by A. J. Kirby
One of the doors of the landie was open, and from the inside, the low, tinny sound of music could be heard. I tried to place the song. Knew I’d heard it before somewhere in the deep mists of time. I listened hard to try to pick out the lyrics which were fuzzy at best. But it was only when Private Smith started humming along that I realised what it was; Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’. Somehow, it seemed wildly out of place for him to be singing it here. But maybe that was because the song once meant so much to me; reminded me of long, hot summers back home. There was a reason I’d not listened to it for a while though, wasn’t there. And I didn’t want to think of that now; this could well be the day our music died.
Soon, the men were called to assemble and we started to walk down into the gully, picking our way through assorted debris and over sharp-looking rocks. It didn’t make for easy-marching. Again, I felt that uneasy feeling creaking up within me, only now we were coming so close to the building, it was starting to transform itself into dread. And so, when Sergeant Davis started walking alongside me, it took me a while to notice.
‘Lost in your own world, Lance Corporal?’ he asked, with this nasty little smile on his face. I could barely bring myself to look at him. He was a big man and he still wore a moustache, despite the fact that he probably knew all about how the privates ripped him for it behind his back. He had this annoyingly superior way about him as though he thought he knew everything in the world and it was his solemn duty to impart it to country-bumpkins such as me.
‘Sorry sarge,’ I muttered.
He waved away my apology and grunted as he climbed over a particularly large piece of rusted machinery. Why he couldn’t have stepped around it was beyond my comprehension.
‘This gully was most likely made by a tributary of the Helmand River that’s long since dried up,’ said Davis as he rejoined my path. Sometimes, I wished he could just lighten-up a little. This wasn’t a damn geography test. We weren’t supposed to think; not too much. ‘That’s maybe why we can’t see any opium fields round here… Or much of anything really.’
I grunted by way of response. What with the way that my scalp was itching so much from the pressure-cooker helmet, and the steepness of the slope down the gully, it was all I could do to stop myself from saying something I’d later regret. But sometimes, just sometimes, I thought about how delightful it would be if Davis wasn’t around any more. If I didn’t have to subject myself to his looming presence and his stony-faced disapproval of the way I handled the four men under me.
Stony was pretty much a good description of Davis, in fact. He was like a massive boulder that got in the way of all my plans. A man so set in his ways it was as though concrete had been set in his blood. Sometimes, I thought I could hear the rumbling of his joints when he walked with me.
‘Good terrain for training,’ he said. ‘The Taliban picked well. And even the Landies couldn’t get down to the building from this direction…’
‘We could have gone round the other way,’ I muttered. ‘Taken a Wolf.’
Davis looked at me sternly, shook his head and said: ‘But that would have taken away from the element of surprise.’
Dread was setting in strong now. Who was he hoping to surprise? What was he hoping to surprise? I thought he said the building was abandoned…
Soon, he started to sense my mood and my unwillingness to talk and he stepped up his pace to join another of the Lance Corporals – a renowned arse-licker that seemed to just love Davis’s geographical lectures - and I was again left with my only own thoughts for company, despite being surrounded by fifty men.
Thankfully, we reached flatter ground in time, and soon could pick out the low-slung building, which was in fact two buildings, separated by a small courtyard which was filled with overflowing bins and leftover equipment. Silence had crept up behind us and taken over us all, and now all we could hear was the lazy rattling of one of the shutters in the light breeze and the occasional heavy clump of someone’s boots on the turf. Even Selly didn’t feel the need to speak, for once. I watched him as he followed exactly in Private Smith’s footsteps as though it were some kind of superstitious game, like a child trying not to step on the cracks in the pavement. Perhaps it was his way of trying to waylay death; perhaps it was his way of trying to sneak around death and out the other side, into his own little world of Dulux dogs. Or maybe he was worried about landmines? For about the first fortnight he was here, he walked everywhere like a cat on a griddle-pan. Only after numerous complaints from the rest of the lads did I set him straight.
