by Harry Parker
After the flight, we descended aluminium steps out onto the runway. I felt the heat of it on my sole and the air vibrated and merged the black tarmac into the sky.
I am a desert combat boot. I have BA5799 written on my tongue and he walked me across the tarmac towards a city of white tents and cream hangars, floating on that shimmering desert mirror.
4
I was made carefully on a wooden table with buckled legs that rested against a dry mud wall. I was made by two men silhouetted in moonlight from the doorway behind them and the jaundiced beam of a torch placed on a shelf cut into a wall. Their bodies arched over me and sweat glistened on their temples.
They cut open a bag and weighed fertiliser on old mechanical scales. They soaked cloth in petrol. Fumes slipped around the table and one of the men sneezed. They mixed the cloth with the fertiliser and then wrapped this part of me in a plastic sheet and then more tightly with black tape.
This was my beginning but I was not yet complete.
They made two others like me, scooping more fertiliser from the bag with a metal cup, weighing and wrapping it with the mix of petrol-soaked rags, until three of us were placed in a row along the side of the table – three parcels of potential energy.
The men went through the door and stood in the blue moonlight. They lit cigarettes that hovered by their sides and arced up to their lips, illuminating their faces. They called a man over and said he needn’t bother to keep watch, there was no one around. He joined them and accepted a cigarette, slinging his rifle over his shoulder so he could smoke freely.
They began to argue.
‘Not one of them worked. We spent three nights making them and we watched for weeks as the infidel walked over them – nothing,’ one of them said. His lips disappeared as he pulled on his cigarette. ‘We used the same mix that you have here.’
‘I had the training,’ another said. ‘Every single one I made worked. I was blowing holes in the snow all winter. And we have the new equipment from over the border. They will work, Latif. God willing, they will work.’
‘Maybe it was the altitude, Aktar, or the mix you used—’
‘Enough, Latif. Hassan chose me. I went to the mountains.’ He dropped his cigarette and rotated his boot on it. ‘Paugi, go and keep guard. We should finish,’ he said and walked back inside towards me.
The men loomed over the table again. They took two strips of thin metal and attached a wire to each one, then spaced them apart between two wooden blocks, so they were parallel to each other, and wrapped it all in plastic. They did this three times.
‘These are good, Aktar,’ one man said. He crouched down level with where I was on the table and gently pushed down on the metal until the strips touched.
‘Yes, they will work.’
‘They’re better than I have seen before. Firm enough to stay separate under the weight of a dog – or wet soil – but with the weight of a man—’
‘Yes, it is a balance.’ He took it from under the man’s hand and slid it next to me and started to attach wires to the end, twisting with pliers.
This was the next part of me.
He placed a battered white polystyrene cube on the table, pulled it apart and removed one of the six metal rods that stood upright in holes.
‘We’ll place these in now.’ He bent closer and pushed the rod into the mix of my insides. The man’s tongue wrapped up over his lip as he concentrated. He left the end of the rod protruding and taped cautiously around it. He then attached the wires and crimped them on with the pliers, joining my two parts.
‘We can attach the battery just before we dig them in,’ he said.
I had more potential now. I was ugly and homemade, but I was complete – one part round, the other long and thin, both wrapped in plastic and tape and joined by a thin wire.
‘You need to handle these carefully, Latif.’ He pushed the white box with the five remaining vertical rods across the bench. ‘When I was in the mountains, another student held one of these in his hand,’ he said, pulling a rod out, ‘and the heat of a lamp made it go off. I remember his wrist with nothing on the end – and his look of shock. Hassan was angry because the boy hadn’t listened. The next day he was gone.’
‘They can go off just like that?’ the younger man said, looking down at the silver rod in his hand.
‘He was unlucky. But yes, they are volatile.’
When the other two were also complete, the men tidied up the table and put their equipment into a rucksack. They lined us up on the floor next to the bag of fertiliser. One of them took the torch, which flickered weakly, and swept the beam across the room and under the table. Then he stepped outside and pulled the wooden door shut behind him.
*
I stayed there, latent. And each day a thin line of dust-flecked light seeped slowly across the room and passed over my plastic skin, warming me.
Eventually, when it was dark, the door opened. They were the same men and one of them placed a bag on the table.
‘And he definitely said he was going to come?’
‘Yes, he said he would be here. I spoke to him after prayers.’
‘I will have to tell Hassan about this. He will be punished.’
They lifted me onto the table and checked my construction. The man’s hand felt my connections, gently pulling on the wires to make sure they were still firm. He put me in a bag, and then the other two were placed on top of me.
‘Take that trowel, Latif. And the water container. I will carry the bag. Have you got the batteries?’
‘Yes.’
‘We will do it just as we talked about. Are you okay?’
‘Yes, I think so. At least there is no moon.’
‘It will be a long night. One on the Nalay road, one by the bridge on the aqueduct and the last one we will try and get close to their camp. Hassan thinks this will be our best chance. We should go.’ Then the bag lurched and pressed around me as it was shouldered. It swayed as the man walked.
Twice he jumped and the bag banged against his back. Then he stopped and they whispered.
‘Why are we waiting?’
