by Graham Joyce
Yasmin got me into a taxi. I had no idea where we were going. I kept trying to figure out the route, but couldn't. I had a dreadful thought. What if my name were Seamus? And she was taking me to GoPoint? A kind of panic rose up in me.
"Where are we going?" I said.
"I'm taking you home. To your house, I mean."
That seemed acceptable.
There was a ridiculous fuss when I did arrive. Sarah and Mo were still in their pyjamas—again—but came to the door to see what was up. It was totally unnecessary that Yasmin had her arm around me as if she had to support me up the path. I couldn't have been that drunk because I was fully sensitive to the exchange of looks between Sarah and Yasmin. They did that thing women do: rapid calculation, processing a thousand small details into a hundred different boxes, all marked, stamped, appraised, indexed, judged and scorned. All in a heartbeat. Anyway, there were no formal introductions. Behind Sarah I remember Mo's grinning jackanapes face.
Yasmin said, "He needs his bed."
Sarah turned on her heels. "This way."
"I'll help him upstairs," said Mo.
"I don' need the shelp of a jackaschnapes," I said cheerily.
They got me to my room and laid me on my bed. Sarah took off my shoes, but Yasmin said, "I'll deal with it."
"He's my father," Sarah said. "I'll do it."
"Come on, Sarah," Mo said.
"What?" she said sharply.
"Leave them!" Mo said.
Sarah looked cross about something. I smacked my lips at her, and she left with Mo. Yasmin quietly closed the door. "Do you want me to stay?" she asked.
"Of course I do."
She took off her coat and flung it on a chair. After pulling off my shoes she unbuttoned my shirt and lifted my left shoulder and then my right to pull it from under me. Then she undid my belt. I tried to undo hers in return. It was all rather undignified.
"No," she said. "This isn't the time."
That sobered me up, a little. Quite right: sex was the last thing I wanted at that juncture. I sat upright, blinking at my reflection in the mirror. I didn't know what I was doing in the bedroom. I certainly didn't want to go to sleep. I stood up and gently pushed Yasmin aside.
"Where are you going?"
I went to my office and took from its hiding place Seamus's exercise book. I needed to know it was there, that no one had stolen it. Seamus had entrusted it to me. In my confused and drunk condition I even believed for a moment that he had written it for me.
Chapter 29
This is the last will and testament of me, I, Seamus Todd, ordinary soldier of the Queen and very little else is my guess. Not that there is anything to laugh about in the way of will and that leaves only the testament. But which is honest, true, factual and everything I have seen with my own eyes. If I haven't seen it with my own eyes, or if I maybe just thought it or heard it said second-hand by another soldier or anyone else, then I have left it out. There's more than enough cheap talk and I don't want to add to it.
I done my twenty-two. Born in 1955, I joined the army at eighteen. Then the last couple of years haven't been so good, but I'm not complaining, that being my own fault, and the few thousand pound give me by the army when I was discharged I have not used wisely. This is my own slip-up, no one else to blame, and I don't like a moaner. Never have.
I don't have much to say about my time before the army but most of it weren't good. I never knew my father and my mother, bless her, was a bit simple. I can say that, she being my own mum, though if another soldier were to say the same I would easily break his back. Even before I enlisted I heard things said about her and I always paid back the badmouth. All I know regarding my father was that he was a soldier. I don't know what regiment. The thing that steered me to the army was when one badmouth did say my father was not a soldier but an entire barracks. I paid back the badmouth for that, too, but I was touched by the Law for it. It was my probation officer at the time brought up the question of the military and I went sharpish to the recruitment office in Halford Street and the army saved me and squared me with my PO.
Though she died from a fall after drinking in 1988, I still won't have things said about my mother. I was given compassionate leave from serving in Belfast to come back for her funeral. I had a sister somewhere but she never even turned up. There was some talk of a half-brother, but if there is one, I never met him. The army was my family, and after the cremation of dear old Mum I went straight back and signed on for another seven.
I started off as a private in the Staffordshire Regiment and I worked my way up to colour sergeant. Three tours of duty in Northern Ireland and then joined the landing assault as a battle casualty replacement in the Falklands. I was already well seasoned when the Gulf War came along in '91. Most of my squaddies were little pink-nosed boys of eighteen or twenty-one. I was their big angry Daddy, and I looked after every one of them. They all said I was hard but fair. What else do you want? I stand by that. I looked after my boys. They knew it. I told them "loyalty and a sense of humour" is what I want, "but you can fuck the sense of humour" and it always got a laugh. I don't know why. Well, you're not laughing when you're under fire.
I had the tip of one finger shot off in South Armagh bandit country on patrol, while another soldier was telling me a joke about three nuns out picking mushrooms. Wedding finger, left hand. Lucky for me the IRA sniper was a shitty shot. Also broke my leg in the Falklands, but this was in a game of football after we'd taken the islands back from the Argies. Slipped on sheep shit. That's the only injuries to report out of all my combat experience.
When the Gulf War kicked off it was just another posting, except that now I was looking after all my little lads, and it was my job to tell them how normal everything was. You know: war is normal.
