Anatomy of a Soldier

by Harry Parker

  When he was satisfied, he stood back and dropped slimy forceps on the trolley next to me. ‘Right. Mike and Ben, bandage him up, pack the inner thigh where it’s still open and place the drain for the negative pressure dressing there,’ he said, pointing at the groin.

  ‘Sure. Thanks for that, Al.’

  ‘No problem, I think we’ve been lucky. Sarah, is he stable now?’

  ‘He’s been through the mill,’ she said. ‘He’ll need monitoring.’

  ‘Absolutely. I want him on wide-spectrum anti-fungals. I’m going to see the family now. I’ll nip up to ICU as well to brief the team that he’s coming back. Is everyone happy?’

  They were wrapping the stump in gauze when a nurse wheeled the trolley I was on out of the room to a sink. She started to clean the implements around me. When she got to me, she removed my battery, pulled my blade out of its slot and started washing me. All my parts were disinfected and then placed on a draining board to dry.

  *

  Later, they came in and started to wash their hands.

  ‘I don’t think you’re going to make that party after all, Ben.’

  ‘I’m knackered anyway. You were right, Mike, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s just not worth taking the risk,’ he said. ‘Another long session. Through the twelve-hour barrier again.’

  ‘I hope he’ll be okay. Those infections are vile. I can still smell it. That’s what I find most difficult, the way it seems to linger.’ They dropped their purple-streaked scrubs in a clothes bin. ‘Do you fancy a quick beer? We might get last orders.’

  ‘Taking the leg off was the best option. It was buggered anyway.’

  ‘Poor sod.’

  ‘I’m due back on in the morning so I think I’ll head home. You should see if Mandy’s lot are still out.’

  14

  Aktar placed me in Latif’s hand and his clammy fingers pressed around me.

  ‘It is time now,’ Aktar said. ‘We laid this one during the sandstorm, do you remember?’ He was sitting on a motorbike beside the road.

  ‘The one beyond the crossroads at Sadiq’s house?’ Latif looked down at me.

  ‘Yes, and the wire stretches along the ditch across the field. You will be hidden behind the wall. Follow this path for two fields and then along the water until it passes under the wall. You will recognise it.’

  ‘You said they’ve been moving farther from the roads recently. What happens if they discover me?’ His hand tightened around me.

  ‘You will be fine, Latif. You’ll be out of sight and far enough away. I am staying back here to keep watch. Ensure that you connect the battery once the infidels are directly opposite the broken water pump. You will be able to see their approach through the gap in the wall.’

  ‘And I place the wires against each end of the battery?’

  ‘Yes, and God willing you will destroy them. They are exposed here.’

  ‘God willing.’

  ‘You are ready, Latif. You are doing well. God is with us in every hour of our struggle. These men have no right to be here,’ Aktar said. He was resting his hands on the fuel tank. ‘I will wait with the bike on the high ground.’

  ‘And what if their helicopters come?’

  ‘Stay down and do not run, do not show yourself. The water in the ditches is deep, so you can submerge yourself as we talked about. Now, you must go before they get to the crossroads. You have done well, Latif. Hassan will be proud.’

  Latif dropped me into his pocket and I rolled around as he moved. He walked normally and then we turned a corner and he started to slow. He slid down a bank and his feet sloshed through water. He lifted his thighs as the water deepened and I was submerged. Small bubbles seeped through the cloth around me. He put his hand down to check I was still there.

  He stepped out of the ditch. His trousers clung to his legs and his trainers were suddenly heavier. He sat down, pulled me out and placed me upright on a flat rock so I wouldn’t roll off. We were at the end of the ditch where it disappeared into a culvert under a mud wall. The wall had crumbled into slides of sand and rock. It once enclosed a small field but had collapsed and was now overgrown.

  Latif dragged himself up to a vertical crack. Beyond it was a wide field, hazed green with the first shoots of a crop. A crossroads bounded the far corner, and trees shaded a gated house. The road extended from the junction and split the field in front of us. Twenty yards from the junction, the bent water pump cast a shadow across the packed road surface.

