Anatomy of a Soldier

by Harry Parker

  A message came through me that they should collapse back onto the road behind the trucks. BA5799 watched the other platoons trudge past before he ordered his teams in and they followed the track marks. His men swayed with exhaustion as they walked home.

  We entered camp through the gap. The logistics convoy was being unloaded and a forklift swivelled between the containers. His platoon gathered to one side and waited silently; their eyes were bloodshot and sweat had washed clean streaks down their dirty faces. They unloaded their weapons as a man told them what they needed to do in the morning, and finally they trudged off to their tents. BA5799 watched them go and felt hollow.

  He lifted his day-sack off with a groan. ‘We’d better go to the debrief, Sergeant Dee,’ he said.

  ‘That was a long one.’ The man was looking at his watch. ‘Nearly twenty hours. I’m just going to dump my kit and make sure they get their batteries on charge before they all hit their gonk-bags.’

  ‘Sure, I’ll meet you at the model.’ BA5799 reached into his bag and felt for my switch. 10010101111100000.

  16

  You struggled with consciousness. The concoction of drugs played with your mind. Your body had been battered: infection had showered through it and all of it was compromised and weak. You’d been damaged again; by doctors this time. They’d had to do it to save you.

  You didn’t know this yet. They were trying to wake you up but you weren’t ready. I hung over you. I’m a mix of red and white blood cells, clotting factors, plasma and platelets. Gravity fed my contents down a tube. It dripped through the cylinder flow-regulator and cannula, down into you to replace what you lost when they disfigured you.

  I hung on a stand attached to your bed. Four of them were wheeling us along corridors to the intensive care unit, and one looked down at you and was worried. She told the others you were still delirious.

  You mumbled. You weren’t where they were: not yet in the hospital corridor with the strip lights pulsing above. You were on a table back in camp, and they were pushing you through your room and past the TV room and the dining room and the boot room, and then into a house where your family were waiting. Your friends – all the people you served with, all your brothers – were pushing you through the corridors and laughing at you and you laughed with them. But you were scared and wanted them to stop, but they wouldn’t. You didn’t want to play this game any more – it wasn’t funny.

  You mouthed words and then your head rolled from side to side and you furrowed your brow.

  ‘Don’t,’ you said, ‘please don’t.’

  Something was wrong but you were safe with your friends. And then there was another voice, coming from somewhere else and starting to penetrate. You couldn’t understand that it was saying your name from above and telling you something – you knew it wasn’t a friend.

  ‘Tom,’ it said, ‘Tom.’

  It was the woman pushing the back of the bed. I was next to her, swinging from a hook. She wore blue scrubs and had pulled her mask down around her neck.

  ‘He’s away with the fairies,’ she told the nurses. ‘Completely delirious.’

  ‘What’s he saying?’ one of them said, as she pushed the front of the bed around a corner.

  ‘Not sure. He’s mumbling.’

  ‘Well, it would be good if he looked less shell-shocked by the time we get to the ICU,’ she said. ‘His parents are waiting to see him.’

  You looked hot below me and your face was greasy.

  You could still hear them all laughing at you and you couldn’t stop. You wanted to stop but you kept going faster and faster through the rooms.

  ‘Tom, Tom,’ the voice cut in again. ‘Listen to me.’

  You couldn’t tell whose it was, but it was harsh and unfriendly.

  ‘Tom, my name is Sarah, I’m a doctor. You have been blown up. You stepped on an IED. We’ve just had to amputate your second leg.’

  This information hammered through you. You wanted to be back in camp, or anywhere else, but you knew it was true and you remembered. You opened your eyes. You were in the corridor and you looked up at them and the ceiling flashing past. You saw me suspended above you and the blurred tube connecting us. The doctor’s upside-down head stared down at you. All your friends had gone.

  ‘Tom, can you hear me?’ she said and smiled.

  You nodded below me.

  ‘Do you understand?’

  You nodded again.

  They wheeled us through automatic double doors and we were in a ward where the bays were filled with beds and broken bodies and machines that winked above them. A nurse walked past with a kidney dish.

  A man approached us.

  ‘He’s in this bay, over here,’ he said.

  We were wheeled next to the window. You were unconscious again when the nurses started to plug you into new machines. They placed a plastic peg on your finger and stuck round electrodes to your chest. The machine above faltered and then charted your heart. One of the nurses looked at the displays and noted the readings in a file. Another squeezed me.

  ‘Still on blood?’ she said.

  ‘Dr Pearson wants him to have one more after this,’ the doctor who brought us in answered. ‘And also get him started on AmBisome, for the fungal infection.’

  ‘Has that been added to his prescription?’

  ‘Should be. I’ll check. He’ll need monitoring. It was touch and go in surgery earlier.’

  ‘We heard.’

  Soon only one nurse was left adjusting the machines. Then she went too and you were on your own. I was still above you, feeding into your arm. You mumbled once but were mostly still.

  *

  The nurse came back with a man and a woman. They stood by the bed and looked down at you, then glanced at me and the digital displays behind. They were worried but relieved you were back.