But here there were no landmines. They’d swept the area, hadn’t they? There were other worries though. We were in full view of the building now, but surely if there was some sniper inside, he’d have started to pick us off by now. There were lots of little cracks in the concrete walls through which an AK47 could have been poked, and yet there was no fire. I began to agree with the sarge; the place was dead; abandoned. We’d find nothing here just like they’d found nothing in so many similar places across the province.
I wasn’t scared of death, not then. But I suppose that I was scared of what would come next. What would be waiting for me afterwards. I knew I was going to hell, but then, what was this place if it wasn’t hell already? And it was these thoughts that made my stubborn legs keep going as we crossed a fence and into the scrubland out front of the buildings. And yet, still nothing.
In the courtyard, we stepped over feral cats that could barely even muster up the energy to glimp up at us. It was so hot that we could almost see them cooking as they lounged. I braced myself for the sight of Selly reaching down to stroke one of them, but he kept to his task wearing a pale mask of concentration that probably matched my own.
Davis took the lead, frantically gesturing for various divisions to approach the building in several different directions. There seemed to be four or five entrances – broken-down stable doors and the like – and apparently he wanted all of them covered. Which made sense, I suppose.
I led my men to the furthest entrance; one which was partially blocked by a large, rusting piece of corrugated iron. We slipped quietly along the concrete walls, just as we’d been trained. We kept low, but mobile; even Selly. When we reached the entrance, I looked each of my men in the eye. Somehow, I knew that it was important that I did this. Reynolds looked typically dead-eyed and keen to get on with it; Smith looked typically non-plussed by the whole situation; Delaney looked a little sulky. But Selly; Selly wore this look that scared the shit out of me. His face, which had been so pale on the approach, was now blazing hot. His cheeks looked almost purple.
And that look at Selly made my decision for me. Without another moment’s thought, I pushed the corrugated iron away from the door and we stepped into the building. The smell of decay was everywhere; nobody, it seemed, had been here in a long time.
And they hadn’t. Only, bombs can sleep for a long time before they go off. They don’t really care how long they have to stay awake. And depending on how well they are made, they can still be alert long after even the hardiest of soldiers would have lost patience. And Davis’s recon squad never noticed the bomb that the Taliban had left behind at the low-slung building. And when Davis or Selly or any of the other men stepped through the door, it was primed and waiting for them.
Hello boys. I wondered what had taken so long…
So now, as I try to think about what I would have done differently; as I try to make whatever deal will stick with whoever ultimately controls the universe – if there is anyone – a sense of regret mixes with the pain. If I hadn’t got so ratty with Davis as we traipsed down the slope. If I hadn’t wished him dead at one point. If I’d checked for bombs myself… If only I’d paid attention to the warnings I’d had; the purple.
But none of it will do any good. If a second blast occurs, I won’t be as lucky. I won’t be able to run. I’m stuck under one of the displaced room beams. Some other thing has come down from there and pinned me right against the floor by the chest. T
here is no escape. I’m a sitting duck.
I can’t even remember the explosion itself. It’s like a massive mental block, like my head-loss. One minute I was stepping through that door, the next I was laying on the floor. I try to close my eyes; close out the pain. Death is coming to be now. Death is closing in and I don’t know what to do about it. In fact, the only thing I can do is to try to hasten its ill-effects by making my life flash before my eyes.
I try to remember the faces of those that are closest to me; my old dad, my fiancée Jane, my brother, Selly, Reynolds, Smith, Delaney… But for some reason – maybe the wiring to my brain’s gone to pot – all I can think of is the faces of some of the boys from back in Newton Mills. That was a long time ago, almost in another life.
