Anatomy of a Soldier

by Harry Parker

  ‘Thanks, Sergeant Dee,’ BA5799 said. ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead, boss.’

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘Someone has to make sure we’ve got enough bombs and bullets.’

  ‘I’ll just log out with the ops room.’ BA5799 activated me. ‘HELLO ZERO, THIS IS THREE ZERO ALPHA, MY CALLSIGN NOW READY TO MOVE DOWN ROUTE HAMMER. OVER?’

  I broadcast the metallic reply in his ear, ‘ZERO, ROGER. JUST CLEARING WITH HIGHER. WAIT. OUT.’

  We waited. BA5799 had been busy since he’d unzipped the mosquito net and tugged his kit on, but his nerves were surging now. He thought about the mission again: where he’d be and what else might happen, about his teams moving off down the corridors of his plan and what he needed to coordinate. He hadn’t slept well and his eyes scratched as he blinked.

  I received: ‘THREE ZERO ALPHA, ZERO. YOU CAN MOVE NOW. OVER.’

  ‘ROGER. OUT,’ I sent. BA5799 puffed his cheeks and silently exhaled as we moved up to the front. He slotted into the line and tapped the shoulder of the man ahead. ‘We’re on, Corporal Carr,’ he said.

  The man in front nodded and whispered up the line, ‘Pssst, Jez, good to go, mate.’

  The concertina wire was pulled aside and the lead soldier disappeared around the wall and up onto the road. The next paused, then followed him out.

  The line shuffled forward and each man waited before stepping through the gap. And soon they were all moving onto the road. Those in front had already spaced out into two staggered files. They were dark shadows against the pale road. BA5799 could tell each of his men by his gait. He smiled, then spun around and saw the single files lengthen as the rest of his platoon appeared behind him.

  We passed the high watchtower at the corner of the camp and headed into the horizontal lines of landscape, receding into the night away from safety. It felt hostile, but this is what it’s all about, BA5799 thought, the reason he’d joined up. His soldiers bristled with weapons and moved without orders. They knew the plan, what to do when the plan changed – they knew how to switch to sudden violence.

  His breathing deepened under the weight of the kit and condensation formed on the gauze of my microphone.

  Then the men in front knelt down, and the action rippled along the line until they were all static. They unbent metal detectors and moved into position so the first four were in a box formation. They started to sweep the detectors over the road. Behind him another team stepped over a ditch and disappeared into the dark fields. BA5799 flicked down night-vision goggles to watch them enact his plan.

  It was slow work and the men in front were careful. If the detectors alarmed, they stopped and lay down prone so they could prod with rods or dig at the road with their hands. A band of light bled from the horizon and BA5799 could see his team across the field. They had turned and now walked parallel to the road we were on.

  I was mostly silent but he sent updates of our progress as they passed buildings. I received terse acknowledgements. One team asked him if they could proceed through a derelict compound and I sent a message telling them to stay to the south of it.

  We moved slowly over a bridge and BA5799 was relieved to have cleared the first obstacle. The land seemed less malevolent as the day brightened and light gave perspective to the shadows. We weren’t alone: a group of farmers had appeared with the dawn. They leant on their tools and stared, then went back to work and ignored the soldiers. Another team pushed out, as BA5799 had demonstrated on the model, and he watched them move diagonally past the farmers towards a compound.

  Only eight men were on the road now. The rest had dissolved into the fields, using ditches and hedges and crumbling walls for cover. BA5799 activated me to keep in contact with them and held a picture of their positions in his head.

  The four men continued to wave their detectors across the road, which soon squeezed between two high-walled compounds. BA5799 was tense. The team slowed as they channelled through them, stopping at the smallest signal and scraping the ground with their fingertips, gently feeling for triggers or batteries or bombs. They swept up and down the vertical walls, knowing that danger could be hidden anywhere.

  Another team moved around the buildings, checking them. Once they’d finished, one of the men walked over.

  ‘All clear, sir,’ he said. ‘Don’t look lived in.’

  ‘Thanks,’ BA5799 said and then he spoke into me. ‘ZERO, THREE ZERO ALPHA, THAT’S ROUTE HAMMER UP TO LIMA THREE THREE AND THREE FOUR CLEARED. MY THREE ONE CHARLIE CALLSIGN NOW COMPLETE AT MIKE ONE THREE, GRID 824 463. OVER.’

  ‘ZERO, ROGER. MANY THANKS, OUT TO YOU. HELLO, FOUR ZERO ALPHA, THIS IS ZERO, ACKNOWLEDGE. OVER.’

  ‘FOUR ZERO, ROGER. MOVING NOW. OUT.’

