Ben still had hold of Cale but Buchanan was yelling, ‘He’s dead!’ And Ben looked down and saw the gaping red wound where Cale’s heart and lungs had been blown out, shattered ribcage visible through tattered flesh. He let go of him, fired another burst this way, another that way. Saw Habib and Ghani, Saleem’s guys, emerging from their cover and running to join him and Buchanan, then mowed down as a heavy machine gun down the street started up its hammering, meat-grinding slaughterhouse fire. Ben could see no sign of Saleem and Mazdak.

‘This way!’ Buchanan yelled. Ben’s carbine was empty. He let it drop, picked up the fallen Dixon’s, which still had a few rounds left, and followed Buchanan at a run along the wall of the house, where the angle of the buildings protected them from enemy fire. Running hard through a narrowing alley between the house and its neighbour. The gap at the bottom of the alley looked clear.

Then it suddenly wasn’t, as more Talib appeared yelling and firing. Fifteen, twenty, a whole crowd, forcing their way up the alley straight towards them and blocking off their route. Ben and Buchanan directed a deadly blast of fire at them and several in the front rank fell, but more came running straight over the bodies of the fallen, yowling like madmen. Buchanan turned and started running back the other way. Ben stood his ground for a few seconds, firing until his carbine was emptied again and then taking out his pistol to snap off more rounds. Now there was a heap of bodies almost waist-high in the alleyway. Ben blinked blood out of his eyes from some unfelt wound, turned and ran after Buchanan.

Re-emerging into the main street, some forty yards away to his left he could see a group of three Taliban fighters were working urgently to clear a jam in the belt-fed heavy machine gun that had claimed the lives of Habib and Ghani. Their bodies lay twisted and bloody in the road. Ghani had been clutching a grenade launcher when he died. Ben had no idea where he’d got it from: maybe taken it from the body of a Talib. But now Ben quickly snatched it up, checked it was loaded and then pumped its 40mm grenade in the direction of the heavy machine gun emplacement. There was an earth-shaking explosion, flying debris and smoke. One of the houses was partially demolished, burying the HMG and two of its operators in rubble while the third staggered around in flames.