    ‘He got any porn, Toki?’
    Toki tapped again. ‘Video of some contacts, a couple of pics of dead Taliban and some of Julie, just in stockings, that sort of stuff. Nothing terrible.’
    The screen went black and he carefully closed the laptop. He pulled out the plug and started to coil the lead. ‘I still hate doing this job, though.’
    I nodded, though I wasn’t really concentrating on what he was saying. I kept staring at the bed. All John’s kit was in black plastic bags, while he lay in a big black rubber one. That was it when you died. That was all there was.
    ‘I can’t stay behind, Toki. I want to be out withyou lot tonight.’ The words came out thick and fast. ‘Can’t you talk with Sergeant MacKenzie … please?’
    Toki looked up, his brown eyes showed concern. ‘You OK?’
    I tried to pull myself together. ‘Yeah, I’m all right. Just don’t want to be left behind when you lot go back out. The last thing I want is time on my own to think.’
    Toki nodded at the plastic chair opposite him and I took a seat. ‘You mean about last night, Briggsy?’
    I took a deep breath. ‘Yeah. Know what, the more I think about it, the more I think I just got lucky last night. I mean, what if I had got taken, or got a round in my spine. You know, the rest of my life in a wheelchair, like Si said. Feels worse than getting chopped up … I’m worried I might get out there next time and think too much about it and start flapping. Know what I mean?’
    Toki looked down at my shirt and pointed at the brown stain. His voice was firm. ‘Right, first thing, get that kit off and get washed and scrubbed. You don’t need the smell of blood on you for a start.’
    ‘It’s not that, mate. It’s, well … I’m more scared I’ll let everyone down. I just want to getout there and not think too much about it.’
    Toki sighed and nodded slowly, more to himself than to me. ‘Sounds normal to me. All you have is self-doubt because it’s all new and different, that’s all.’
    I suddenly felt pathetic, like a school kid again. ‘I don’t see any of you Fijian lads being scared of anything.’ It came out more like a whine.
    Toki paused for thought and then smiled. ‘Everyone is, at some time or other. Anyone who says they have never been scared is either a liar, or has a screw loose in the head.’
    I laughed at that, and Toki laughed with me. I was glad I’d come out with it. But Toki was lost in some memory of his own. He spoke slowly as if he was choosing his words very carefully. ‘My first kill was in Basra. I was eighteen, too. We were on a strike op, hitting some houses right in the city centre. I got upstairs when a guy came out of nowhere with a knife – a big butcher’s one. He jumped me before I could get my ‘80 up. We fell down the stairs fighting, I could smell his breath.’
    Toki pulled his chair closer to mine and lowered his voice. ‘I can remember his spit spraying in my face. He kept screaming as he tried to stab me with his knife. His eyes were really wide, likea mad man’s. I had one hand trying to stop the knife going into my face, while I tried to get my bayonet out with the other.’
    So Toki did know what it felt like. A thought crossed my mind. ‘Why didn’t you give him the good news with your pistol?’
    Toki half closed his eyes and dropped his chin onto his chest, trying to get the bits of memory back in the correct order. ‘We didn’t all have pistols then. All I could do was keep head-butting him, but he wouldn’t give up. I got my bayonet out and managed to stab him about four or five times in the neck. He died on top of me. I was soaked in his blood. Like you said, it was mostly down to