Free Rain by Barney Campbell

afternoon he had to help the guys make out their wills, as well as write his own. On the Wednesday morning they had an eight-mile run and that afternoon lessons on the Vallon metal detectors, and then they practised their barma drills. That night Tom and Trueman took 3 Troop out for a curry and few drinks, but nothing spilled over into a particularly late night.
    On the Thursday morning they packed up their rooms,putting all their kit, posters, pictures, books and trinkets into boxes and leaving them in the middle of the bare rooms, so that if they were killed it would be easy to get all their property back to their next of kin. In the afternoon they were issued their dog tags – lining up in the gymnasium to receive them from the regimental clerks – as well as their medical documents, and had all their passports checked. It all started to feel as though they were going on some kind of extreme package holiday.
    Immediately they got their dog tags Tom and Clive debated how they were going to wear them. They came on a beaded metal necklace, and detailed in shallow punched capitals the bearer’s army number, his initials, blood group and religious denomination. There was great mileage in discussing how one wore these millstones of mortality. The rule was that they were to be worn around the neck, but there was an urban myth that it was bad luck to do this, as what would happen if your head was blown off and they were both lost? So some soldiers had one tag tied to a belt loop of their trousers or strung on one of their bootlaces.
    Tom, always content to take the path of least resistance, had his around his neck and thus avoided exasperating Frenchie. Clive went with what the allyer soldiers were doing, stringing one on a bootlace and hanging the other around his neck, substituting the metal necklace with a piece of coloured string. ‘This is what they’d have done in ’Nam, mate,’ he told Tom before being discovered by Frenchie and then rather pathetically having to scrabble around in a bin for the necklace so he could wear them properly.
    Tom was amused at how much attention soldiers devoted to these bits of trivia. No one ever seemed to talk about the rights or wrongs of Afghanistan, still less about the picture on the ground in the country. They just knew that once theygot there Brigade would give them a task, and they’d just crack on and do it; the tour would look after itself. What they did spend all their time doing was debating things like how to make their helmet look cool – how much scrim netting to put on and whether or not to surreptitiously Vietnamize it with slogans. How much sniper tape to put on their rifle, GPS , torches. Where to keep pictures of wives and children – down the front plate of their body armour or in the padded lining of a helmet? What tattoo they would get to commemorate the tour. What tattoo everyone in the troop should get if someone was killed.
    On the Friday morning they paraded again in the gymnasium and everyone had their ‘death photo’ taken; this would be released to the media if they were killed. Frenchie and Sergeant Major Brennan stood behind the photographer and checked each photo, making sure no one had pulled a silly face or was looking too vacant. As Tom stepped onto the podium and stood in front of the regimental colours – the backdrop – he looked as white as a sheet, and Frenchie said to him, ‘Come on, Tom; it’s not that bad! Try to look a bit more cheerful.’ Tom flashed a bit of a grin, but still felt that the result, when he saw it, made him look as though he was on day release from prison. Clive, on the other hand, posed and pouted for the camera, saying, ‘Still need to impress the chicks from beyond the grave.’
    After the photo session they formed up, all the administration now done. The buses collecting them from the barracks to begin the journey to Bastion were due at midnight. Frenchie spoke to them. ‘Right, fellas, that’s it all done. Go