Читать книгу The Testimony - James Smythe, James Smythe - Страница 12

As a soldier, no matter what you’re doing – sleeping, on a recce, whatever – you hear a noise you haven’t heard before, you damn well listen. We were packing, and there was a handover at the camp happening. We’d been on recon, which was all we ever did in those days. It had been a couple of decades since we’d actually needed to be out there in any great number, but people – the people with the money and the power – were still scared. The Yanks were taking it over from us, which was a hell of a relief, let me tell you. We weren’t having a party, exactly, but we were happy to be leaving, and then we heard the static. Somebody asked if it wasn’t just the sand. We’d had storms a few days previous, and it was a bit easier to assume that it might be that than … well, whatever it was. I’ve seen the footage on the news now of people going crazy because of it, panicking, all that, but we just tried to get on with our jobs. We loaded the trucks, took them to the airfield. A random noise might have made us prick up our ears, but there was no way it was stopping us getting home, I’ll tell you that for nothing. What did stop us coming home? Orders. We were barely on the plane when we were told that we weren’t going anywhere, that we were to stay put until the government knew what the hell it was that made the noise. That meant that somebody somewhere was worried that it was terror-related, so we knew we’d be there for the long haul.