Lipstick. Magpie #9

Ben took the creased and now rather grubby envelope from his pocket and once again kissed the faint lipstick mark then pushed it back behind his body armour. The thought of Lily kept him going and that last letter had outlined her plans for their wedding when he got home. Home was green hills and quiet villages; there would be spring flowers there now. She had written that she wanted spring flowers for her bouquet and garlands of bright daffodils at the little village church.

He was part of a patrol in Helmand province, the task was to keep the Taliban out of the village of Kushal Kalay, so that another group could go in and clear the area of the Taliban's Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs. Only one more he thought, this was to be his last tour. Suddenly they were under fire and his attention was back with his men. They had attracted quite a lot of attention from the insurgents when they moved into position, but the fact that they were concentrating their attacks on the patrol and not the engineers means that the plan was working - even if it was a bit hectic at times. For 72 hours they had remained in position and repulsed numerous insurgent attacks. The LAV (Light armoured vehicles) had inched towards their position following that first lonely man with a mine detector checking out the road. The hazards of the IEDs were so great that even when they were fired on, they still had to stick to the path and couldn’t run for cover. Ben thought of the carnage caused by deadly roadside explosives, the suicide bombers, and the constant threat of attack and hit the sandy bank when a ripping sound of a volley of bullets whipped up the sand on the ridge of the bank. Last week his own best friend had died along with 3 other soldiers in a fierce battle; they got you all ways if it wasn’t a bullet, it could be deadly IEDs that could be anywhere.

On the return journey, the patrol was contacted again and again by insurgent fire and on another two occasions, from a variety of weapons including mortars, Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs) and small arms. But they arrived safely back in the late hours of March 7th. Ben was relieved that this time no casualties were sustained during the course of the patrol. After one week and over 200km, the patrol returned to Camp Bastion, they had been out in the hills for just under a week.

Ben kissed the lipstick stained envelope one more time as he pushed in down into his backpack, he would be home in twenty-four hours, home and Lily. He had tried her mobile several times and listened to her voice as she said, ‘Please leave me a message.’ No doubt, he thought she was busy and anyway she would not be expecting him to phone then, as he had told her their mission could take up to nine days. He stood on the tarmac and looked for the last time at the hills of Afghanistan, he was safe and on his way home and to Lily.

There was just a single daffodil on the coffin in the small village church on that second day of March, it being much too early in the year to have the garlands that Lily had planned for her April wedding. There were the sounds of sobbing from Lily’s mother and friends as the coffin was carried down the aisle that Lily had planned to be decorated for her wedding. The lorry hadn’t seen Lily’s small car that had stopped for the horses, as it rounded the bend in the country lane and the police that had attended the accident said the girl driver didn’t have a chance to survive such a crash.

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