  He knew it and remembered the day, a few weeks earlier, when Aktar had said the conditions were perfect and no one would see them through the storm. They’d been in high spirits, as half blinded by sand they dug up the road. They had reeled out the wire and pushed it down into the freshly ploughed field. Aktar had instructed them to feed the wire through the crack in the wall and cover the end with a round stone.

  He found the stone now at the bottom of the wall and the length of wire sprang out from beneath it. The plastic sheath had been stripped away at the end to expose the copper. He moved me up to the crack and positioned me on a rock shelf. He lay on his stomach, rested his chin on his hands and waited.

  The water sucked through the culvert beside us and a bird called from the trees at the edge of the field. He felt vulnerable in his cotton shirt; all he had was me. Every ripple of water or creaking branch sounded like approaching steps and he flinched and looked around. But the field was empty and nothing moved on the road. He wondered if Aktar had been wrong about the infidels’ route. He felt tired and his eyes closed. He shook his head. He hoped they wouldn’t come and couldn’t imagine it happening the way Aktar had described it.

  *

  He heard the truck first. He craned his neck but the gap wasn’t wide enough. And then he saw shadows pass over the dark trunks along the avenue of trees, and the unmistakable silhouette of their helmets and weapons and rucksacks, bristling with antennas. Excitement surged through him. He picked me up in his sweaty palm.

  More of them gathered around the junction and the high cab of the vehicle crawled forward. But they checked every inch of ground and he had to wait. The shadow around Latif contracted and he grew hot and frustrated. He yawned. How could he be tired and bored, he thought, with death so close?

  He checked behind him again and jolted in shock. Two of them were walking slowly along the broken wall. He gasped, then held his mouth shut. They were twenty yards away. He clenched his fist around me and slowly lowered his head flat, holding his breath, every muscle tensed. He heard one of them speak.

  ‘Yeah, push on, mate, to the end of the field.’

  It was a strange and foreign sound to him. They kept moving, disappearing behind the higher sections of wall and then coming back into sight.

  Now there were four of them; he could hear the scuff of their boots and the sound of their machines. One seemed to look straight at him but carried on along the wall and he saw them push through foliage into the open field beyond. They were gone.

  Latif slowly lifted himself up and looked at how close they’d been and wondered if they’d come back, or if more would follow. He breathed deeply and tried to control himself. His heartbeat shook his whole body and throbbed around me in his palm. He sat with his back against the wall and looked up at the sky and his hand relaxed. I slipped out into the grass. He wanted to sprint back to safety, but then thought of how angry Aktar would be; he thought of his violence. He twisted to look through the gap again and saw the men inching out from the crossroads towards the water pump.

  Latif felt hatred now. He remembered Aktar, lit by the fire, saying they ruin the land and our systems, they unbalance us; that they are the infidel. And he thought of how well he’d been doing, how pleased Aktar had been. He remembered his family. He blinked the tears away, reached for me and turned back to the crack. His vision blurred and he wiped his eyes with his sleeve and saw them clearly. He clenched his teeth. God is greatest, he thought, and then whispered it aloud.

  Fo
ur of them were spaced out in a square across the road, sweeping their detectors over the surface as if they were sowing seeds, searching for bombs. They looked like machines, encased in equipment and armour, with devices that let them see farther and weapons that could kill like magic. He thought of Aktar saying they did not fight fairly, that they were dishonorable, that they were not human.

  The men moved forward and then one of them raised his hand and they all lowered themselves down until they were flat against the road. Latif watched as one of them started to dig down with his hands. He heard them calling to one another.

  ‘Go firm there, Rifleman Plunkett. Anything, Mac?’

  ‘Looks okay.’

  Their foreign voices made them less real and Latif even angrier. ‘God is greatest,’ he said and pulled the wire towards me.

