Escape from Baghdad

by James Ashcroft

  ‘Amazing . . .’

  ‘He just turns around calmly and shuffles off back to the ditch, carrying me like a sack of laundry and shooting another two insurgents with his pistol on the way. It was un-fucking-believable.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I muttered. ‘Good for you, Mad Dog.’

  ‘He kept saying it was you, saved his life,’ Tanya continued, looking at me thoughtfully, ‘that you taught him how to do that.’

  ‘Wow, really?’

  I thought back to the months and months I had drilled Mad Dog on his pistol skills, drawing and double-tapping until we had calluses and blisters on our fingers. ‘Northern Ireland drills’ McQueen had called them, and I couldn’t believe that those hundreds of hours had paid off and saved his life; in fact, both their lives.

  ‘Anyway, I wasn’t born yesterday,’ I said. ‘Do you really expect me to believe a science-fiction story like that? Why don’t you tell me how you really broke your leg, falling over drying your hair or whatever?’

  ‘You fucking asshole!’ She spat in mock outrage and started slapping me, laughing.

  ‘Excuse me, are you bothering my patient?’ a cold voice behind me asked.

  I turned around to be confronted by a strikingly beautiful woman, wearing a smile that was at odds with the cold tone. My mouth opened but nothing especially witty came out. I looked at her name tag, which read ‘COX’, then realized she might think I was looking at her impressive bust and jerked up guiltily. She gave me a look that told me she knew exactly what I had been thinking.

  ‘You are obviously on the road to recovery,’ she said to Tanya, having a quick look at her drug chart and ignoring me. ‘We’re going to be flying you out of Baghdad to Kuwait tonight. You’ll probably be there a few days, but because of the surge they are trying to keep as many beds free here as possible, and in Kuwait and Ramstein. You could be back in the States in a week.’

  ‘Oh my God, that is awesome, thanks Michelle.’ Tanya beamed.

  I was still goggling her, wondering if she was a nurse or doctor. She had a stethoscope shoved in a pocket and a pistol on her thigh, but no rank or any other identifying ID. I remembered last time I had been in the CSH, dropping off wounded and dead private contractors during another unhappy day in Baghdad, there had been a stunning nurse with whom Seamus had scored a date. It was astonishing to see such an attractive woman in a war zone like this – maybe to work in the CSH you had to be booked through a model agency or something. Rather belatedly I realized that staring at another pretty woman probably wasn’t endearing me to Tanya at all.

  ‘Don’t excite her and pop any stitches,’ Michelle warned me, resting her hand on her holster absent-mindedly.

  She spun on her heel and walked out.

  I looked back at Tanya. ‘So you’re off tonight? That’s great news. On your way home. Wow, congratulations.’

  She was looking at me seriously, still happy about the news she was heading home, but the smile was fading.

  ‘There’s bad news, Ash,’ she informed me. ‘The convoy to Mosul has been cancelled, and there’s only Shaun and Scott in the office left. They’ll have to stay and look after things until Colonel McQueen’s replacement gets in.’

  ‘Shit, I hadn’t thought about that.’

  ‘Look, you better go and get stuff sorted out for Sammy, and figure what you guys are going to do,’ she added and yawned. ‘I’m sorry, I am just bushed.’

  We gripped hands again. This was goodbye. She was going back to the States to her fiancé and weeks of physiotherapy. I was going to get Sammy out of Baghdad and then head off back to my wife and kids, and apparently to Sunday dinner with some friends. It was hugely improbable we would ever see each other again.

  ‘Want anything from the PX? Any snacks? A magazine?’

  ‘No, I’m good.’

  I thought there were a lot of ‘what if’s in her expression.

  ‘Take care of yourself out there.’

  ‘Will do. Don’t worry Tanya, we’ll have Sammy up to Mosul in a jiffy and be back in time for tea and medals.’

  That got a laugh out of her, breaking the sombre mood. I kissed her on the cheek, said goodbye and walked out of the room.

  That was the last time I saw her.

