And still the child refused to come out of the narrowing cave entrance. ‘Ben, do something!’ Madison screamed. As though one man could hold up thousands of tons of solid rock, like the mythological Titan Atlas supporting the weight of the world on his shoulders. Ben grabbed an M4 carbine from the dead hand of one of the Taliban fighters and jammed it vertically into the hole in an attempt to shore it up. But it wouldn’t take the strain for long. The massive pressure bearing down from above was already bending the weapon like a toothpick.

‘Come on, little one,’ Ben coaxed the child, trying to hide the mounting urgency in his voice. ‘It’s okay. You’ll be quite safe.’ Her bright little eyes still just stared back at him, filled with confusion and mistrust. The grinding of shifting rock was growing louder, louder. The gun was buckling into the shape of a banana. It wasn’t going to hold. It was going to give way and bend right in half under the weight.

Whatever made the child suddenly change her mind, Ben could only thank God for. She gripped his hand through the hole, and he hauled her out and clenched her tight just as the whole lot came crashing down and the cave entrance was completely sealed off. Ben and Madison rushed her to the barricade, yelling for the others to follow.

They fell back and made it to shelter just as the renewed enemy attack reached the top of the hill once again. With bullets cracking off the rock wall behind him Ben handed poor, terrified Gulnaz into the waiting arms of Francine and asked, ‘Was she definitely the last?’ To his huge relief Francine nodded and replied, ‘Yes, they’re all here.’ She clasped Ben’s hand with a look of the most sincere gratitude he had ever seen in anyone’s eyes, but her next words were drowned by more gunfire as Holt and Baldacci ducked around the edge of the rock gateway to let off long, chattering twin bursts at the fighters working their way along the foot of the escarpment towards them. Holt yelled, ‘Get those kids further back!’

It was a desperate position now. Almost a lost cause, with so many of the advantages they’d started out with whittled away one by one. Muhammad Omar Nabi, joining his troops at the rubble-strewn foot of the escarpment, must have been smiling to himself with victory so close. And he’d have been right to, because there was very little to stop him now. The shooting had paused again, but it wouldn’t be for long as the enemy massed a short distance away on the other side of the barricade, mustering their forces for the final assault.