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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781409094012
www.randomhouse.co.uk
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61– 63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
A Random House Group Company
www.rbooks.co.uk
LAST NIGHT ANOTHER SOLDIER …
A CORGI BOOK: 9780552161688
First publication in Great Britain
Corgi edition published 2010
Copyright © Andy McNab 2010
This novel is based on the play Last Night Another Soldier , broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in August 2009.
Andy McNab has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Addresses for Random House Group Ltd companies outside the UK can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk The Random House Group Reg. No. 954009
The Random House Group Limited supports The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading international forest certification organisation. All our titles that are printed on Greenpeace approved FSC certified paper carry the FSC logo. Our paper procurement policy can be found at www.rbooks.co.uk/environment
Typeset in 12/16pt Stone Serif by Kestrel Data, Exeter, Devon. Printed in the UK by CPI Cox Wyman, Reading, RG1 8EX.
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Also by Andy McNab
Non-fiction
Bravo Two Zero
Immediate Action
Seven Troop
Spoken from the Front (edited)
Fiction
The Grey Man
Remote Control
Crisis Four
Firewall
Last Light
Liberation Day
Dark Winter
Deep Black
Aggressor
Recoil
Crossfire
Brute Force
Advice: contains strong language and violent scenes.
Chapter One
It was going to be another long night. The Taliban weren’t giving up those poppy fields as easily as we had first thought. We were now eight years on from when the British Army first rolled into Afghanistan, and we were still aggressive camping, that’s what we call fighting, on both sides of the Helmand River. The whole area was known as the ‘Green Zone’. Basically, hundreds of miles of green fields where the local lads grew maize and poppies.
Sergeant MacKenzie told us that Afghanistan supplied ninety per cent of the world’s heroin and made the Taliban shedloads of money. He said it was up to us to stop it. Clear. Hold and Build was what the Americans wanted us to do. Kick the Taliban out of the area, take control, and then maybe the farmers wouldn’t have to grow poppies for the Taliban no more. Good plan, but the thing is MacKenzie forgot to tell the Taliban. They just kept on coming out of the maize, shooting at us like they never wanted to stop.
That night was my first ever fire fight, andwe’d already been hard at it for over four hours. Up until then, I’d only ever practised being a soldier back in the Army Training Centre in Catterick. I’d never actually done it for real.
I was eighteen and had only been in Afghanistan for three weeks. And there I was, stuck behind a mud wall for cover, in a major contact with the Taliban. Not that I’d actually seen the enemy
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781409094012
www.randomhouse.co.uk
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61– 63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
A Random House Group Company
www.rbooks.co.uk
LAST NIGHT ANOTHER SOLDIER …
A CORGI BOOK: 9780552161688
First publication in Great Britain
Corgi edition published 2010
Copyright © Andy McNab 2010
This novel is based on the play Last Night Another Soldier , broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in August 2009.
Andy McNab has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Addresses for Random House Group Ltd companies outside the UK can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk The Random House Group Reg. No. 954009
The Random House Group Limited supports The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading international forest certification organisation. All our titles that are printed on Greenpeace approved FSC certified paper carry the FSC logo. Our paper procurement policy can be found at www.rbooks.co.uk/environment
Typeset in 12/16pt Stone Serif by Kestrel Data, Exeter, Devon. Printed in the UK by CPI Cox Wyman, Reading, RG1 8EX.
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Also by Andy McNab
Non-fiction
Bravo Two Zero
Immediate Action
Seven Troop
Spoken from the Front (edited)
Fiction
The Grey Man
Remote Control
Crisis Four
Firewall
Last Light
Liberation Day
Dark Winter
Deep Black
Aggressor
Recoil
Crossfire
Brute Force
Advice: contains strong language and violent scenes.
Chapter One
It was going to be another long night. The Taliban weren’t giving up those poppy fields as easily as we had first thought. We were now eight years on from when the British Army first rolled into Afghanistan, and we were still aggressive camping, that’s what we call fighting, on both sides of the Helmand River. The whole area was known as the ‘Green Zone’. Basically, hundreds of miles of green fields where the local lads grew maize and poppies.
Sergeant MacKenzie told us that Afghanistan supplied ninety per cent of the world’s heroin and made the Taliban shedloads of money. He said it was up to us to stop it. Clear. Hold and Build was what the Americans wanted us to do. Kick the Taliban out of the area, take control, and then maybe the farmers wouldn’t have to grow poppies for the Taliban no more. Good plan, but the thing is MacKenzie forgot to tell the Taliban. They just kept on coming out of the maize, shooting at us like they never wanted to stop.
That night was my first ever fire fight, andwe’d already been hard at it for over four hours. Up until then, I’d only ever practised being a soldier back in the Army Training Centre in Catterick. I’d never actually done it for real.
I was eighteen and had only been in Afghanistan for three weeks. And there I was, stuck behind a mud wall for cover, in a major contact with the Taliban. Not that I’d actually seen the enemy
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