(2005) Rat Run by Gerald Seymour Page A

village. Then joke time finished. They looked for freshly moved sand at the side of the road, where a bomb might be buried, and they looked for control wires. Baz was back-marker and in front of him the officer's shoulders heaved up and then sagged, like he was breathing hard. In Iraq, nothing frightened Baz
    - he was a star. Now, coming to the village's first buildings, he knew the officer was not battle-trained, and it amused him.
    Nine in the section, plus the officer. Two sticks of five on each side of the one street and far up in front of them was the square.
    He sensed it, and the corporal would have done. All of them would have sensed that that afternoon the place was bad. No grins or little waves from the shop-keepers, the bin-liners - the women head to toe in black - were scurrying to get clear of their approach, and there weren't kids mobbing them for sweets. Most days, in the village, the atmosphere was good; a few days it was bad. If it was bad, he would get to shoot; if he fired he would slot. Baz was the best shot in the headquarters platoon, but the place not to be, in action, was back-marker. He ran forward, loped half a dozen strides. He was at the officer's shoulder, saw the way the rifle was held with white knuckles.
    'Do Tail-end Charlie. Watch me, do as I do. Keep my arse safe. Don't lose me.'
    He was past the officer. The section was strung out on either side of the street and had started to make the short, fast surges that the sergeants who had done Belfast taught them. He watched for the corporal's hand signals, when to move and when to be in a doorway.
    A steel shutter slammed down. The last stretch of the street, into the square, emptied. Baz knew it: the shutter going down was the sign.
    Two shots. None of the Jocks down. A single shot. All of the Jocks sprinting. The instructors called it 'doing hard targets'. Run, take cover, search for enemy, run again, making it hard for the bastards to get a target. He saw, just before the forward Jocks of the section reached the square, the corporal's hand signal jagging to the left where a street came in at right angles to the main drag. They were all sprinting. More than half of the Jocks were already gone into the street off to the left. He would have looked behind him, checked for the officer, but he saw the bad guy, saw him clean, clear - bearded, in a robe, ammunition pouches on webbing on his chest, AK in his hand. Baz had the rifle up, was controlling his breathing, trying to find the bastard in his magnifying sight - and he could smell behind him, filtered through the shutters, the scent of fresh-baked bread.
    There was a thunderclap of noise behind him. He recognized it. Rocket-propelled grenade. He looked up fast, high, saw the impact point a dozen feet over him, between two windows, and glass came down. He didn't look for the officer but shouted for him to move himself He had the bad guy again in the sight. One shot, aimed. Ice cool. Like it was the practice range. Breath controlled, the trigger squeezed.
    Baz saw the white robe lift up and the AK rifle seemed to be thrown aside. Then the target was lost behind the mass of deserted stalls.
    'I slotted him. I got a hit,' Baz yelled. He felt the pride.
    Then he was charging for the street corner. Two more single shots came. In and out of doorways, the section stampeded along the street, spread far apart. He was back-marker. Tail-end Charlie was his place. Baz was always last man in the section on patrol because he was the best... He thought, for a brief moment, of the officer. Would have got past him, running, when Baz was aiming and preparing to fire - a hell of a shot, two hundred yards, definite no less -
    and he forgot him. All sprinting, until they had doubled round the back of the mosque and had reached the school gates. They were crouched against the wall of the school and the corporal darted back to him. No more gunfire, but a siren sounded urgently, back in the square's area.
    The corporal