  The team ahead continued to sweep the road, and we were followed by four large-wheeled trucks, covered in armour and with small, thick windows in the cab. On top, a helmet barely showed behind heavy machine guns that scanned across the landscape. BA5799 watched them come down the route and hoped we hadn’t missed anything that would detonate under their wheels.

  The vehicles approached and then stopped. I received:

  ‘HELLO THREE ZERO ALPHA, THIS IS FOUR ZERO ALPHA. I’M GOING STATIC HERE UNTIL YOU’VE CLEARED YOUR AREA. OVER.’

  ‘ROGER, SHOULDN’T BE LONG NOW, TWO HUNDRED METRES OR SO TO GO. ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THREE ONE CHARLIE’S LOCATION AT MIKE ONE THREE? OVER,’ I sent.

  ‘YES, I’VE GOT VISUAL. OUT.’

  ‘HELLO ZERO, TWO ZERO ALPHA, I’M LEAVING YOUR LOCATION NOW. OVER.’ A new callsign had entered the network.

  ‘ZERO, ROGER. OUT.’

  Even though the milky sun was still large on the horizon, it was hot. BA5799 sweated into my headband and his ear was red in my plastic earpiece. On one knee at the edge of the road, he took a map from a pouch on the front of his body armour and pulled a GPS from his pocket. He looked up at the features around him and confirmed his position.

  A few hundred metres ahead, trees lined the track to a crossroads where a gated building stood in one corner. Beyond, walls divided the fields into a maze of rectangles.

  ‘Corporal Carr, you can stop there. This is the eighty-third easting,’ BA5799 said to the man in front. ‘Good effort. Once Six Platoon are through, we’ll move back and secure Lima Three Three.’

  ‘Roger, sir.’ The man looked relieved and turned to his team. ‘Go firm, lads. Jez, that’s far enough. Well done, mucker.’

  BA5799 stood and gazed back down the road. Behind the vehicles, a line of soldiers floated on the mirages. ‘CHARLIE CHARLIE ONE, THIS IS THREE ZERO ALPHA. ROUTE HAMMER NOW SECURE TO THE EIGHTY-THIRD EASTING,’ he said into my microphone. ‘ZERO, ACKNOWLEDGE. OVER.’

  My emission was lost in the atmosphere and there was a distorted response: ‘NO, SAY AGAIN, YOU’RE DIFFICULT. OVER.’

  ‘ZERO, THIS IS FOUR ZERO. I RELAY. FROM THREE ZERO ALPHA: ROUTE HAMMER NOW CLEARED TO THE EIGHTY-THIRD EASTING. OVER.’

  ‘ZERO, ROGER. THAT’S CLEAR. MANY THANKS; OUT TO YOU. HELLO TWO ZERO, ACKNOWLEDGE FOUR ZERO’S LAST. OVER.’

  ‘ROGER, MOVING WEST ALONG HAMMER NOW. WILL LET YOU KNOW WHEN I’M IN POSITION. OUT.’

  The truck’s engine pulsed as they stopped beside us and men dismounted to fan out across the fields and surround the crossroads. BA5799 waved to the man up on the truck.

  The man leant out and pulled an ear defender away. ‘You didn’t find anything, Tom?’ he said over the engine noise.

  ‘No, Dan. Most of the road’s in sight of the camp, though.’

  ‘True, let’s hope it continues.’ The man looked towards the junction.

  A team of riflemen stepped down from the back of the truck. ‘Morning, boss,’ one of them said as he filed up to us. ‘Our turn for a bit of tiptoe.’

  ‘Morning, Rifleman Plunkett, we wouldn’t want to hog all the fun,’ BA5799 said, then walked back to the two buildings that straddled the road.

  I continued to play transmissions in BA5799
’s ear as the other stations of the network pushed farther up the road. He arranged the men around the buildings and moved between them, talking them through the countryside in front and where they were in relation to one another. He used me to tell the network that his teams were now in position.

  He knelt in an area of shade, drank from the tube over his shoulder and removed his helmet. His hair was matted against his skull and he scratched his scalp and adjusted my headband before clipping it back on. We waited. The sun was high, the air vibrating. He looked ahead at the platoon that was moving slowly through the junction, checking in ditches and sluices and spreading wide to clear the compounds. The trucks marked their progress as they followed. BA5799 was glad that his part of the task was done for now.

  He walked between the men and joked with them. They talked about the operation and how long it was likely to take. He said he didn’t know, but the logistics convoy had left and was now heading east.

  He dropped into a ditch beside another man. ‘You okay, Rifleman Johns?’

  ‘Not too bad, boss. What do you make of that?’ The man pointed over his machine gun, propped on its bipod in front of him. ‘That geezer just rode down the road from the north.’

