Jax held his front foot off the ground and watched the dirt spurt into the air as Dicko chased the wire towards him. It ripped through the road surface, leaving a wake like a lightning bolt. Jax suspected the thunder was underneath his raised foot.

It was. He was just a step away from the trigger. A pressure plate. Made of plastic. Which, of course, his metal detector couldn’t detect. The Taliban learned fast.

Thank God Dicko’s shout had scared him stiff. One more step would have killed him outright. Killed them all.

‘Got it,’ Jax then said, before Dicko even had to ask. ‘Everyone step back. Take cover.’

Now he was on his own. He had to find the trigger and disarm it. He got down on his stomach and began to clear the hard, compacted sand by prodding the ground with his knife. Then he dropped the knife and used his fingers to clear the last of the dirt and probe the plastic. He winced as he gently pulled the casing apart. Once he could see inside, he took out his wire cutters and got ready to play roulette with his life. Red or black? Click or boom?

Black . . . Click.

It got a little easier then. Each bomb a little less terrifying. At least until Dicko stepped on a trigger before the connected bomb had been found. Though that just left Jax feeling numb, not scared.

He didn’t feel fear after that. Didn’t feel anything. Not until he walked into Long Bay . . .

Now it was like he was on his first patrol again: hidden bombs everywhere, expecting to step on one at any moment. And this time he didn’t have Dicko to save him.

WHEN it was time for dinner, he reluctantly left his cell. At the mess hall, chops, mash and vegies were plonked onto his plastic plate. All the men at his former table looked down as he walked past. The man who had attacked him stared at Jax but didn’t say a word. The silence was deafening. Jax found a half-empty table at the back of the room. He nodded at the elderly man he sat across from but didn’t say a word. From the corner of his eye he saw another inmate lean over and whisper into the old man’s ear. He only picked up one word, and that was Marsh.

He tucked in, even though his anxiety had killed his hunger. The rest of the inmates were like vultures on carrion and he didn’t want to look out of place, so he forced himself to eat, shoving roughly cut chunks of meat into his mouth, chomping and swallowing – just another animal.

The mess was awash with chatter, a low and constant hum like summer rain. But then there was a thundercrack, one voice louder than the rest. The start of the storm.

Marsh.