Free War Dog by Chris Ryan

Chapter One:
THE GREEN ZONE
    You think it’s funny, do you? You think it’s a laugh to stare at me limping through the park? How old are you? Not much younger than I was when I lost my leg.
    Yeah, that’s right. Eighteen years old. My whole life ahead of me. Still think I look funny, hey? Go on, have a good giggle at the man with the plastic foot.
    What? You want to know how it happened?
    Don’t mess me around. Seriously, are you sure?
    Alright then. Let’s sit down on this park bench here. I’m sorry, I’m a little out of breath. It’s tiring going around on these crutches. I was very fit back in my army days. But … well, those days are gone. My name’s Jamie, by the way. Pleased to meet you.
    It happened on a hot afternoon. Correction: it happened on a scorching hot afternoon. Every summer’s day in Afghanistan is a scorcher. You sometimes think you’ll never be cool again.
    We’d been on patrol since before dawn. Our route had taken us into the Green Zone.
    What’s the Green Zone?
    Well, in the south of Afghanistan, most of the terrain is desert. Dry. Barren. But there are rivers that carry water down from the nearby mountains. The banks of these rivers are fertile – good for growing stuff. That’s why they call it the Green Zone, and it’s where they grow fruit and vegetables. Most of the locals live in the Green Zone. Most of the enemy, too. They’re called the Taliban – you’ve probably heard of them on the news. All they want to do is kill British soldiers. And if they can’t kill them, they’ll make do with maiming them. Loads of my friends out there have lost arms. Or legs. Or both.
    Friends. That’s what being in the army is all about. You make friends. You look after your friends. You watch each other’s back. But there was this one guy in my platoon who wasn’t really a friend. The opposite, in fact. I used to laugh at him. We all did.
    A bit like you were laughing at me just then. His name was Sam. Sam Maguire. And why did we laugh at him? Because he was different, I suppose.
    You see, Sam’s best friend wasn’t another soldier. His best friend was a sniffer dog called Charlie.

Chapter Two:
WAR DOG
    Didn’t you know they had dogs in the army? You’d be surprised. Attack dogs. Patrol dogs. Sentry dogs. Search and rescue dogs. But Charlie? He was one of the best.
    You wouldn’t think it to look at him. A raggedy-looking thing. A springer spaniel with puppy-dog eyes. His ears touched the ground when he drank from his bowl. But that dog could sniff out a bomb from a hundred metres. It was Sam who taught him to do it. Together, they uncovered more bombs than any other team in the British Army.
    And the Taliban, they like their bombs. We called them IEDs out there – Improvised Explosive Devices. They’re almost impossible to see. If you tread on one, you’re coming home in a box. At least, the bits of you that they can find are. But Charlie could sniff them out, and Sam could defuse them. I don’t know how many lives they must’ve saved. Hundreds, probably.
    They were a strange couple, though. Inseparable. Back at base, Sam would never hang out with the rest of us. He just wanted to be with his dog. We’d all be playing Call of Duty together while Sam would be grooming Charlie. Brushing the desert sand out of his fur. Checking his paws. Keeping him company. Of course, we used to tease him. You know the sort of thing. “Hey, Sam, what is it with you and Charlie. Does he remind you of your girlfriend or something?” But I never saw Sam get cross. He just smiled and shrugged it off. Then he went back to brushing Charlie’s coat. He loved that dog. And the dog loved him back. Charlie would do anything for Sam.
    He would even follow him into the Green Zone.

Chapter Three:
UNDER FIRE
    It was three o’clock in the afternoon. We’d been sheltering from the midday sun in an abandoned courtyard on the edge of a village. We were just getting ready to leave, hoisting our rucksacks onto