  BA5799 held his rifle up and looked through the sight. In the distance a man sat upright and still on a motorbike. He wore a black turban and black boots that were planted on either side of the bike. His arms were crossed as he watched.

  ‘Looks dodgy as sin,’ BA5799 said.

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘Keep an eye on him.’ Then he pressed me: ‘THREE ONE CHARLIE, THIS IS THREE ZERO ALPHA. OVER.’

  ‘THREE ONE, SEND. OVER.’

  ‘CAN YOU SEE THE FIGHTING-AGED MALE ON THE BIKE? OVER.’

  ‘YES, JUST APPEARED FROM VICINITY OF OXFORD. HE’S UNARMED BUT HE’S WATCHING THE JUNCTION. ABOUT THREE HUNDRED METRES FROM MY LOCATION. OVER.’

  ‘ROGER, KEEP EYES ON. OUT.’

  BA5799 looked again through his sight at the figure framed in the black circle and swore under his breath. It could be nothing, he thought, but then he activated me again. ‘HELLO, FOUR ZERO ALPHA, THIS IS THREE ZERO ALPHA, BE AWARE YOU’RE BEING WATCHED BY A LONE MALE IN THE VICINITY OF COMPOUND MIKE TWO FOUR. OVER.’

  ‘FOUR ZERO ALPHA, ROGER. OVER.’

  ‘THREE ZERO ALPHA, THE FARMERS IN MY AREA ARE ALSO MOVING AWAY, NOT GOOD ATMOSPHERICS. OVER,’ BA5799 said, as he watched the farmers in the fields to his right.

  ‘ROGER, NOT GOOD AT ALL. HELLO, ALL TWO ZERO CALLSIGNS, STAY ALERT, LOOKS LIKE WE’RE BEING WATCHED. OUT.’

  BA5799 stood and walked up onto the road but the rifleman called back, ‘He’s buggering off, sir.’

  BA5799 turned just as the man on the bike skidded his rear wheel around and a cone of dust lifted as he rode away. ‘Keep your eyes open and give me a shout if he returns.’

  BA5799 waited with a group of his men. They fidgeted in the heat and sweat dripped from their noses. He took off his day-sack, twisted a clip and replaced my battery. Somebody complained it was taking forever, and BA5799 said it would take as long as it took; this was a dangerous part of the operation.

  He listened absent-mindedly to the messages I emitted as the other platoons used the network. BA5799 updated the men around him, telling them how Six Platoon had nearly cleared Cambridge and were starting up Hammer. He explained that the road narrowed beyond the crossroads and they had to direct the trucks through the tight sections. A soldier grunted about rubbish driving.

  *

  They ducked in unison at the bang. BA5799 looked around at the crossroads and saw the explosion mushrooming up into the sky. The sound echoed through the fields and a bird flapped away. They’d all heard explosions before, but one of them still cursed in the silence after it.

  ‘Cover your arcs,’ BA5799 said. ‘And look for firing points, there could be follow-up.’ He stepped onto the road, his hand poised over my pressel. There was nothing he could do; he was too far away. He hated this moment. He could hear the shouts of the men up the road, trying to make sense of the situation.

  He wondered if anyone had been hurt. The blast site was still obscured by dust but men were beneath it, swallowed by the instant cloud and showered in debris – perhaps surrounded by twisted metal, their hearing pierced by a monotone ring and their breath punched out of them – perhaps worse than hurt. He hoped it had been a lucky escape, as it so often seemed to be.

  And then I transmitted in his ear.

  ‘ZERO, FOUR ZERO ALPHA, CONTACT IED. WAIT. OUT.’

  BA5799 knew his friend’s voice. From his tone, he knew they hadn’t been lucky. And then an angry shout carried to him: ‘Medic, medic. Get a fucking medic up here!’

  Men ran through the dust to the stricken truck and pulled the rear doors open to help. BA5799 waited in silence with the men around him.

  Then my speaker vibrated in his ear: ‘ZERO, FOUR ZERO ALPHA, CONTACT IED ON VEHICLE TWENTY METRES EAST OF CROSSROADS AT CAMBRIDGE. LINE THREE: ONE CAT A, ZAP DA6721, AND ONE CAT B, PL9804. SUGGEST EMERGENCY HLS IN THREE ZERO’S AO. OVER.’

  BA5799 watched the soldiers working on a body in the field, then turned to the men around him. ‘Sounds like there’s two casualties, fellas,’ he said. ‘One Cat A, one Cat B.’ He stood up. ‘Let’s get ready to move. We need to secure the HLS.’

  And then I was emitting again: ‘ZERO, ROGER, HOW LONG UNTIL YOU CAN HAVE THE CASUALTIES THERE? OVER.’

