First Man In by Ant Middleton

Author:Ant Middleton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2018-04-23T16:00:00+00:00

Another week, another challenge. A new troop sergeant had arrived in Sangin DC to replace the one who’d returned to the UK to tend to his injured wife. This meant I had to step back down to my 2IC role. In the days before he came, rumours began swirling around the Forward Operational Base (FOB). Our new boss was a guy called Lionel Boyle. He was known as a ‘Lympstonite’ because he’d spent years – pretty much his entire career – back at Lympstone Commando, training recruits. He’d never seen action, never been on ops. ‘And he talks to the lads like shit,’ said one man, who knew him from the training centre. ‘He’s dickmeat. Pure cock.’ But I decided not to listen to the gossip. I’d form my own opinion of the man.

On the morning of his arrival, I handed in the pistol that had been granted to me as troop sergeant and waited to meet him. A couple of hours later I was chatting with a buddy outside my mud hut when I saw a man who could only have been Boyle coming briskly towards me from the direction of the officers’ block. You could always tell the new arrivals: they were so scrubbed and fresh and clean-shaven, with the sun shining in the tips of their boots.

I held out my hand. ‘I’m Ant,’ I said. ‘I was section commander, but since you came back I’m now 2IC again.’

‘OK,’ he said, shaking it lightly. ‘And what’s been happening out there?’

‘We’re covering a lot of ground, things are going pretty steadily. It’s fine. No complaints. And, just to let you know, I’ve handed my pistol in, so we’re all good to go tomorrow.’

‘And your pistol was signed over by a qualified operative, I take it?’

‘Qualified?’ I said. ‘Well, I handed it over to the section commander.’

He looked at me with paternal exasperation, as if he’d found exactly the shambles he’d been fearing. He was livid about it.

‘Dear God,’ he said. ‘You have to go through the proper procedure. You can’t just fling your weapon over and say “Here’s your pistol.” It has to be done properly, in the presence of a recognised witness, and given to someone qualified to take it in. The serial number needs to be recorded, the paperwork signed. Did you follow this procedure, Middleton?’

‘Well, I …’

‘I said, did you follow this procedure?’

‘No, Sergeant.’

‘For fuck’s sake, this is a war zone, Middleton,’ he snapped, working himself up into a headmasterly rage. He took a small step back. ‘And you’ve been acting section commander?’

There was a silence.

‘Right, get all the lads and line them up.’

A war zone? What did he know about a war zone? For a start, in a war zone you don’t line up on parade as you would back at base. It’s different out in the field. It’s not all boot-shined and spit-polished. You loosen things up a bit – you shave every other day, not every day, and you let your sideburns grow. It’s a morale thing, a bit of leeway to see you through the shit.

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