THE DAY BASHIRA WAS TAKEN AWAY
MOLLY'S THOUGHTS
Today rates as the worst day ever in my life. When you join the army, you know you could be sent to a war zone at any time and you are sort of prepared for it by those above you, but seeing a young girl strapped into a suicide vest is definitely the stuff nightmares are made of.
I'm sitting in my med tent on my own. I just need some space and I won't get it with the rest of the lads around. Although they're in shock too I think, they're acting like typical men, bluffing it out and pretending they're all real tough nuts who signed up for all this drama.
I know I'd annoyed Captain James by getting too close to Bashira. Men just seem to be able to separate themselves from all this emotional shit. Women think differently. Smurf even said something sarcastic to him about me being the type to bring home a stray donkey from Spain. It's enough of a circus back home with all my brothers and sisters, not to mention my Mum and Dad, but yes, if there was space, I would probably have brought a stray cat or dog back; maybe not a donkey though. Bossman called me Queen of the Lost Cause.
Bashira is such a lovely little girl – she reminds me so much of Bella as they are about the same age. I've given her pens and sweets when we've seen her whilst we've been out on patrol. The Boss wasn't happy about that either. Smurf thought she was a spy of some sort for the Taliban and even Captain James seemed to think it was possible – after all, she did appear quite a lot when there was trouble. Her father had seen me once playing a game with her and had shouted at her to come away. He'd beaten her up soon afterwards and Bashira and her mother came crying to the FOB, wanting me to dress the cuts. Qaseem had to translate for me but I got the gist of the conversation that the mother thought it was all my fault. Captain James was livid. I could tell by the way the pulse was beating in his neck, even though he was fairly controlled. He eventually relented and let me treat the cuts but he had kept on saying she should be going to her local hospital which it turned out was four hours away. Four hours, can you imagine it? I expected to be severely bollocked for insisting I cleaned up the cuts and so all things considered, I got off fairly lightly.
Bashira had given me some intel about an attack at the mountain pass as a result of that. I had to tell James, even though at first I'm not even sure he was very interested as he was in his paddling pool and then the Music Corps arrived. Smurf convinced me we had to tell him so when we did, he dragged us into the Ops Tent with Kinders and Major Beck. He seemed a bit cynical at first, but Major Beck understood more that I had built up a relationship with Bashira and that she had learned to trust me. I never really set out to do that if am honest, but it's just the sort of person I am.
Later on, they'd realised Bashira had been compromised by telling us about the attack in the mountains and the Boss came in when I was fast asleep during the night, wanting me to go into the Ops Tent as they needed to protect her. There were a couple of Afghans in the Ops Tent when I went in with them. They seemed to be the equivalent of Social Services and were going to take Bashira into a safe house in Kabul.
When all of us went into the village, we were amazed she wasn't where we thought she should be. Minutes later though, that moment when we all saw Bashira come out and we shouted at her to lift up part of her veil, only to see the suicide vest strapped to her, is something I will never be able to forget. I suppose even suicide vest is the wrong description because it was either her father or one of his sidekicks who would be trying to detonate it. What sort of evil bastard could do that to his own child? Everyone was shouting to her to keep still at the same time as Qaseem was on the radio blocking mobile signals and the bomb disposal team was being requested urgently.
I don't even remember throwing my helmet on the ground and running towards her. It was just instinct. I mean, if you had all these guys in uniform screaming at one of your kids or your young brothers or sisters, you wouldn't think twice, would you? I was shit scared, so think how she must have felt, especially when she didn't even understand the language properly. Then they all started screaming at me. I wasn't stupid enough to get hold of her (even if they thought I was) but I did want to keep her calm and as still as possible till Bomb Disposal came along. I can't even remember what I said really either. You know me, I just witter, and when I'm nervous, I witter even more than usual. What I do remember though is her saying "Am I going to die?" How the hell do you respond to that? I was thinking "If you die, I die as well!" but I really didn't believe that would have helped any of us. It was the one time I thought carefully before I said the first thing that came into my nut.
Captain James yelled at me to move away and the Bomb Disposal man came to remove the bomb vest. He looked like something from a science fiction film and literally seconds after he'd taken it off, an ASF soldier grabbed her and virtually threw her in their truck. They sped off in a cloud of this horrible Afghan dust and that was it – the vest was detonated – and we were left wondering what on earth we had just witnessed. It doesn't bear thinking about what would have happened if Badrai or whoever had detonated it himself. Carnage without a doubt.
Captain James has just gone now as well. He claimed he got something in his eye after the vest was detonated. I did the necessary with the eyewash kit we have but you know what? I'm not even sure he had anything much in his eye – I think it might have been an excuse just to come in. I've actually thought this for a bit now – those blisters haven't needed daily treatment either but who am I to argue? Between you and me, I've fancied him for a while. I can't remember the exact time I realised because I tried to ignore it for ages. I had buried it in my "not to be thought of until I'm back home" memory box. It doesn't help when you see him working out in our little gym with his top off. He could do a Diet Coke ad any day!
He sat with me for a while after I'd cleaned his eye and we talked a bit about what happened with Bashira. He keeps on about everything in life being luck. What did he say? "Lady Luck was smiling on us today." Too bloody right - I don't want to see anything as horrible as that ever again. He's definitely warming towards me - not entirely sure how much yet though!
I'm just not sure how I should react. I know what I want to do (there's still a bit of the pre-Army Molly Dawes in there somewhere) but if I tested the waters, I could end up in really serious trouble, and so could he. Stuff like this is completely forbidden. Mind you, we had to rehearse our duet earlier with Dangles and I had to be very careful not to give anything away, which is difficult when you are singing together. I might have to be careful in front of Dangles too. For a man, he's more perceptive than I thought. He had a gleam in his eye watching us when we were practising. I'll let you know how it goes in front of everyone tonight. Singing isn't really me – I can do it with a karaoke machine after a few drinks but that's about it – and there's nothing even remotely alcoholic out here except in some of the antiseptic wipes!
