The Two Worlds of Charlie F

by Owen Sheers

  We do have to take it off though, one day. The stories of our injuries all began with an engagement of some kind. A contact. And they’re only going to be brought to an end with another kind of contact. Another kind of engagement –

  He looks at the tattoo design.

  – or re-engagement. But you can’t do that if you’re still wearing your uniform.

  It’s OK though. Because it isn’t just about leaving, is it? It’s about joining too, right? I mean all of us here, yeah, we’re leaving the services, but we’re also joining the oldest regiment there is. The regiment of the wounded. It’s a regiment with an illustrious history that goes back to the earliest days of mankind. You might not be familiar with all of its victories, but believe me it has thousands to its name. Millions. And it’s winning them every day. In hospitals, on the streets, in bedrooms and living rooms.

  He taps his head.

  In here.

  The rest of the cast enter from upstage and begin walking downstage to join Charlie.

  The regimental rank and file are recruited from all over the world. Britain. America. Africa. Iraq. Afghanistan. Men. Women. Children. And it’s growing. Even now, as we speak, it’s growing. And until we stop fighting, it’s going to keep on growing. And it’s deploying too. Every day. Not to a battlefield, or to a base. But to you. To out there. We’ve all been training for that deployment. We’ve been getting ready, and now we are ready. So we hope you are too. Because we don’t live in two worlds, do we? We live in one.

  Beat.

  And don’t you ever forget it.

  Fade to black.

  In Hospital: Poona (1)

  ALUN LEWIS

  Last night I did not fight for sleep

  But lay awake from midnight while the world

  Turned its slow features to the moving deep

  Of darkness, till I knew that you were furled,

  Beloved, in the same dark watch as I.

  And sixty degrees of longitude beside

  Vanished as though a swan in ecstasy

  Had spanned the distance from your sleeping side.

  And like to swan or moon the whole of Wales

  Glided within the parish of my care:

  I saw the green tide leap on Cardigan,

  Your red yacht riding like a legend there,

  And the great mountains Dafydd and Llewelyn,

  Plynlimmon, Cader Idris and Eryri

  Threshing the darkness back from head and fin,

  And also the small nameless mining valley

  Whose slopes are scratched with streets and

  sprawling graves

  Dark in the lap of firwoods and great boulders

  Where you lay waiting, listening to the waves

  My hot hands touched your white despondent shoulders

  – And then ten thousand miles of daylight grew

  Between us, and I heard the wild daws crake

  In India’s starving throat; whereat I knew

  That Time upon the heart can break

  But love survives the venom of the snake.

  Reprinted by kind permission of the author and publisher from Alun Lewis, Collected Poems (Seren, 1994)

  GLOSSARY

  AGC Adjutant General’s Corps

  ANA Afghan National Army

  BLESMA British Limbless Ex Service Men’s Association

  bluey airmail letter

  CamelBak water-bottle

  CPN Community Psychiatric Nurse

  ECM Electronic Countermeasure System

  FOB Forward Operating Base

  GPMG General Purpose Machine Gun

  Hesco block fortification device

  IED Improvised Explosive Device

  matlow member of the Navy

  medevac medical evacuation

  MST Mission Specific Training

  oppo best friend

  OPTAG Operational Training and Advisory Group

  Osprey body armour

  PB Patrol Base

  Pinzgauer all-terrain vehicle

  PRR Personal Role Radio

  PRU Personnel Recovery Unit

  2PWRR Second Battalion, The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment

  QE Nurses Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital Nurses

  QRF Quick Reaction Force

  RA Royal Artillery

  RPG Rocket-Propelled Grenade

  sangar duty guard duty (from a watch tower)

  SFSG Special Forces Support Group

  Snatch Protected Patrol Vehicle

  terp interpreter

  TLA Three-Letter Acronym

  UGL Underslung Grenade Launcher

  Wimik (WMIK) armoured military vehicle

  About the Author

  Owen Sheers is the author of two poetry collections, The Blue Book (shortlisted for the Welsh Book of the Year and the Forward Prize Best First Collection) and Skirrid Hill (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award). His debut prose work The Dust Diaries was short-listed for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize and won the Welsh Book of the Year 2005. In 2004 he was Writer in Residence at The Wordsworth Trust and in 2007 Owen was a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. Owen’s first novel, Resistance won a 2008 Hospital Club Creative Award and was shortlisted for the Writers Guild Best Book Award. Resistance has been translated into ten languages and Owen co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation released in 2011. His oratorio with Rachel Portman, The Water Diviner’s Tale, was premiered at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms 2007. Owen recently wrote the script and novelisation (The Gospel of Us) of The Passion National Theatre of Wales’ 72 hour site specific production in Port Talbot starring and directed by Michael Sheen. Other theatrical work includes: the radio play If I Should Go Away, Unicorns, almost developed by the Old Vic, New Voices project and Pink Mist, a verse drama for BBC Radio 4. Owen is currently writer in residence for the Welsh Rugby Union.

  Copyright

  First published in the UK in 2012

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2012

  All rights reserved

  © Owen Sheers 2012

  The right of Owen Sheers to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights whatsoever in this work are strictly reserved. Applications for permission for any use whatsoever including performance rights must be made in advance, prior to any such proposed use, to Independent Talent Group Limited, Oxford House, 76 Oxford Street, London w1d 1bs. No performance may be given unless a licence has first been obtained

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–29780–1 [epub edition]