  They saw where the doctors had worked on you and marvelled at the change. Then they looked at your face and smiled, even though you had no life in your skin. The nurse told them the plan: the new medications you were on, and how you would be monitored until they were sure the infection had been managed. She pointed at me and said I was just a precaution to get you back up to speed. She explained they could talk to you, that you’d been conscious since surgery.

  The woman put a red handbag on the windowsill and reached for your hand.

  ‘Tom,’ she said, ‘Tom? It’s okay now. We’re here.’

  You didn’t move and they pulled up chairs and waited. The man went to get a drink of water and came back and they sat together. They were gazing across the ward staring into space when you came round and spoke.

  ‘I’m hot,’ you said and tried to lift away the blanket. ‘Can I have some water?’

  She looked down at you and smiled.

  ‘Hello, Tom,’ she said. ‘It’s us.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’ the man asked.

  ‘I’m really hot.’

  ‘I’ll go and find you a nurse.’

  When he left you looked at her and smiled. You still felt odd. Worse than the other times you’d come out of surgery. She smiled and told you it would be okay now.

  He returned.

  ‘Someone’s just going to get you something, Tom,’ he said. ‘You’ve been through the wars again, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Sorry,’ you said.

  ‘Don’t be silly. The doctors reckon it’s all for the best. You’re back in intensive care as a precaution, just until the infection’s gone.’

  ‘He never should’ve gone up to that other ward,’ she said. ‘Not with that infection.’

  He placed a hand on her arm. ‘Well, they’ve caught it now,’ he said.

  ‘How are you?’ you asked them, but closed your eyes and slept.

  *

  I was nearly empty when you woke. They were still there and you smiled at them and the man held the plastic cup to your mouth. A nurse came over, asked if you wanted to sit up and helped arrange the pillows behind you.

  You felt d
isembodied. Everything was somehow abstract. You looked down and they watched your reaction. You saw where the blue thermal blanket dropped down flat to the mattress. There was no longer the bulge of a foot. With your knee gone it was shorter than the other leg. It shocked you, but it wasn’t you yet and you smiled at them and said you were all right.

  ‘It was very badly damaged anyway, Tom,’ the man said. ‘You’ll probably be more mobile this way.’

  ‘And we spoke to Dr Pearson,’ she said. ‘He said you’ll have no problems with prosthetics. They were very pleased with the operation.’

  You slept again. She left and he stayed all night and watched you, willing you to get better. A nurse told him he should go in the morning. When you woke you looked around. You’d been here before but it seemed different. It was sunny outside and the window was full of green leaves. The tree was in the corner of a breezeblock courtyard. A man was loading cages of laundry into a van among the central-heating pipes. There was a green and pleasant land out there, you thought, but it felt very far away.

  You looked at where you now finished. You would never feel a foot on the floor again, but it didn’t matter yet. Somehow you knew you were still on the edge, you needed to survive and feet didn’t matter. You just needed to endure. You looked at a passing nurse and hoped they would protect you from the pain or getting worse and having to have more cut away.

  I was empty; my plastic walls had collapsed together and red showed only around my seals. The rest of the blood I’d carried since a young man donated it after a lecture, joking with a mate in the queue, was now in you.

  17

  Aktar looked down at me and thought about the boy: Latif would be useful if he survived. But he needed praise. Not like the others, who understood already. Latif was preoccupied with his family and cared too much about what they thought. Like so many in this land, he was too concerned with honour.

  Well, at least the boy was doing his will. He was expendable, like the one last season. That boy had been useful while he lasted. If Latif survived, he might learn to forget and give himself to the cause.

  He looked down at me again, his deep eyes shadowed in his hard face. A loose end from his black turban was wrapped around his neck. My display read 12:08.57. I am a digital watch. Made in Thailand. I’m water-resistant and my stainless-steel back rested against the fine black hairs of his wrist.

  He crossed his arms and peered at the junction. He could see them moving up the track, waving their detectors. He knew more of them would be hidden in the ditches. There was a group near the two empty dwellings by the road. He had also laid a bomb there but it hadn’t detonated. Maybe the trigger was broken or a wire had come loose. Then a man walked right past where it was buried. Why wouldn’t it go off?

  At least Latif could trigger the one by the water pump. He saw another infidel in the ditch behind a machine gun. They would be watching him.

  The phone buzzed in his pocket. He reached to get it, read the message and looked towards their camp. More infidels were moving down the Nalay road. The farmers had started to leave the fields. Having seen us on the bike, they knew what was coming.

  Family and tribe and politics would be our undoing. And he thought about his father returning to their house in the mountains. It was the only time he remembered seeing him. He had hidden behind his mother. His father’s cloak had snow on it and he’d leant his gun next to the door. Aktar couldn’t decide which to stare at: his father or the rusty rifle propped against the wall.

  And then he had gone. He never saw his father again but a man had come to speak to his mother and she had sobbed. He hadn’t known what to do, so he went to play with his friends. That was a different war, but it was the same fight. Maybe his mother was now dead too. It didn’t matter.

