Betrayal
When the monitor blew her whistle every child had to freeze; this made it easier for them to find us.
It still took the teachers ten minutes to root us out of the corner where we huddled, shoulder to
shoulder, hand in hand.
I remember there was no wind and the sky was a strange sapphire blue as Wendy, the monitor in the
top year, led us through the statues and up to the waiting headmistress. Every eye followed us,
Sarah and I, as we trudged reluctantly over the faded hopscotch markings. Every stilled voice would
soon spatter out new rumours and exaggerations: a drama to puncture the silence. Sarah flashed
me a quick grin, to let me know we’d be alright.
That’s when we made the promise to each other, as the pale sun glimmered and the old
headmistress, in her brown skirt, jabbed her bony finger at us. Her wrinkled cheeks hung down
slightly as she barked out her disappointment: ‘Problem girls that would end up nowhere and
nothing, bleeding the state dry.’ That’s when we promised that this was us for life; we’d always back
each other up and we’d never let the other face trouble alone. We’d take on the world together.
***
Those school days passed quickly; we heard the headmistress had died shortly before she was due to
retire. That was sad: a whole life spent wagging the finger and no time to enjoy a rest. But we
forgot soon enough as long Summer became slippery Winter and our friends grew bigger, older and
meaner. We stuck together, just like we’d promised, never far away from each other. Major
decisions were discussed: music, boys and clothes. When we were seventeen we went on holiday to
the Lake District, climbed sharp mountains and swam in deserted tarns. When we were nineteen,
we joined the army.
We were the only two girls from North Shields.
We trained at Catterick, slogging over the North Yorkshire Moors, ploughing through the wet
heather. Getting stronger. Strong enough for Helmand.
Until the day came: deployment. Sarah and I, beneath the broiling Camp Bastion sun: somebodies,
something, serving the state proudly. Nine and a half thousand miles from North Shields.
I remember dawn in the desert: the fat red sun, shimmering madly, emerging from behind the
crooked horizon. Sarah adored it. She’d stretch out, arms splayed wide, letting the first rays wash
over her. They’d slowly highlight the deep bronze of her muscled forearms and dance over her
flawless skin. Her eyes would sparkle and flash. She was brilliant. My Sarah.
It was another morning, another day, a time ago. We didn’t always work together but on this day
we did. Our patrol took us down the Arghandab Valley towards the Kajaki Dam. The Taliban were
very active and insurgents could be anywhere. The bony, rotting remains of a goat festered by the
side of the dust road; a warm stench radiated and hung there about us, on us. A child, bare chested,
watched silently, statuesque, from a high ridge. I could feel his bleak eyes follow us.
I caught Sarah’s eye and she wrinkled her nose at the smell then fired off a quick grin, like she used
to in the playground, before fixing the position of her rifle and focusing absolutely on her job, what
she was here to do. The sky was that strange blue, bruised and swollen .
The Arghandab river was low: a muddy trickle, slow and old. Our patrol stopped. Sarah was at the
front and she raised her hand to urge caution. A cricket whistled in the dry bush; it was a subtle
counterpoint to our measured breaths. This was what we were trained to do: to identify the threat
before it became a threat.
The faintest hint of a breeze moved the lock of dark hair visible beneath Sarah’s helmet. I’d seen that
hair swirled by storms on Tynemouth Longsands; plastered to her forehead after a deluge on top of
Blencathra; perfectly coiffed for the Year Eleven Prom at the Village in West Allotment. It was as
familiar to me as my own.
We advanced. A fat black ant heaved itself across the grit…
And the world ended with the bitter sigh of a single bullet slapping obscenely into fabric, bone and
blood. A sniper. We dropped to our bellies, rolling smoothly into combat mode. The crack of the
gunshot echoed, bouncing from rocky ledge to crooked overhang. Nothing moved.
Seconds were swallowed: precious moments of life spun away on the desolate Afghan steppe. Then
the call, desperately: ‘Medic.. m-m Medic!’ I crouch hurried to the front of the patrol and there she
was, on her side, with small scarlet bubbles already foaming at the corner of her mouth, with fingers
taut and twisting. My Sarah. My Sarah, leaving her life soaking into the grey sand. Her eyes were
already clouding over, filming. The sparkle and flash leaving forever.
‘We promised,’ I whispered as my own throat closed and my heart exploded. ‘You
promised…forever…’ And she looked at me, for one last time, and she stared into me, fixing my face
in her last memory. And then she left me.
And in the terrible dirt of the Arghandab Valley, nine and half thousand miles from North Shields, my
Sarah died.
And I was left alone.