  I wandered back down the corridors of the CSH towards the front, the smell of antiseptic strong in my nostrils. It reminded me of the Franco-German hospital in Split, Croatia, fifteen years ago where I had taken so many of my soldiers, become men before their time, eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds with pale, sweating faces and swearing in their pain and confusion as we clumsily lifted them out of the backs of our Land Rover. It had been a far less high-tech hospital, but there had been the same sense of relief when you entered; the same recognition that here was a place where professionals worked, where you could be saved.

  I remember visiting the wounded from my company in a tented ward they were sharing with seven Pakistani peacekeepers with horrific lower-leg injuries. The Pakistanis had all been injured in the same incident when a single mortar shell had exploded on the other side of their wheeled APC. The shrapnel had gone horizontally under their vehicle and scythed them down like wheat. Virtually all of them had frames of titanium and steel rods bolted down their shins, holding their legs in place until the bones could knit together. With plenty of egging on from my Dukes, a couple of the Pakistanis were trying to get out of bed and walk, under the misconception that, with the metal rods, their legs were as strong as before.

  The men collapsed screaming, amidst much hilarity and laughter from both the British and Pakistani soldiers. A French nurse came in attracted by the noise and started shrieking for assistance from her colleagues. The other nurses ran in, shocked, and gave us dirty looks while they lifted the men back into bed. Our offers of help were ignored, and the nurses disappeared in frosty silence. They were pretending not to speak any English and my basic schoolboy French was not up to any decent conversation.

  Afterwards I went around to chat to two Dukes who had been injured by a booby trap as they had cleared mines. Private Kelly had lost two fingers from his left hand and had suffered nerve damage down the left-hand side of his torso. Private Bird had lost three fingers and most of his left hand and his right hand just above the wrist. Both men also had severe shrapnel damage to their arms. They were both cheerful and well drugged.

  ‘Fuckin’ hell, Boss, did you see that Paki go down? What a stupid cunt.’

  ‘Who is it you are being calling stupid cunt?’ shouted the Pakistani back happily. ‘I am not the one whom the wife is being fucked at home by the large black man, isn’t it?’

  ‘Come over here and say that, Gandhi,’ said Kelly, ‘I’ve still got one hand and both feet to kick your arse, you fucking cripple.’

  ‘Well, I came around to check on your morale, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a problem there.’ I smiled back at him. I stood in front of Kelly since he could not turn his head very much, but I was facing the both of them.

  ‘Just don’t start any trouble and get yourselves kicked out of here,’ I admonished them.

  ‘S’all right, Boss, they’re awright, they are,’ slurred Bird at me. He was heavily sedated. ‘That Saleem over there, he’s got about twenty fucking cousins in Bradford. Thass just down the road from me.’

  Bird’s voice was barely audible and even as I watched him he drifted into unconsciousness.

  ‘How’s he doing, Kelly?’ I turned back to the first man. Is he coping all right? I suppose he has been out of it too much to really think about the future.’

  ‘He’s OK, sir. We was just talking last night about it and he reckons he’s lucky it came off so low, at the wrist. That Jerry doctor reckons he’s an ideal candidate for false hands, you know, them prosthetics,’ Kelly replied. ‘Besides I was taking the piss that he wouldn’t be able to wank again. He doesn’t care, he told me. He had a chat with his missus on the phone yesterday and she told him that her big hero won’t ever have to worry about that part of life. Lu
cky sod.’

  Yes, that was Bird all right. One lucky sod. I looked down at his bandaged stumps. How did a man with no hands use a telephone? In fact how does he do anything? How does he feed himself, or brush his teeth or wipe his own arse?

  Every soldier, and every officer for that matter, has thoughts on being wounded. And whether they talk about it or not to their mates every man knows that there is a personal limit beyond which it is better to be dead. For many it is commonly the loss of one’s genitals. ‘If my wedding tackle’s gone, Boss, just shoot me,’ is a phrase I had heard during many such a discussion. For others it was their legs; they just did not think that they could face life in a wheelchair.