  They hadn’t found anything and they slowly stood up. The weight of their equipment made them clumsy. They approached the broken water pump and Latif felt a new rush and shivered. Aktar had said that if it was God’s will, they wouldn’t find the bomb. Their large vehicle pulled out from the crossroads to follow them. Latif saw the heavy machine gun on top rotate and was afraid; its barrel pointed straight at him and then swept on.

  ‘God is greatest.’

  They slowed. One of them approached the pump, stepped across the ditch to check around it and then knelt as the others continued down the road. Latif held his breath. They didn’t stop. They kept moving past the water pump.

  ‘God is greatest.’

  And then they all knelt and the truck stopped only several paces short of the pump. He wanted it to be by the pump. Aktar had said we would damage them most if we destroyed the vehicle.

  Another foreign soldier walked out from the truck and moved up to the four men. Their voices mixed with the rumble of the engine.

  ‘Get up front, Rifleman Davies, and guide us through.’

  ‘Will do,’ a man called back.

  The truck crept forward and the man stood in front, directing it down the road past the water pump with waves of his hands. It edged along with squeals of its brakes.

  ‘God is greatest.’ Latif’s teeth were clenched as he pushed one of the copper wires against my cathode and held it there with his thumb.

  ‘God is greatest,’ he said again, concentrating only on the correct moment: when the large wheels of the truck rolled next to the pump.

  The water still sucked through the culvert but Latif didn’t hear it. He positioned the other wire above my anode.

  ‘God is greatest.’

  The vehicle jerked forward as the man beckoned it through where the road narrowed. And then it was over the pump and Latif said his prayer again, louder than he meant to, before pressing the wire down against my anode. I instantly created a circuit that ran through the wire under the field to the device, which erupted on the road.

  In a silent flash, the truck was instantly replaced by a brown vertical smudge. A moment later the noise slapped through Latif’s chest and he ducked. Sand and rocks slipped from the wall.

  ‘God is greatest.’

  He was breathing faster now and dropped me. The explosion was much louder than he expected and still reverberated across the countryside. He was shocked by its violence.

  It took him a moment to realise there were other noises: the infidels shouting to one another through the confusion.

  ‘Cover your arcs.’

  ‘Plunkett? Davies, Davies? Rifleman Davies, are you okay?’

  ‘Medic, medic. Get a fucking medic up here!’

  Latif raised his head to look through the gap. A solid fog of dust drifted across the road and transparent shapes staggered through it. Bits of debris still fell on the field in front of him. As the cloud thinned, he could see the outline of the truck. One wheel was gone, he couldn’t see where, and its front had been splayed upwards in shredded metal. It lay on its side, half in the ditch, crushing the water pump. The road was now a crater. Men ran up from the junction.

  ‘God is greatest.’

  Latif picked me up and slid back from the crack but paused when he noticed the body lying in the field. It must have been the soldier who’d been directing the vehicle. Latif looked closely. The explosion had thrown him towards us. His helmet had disappeared and it was hard to work out which parts were human and which machine. Then Latif glanced down and understood that a part of the man was even closer, resting on the soil right in front of him. Latif looked at it and was afraid for himself. He knew he had killed.

  He dropped me into his pocket and ran.

  *

  Latif was breathing hard when he heard the sound of a motorbike and stopped. It was Aktar.

  ‘Well done, Latif,’ he said. ‘Listen, one of their helicopters is coming. That means we have really hurt them.’ There was the thump of distant rotors.

  ‘I saw it,’ Latif said between breaths. ‘I saw that I hurt them.’ He reached down into his pocket and grabbed me. He thought of the body lying in the field and the part of it, separated and even closer. Then he thought of the men who’d walked so close to him and he was scared again.

  ‘Can we go now?’ he asked.

  ‘Have you still the battery?’

  Latif passed me to Aktar.

  ‘They nearly found me. I was almost discovered.’

  ‘You did well. It was God’s will. Tell me later.’ Aktar looked down at me. ‘Get on, the others are waiting.’ And then he tossed me away.

  I rotated end over end and plopped into an irrigation ditch. I sank into the silt at the bottom and started to corrode.