‘Sshhh.’ There was a silence and we were still. The thump of the man’s heart and the rise and fall of his breathing passed into me through the sack. ‘I thought I saw someone. Are you okay?’
‘How much farther?’
‘Not far.’
He started moving again and after a while we stopped and the bag slumped against the ground. There was the sound of scraping and the clink of metal on stones. The bag opened and a hand reached in. The first of us was taken out.
‘Pass me a battery.’
After more scraping the bag lifted and we moved off.
When we stopped for the third time, the sound of running water covered the noise of the trowel. The bag was unzipped. They lifted out the second of us and then only I was left. They were framed in the opening of the bag, crouched over and digging at the pale surface of a road. They attached a battery to the second of us and then lowered it into the ground.
One man lay flat and scooped rubble over the hole. The other went down to the canal, where the water turned white as it dropped under the bridge. When he returned, he poured water over the digging and flattened the mud with the palm of his hand, smoothing it flush with the surface of the road. Then he came back to the bag and beads of sweat showed on his face as he zipped it closed. It was dark again and I was alone in the bag. We moved off.
The rhythm of the walk became slow and cautious. Soon the men were crawling and vegetation scratched against the canvas around me. We stopped again and one of them whispered. ‘We are too close, Aktar,’ he said. ‘I can see their watchtower. Just there.’
‘I know,’ came the hissed reply. ‘We need to get as close as we can.’
‘This is too much. They can see in the dark, they have machines that can feel our heat. We need to go back.’
‘Keep going. A bit farther and we will be hidden. I know this ground.’
&nb
sp; We moved again. The sound of them snaking forward vibrated through the bag. Then we stopped.
‘Here is good, Latif. Keep low.’
The zip rumbled open and I was pulled out and laid on the ground. The sky was a dome of stars. We were in a slight hollow of dry earth with sparse grass. The men panted with the effort now. One was propped on an elbow and scooped dirt away to create the space for me. The other shuffled up onto a rise and stared into the gloom. They were both tense.
‘There is no movement,’ the man murmured as he pushed himself back down from the edge. ‘Be careful, Latif. We cannot rush. It is not worth making a mistake.’
As he dug my hole, he recited under his breath, ‘God is greatest. God is greatest. God is greatest.’ The mantra focused his attention away from the danger and onto my grave.
‘You must control yourself, Latif.’ The other man reached out and held the hand he was digging with. Their eyes met. ‘Control your fear. You’ve gone deep enough already. Give me the battery.’
He fumbled around in his pocket and handed a square battery to the other man, who pushed it into my connector. Electricity tingled in my wires but I was not yet a circuit. He rolled over, awkwardly pulled tape from his pocket and wrapped it around my battery. Then he slid towards the hole and carefully lifted me in. He arranged my components. He put the round part of me, the part with the potential, at the bottom, and then placed the long thin metal strips, my trigger, on top, nearest the surface.
His sweat dripped onto me as he worked. He replaced the dirt, each new handful reducing the starlight until finally the ink-blue aperture closed and I was in the dark. The men moved around on the surface, pushing and pulling the soil over me. Water was poured on the ground and soaked through the dust, turning it to mud that oozed around me. Soon the movements stopped and the men who made me must have crawled away.
*
I waited in the blackness. The mud around me dried and solidified in the heat and I was encased in earth. There was a daily rise and fall of temperature, but otherwise nothing.
Eventually I felt vibrations – the rhythm of walking – that were faint at first but then converged towards me. A weight pressed down. The dry mud above me flexed, cracked down and pushed my metal strips together. A circuit was created that filled my wires instantly.
I was alive.
The metal rod at the heart of me detonated, a controlled high-explosive force that triggered the mix in me to react.
I functioned.
5
I was taken from a drawer by a trauma nurse. He placed me on a stainless-steel trolley with other medical items. I was sterile and sealed in a plastic bag. He wheeled the trolley into an operating theatre. People cleaned surfaces and checked equipment. They were tense. In the room next door, through Perspex sheeting, men in medical gowns scrubbed their hands.
A man in desert uniform came in with a clipboard. ‘Right, he’s in the air now,’ he said. ‘PEDRO callsign has picked him up from District South. Mechanism is IED versus foot soldier. Nine-liner still stands. One Category A; zap number BA5799. Traumatic below left knee amputation, difficulty breathing and severe blood loss. They’ve already had to resuscitate, possible collapsed lung. ETA is eight minutes. When I get a sitrep from the helicopter I’ll come back.’
‘Okay, thanks, Jack,’ a woman said. She wore a blue gown and had a mask around her neck. ‘Let’s prep for reception. Kirsty, how’s plasma and bloods going?’
‘Fine, Colonel, O POS prepped,’ a nurse said as she walked across the room with bags of yellow plasma. ‘But I’ll test when he’s in. More in the fridge if needed.’
‘Good. Tim, get that equipment closer.’
The trolley I was on moved towards a bed.
‘Sounds like we’ll have to CAT scan when he’s stable. Is Dr Richmond up yet?’
‘On his way, Colonel.’