I can’t even remember the last time I thought of Newton Mills properly, let alone the people. The guy wedged above me in this train-wreck of a building has been with me for the past few months on this mission and yet I can’t even remember why I hated him so much. The guys from Newton Mills - Tommy Peaker in particular - have been buried under the rubble of the rest of my life for so long now that it is almost scary to think of them now, and at a time like this. I’ve tried to put them out of my mind. And yet today I heard ‘American Pie’ again. Today I was painfully reminded of one of the boys back there through the cruelty of one of my men. And now, I almost believe that if I reach out, I could touch them.
Newton Mills; I wince in pain at the thought. I remember the line from Godfather III: ‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in…’ Maybe after all, I’m being punished for the things that happened back there. Maybe I’m being punished by the restless spirit of the kid we bullied into the grave… That’s a chapter of my life that I want buried beneath everything else by the way, if anyone’s listening. And if that means that I have to die right here, right now, then so be it. So be it.
From above, ceiling tiles start to rain down on us once again. Then come the clouds of dust, and probably asbestos too, although now’s probably not the time to be worrying about minor health and safety fears like that. From somewhere else, perhaps my own pocket, I hear a radio crackling pointlessly. I hear urgent barked enquiries from HQ. I groan in response, which in turn causes my throat to constrict yet more and the spear in my chest to twist in complaint.
And suddenly, silence sweeps the building. Everything stops creaking and groaning; people, walls, everything. It is a snapshot moment of absolute peace which must be something like what death is really like; just eternal nothing. I know exactly what is going to happen next. This moment of calm is like the building taking a final sucked breath before it suddenly gives up altogether and collapses.
I’ve taken a deep breath too; steeling myself for what is to come. My nostrils take in gallons of dust, the scent of shit, the stench of fear. They also take in another smell; one that I’d not noticed before. It smells strangely familiar but in amongst everything else I find it hard to place. It is a tangy, salty kind of smell. It’s out of place, here.
‘It’s too early for you,’ says a voice in my ear, scaring the shit out of me. ‘This is not your time.’
‘What?’ My eyes try to scan the room for the source of the voice. It is difficult because I can’t really move my head at all, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not any of the men from the mission. It’s not Selly or Davis, Reynolds or Smith. They are all stuck inside their own private hells, I know it.
‘Not your time,’ repeats the voice, tickling my ear with its closeness. I am now absolutely sure that the voice is not coming from any of the other men, but also that it’s not the outward projection of a voice in my head; I’m not totally mad yet... That smell has grown strong now too, and suddenly I know what it is. It’s the rich sweaty aroma of fish.
I feel something touch my arm; icy fingers crawl under my armpit. I feel myself being jerked upright and away from the grip of the roof-beam. I feel myself being spirited up off the ground and collected-up into the arms of something powerful. It’s as though my weight is as irrelevant as that of a very small child...
The last thing I hear before I finally black out is the second explosion, and by this time, I know that I’m already, miraculously, outside the building and back in the courtyard. In the distance, I can hear one of the feral cats meowing in fear or pain or victory.
Chapter Two
“Dirges in the dark”
I couldn’t remember the last time I dreamed about school. Could you? There was a time, once, when I had near-nightly panic attacks about being late for an exam or walking naked along the familiar black and white chessboard tiles of the corridors. Even after I had long finished with my education, the dreams continued on a regular basis. Some people on the mission claimed that they still had them; these dreams. Perhaps it was on account of the fact that the routine and regularity of the army was so similar to school-life. But I seemed to have finally buried them when I started being posted abroad, and my dreams, when I had them, were populated by fragrant-smelling foreign women. Most of the time, I hardly dreamed at all; the booze saw to that.
