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JEAN AND ASMA LAY ON THEIR COTS IN BODY ARMOUR AND HELMETS listening to almost incessant firing. They shared a room in one of the safer areas of the base. Reinforced with concrete, it nestled inside thick Afghan mud walls.Jean said: ‘I’m sure the enemy waits for the contractors to leave the base before they start this.’‘But only a couple of the contractors went out today,’ Asma said. ‘Martyn’s still here because he’s coming to the shura.’‘Well, the Taliban don’t know how many are in the civvies’ Vector.’At that moment their beds were shaken by a particularly loud explosion. Small, powdery pieces of wall scattered over them.‘Toenail time,’ said Jean.Asma nodded and reached for her makeup bag. They always painted their toenails during intense fire on the grounds that military morticians probably wouldn’t bother with toenails before their corpses were carried through Wootton Bassett.Jean was pulling off her boots.‘Not much chance we’ll get out for the shura now.’‘It’ll be all over by then.’ Asma chucked a tiny bright red bottle over to Jean’s bed and shook a similar pink one herself.‘Is your mate Gordon Weeks coming again?’ asked Jean.‘No,’ said Asma. ‘We’ve got a different platoon today.’‘Shame. That rifleman from 1 Platoon who stood by the door last time is really nice.’‘There’ll probably be another nice rifleman today for you to smile at.’‘Well I like that one. Got chatting to him about skiing in the cookhouse. It’s amazing how thinking about snow can make you feel cooler in these temperatures.’Asma was placing a piece of foam between her toes. ‘That’s an achievement. You chatting with a rifleman. Considering how they all hate monkeys.’ Now she had begun to follow the line of her nails slowly and carefully with the tiny brush.‘Well, when he’d got over that one he was all right. His name’s Jamie. I worked for one season in Val d’Isère and he used to go every year with his family and it turns out we were there at the same time.’Asma looked up from her toes at Jean for a moment and raised her eyebrows comically.‘Skiing with his family every year? And he’s a rifleman?’Jean pulled a face. ‘And he’s married.’ She opened the red bottle. ‘But he’s all right.’They both concentrated on their nails, pausing only briefly when another explosion shook their cots.‘Do you think Iain Kila’s all right too?’ asked Asma.‘Yuck!’ Jean stopped painting and sank inside her body armour like a tortoise. ‘Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck.’‘He likes you,’ Asma said.‘He’s scary. Imagine him in a narrow alley on a dark night when he’s had a few.’‘All these big hard men are softies underneath. They just need a good woman to help them show their feelings.’Jean guffawed. ‘And the last good woman was called Trudi.’‘Did he tell you that?’‘Nope. Her name’s tattooed on his arm.’Asma changed feet. ‘Well, at least he’s got an Underslung Grenade Launcher tattooed on his other arm.’‘Are you kidding?’‘How cool is that?’‘You are kidding!’‘Yes,’ giggled Asma. ‘But he’s the sort who would.’Jean giggled too.‘I think you like him,’ said Asma.‘I do not.’‘You’re always talking to him.’‘That’s because every other soldier avoids me. Apart from Jamie. They all think I’m trying to arrest them.’Asma had finished her toenails. She screwed the brush back into the bottle and then tipped the contents of her makeup bag onto her cot. She bent over, sifting through everything, so that tiny bottles fell against one another with soft clinking noises. She said: ‘Well, you did make a big fuss about that guy they shot in the ditch.’Jean was only starting on her second foot now. ‘The OC’s promised he’ll investigate and write a report. I know they want to sweep it under the carpet but I’m not going to let them. The fact is, they filled a wounded man with bullets.’‘Course he was wounded. They shot him.’‘It’s uncivilized,’ insisted Jean. ‘Soldiers storm compounds and see people living cheek by jowl with their animals and wandering around in flipflops. So they decide the Afghans are a bunch of savages. They should look at their own behaviour sometimes.’‘Keep going with that one and you’ll drop a popular sergeant in the shit.’‘It’s good to remind people about the RoE,’ said Jean. ‘Keeps their baser instincts under control.’‘OK, but don’t expect them to like you for it.’ Asma was applying mascara now, holding a little mirror up with the other hand.‘Well, Iain Kila still likes me. I wouldn’t talk RoE to him, though.’Jean finished her toenails and sat up and watched her friend’s dexterity with the mascara. ‘Are you putting on your face to impress that tribesman you fancy at the shura?’Asma giggled. ‘I wouldn’t say fancy. But he’s a very attractive man. And he makes Afghanistan seem a very attractive place.’‘In other words, you fancy him.’Asma giggled again and shifted the mascara brush over to the other eye. ‘Think I could be his fourth wife?’‘You’d get a bit bored stuck at home all day with the other three.’