The man with the clipboard came back. ‘PEDRO has had to defib him three times; currently no output. Will let you know any update. Not looking good, I’m afraid.’
The tension left the room. One of the men peeled rubber gloves from his hands and threw them in a bin. ‘Not another one.’
‘Stay with it, everyone,’ the woman said and looked at the clock.
There was silence. The bed, covered in green plastic, lay empty. One of the nurses pushed buttons on a machine that hung from the ceiling. Another leant against a cabinet and doodled with a biro.
The man with the clipboard looked through the door again. ‘PEDRO still saying no output,’ he said, ‘though they had him back for a while – ETA two minutes.’
‘Let’s hope he can pull through. Normal drills. Output or not, let’s see what we can do for him. Tim, you’d better get out there with the reception party.’
A man entered from the scrub room stretching on rubber gloves and fastening his gown.
‘Morning, Peter. You’ve been briefed?’ the woman said.
‘Just dropped in at the ops room, Jack brought me up to speed. More of the same, it looks like.’
The wait continued. The minute hand tapped around on a clock above a whiteboard, divided into black squares and filled with information. And then the distant drone of a helicopter grew in the room until the walls of the temporary building started to vibrate. The pitch changed, descended and became a constant whistle.
‘Here we go,’ she said.
*
Double doors banged open and the sound of hurrying footsteps and urgent voices came down a corridor until the stretcher with you on was carried into the room. Men and women crowded around. One held a bag of liquid above you and another had a helmet with a tinted visor and a flash with stars and stripes on.
‘He’s sixty over thirty,’ he said, ‘been shocked four times in transit. We’ve given him a shot of adrenaline.’
‘What’s his output like now?’
‘I think he was conscious for a second while we were landing but he’s out again now. No morphine on the ground as they suspected a collapsed lung. No time to intubate yet.’
‘Okay, let’s intubate – quick as you can, Tim,’ the woman said.
I was picked up and the plastic peeled away from my packaging. A man fed a laryngoscope into your mouth and another lifted your head back. Your tongue was held open and I was pushed into you. Your mouth had dirt in it and a blade of grass. I slid past the laryngoscope that directed me into you. I scraped down through you, grazing your voice box, past your glottis, down through your trachea, until I reached the top of your lungs. One of them was smaller and collapsed. A nurse inflated my balloon cuff that puffed out and held me inside you.
A T-piece was firmly rocked onto where I protruded from your mouth and then connected to a mechanical ventilator. I was part of a system now. I was inside you, at the edge of your lungs. Oxygen-rich air pulsed through me and I started breathing for you.
You were covered in dust; a thin coat of it ghosted the skin of your face. Your clothing was pale with dirt except where it was dark with blood or had shredded away. You were bare below the waist and the white skin of your thighs had smears and red fingerprints.
‘Now let’s get him on the table. Full examination ASAP.’
They wheeled the stretcher alongside the empty bed and in unison pulled you across, leaving viscous pools on the stretcher. A bag of plasma was hooked up.
Your left foot was missing and splinters of bone jutted out from your calf. Your right leg was open along the inside with bulging wounds that were glutinous next to your skin. Your right calf was gone. Each arm was punched with holes and bled. Your left little finger hung by a sinew. Your groin had a clean shining wound that oozed blood. A testicle hung open, deformed and alien.
The woman moved around the stretcher until she was over you. ‘Okay, let’s prep him as quick as we can. Kirsty, get his blood checked. How many bags of fluid has he had?’
‘One administered on the ground, ma’am,’ the man with the helmet said, ‘and we’ve given him three since.’
&n
bsp; ‘Okay, let’s get the cannulas in.’
The woman stood back and assessed. The others worked around you. They cut away your remaining clothes and checked over your naked body. They wiped and cleaned you and taped your eyelids shut. They stuck pads to your chest and the machine above you sounded three times and then once before settling into a rhythm.
‘Tachycardic. Sixty over thirty. Weak,’ one of them said.
‘Blood test done, he’s O positive. Initial bloods show Hb of six.’
‘Right, Kirsty, let’s give him two more bags stat.’
The machine above you started beeping.
‘Blood pressure dropping,’ a nurse said.
And then another machine flashed and rang a clear flat pitch in the room and they were over you and pulling a small trolley towards you.
‘Defibrillator,’ the woman said and reached for the paddles.
I was inside you and I could feel you slipping away as your heart faltered. Gel was squeezed onto the paddles and she rubbed them together and placed them on your chest.
‘Clear,’ she said between each jolt of your body, and I felt your chest convulse around me as electricity bolted through us.
‘For God’s sake,’ one of the nurses said.
But your heart flinched again – and then again – and blood moved through your lungs and the line of spikes came back on the display.
*
They continued to work on you. You still bled too much so they cut a vertical line along your stomach past your navel. They went inside you with metal clamps and stopped blood from ebbing out through your femoral arteries. They removed a tourniquet and threw it in a surgical bin. A nurse inserted a tube up your penis.
When they were convinced you were stable, they wheeled us out of that room and down the corridor. They placed you in a scanner that whirred around us. The doctors and nurses peered at monitors and surveyed the damage. Then they wheeled you on to surgery.