Nevertheless, as I came to, I felt the air thick with the Newton Mills smell; a mixture of the aromas from the toffee works and the undertone of faraway muck-spreading from the surrounding farmlands. I could also pick out the claggy scent of cigarettes and a vague texture of stale beer. That had been the Newton Mills I knew once, and I was so convinced of the reality of it that it took me a good while to work out that I had been dreaming, or whatever they call that recurring flick-show of images that revolve around your head when you’re dead to the world. For a fleeting moment, I thought that all I needed to do was reach out and I’d be able to touch the reassuring bulk of Cross-Eyed Lion or feel the rap of a deck of Twinnie’s cards on my knuckles. Or maybe Tommy; maybe Tommy…
When I opened my eyes, my dream quickly slipped away. I was clearly not in Newton Mills at all. And the new reality slipped over me like a comforting blanket; I could hear the cicadas croaking outside; could feel the parched heat on my skin; could smell foreign spices; could still feel grains of dust and sand on me in places where they surely couldn’t have hoped to have infiltrated. I wasn’t even in the same country as Newton Mills; I puffed out my cheeks in relief.
My behaviour must have given the rest of the inhabitants of this new room much amusement. For it’s not many people that wake up in a military hospital and look so delighted to be there. Or come to think of it; perhaps my reaction was a completely ordinary one. I’d swapped one hell for another, but at least I was alive. And fully intact too. A swiftly gathered inventory of my body parts confirmed that no part of me had been blown off in the blast. Sure I couldn’t move properly, but I was all there; physically at least. What had happened to that spear which had been sticking out of my chest?
The room was much as you’d expect from a makeshift hospital in the back of beyond; some farm building which had been quickly commandeered for that use. You could still see the holes in the corrugated iron ceiling and a light spattering of stars in the sky. Behind the pale blue medical curtains, you could see that the paint on the walls was peeling. Underneath the smell of cooking and of disinfectant, there was the unmistakeable smell of cow-shit.
There were six beds in the room, arranged into three rows of two like the starting grid for a grand prix. Indeed, the metal struts at the head and foot of each bed did a good impression of the grill at the front of a car. Only the ‘passengers’ spoiled the illusion. Three of the beds were unoccupied, but the one next to me contained the broken body of a man that had fared much worse than me. His face was destroyed, as were his legs. Occasionally, he would let out a growl, much like an old dog at the vets that knows he’s about to be put down. It wasn’t a growl of rage at the fact that he was surely going to die, but rather a growl which said, why the fuck don’t you just get on with it?
I wondered if the man in that bed would turn out to be Selly, and his puppy-like yelping over the past few weeks had finally crossed over int
o full, doggy adulthood. Or perhaps it would be Smith, or Reynolds. And would they still be gasping for a cigarette despite the fact that we’d all come so close to death? Would the fact that this person didn’t even have a face any more act to finally make them knock the old ciggies on the head? I knew it wouldn’t be Diva Delaney. He would have been moaning far more than this poor guy was; he’d have been screaming the place down, bringing the corrugated iron roof crashing down on our heads like another, much later aftershock.
But even thinking about Selly, Smith, Delaney and Reynolds made me feel light-headed. I was responsible for those men. Somehow, I already knew that the three of us in that room were the only survivors of the blast. Which meant that two of them had already departed; which meant that I would have to inform the parents; which meant that I was the one that would have to feel guilty for the rest of my life.
It’s a funny thing, guilt. Well, actually, it isn’t; it’s not funny at all. I know what feeling guilty can do to a person. How it can empty them; leave them nothing but a shell of what they once were. In a way, it would be better if the destroyed man next to me was Sergeant Davis, here with his punishment for what had come to pass; ready to discuss the geography of the region at length to his captive audience; me.
I sighed, wheezing like an old man would. Screwed my eyes tightly shut and tried to numb myself to the mental limits of pain.
‘Nice place, huh?’ said a voice from the other occupied bed. It came so suddenly that I felt my heart creak in complaint. My vision was still blurry so I couldn’t make out his condition, but judging by the sound of his voice, he wasn’t as badly off as the other man.
I tried to sit up in bed, but felt an overwhelming pain as I tried to use my arms. They felt as though they’d been dragged out of their sockets by some unnatural force. Although they weren’t broken, they were perhaps dislocated. I gasped, tried to grit my teeth. I felt the overwhelming urge to cough, but somehow knew that if I did, it would send more wracking pain through me.