  It is a common enough topic of conversation amongst men whose lives involve both danger, potential sudden and violent maiming or death, and often long, tedious periods of boredom in which to question the many disadvantages of their chosen profession. For me the fear was of being blinded. I thought that if I lost my eyes, then I would prefer to have been killed outright. In that respect both Kelly and Bird had been lucky, if you could call it that. The visors on their helmets, the only two mine-proof visors the company possessed, had protected their faces and necks from the angle of the shrapnel, right down to the top of their body armour.

  I had very nearly been blinded by burning petrol during a riot in West Belfast. The flames had hit my chest, engulfed me and shot up inside my visor. Only a snap-second reflex had clamped my eyes and mouth shut, stopping me from searing my throat and lungs. Through my eyelids I could see white heat and smell my own skin burning as my eyelashes melted instantly.

  For many people the memories of accidents or horror are visual. For me the main sensation was smell, the smell like barbecued pork that I will never forget. The petrol had only soaked the surface of my smock, but the flames had flash-burned my face. The men around me extinguished the flames very quickly and I carried on shouting orders throughout the rest of the incident. That night, despite the strong emollient cream from the MO the pain came and my face started peeling off in huge strips. By morning I looked like something out of a horror film, but with a bit more cream slapped on it was soon good as new. Like a good officer I necked back codeine and ibuprofen and soldiered on. In later years I was often complimented on how young I looked for my age, and I would laugh it off as the benefits of fresh air and exercise, whilst mentally crediting those lovely people in Belfast for my involuntary face peel.

  As I walked back out into the sunlight, I thought back to Private Bird in Split. I had been there the morning that they were being flown back to Brize Norton in the UK for further medical treatment. Bird was lucid and in a bit of a slump.

  ‘What can I do, sir?’ His eyes were starting to fill up and he looked away. ‘I mean, what job can you do with no hands? I was going to be a fitter in a garage. I’m twenty, for fuck’s sake, Boss. What have I got to look forward to?’

  I looked down at his bags to give him a bit of dignity while he recovered himself. How does a man with no hands pack his bags? To be honest I was having a bit of trouble speaking myself, what with this big lump in my throat and all.

  ‘You’ll be surprised, Birdy. You still have a couple of fingers left on one hand, as well as all the ligaments in your forearms and that is good news for all the new prosthetic hands that are about these days. And you have the love of a good woman, and your family is waiting to see you, aren’t they?’ I looked up at him and he nodded, still looking away from me out of the window and swallowing hard. I looked back at his bags. How does a man with no hands unzip his flies for a piss? I suddenly thought. I wondered how much use he would regain from his left hand.

  ‘Besides which you are going to have so much compensation money you won’t know what to spend it on.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right, Boss, I am just being stupid.’ His voice was muffled.

  ‘Paul, listen to me,’ I leaned in close and turned him to face me. ‘I am not going to bullshit you and tell you how good everything is going to be. I mean, you have lost your fucking hands, right?’

  He nodded back at me angrily through unshed tears.

  ‘But I will promise you one thing. That the recovery will be hard, that you have months if not years of physiotherapy ahead of you and that at times you will be more depressed than you ever thought possible. The thing is that I know you can do it. You came what, fourth or fifth in the company cross-country competition?

  ‘First,’ he replied indignantly.

  ‘That’s right. And your team came first in that shitty four-day competition we had over the hills in Yakima.’ I nodded at him. ‘You have guts and determination, bags of it and you are going to need every little scrap of it over the next few years. The only difference is that no one is going to know about your hard work but you and me, and the only reward you are going to get is not some trophy, but a better quality of life for yourself. You understand?

  He nodded.

  ‘I haven’t got a clue what therapies there are,’ I continued. ‘Or how good these new fake hands are going to be. You’re going to have to find that out for yourself. But you promise me that you are going to give it everything you have, because any opportunity that comes up I want you to give it the best chance of succeeding. You are fitter and more physically robust than any civilian that gets an injury like this so you will recover faster. And you are more motivated so you will learn quicker and succeed where another man might fail. Right?’

  He nodded again, eyes dry now as he looked up at me with a bit more of his old self about him.