  ‘TWO ZERO, JUST WITH THE CASUALTIES NOW. WE’LL MOVE THEM BY VEHICLE. I RECKON IT’LL TAKE FIVE MINUTES. OVER.’

  ‘CHARLIE CHARLIE ONE, MEDEVAC IN THE AIR. EHLS AT THREE ZERO ALPHA’S LOCATION. THREE ZERO ALPHA, ACKNOWLEDGE. OVER.’

  BA5799 pressed my switch again: ‘THREE ZERO, ROGER. SECURING IT NOW. OUT.’

  We jumped a ditch to run out into the field and I bounced around on BA5799’s back. He was glad to have some influence on the situation, to have something to do. He beckoned to a group of men and told them to clear a section of field and they started waving their detectors over the ground. He shouted at a rifleman to cover them, then spoke through me to the team at Mike 13, instructing them to fan out and secure the north edge of the landing site.

  BA5799’s face was livid beneath his helmet. He watched his platoon morph around the new area and his team commanders move into position. He dropped the day-sack off his shoulder and grabbed the smoke grenade, then swung me up onto his back and pushed my pressel. ‘ZERO, THREE ZERO ALPHA, EHLS NOW SECURE, GRID 825 460, THREE HUNDRED METRES SOUTH OF MIKE ONE THREE, I’LL MARK WITH RED SMOKE. OVER.’

  ‘ZERO, ROGER, RED SMOKE. OUT.’

  One of the trucks drove down the road towards us. It rocked in the potholes and stopped.

  ‘CHARLIE CHARLIE ONE, THIS IS ZERO, HELI ETA THREE MINUTES. THREE ZERO ALPHA, ACKNOWLEDGE. OVER.’

  ‘THREE ZERO ALPHA, ROGER. OUT,’ I sent.

  They pulled a stretcher from the truck and carried it to the field followed by a man supported between two others, dragging his legs, his face pulled back in pain. They crouched there at the edge of the field, waiting. Someone readied the stretcher and another held a clear bag above it. BA5799 walked out into the open area and knelt down.

  The sound of the helicopter was distant and then burst above us as the aircraft banked low over the field, its two rotors beating through the air. BA5799 pulled the pin from the grenade and it clicked and fizzed. He threw it onto the ground and powdery red smoke spurted from its base.

  The helicopter circled up and around as the cone of red smoke built across the field. It reared its nose as it descended, slowing over the road and ditches. BA5799 watched it disappear inside the fountain of dust streaming towards us; the wind buffeted and then we were engulfed. He turned his head away as the downdraught curled the smoke up and the grass flattened and shimmered.

  They hurried with the stretcher to the back of the aircraft, ducked below the rotors and passed it inside. The other casualty was helped up the rear ramp to the medical cr
ew. Then they crouched into a huddle as the ramp began to close and the aircraft lifted away.

  The grenade had left a dark red burn on the earth. It was quiet and the men walked back up to the road and down towards the junction.

  *

  The logistics convoy had to detour around the stricken truck and the crater blocking the road. I sent and received messages as they cleared the new route. One of them ordered BA5799 to spread his platoon more thinly. He moved some of his men up to the crossroads and we waited with them in the shade of the trees. They asked how bad the casualties had been. BA5799 said they’d have to wait for news from headquarters, but he knew it was bad from the way the stretcher-bearers had walked off as the sound of the helicopter had receded.

  Farmers came back to the fields as the afternoon cooled. BA5799 felt safer with them close. It was dusk when the six logistics trucks wallowed down the potholed road and turned the corner at the crossroads. One of the men joked about meals on wheels and they all wondered if there was any post for them on board.

  BA5799 pushed my switch: ‘ZERO, THREE ZERO ALPHA, THAT’S THE CONVOY PASSING ME AT CAMBRIDGE. HEADING DOWN ROUTE HAMMER TOWARDS YOUR LOCATION NOW. OUT.’

  That should have been the end of the mission but they struggled to lift the damaged truck from the ditch. BA5799 yawned as tiredness took hold. He had to change my battery again as we waited. One of the men pulled a foil packet from his day-sack and squeezed cold hotpot into his mouth, then offered some to the others. The setting sun bruised the sky and a man said softly that it was the end of another day in paradise.

  Headlights from a vehicle cast long shadows from the soldiers who worked around the blast site, creating a small theatre of light in the dark. Their voices and the clank of metal carried as they attached cables and waved recovery vehicles into position. In a rush of activity, the broken truck was pulled out of the ditch. They hitched it up behind another vehicle and dragged it back to camp. As it passed the crossroads, BA5799 could see the warped front end and thought of the energy needed to twist and deform metal like that.