And it is normal. That's why it's a paid job. You don't ask: Why are we in the Gulf? Why are we in Ireland? Why are we in some sheep-shit South Atlantic island that no one's ever heard of? You don't argue with the Queen. You form up. Move out. Press on.
And in January of '91 I came to be in the desert as a member of the coalition forces lined up against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi cohorts to drive them out of Kuwait. According to Saddam it was going to be "the mother of all wars" and him saying that put the wind up everyone. But that's not how it turned out.
We knew we were going long before Christmas. They haven't told you but you hear the drum. I can't explain. You're on active duty and there's a drum beat, an echo, maybe it's your own heart beating very quiet, and it thuds on until something happens or until you're stood down. Hear the beat, get the order. Form up. Move out. Press on.
With the heavy armour already at sea we were to be airlifted after Christmas so I was able to tell my boys: go shag your girlfriend and kiss your wife and get ready to go. It's what I always said and it always got a laugh. But the family men, those of them with little sprats in the homestead, there was always a quick switch off behind the light in their eyes. Yeh, better get the lad that new bike this year. Yeh, better get that little gal a big teddy bear.
But I didn't have that to think about, and no family to make Christmas with. Preferred my own company. Nuke a leg of turkey, pull in a crate of brown ale, feet up, watch the telly. I did get invites, I did. One or two of the lads would have had me come and sit down to Christmas dinner with them and theirs. Poor old fucker's got nowhere to go type of thing. Nah, didn't want it. Only makes the evening darker when you have to get up and leave.
So Christmas Day I'm feet up and supping beer from the bottle in my mess watching the Queen's Speech. Outside is definitely not a White Christmas. It's lashing it down with rain. I'm listening to her talking about looking back to the past and wondering if she's going to mention us lot off to the Gulf, and I don't know if she does or she doesn't because I fall asleep in my chair.
I'm woken by this tiny tapping. At first I think it's someone beating on the window with a coin or something, but I can't see anything. My empty bottle has fallen to the floor and
the Queen has long finished. Some comedy programme is gagging away on the telly and I hear the tapping again but its coming from the door. Well, the upper half of my door is frosted glass so if anyone's jogged over to wish me a happy Christmas I would see their shape through the glass and get ready to thump them. But there's that sound again: a tinny little rapid tap tap tap.
I knuckle my eyes, get to my feet and open the door. But there's no one there. Or at least no person there. Because I look down and I see what's making the noise. It's a crow. He's been tapping on the door with his beak, see.
I don't know why but it makes my skin flush to see this crow there, black as you like. His feathers are a mess. He's dishevelled by the rain. Then he lifts up his head and looks me right in the eye.
—What the fuck are you doing there? I say to him, out loud.—What's goin' on, then?
And he shits on my doorstep and hops over my foot, and inside.
It's a big crow. A very big crow. I'm standing there with the door held open, not knowing what to do. I want to leave the door open for it, but it's perishing outside and all the warmth from my gas fire is escaping. So I shut the door.
—That's sorted you, ain't it? Now what you gonna do?
Crow hops a bit further in. I'm scratching me head. Don't want a live bird in there for the rest of the day. The crow makes some clicking noises at me. Then it hops over to the telly.
Now my telly is already a beat-up thing and the on-off switch is hanging out of the front panel by its wiring. Well maybe the crow thinks one of these exposed wires is a worm, because it goes for it, grabs a thin cable in its beak and it pulls; and then there's an almighty bang and smoke and sparks from the telly.
And I'm in my chair.
That's right, I'm back in my chair. The telly has blown up. There's no crow. Nowhere. Been dreaming, haven't I? Dreaming.
Only one thing. Only one thing, my son. The door, though not open, is ajar. And there's that little worm of birdshit, just past the threshold. And you know what? That's two things.
I never told anyone this. I've written it down here in my will and testament, that's all. Because I stopped thinking about it, what happened on that Christmas Day. You can let a thing like that play on your mind. If you're weak. And if you're off to war, and you've got boys to look after, you don't want that shit playing on your mind and jogging your elbow. You don't want it.
I pushed it to the back of my mind. Anyway the drum was beating. Form up. Move out. Press on. Within a few days the tinsel and the Christmas cards and the Brazil nuts were all just another check-box on last year's calendar and we were in the Saudi desert.
Now the desert held no fear for me, but it wasn't the kind of fighting I was used to. Street to street, house to house, urban shadows, that's me, and that's where I learned my Ps and Qs in Ireland; and that education served me well in Bosnia when I was the blue hat; or before that even your coarse terrain, yomping over the bog-fields of the Falkland Islands. Give me rough cover, half a shadow, I'm your man. But the flat, trackless desert: not my arena.
Tanks for the desert is the thing. Line up your tanks. Get your air power to fuck over as many of the enemy's tanks as you can before you roll him up. It ain't complicated. But then when you do hit a settlement or defensive position you've got to have your infantry—me—keeping pace with the tanks in armoured Warriors, so's we can dismount and engage at the battle line, mopping up with bullet, grenade and bayonet. That's me. See that bayonet? Don't get to use it very often but I do love to keep it shiny and sharp. That's where I'm happy.
