The Last Kestrel. Jill McGivering

beans. Printed notices were stuck to the inner wall of the tent with tape. ‘Your Mother doesn’t work here. Clean up after yourself.’ Beneath it was a list of ‘Rules of the Cookhouse’ in smaller print. She thought of Jalil, wondering if he’d eaten here, what he’d made of life with the British army. It was still hard to believe she’d never see him again.

      ‘Ellen?’

      She looked up.

      ‘Heard you were coming. You just in?’

      John from The Times. She feigned a smile. He was already threading his thick legs through the gap between the chair and the table, dropping his plastic tray onto the table top. It was piled with food.

      He looked smug, appraising her instinctively like a circling, sniffing dog.

      ‘How long you here for?’ His breath smelt sour with hunger. He tore open his plastic sachet of a napkin and plastic cutlery and fell on his breakfast, a mingling mush of hash browns, scrambled eggs, sausages and bacon.

      ‘A week or so,’ she said. He’d put on weight. He was starting to look middle-aged. She wondered if he were thinking the same about her. They were both the wrong side of forty. The hair at his temples was flecked with grey. The start of a double chin was showing in the slackness of his jaw. ‘You?’

      He was breaking a bread roll in his broad fingers, smearing it liberally with half-melted butter, inserting a sausage. His nose and cheekbones were pink with sunburn, his lips chapped.

      ‘Same. Off to Lamesh today. If there’s a place on the helo.’ He started to chew, spilling breadcrumbs.

      Helo. Just say helicopter, for pity’s sake. John was one of those self-important war correspondents who thought they were really soldiers.

      ‘Saw you were in Iraq last month.’ He was stuffing the bread and sausage into his mouth. ‘You get up to the north?’

      She shook her head. ‘Just Basra. You?’

      ‘All over.’ He swilled down a paper cup of orange juice. ‘Bloody hairy.’

      She ripped open a plastic portion of margarine and spread it on a round of toast, the plastic knife grating like a washboard. ‘How’s it been here?’

      He spoke and chewed at the same time, swallowing his food in gulps as if he expected to be summoned to breaking news at any moment. ‘Pretty good.’ He nodded at her. ‘Lots of bang-bang.’

      ‘Anyone else around?’

      ‘A newbie from the Mail. Left now.’

      ‘Jeremy something?’

      He screwed up his face, not much interested. ‘Don’t remember. And some young kid from a regional. Doing puff pieces on Our Boys.’

      They sat in silence for a few minutes, chewing. He was a windbag but he was experienced. He was also a sharp operator and she didn’t trust him an inch.

      ‘Heard about Nayullah?’ He scraped his fork round his plate, scooping up beans.

      She nodded. She’d read the agency reports. Nayullah was a town on the new front line that had been out of bounds until recently. Now the army was trying to establish a presence there. It had just been shaken by its first suicide bomb.

      He shovelled in another forkful of beans, staining his lips orange. ‘Took out a few ANP. What a shower they are. But civilians, mostly. Women and children.’

      The Afghan police. She’d done stories on them in Kabul. Poorly trained new recruits without kit or ethics. She’d heard they’d been the target. The bomb had exploded in the market, a day or two before Jalil died.

      ‘Did you get down there?’

      He nodded. ‘That afternoon. Not pretty.’ He shrugged. ‘Hard to get a picture they could use.’

      ‘Any idea who it was?’

      He wiped off his tray with a crust and crammed it into his mouth. She waited until he could speak.

      ‘Not much left to ID. Locals, not foreigners, they say. Young lads.’ He drained the last of his tea and licked his lips, his eyes darting round the soldiers as they queued to sterilize their hands or emerged with trays of food and settled to eat. He’s looking for someone else, she thought, so he can trade up from me.

      ‘Food’s not bad,’ he said, ‘considering.’

      She swished the tea round her paper cup and considered the Nayullah bomb.

      ‘What do you make of it?’

      He ignored her. A thought was crossing his face, crumpling his forehead into a frown. ‘This new offensive. They letting you join it?’

      She shrugged, trying not to give anything away. ‘Don’t know yet.’

      ‘I’ve done it anyway,’ he said quickly. ‘Sent London a piece yesterday.’

      He was comforting himself. He pushed away his tray with a lordly gesture and sat back. ‘Major Mack. The Commander. You met him? Decent guy. Old school.’

      She tried to steer him back to her question. ‘So what about the Nayullah bomb? A reaction?’

      He nodded. ‘Know how much the army’s pouring into this? They’re knocking the Taliban off ground they’ve held for years. So, question is,’ he brandished a finger at her, ‘why aren’t the rag-heads putting up a better fight?’

      ‘And?’

      He shrugged. ‘They can’t. Haven’t got the numbers. Or the kit. But they can sure as hell slow things up. Roadside bombs. Suicide attacks. Shoot and scoot. Then disappear back into the woodwork.’

      She nodded, drank her coffee. The fact he was telling her this meant he must have filed on it already. Two soldiers pulled out chairs and joined their table.

      ‘Could drag on like that for years. Thirty years’ time, I reckon, we’ll still be dug in here.’ He pushed back his own chair, tore off a disinfectant wipe from the plastic canister on the table and ran it over the table top in front of him. She did the same. ‘The Brits, I mean,’ he said. ‘God help me, hope I’m out by then.’

      They picked up their trays and walked to the dustbins outside to dump the lot.

      ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘bugger all to do round here. Coming for a smoke?’

      She sat beside him on the slatted bench in the smoking area, a secluded corner set apart from the accommodation tents. The soldiers had knocked up a rough trellis and hung it with camouflage netting for shade. A grumpy-looking soldier was installed in one corner, an ankle resting on the opposite knee, smoking silently and keeping himself to himself.

      John offered her a cigarette and, when she refused, scratched a match and lit up in a rush of sulphur.

      ‘That’s new, isn’t it?’ He was pointing at the gold band on her wedding finger. His eyes were keen. ‘You got lucky?’

      She turned the ring on her finger. ‘My mother’s.’ It felt odd. She didn’t usually wear it but, when she travelled alone, it didn’t hurt to look married. ‘She died a few years ago.’ She looked down at it, thinking of her mother. She’d had the same long fingers, a warm, strong hand to hold. ‘There’s a matching engagement ring. My sister’s got that.’

      John was laughing. ‘Thought it was a turn-up,’ he said. ‘Always had you down as a die-hard spinster.’

      The soldier opposite was looking at them. She wondered what he was thinking. He glanced away again, stony-faced.

      ‘Maybe you’ll bag yourself a nice soldier boy.’ John was amusing himself, sniggering into his fug of smoke. ‘You’re in the right place for it.’

      She turned to look at his slack-skinned face and managed to smile. Ten years ago, she would have told him to shut up, she had plenty of men in her life. Ten years