  15

  000001111001101. Switched on. Initialised. I was in an olive-green day-sack. BA5799 crouched over me. He looked at my screen as I recognised the encryption and my digital display changed to the time and date and showed the downloaded frequency. I am designed to digitally network soldiers, and the tone from my headset indicated I was ready to communicate.

  BA5799 looked up at the men around him.

  ‘So, be ready to move at zero five hundred tomorrow. We’ll meet by the gate, and keep the noise down: we want as much surprise as possible,’ he said. ‘Everyone should be happy with the changes to the plan. Those who need to radio-check, let’s do it now.’

  Some of the men started towards a row of tents in the corner of the camp.

  ‘And stay hydrated,’ he called after them.

  We were on the helicopter landing site in the centre of an open area, surrounded by protective walls. It was dusk. One of the men jogged over to a football left by a wall and they kicked it to each other as they went back to their beds.

  BA5799 pulled on my headset and positioned my microphone over his lips with two fingers.

  ‘You ready?’ he said. A handful of men knelt or stood around him; one nodded and BA5799 pushed my pressel. He spoke and I converted, encrypted and sent his voice: ‘HELLO, THREE ZERO BRAVO, THIS IS THREE ZERO ALPHA, RADIO CHECK. OVER.’

  The other man’s lips moved in his microphone. I received, decrypted and emitted it through my headset into BA5799’s ear: ‘THREE ZERO BRAVO, OKAY. OVER.’

  ‘THREE ZERO ALPHA, OKAY. OUT,’ BA5799 sent back and looked up. ‘Thanks, Sarnt Dee,’ he said. ‘You good, Corporal Monk?’

  ‘Still initialising, sir.’

  ‘No problem. Has everyone got enough spare batteries? Likely to be a long one tomorrow.’

  Soon all the radios around me had initialised. I sent and received until BA5799 was certain none of us were corrupted and our connections were clear. He thanked everyone and walked back through a gap in the blast walls to a small courtyard of compound walls.

  He ducked under a washing line and entered a small room carved out of the wall. Inside were two green camp beds covered with mosquito nets. At the back of the room were empty ration boxes and two black grips, a pile of paperbacks and an out-of-date calendar. He dragged one of the beds out of the trapped heat into the evening air and sat down on it.

  He leant his body armour against the foot
of the bed and placed his helmet next to it. He opened his magazine pouches, tested the ammunition and picked up his rifle, pulled back the cocking handle and looked in through the breech. There was a bottle of water under the sleeping bag and he fished it out and drank. The first stars had appeared and he looked at them. Then he put the day-sack down and reached in with his thumb and finger to twist my switch. 10010101111100000.

  *

  000001111001101. It was colder and dark. My digital display read 0453 and my headset indicated that I had finished initialising. My microphone protruded from under BA5799’s helmet. He pulled the drawstring on the day-sack and my body and spare batteries drew together with a bladder of water, a smoke grenade and a green plastic bag of ammunition.

  He clipped the lid shut so my antenna stood upright, then swung the bag up onto his back and pulled the straps tight. My pressel was attached by his shoulder. He lifted his left hand up and depressed it. I emitted: ‘ZERO, THIS IS THREE ZERO ALPHA, RADIO CHECK. OVER,’ he said.

  ‘ZERO, OKAY. OVER,’ I received.

  ‘OKAY. OUT.’

  We were near the front gate. Heavy-wheeled vehicles had churned the ground to powder in deep trenches that led up to an opening in the wall, spanned by a spiral of concertina wire. BA5799 stood to one side of a single file of waiting men, all helmeted and weighed down by equipment. Weapons jutted from their shadows. Antennas and aerials swayed and night-vision goggles cantilevered off helmets. Cigarettes glowed and were thrown into the dust. A couple of men yawned and BA5799 walked along the line to the front. One said good morning to him; BA5799 recognised his voice and returned the greeting.

  A squat man approached through the dark, holding his rifle down at his side.

  ‘All ready when you are, sir,’ he said, looking back at the line of men. ‘Twenty-three including you.’