Exit Wound Read Online Free PDF Page A

nineteen-year-old squaddies. Many were thinning on top; some were bald or grey. All of them were bullshitting about how great it’s been since they got out. Great house, great car, everything’s gravy.
    Some wore their Green Jacket blazers and ties over crisp white shirts and neatly pressed slacks. Others were in their best suits. Me? I was in a Tesco shirt, washable trousers and cheap leather jacket. Most of them would have been lorry drivers, security guards, painters and decorators, firemen or policemen. That was what normally happened with the lads. The odd one would be on the circuit, fucking about in Iraq or Afghanistan, but today it really didn’t matter who or what you were. The one thing everyone had in common was that they knew Tenny.
    Tennyson had spent the best part of a year sorting out his gut before marrying Janice and taking up his commission in the Green Jackets – which had become the Rifles in the next shakeup. He never did make general, but was promoted to full colonel in command of media ops at Camp Bastion in Helmand province. It was a plum job, making sure reporters and news crews got where they were needed, and managing the PR output. Until he got zapped again, this time in the head by a 7.62mm short from an AK.
    The voice called again: ‘Nick! Nick Stone!’
    I still didn’t have a clue who he was, but shook his hand anyway. I didn’t have much choice: he’d gone for it big-time. He pumped my arm so vigorously my shoulders shook.
    ‘Good to see you, mate.’
    Maybe he’d had more hair the last time I’d seen him.
    ‘Graham – Graham Pincombe. How you doing, mate?’
    Still none the wiser. ‘Ah, yeah, fine . . . mate . . .’
    My brain whirred into hyperspace as the very thing I was trying to avoid started to happen.
    ‘What you been doing with yourself? The last time I saw you . . .’ At last his hand released mine and for some reason headed for the tip of his nose. ‘Ah, yeah. Germany – remember when we were on exercise in Germany?’
    No, not a clue. ‘Shame about Tenny, eh?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘What exactly happened – anybody know?’ I scanned the group for a face that might give Mr Pincombe some context.
    He shook his head. ‘He kept wanting to go out on the ground with the rifle companies. I heard he was next on the list for a cabby on the Javelin. That’s when he got zapped.’
    I smiled, and he smiled back. We both knew what that meant. The Javelin anti-armour rocket was a great bit of kit, and there was always a queue of guys wanting to have a go. Originally designed to take out tanks, it was now antipersonnel, anti-car, anti-bicycle, you name it. No job too small. And over long distances, too. Its optics and second-generation thermal-imaging technology could see in the dark or through rain and smoke. It was an infantryman’s dream. Once you’d acquired a target and locked it on, you kicked off the rocket and that was that. Most brilliant of all, it cost seventy-six grand a pop.
    Everyone wanted to lob the military equivalent of a Porsche at the enemy. There was a list, and everybody put their name up. When it was your turn, it was your turn, whether you were an eighteen-year-old rifleman or a forty-eight-year-old colonel. If there was nothing between you and a target up to 2,500 metres away, it kicked off and flew line-of-sight, with pinpoint accuracy. If you had a moving target, say a car, you could select top attack mode and the missile went up into the air, climbing 150 metres before striking down to penetrate the roof – just as it would do to a tank, hitting it at the point of least armour protection.
    Pincombe took a mouthful of Stella. ‘He got up onto the wall, took aim, and was just about to kick it off when . . .’ He supplied the impact site with his finger. ‘Taliban round, straight through the launch unit and into his nut. Simple as that.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and came out with the predictable, ‘At least he died the way he