  ‘Always remember you are a Duke, one of my men. And when your stumps heal up get your arse out and start running again. I don’t want you turning into a fat lump. You keep a bit of pride about yourself and things will seem much brighter.’

  ‘Yes, Boss, you’re right,’ he said and grinned. ‘I am sorry about that. I just felt a bit low this morning thinking about it all.’

  ‘It’s OK, Bird, and you’re right if you’re thinking it will be bloody hard, but just don’t forget to ask yourself if you’re the kind of man that’s up to it. I reckon you are, so don’t get depressed, because that’s not going to get your hands back, is it? Just get over it and get on with it. I don’t want you wallowing around in self-pity like Kelly over there.’

  We both looked over at Kelly, who was trying to impress one of the French nurses with his tattoo collection. That got a laugh out of him at least.

  ‘All right, Birdy?’ Corporal Helstrip came up to the bed and peered around me. ‘Malingering again? Fuckin’ ell, Boss. Some folk will do anything to go home early.’

  ‘Go fuck yourself, John,’ snapped Bird.

  We all laughed. I went off to chat to Kelly and left the other two to say their goodbyes. Later on, someone would tell Bird that after the explosion it was Corporal Helstrip, their section commander, who was first to react and reach their bodies. He had sprinted down the cleared path, heedless of our shouts to beware any further mines. After putting rough tourniquets on both Kelly’s and Bird’s forearms he had picked Bird up and was halfway back even as the two platoon medics went running up with the medpack and the other sections stayed in place, weapons in the shoulder, ready to provide cover if the Croats up on the hill tried putting any fire down. A big, hard man and a rugby player for the battalion, Corporal Helstrip had been crying like a baby as he gently carried Bird’s limp body back to safety, the both of them covered in his blood.

  I was thoroughly depressed as I met up with Seamus, Les, Dai and Cobus all sat around the car as I came out. Cobus had filled them in on the situation, and by common consent we went up to the palace to sit and discuss our next move over lunch.

  As we sat in Saddam’s palace and ate our chilli-burgers and Freedom fries (I had passed on the dubious hygiene of the salad as I was trying to avoid the usual trial of a bout of Baghdad Belly) I wondered what had become of Private Paul Bird. The last time I had seen him had been years ago, when he was well on the way to recovery but still prone to the
occasional lapse into depression.

  How does a man with no hands kill himself? Plenty of places to jump, I suppose.

  Krista once asked me if I remember the riot and being on fire, whether I still had memories of the flames. I told her no, because at the time my eyes were squeezed shut, saved by my blink reflex.

  On quiet evenings sometimes, if I am in an introspective mood, when I close my eyes my nostrils flare at imagined petrol, and I remember the smell of my face burning.

  CHAPTER 14

  WHEN FARA STUDIED in Paris, she stayed with a friend of her father, a diplomat. When that friend was unexpectedly reassigned, Fara persuaded her father to allow her to share with two other girls in an apartment close to the cafés and theatres on the Champs-Élysées.

  The experience shaped Fara’s life. Living in the city of love, running off to see new plays and screenings of films by François Truffaut, discussing art and politics in the Café de Flore, where Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir had in their time filled the air with Gauloises and opinions on existentialism and free will.

  With Sammy’s status as an air-force hero, through the dictatorship Fara had continued to live with a form of freedom that suited her. It wasn’t Paris, but she had her memories, her children, and she wouldn’t have dreamed of wearing a headscarf in the modern city of Baghdad. I recall her once saying that in a veil a woman is inviting men to imagine what lies beneath: she is flirting. Fara enjoyed chatting in French with a younger man in a way that was perfectly normal and innocent in the world in which I had grown up and she had grown to admire.

  Her joie de vivre had been shattered that day when the fundamentalist militia told her to cover her face and leave the school where she had been teaching. In the new Iraq you were either with us or against us, a member of the umma, a believer, or an apostate. The middle ground occupied by people like Fara had gone. She despaired at what was happening in her country, the fear, the distrust, the schism dividing Shia and Sunni. I recalled her saying, ‘We are being Talibanized, James,’ and the phrase had stuck in my head.