‘No, I wouldn’t, because I’d be busy having at least ten kids.’‘So that’s something about Afghanistan you don’t find so attractive, then?’‘If my mum and dad hadn’t got out, I’d certainly have six kids by now and another on the way. So I’m glad I’m English. But Afghanistan’s always going to have a pull over me.’‘It’s that tribesman who’s pulled.’ Jean got up, found her camera and took a picture of Asma in helmet and body armour holding her mirror and mascara.‘Don’t you dare put that on Facebook,’ said Asma, blinking rapidly. ‘How do I look? Need a bit of eyeliner?’Jean turned away. ‘If you’re trying to look good for some tribesman then I’m not giving you any advice.’‘Well, Gordon Weeks might be in the cookhouse.’‘He needs no encouragement. Never stops staring at you.’‘He held my hand a while ago.’‘Is that all?’‘There’s nothing much going on between me and Gordon Weeks. We’re just two saddos stuck in an FOB in the middle of nowhere.’‘There is something going on and you know it.’They’d grown so accustomed to the firing that the lengthening silences had become more startling than any explosion. The changing pace of the battle was as familiar to them as music and they knew it was time now to put the nail polish away.Asma stuffed the makeup bag into her day sack, untied her hair and began running a brush through the ends without taking off her helmet. Only then did she look up at Jean.‘Listen, Gordon’s so bloody shy he can’t even kiss me, let alone go further. He acts like I’m going to break if he touches me.’‘That’s sort of nice in a way,’ said Jean.Asma paused, the brush in mid-air.‘It is sort of nice. No one ever treated me like I’m fragile before.’‘That’s respect.’‘Yeah, well, I like respect but I could handle a snog as well.’‘You could throw your arms around him and get on with some serious snogging and hope he enjoys it.’Asma laughed. ‘He’d be so shocked he’d jump right over the hesco like a fucking kangaroo.’There was the deep rumble of an aircraft approaching low overhead.‘Great! Air support. Just when it’s ending anyway,’ said Jean.‘Sounds like an A10. Brace yourself . . .’A few minutes later came the crash. The ground shook. More debris fell on their cots.‘Must have dropped it on that hilly bit up the road. At last. That’s always their main firing position,’ said Jean.‘Nah, too close to town,’ said Asma. ‘That’s why it’s always their main firing position.’They listened. Apart from the groan of the departing aircraft, there was silence. It was broken by one defiant enemy round. This was greeted by machine-gun fire from the base. More silence. Another round. Another reply. And then nothing.‘Those guys would delay dying for five minutes just to fire one more time,’ said Jean.Asma pulled off her helmet, shook her long, dark hair loose and brushed it from the roots down.‘What do you expect? They’re Pashtun. So do you think the cookhouse will be operating yet? I’m hungry.’Jean said: ‘Listen, I want to say something. This bloke we’re seeing this afternoon . . .’‘They’re all blokes. Which one?’‘The blue-eyed tribesman who’s got you putting on your mascara.’‘Asad, I think his name is, innit. Short for Asadullah.’ Asma put away her brush.Jean looked serious. ‘Iain Kila said something.’‘What?’‘I said the civilians weren’t coming under fire because the locals like the idea of oil and gas income. And I told him how Asad and his family wanted to hear about it at the last shura.’‘And?’‘And he said: then Asad must be Taliban. Otherwise he couldn’t call them off.’They were leaving their room now. Outside the sun was bright. The smell of cordite lingered in the air. There were clouds of dust circling as though there had been a sudden storm. As they crossed to the cookhouse men began returning from their firing positions. Sergeant Somers was shouting at one of his lads. Asma stopped.‘No, Jean. Asad told us there’s a compound in the Green Zone which is swarming with insurgents. We’ve got more intelligence which says he’s right. And he’s going to tell us which compound. He wouldn’t do that if he was Taliban, would he?’‘I don’t know, Asma. Those guys are complicated.’‘I really think he wants us to help him get the Taliban off his territory.’Jean grinned at her.‘Like you said, you’re a saddo stuck in an FOB in the middle of nowhere. And you fancy him. So I don’t trust your judgement.’The 2 i/c, carrying a mug of tea, came out of the ops room, saw them and raised a hand to stop them.‘There’s a very slight change of plan for this afternoon. The Professor will be coming to the shura.’Jean remembered the last time she had been out with Emily.‘Oh no!’‘Sorry. We tried to talk her out of it.’Asma said: ‘Does she realize she’ll be sitting cross-legged on a carpet?’‘And she’ll have to cover up,’ added Jean. ‘Her knee-length skirts won’t do.’The 2 i/c looked embarrassed. ‘I didn’t think of discussing her wardrobe. I’ll leave that to you girls.’‘You want us to go and tell her?’ demanded Asma.The 2 i/c nodded sheepishly.‘You’re all scared of her!’ said Asma. The 2 i/c nodded again.