Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

Nathan was staring at the cans of lager. I had to admit that you’d have had to
look quite hard to see a suit of armour in any of them.
‘Where do youse want to get him to?’ said one.
The others stood around Will, nodding their hellos. One offered him a beer,
apparently unable to grasp that Will could not pick it up.
Nathan motioned to our car. ‘Back in the car, ultimately. But to do that we
need to get him over to the stand, and then reverse the car back to him.’
‘You don’t need to do that,’ said one, clapping Nathan on the back. ‘We can
take him to your car, can’t we, lads?’
There was a chorus of agreement. They began to position themselves around
Will’s chair.
I shifted uncomfortably. ‘I don’t know … that’s a long way for you to carry
him,’ I ventured. ‘And the chair’s very heavy.’
They were howlingly drunk. Some of them could barely hang on to their cans
of drink. One thrust his can of Tennent’s into my hand.
‘Don’t you worry, pet. Anything for a fellow soldier, isn’t that right, lads?’
‘We wouldn’t leave you there, mate. We never leave a man down, do we?’
I saw Nathan’s face and shook my head furiously at his quizzical expression.
Will seemed unlikely to say anything. He just looked grim, and then, as the men
clustered around his chair, and with a shout, hoisted it up between them, vaguely
alarmed.
‘What regiment, pet?’
I tried to smile, trawling my memory for names. ‘Rifles … ’ I said. ‘Eleventh
rifles.’
‘I don’t know the eleventh rifles,’ said another.
‘It’s a new regiment,’ I stuttered. ‘Top secret. Based in Iraq.’
Their trainers slid in the mud, and I felt my heart lurch. Will’s chair was
hoisted several inches off the ground, like some kind of sedan. Nathan was
running for Will’s bag, unlocking the car ahead of us.
‘Did those boys train over in Catterick?’
‘That’s the one,’ I said, and then changed the subject. ‘So – which one of you
is getting married?’
We had exchanged numbers by the time I finally got rid of Marky and his
mates. They had a whip-round, offering us almost forty pounds towards Will’s