Today has been hot, reports claim hottest day in years. My fractured her ankle last week and wanted to visit her ex fiancé, so I offered to drive her.

Long hours on crowded roads even though we left early. Finally we found a place in the shadiest part of the carpark. I helped her out of the car but she shrugged off my steadying hand, determined to walk alone to see him.

I stayed back, giving her space, privacy, which is probably why I noticed the guys a little further away, some in uniform, others obviously out of it. A soft voice to my right, I’d not even noticed him, “Miss, please, no further.” I looked up at him, glanced at the group, nodded agreement.

“I’m just giving my friend space, she’s visiting her ex.”

I can’t explain it, but the atmosphere changed, is if we were sharing something, a moment.

“The guys won’t be too long.”

He was still watching, but not the direction where the men were standing. A while later he spoke. “Your friend?”

“Yes.”

As my friend joined us he spoke again, his voice controlled, calm, yet there was something... “I’m sorry for your loss.”

My friend stopped, balanced on her crutches she’d not yet mastered. “Thanks, you lost someone too?”

“Too many.” His reply was soft, but that edge was sharper.

The sound of vehicles broke the silence, tinted windows, anonymous as those I’d been kept clear of.

“Thank you for waiting.” He nodded at us both and turned away towards where the men had been gathered.

My friend’s voice stopped him. “It helps to have a friend, I should have accepted the offer, please, accept mine.”

We walked together, slow so my friend could set the pace, he stopped, one of us either side of him.

Silence.

He spoke with that soft voice, the edge barely hidden. This is what he said;

When the first of us arrived it was a bare base, nothing but the necessary. As the months went by it still had nothing, then an ex-pat showed up, did a deal. Our little corner of hell was the secure area on a secure base, suddenly we had something, two shipping containers, one was a store and had chillers, a single worker, it was part food kiosk part shop. The ex-pat showed up once a week with supplied, the worker stayed, wasn’t allowed out, that was the deal.

Finally we had paradise in hell, that’s what the worker painted above the serving hatch. “Paradise” with a picture of a bacon roll and a mug of tea. The ex-pat had put up a sign prices and opening hours, but nobody ever saw it close when ops were running. Day of night we could get a little bite of paradise, a bacon roll and a mug of tea.

It was always clean, always neat, always open. The worker was a local, we never knew his name, the ex-pat called him ‘raghead’. All on his own, day or night, he kept paradise running for six years. Never left that little part of the compound, not once.

After six years the ex-pat got him a pass to go out, drove him, took him to visit his families graves, wife and baby. Seems that seven years ago the local Imam of his village was on form and the young men left riled up enough to go visit the people from Médecins Sans Frontières. They shot up the place, his was seriously injured, his his wife and his newborn child both died even though he shielded them with his body.

Roadside bomb took out the ex-pats vehicle. When the guys closed up the containers they found a Koran and a prayer mat run the container store. It was only then somebody realised why the store was at an angle to the main container, it was exactly aligned to Mecca. There wasn’t anything left to bury, but he earned a marker so the guys got together.

Silence.

“Thank you ladies.” He turned away and walked to where a single dark tinted vehicle waited. Walk isn’t really right though, no idea how to describe it, but if you’ve met one of them, you’ll understand.

My friend was reading the inscription, I skipped the name and date to read it.

A Companionate Soul, with a Warriors Heart Loving Father to a Wife and Daughter Lost too soon, Mourned by too few An inspiration to us all Hell can’t survive when Paradise is within

I looked up, that’s when I saw the name on the grave.

R Head

It’s not a large church, quiet, discrete, mostly military, I doubt there is another non christian gravestone there, but “the guys” found a way to mark it.

My friend is ex-military, her ex fiancé was too, except he served in one of those units that don’t believe their members are ever ‘ex’. He was killed less than forty-eight hours before his tour ended and they were to be married. In his words, that he spoke once in my hearing. “Some people beat the clock, some don’t.”