But this was mostly going to be settled by the tanks, not by a bayonet's length. And for the first time since World War One there was serious threat of gas and chemicals. We drilled and drilled and drilled, fixing those spooky chemical hoods in place. Stinking. Hear yourself heavy breathing. All your buddies bug-eyed, trying to see your face behind the mask. Get your jabs at the ready. That's not fighting. But you got to do it.
And it's the fucking boredom of it that can get to you.
We'd finished up the drill one evening and I was standing, dripping with sweat and getting my breath back from bellowing at the lads from behind the mask. The lads were dismissed and I was standing with my hands on my hips looking out at the sky over the flat desert sands.
—What you looking at, Colour Sar'nt? This was a lad called Dorky. Good lad but wouldn't shut up. Used to keep following me round like a little dog. Always asking questions.—What's this? What's that?
—Come 'ere, Dorky. Look out there. What d'you see?
—Nothing, Colour Sar'nt. Nothin' there. Desert, only desert Colour Sar'nt.
—Look again, son.
—Can't see anything. Nuffink.
—Look at that sky. You ever seen a sky that colour?
—No, Sar'nt.
—Not Sar'nt, Colour Sar'nt you little toe-rag. What colour is it, Dorky?
—Pink, Colour Sar'nt.
—It ain't pink, you muppet. Look again.
A few of the other lads trudge by, clutching their sweaty chemical masks, wanting to know what we're looking at.
—Dorky says it's nothing, I says to 'em.—Then he says it's pink, but I says it ain't pink. What colour is that sky?
—Lavender, says Chad, a Black-Country kid.—Innit.
—No, ti'nt lavender, says Brewster, a Liverpool scally, good lad in a fight.—Ti'nt lavender.
Next thing there's seven or eight lads looking into that nothing, trying to decide what colour that nothing is. The truth is I don't know what colour it is. It's the most beautiful sky I ever seen in my life and I don't know what colour to say.
—See that sky, lads? That's why you joined the army. It ain't just to have it out with the Iraqis. It's so you'll see miraculous things. Like that sky.
And I walk away; leaving them scratching their heads. They don't know if I'm taking the piss. Truth: I don't know either. Though I do remember thinking: look at the sky now, lads, cos it's gonna get dark.
Waiting, drilling, waiting, drilling. Saddam has used gas against the Iranians and the Kurds and the marsh Arabs, so we're expecting him to fling a pot of gas in our faces. Real Soon Now, as they say. But it doesn't come. There are a few more sunsets while the air assault makes softening-up runs over the Iraqis occupying Kuwait. It turns out the enemy has no decent air assault to answer with and I'm already thinking this might be a short war.
Where is their air assault? Where is their artillery, lobbing gas and chemicals at us? This is supposed to be the biggest army in the Middle East. What are they doing? Lying in their trenches and sharpening their swords? The waiting is getting our boys nervous. There's only so many times you can tell 'em to look at a pink sky. Lavender.
When they boys talk, all they talk about is what size TV screen they're going to spend their service wages on; and since this is the first war properly televised how they're going to watch it on these big TV sets when they get home. Drives me mad.
—What the fuck for? Like living it ain't enough for you? You want the Hollywood version? The boredom taken out? The dozy rosy ending? You think it's a fucking game show, doncha?
—No, Colour Sergeant.
—Yes you fucking do. Don't no colour sergeant me, you muppet.
The serious aerial bombing starts in the middle of January and while that goes on we just have to train and wait. There are a few duels with the artillery but the only attackers are helicopters. The MLRS units are pumping out rockets and with these little bug things—unmanned RPVs—whining in the sky to send coordinates back to our computers so we can throw still more rockets I start to think: that's it, mate. Your type of soldier is redundant, get cashiered, hang your boots up. See—there's nothing coming back. One-sided war if they don't have the technology. Then at the end of January the Iraqis start to stir and they move across the Kuwait border and into Khafji. That don't last long. We're getting rumours that the Iraqi prisoners picked up in Khafji have no stomach for the fight.
By the third week of February
the Iraqi divisions have all their supply lines across the Euphrates River bombed to fuck and they are low on food and water. Huge numbers of their tanks and artillery have been smashed. And we're still practising with masks and watching sunsets. It's all good news for us. The ground offensive might be easier than we first thought. But I don't like it. Not war, is it?
I never like it when it's too easy. If it's too easy, it ain't worth it. Ever.
Nobody is more relieved than me when they tell us we're on. Hear that drum? I don't have to be told. I've been listening to our artillery increase its bombardment every day. No one has to tell me. We're going up the Wadi al Batin and then swing right into Kuwait City and even though my lads are looking a bit sick except for Brewster who is well up for it I'm laughing and singing; Wadi, Wadi, we're going up the Wadi, and my boys are going: You're cracked, Colour Sergeant, you are.