Last Night Another Soldier…
“I wiped the sweat off my mud-caked face, and tried taking deep breaths to calm my breathing. It wasn’t working. ‘Toki, they’re getting closer, mate.’”
Last Night Another Soldier… by Andy McNab: Who would have known that a 112-page book would pack so much punch and take me for a suspenseful ride into the ‘Green Zone’ in Afghanistan? I was contemplating whether to do a full review or a short one, and decided to go full.
Last Night Another Soldier… is the story of four young men in the British Army, told from the point of view of an eighteen-year-old squaddie, David ‘Briggsy’ Briggs. Almost immediately, readers are taken into action, in the middle of a major contact with the Taliban in total darkness. Rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) streaked across the sky, heading straight towards them. I got acquainted with Toki the corporal who is in-charge of their patrol, and his other fellow soldiers Flash and Si. Toki is a big guy from Fiji. Si is only a year older than Briggsy and is married to a Polish girl. Flash is also married and he is a lot older than the three of them and has two boys who are older than Briggsy.
Right in the very beginning—one of the soldiers, John, is shot while he was trying to bring them more ammo. I literally flinched when I came to the part where I read about his piercing scream in the midst of all that gunfire. John did not make it. Briggsy himself comes into contact with a Taliban who tries to capture him alive (or any soldiers for that matter) and he is trapped physically by the man who would not let go. He struggles and then it dawns on him to use the pistol on his thigh holster. That is his first kill. And get this, the soldiers really do not want to talk about what had happened in the battlefield even for heroic acts.
There are parts that touched me and brought tears to my eyes. The conversation between Briggsy and Emma who is a medic made me sad. That’s when he is getting treated at the Medic Centre and the dialogue is somewhat related to John:
‘Don’t worry, he will look a lot cleaner by the time his family gets to see him. They’ll put makeup on him and wash his hair. He should get to Kandahar tonight. He’ll be back home soon.’ I couldn’t find any words. ‘Uh-huh,’ is all that came out. There was another long pause before Emma spoke again. Her voice was small and less sure than usual. ‘First body you’ve seen?’ ‘Well, first one of us. Talis don’t count, do they?’ She asked me again. ‘Sure you’re OK?’ I could only nod in response. ‘Well, I’m not,’ she sounded upset as she zipped up the body bag. ‘I don’t think I can go on looking at dead soldiers much longer.’
What Emma had said surprised Briggsy because he would have thought as a medic she would be used to it. Emma said that this is different although she has seen blood and guts in her profession, so she continues to explain:
‘Because I know John. I’ve known all of them. I know each and every guy stuffed in one of those body bags, and each and every guy who arrives here with and an arm or leg blown off. I live with you, eat scoff with you, have a laugh with you, even use the same drums to dump in as you, but you know what?’ A tear started to roll down her face and she brushed it away angrily. ‘Bring on Glasgow’s house fires, car crashes and Saturday night stabbings. If I can’t save them, then at least I don’t have to be mates with them.’
War affects people in so many ways. Not just the soldiers but the people who serve alongside them in other capacities (such as Emma) and their loved ones. The physical and mental wounds suffered, doubt and uncertainty faced by the soldiers; the family’s fear of losing their loved ones to war (just imagine how John’s wife would feel when she gets the news of his death); the relief when your soldier calls home (Briggsy’s mother is so happy when he finally calls home after a few days of silence because nobody is allowed to make contact until the family of the dead soldier is informed of the bad news); Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD (Briggsy tries to get in touch with his father because of what he learned about the disorder and that his father could be behaving abusively due to that); and so much more.
“Funny how things turn around. You think you haven’t got it in you, then you found out you have.”
These soldiers are heroes and warriors. They watch out for their fellow soldiers and are more than willing to sacrifice themselves for one another. This is a short book, but no doubt, a great read. It contains strong language and violent scenes so please be warned. My first McNab book is his non-fiction Seven Troop, which I read a few months ago. I want to read more of McNab’s books and I will definitely be indulging in his thriller novels.
About Andy McNab: He became a soldier as a young man and joined the SAS in 1984. During the Gulf War he led the famous Bravo Two Zero patrol. He left the SAS in 1993, and now lectures to security and intelligence agencies in the USA and UK. He is also the author of eleven bestselling thrillers, all featuring ex-SAS trooper Nick Stone, four novels for children and a previous Quick Read novel, The Grey Man. He has also edited Spoken from the Front, a book of interviews with the British men and women serving in Afghanistan.
