The boss gave HQ a sit rep from the Vector behind. 'Zero Alpha, this is Romeo One One. Contact. Wait. Out.'

Noise, dust flying and muzzle flashes everywhere, but when Dave scanned the place for movement, there was none. The walls stared back at him, monumental and impassive. He scrutinized the tops of the palms and fruit trees beyond them for shadows, motion, any unnatural regularity. Nothing. A fire fight was erupting on all sides but the enemy was invisible.

Then, amid the crack and thump of small arms, came the angry boom of a grenade.

'Cover! Cover!' Shouts from further down the convoy.

Dave's heart beat faster. Up ahead, buried inside a dark slit in the wall, he had seen something glint. He recognized the dull sheen of a worn weapon, its black surface rubbed away. He didn't take his eyes off it. He focused through spiralling clouds of dust, raised his weapon until the target was in the sights and then fired. He couldn't actually see the result, but he felt a small sense of satisfaction.

'Zero Alpha, this is Romeo One One. Grid…' The boss paused. He was at the front of his Vector, his nose probably buried in his map. Dave noticed that his voice was perceptibly higher than normal. And no wonder. The boss had walked more or less straight out of Sandhurst into this shitstorm.

'Grid 883 492. Taking fire. Light weapons. Rocket-propelled grenades. No casualties. Request air support. Wait. Out.'

Far away, in an air-conditioned cabin in the sprawling NATO base at Kandahar, Troops in Combat would be flashing up onscreen. Dave hoped his mate Sam Chandler was on duty and not lounging around in the base coffee shop or beating up a treadmill in the gym. Once a TIC showed red on the plasma, Sam or one of his colleagues would be legging it in his flying suit into the wall of heat outside, straight to a waiting Harrier. Dave had watched Sam do this only a few days ago, when R Company had first arrived in Afghanistan. It was a reassuring image.