‘Yeah, agreed,’ said Chris, thinking guiltily of the last few mouthfuls of water he was hoarding in his one spare canteen. He had made the same error as his men: just three litres instead of the usual six. They’d only expected this patrol to last a couple of hours. No point in carrying weight you don’t need, he’d thought – although now he realised that this was false economy verging on recklessness.

‘I’ve told the ANA we’re not sticking around,’ he told Robbo, wondering if some of the older man’s ire was actually directed at him, for underestimating the length of the patrol and taking it too slow. ‘We’ve shown our faces here, that’s the main thing. Um, you happy with the route back?’

Robbo nodded silently. He was taking a long suck from the extended drinking straw that led to the hydration pack in his rucksack, his deep-set eyes dramatically shadowed. Chris watched him drink with envy.

‘Okay then,’ he said. ‘I want you to take your team to the far side of these compounds to cover us over that stretch of open ground to the treeline, like we did last time. We’ll bring you up once we’re over, all right?’

‘Roger, boss, I’ve already got Davies and Mitch covering it with the gun.’

‘Good man, move the rest over and we’ll look to move in five.’

As Robbo set off back to his team, Chris reached for the straw of his hydration pack, before remembering with resignation that it was empty. He was starting to feel a little light-headed. He turned to Rami, his ’terp. Rami was watching a motorcycle in the distance kicking up a hazy wedge of dust, making no attempt to disguise his boredom.

‘Rami, did you see where Sergeant Abdullah went?’

Rami gestured down the street towards the little group of sellers sitting in the shrinking shade next to their blankets of produce. Almost the entire Afghan contingent appeared to be haggling with two of these vendors over sweets and cigarettes. As far as Chris could make out, only two of them were watching the road they were supposed to be covering.

‘Fuck’ssake…’ he muttered.

At that moment Chris’s radio cackled and he heard Robbo’s voice in his ear.

‘Two two alpha, two two bravo, in covering position. You’re good to move, over.’

Chris paused, then reached for his radio on the left shoulder strap of his rucksack. He selected the short-range option: the situation was slightly embarrassing, and he didn’t want HQ to overhear.

‘Two two alpha, roger, ummm … we’ll be a couple of minutes more. Looks like the ANA are doing a bit of shopping, over.’

‘Two two bravo, roger, cracking timing. Tell them to get a move on, we’re in the open out here. Over.’

‘Two two alpha, roger, out.’