  One of the infidels on the road had lifted his weapon and was pointing it at him. He knew they wouldn’t shoot: he was unarmed. He smiled at their rules. The soldiers were constrained as long as they weren’t threatened, but they could also bring death suddenly in the night. It was so hypocritical.

  He glanced at me again – 12:21.23 – and then held the handles of the bike. He looked over at the crossroads. They were getting closer to the water pump. He prayed they wouldn’t find the bomb. He’d been careful making it and used his best materials.

  Something glinted. The infidels were moving in the field where Latif would be. The boy could be replaced but he hoped they wouldn’t find the wire. And then he noticed men nearer to him and he was surprised they were so close, lying on top of a building and watching him. He was scared when he saw their foreshortened barrels and the radio aerials.

  Then he calmed himself. They wouldn’t attack him if he wasn’t a threat.

  It was nearly time. He would like to see the infidels being sent to hell, but once the bomb went off they would be jumpy. Their rules always changed and bent once they were attacked.

  I was over the red petrol tank and he twisted the key. He kicked down and the engine started. His fingers released the lever in front of me and the rear wheel skidded around. The wind sang around me as we rode away. He rocked the handlebars from side to side to avoid potholes and the suspension sucked and hissed below me as the wheel mapped the rough track. His turban flapped out behind us.

  In a gap between houses he caught a glimpse of the junction, then it flashed into view again with the truck. They were nearly there. Go on, Latif, he thought.

  Suddenly he heard it over the sound of the bike and the dust cloud rose above the bushes we sped past. He muttered, ‘God is greatest,’ and hoped that it had damaged them. He was thankful for how good the new equipment was from across the border. He wondered if Hassan would be pleased.

  We rode on and turned down beside a wall onto a single track and his tendons tensed next to my strap as he pulled the lever. We stopped. He let the engine idle and twisted his wrist to glance at me. I displayed 12:32.02. He waited for gunshots or shouts but it was quiet. And then the boy Latif came around the corner, breathing hard. He stopped, put his hands on his knees and looked down at his trainers.

  Aktar smiled at the boy.

  ‘Well done, Latif,’ he said. ‘Listen, one of their helicopters is coming. That means we have really hurt them.’ He checked me again and thought how quickly the helicopter had arrived.

  ‘I saw it,’ Latif said, looking up. His face was pale. His top lip had the fuzz of first hair. ‘I saw that I hurt them.’ He glanced back down the track. ‘Can we go now?’

  ‘Have you still the battery?’ Aktar held out the arm I was on and the boy passed him a battery.

  ‘They nearly found me,’ Latif said. ‘I was almost discovered.’

  ‘You did well. It was God’s will. Tell me later,’ Aktar said. ‘Get on, the others are waiting.’ He looked down at the battery in his hand and then threw it into a ditch.

  We rode away. Latif’s arms were clasped around Aktar’s waist and the wind and the engine noise rushed around us. We stopped and Aktar stepped from the bike to feel around under a pile of dried poppy stalks beside the road. Their ends scratched against my face. He pulled out a radio and the weapon that I was so used to being next to. He handed the gun to Latif and switched on the radio.

  ‘Paugi, Paugi, are you there?’ he said into it and looked at the boy. ‘Do not worry, Latif. They will not follow us this far.’

  ‘Hello, Aktar, is that you?’ the radio crackled faintly.

  ‘Yes, we are leaving the funeral now. You should leave too,’ he said, then held the radio to his ear so I was by his neck.

  ‘Yes, I am leaving too. I saw the cloud. It looked successful.’ The voice was excited.

  ‘Yes, God gives victory to the holy warriors.’

  *

  When Aktar next glanced at me, it was dark and my face reflected the blue flame of a stove. We were in a room with tiled walls and men sitting all around him, cross-legged or relaxed on mattresses. He told them that it was time to change lookout, pointed at one of them and ordered him to g
o.

  ‘But it’s Latif’s turn,’ the man said. He wore his woollen hat far back on his wide forehead.

  ‘Not tonight. You go.’

  ‘I’m always doing it, Aktar,’ he said, and the other men laughed.

  The boy was in the corner, grinning nervously as they congratulated him again.

  The men went to sleep and Aktar took me off and rubbed his wrist where my strap had left a sticky indent. He placed me next to the rifle and lay down on the mat.

  The first time he had seen me was when Hassan had taken me from the lifeless wrist of my previous owner and handed me to him. It had taken Aktar a while to understand how I worked, but he had needed to know if he was to command.

  He checked me one last time, pressing my light button so I glowed 21:47.34 at him.

  The men’s breathing whistled around the room. He stared at the ceiling and thought of his trip into the mountains last winter and how proud he was that the council had picked him. The hardships in the training camp had changed him. Everything he learnt had set him apart from these men: they looked up to him now. He took pride in that, and hoped Hassan knew everything he had achieved with them.

  He remembered Hassan’s anger; the workbenches where they learnt to mix explosives; the cold and the puffs of snow when they missed their targets; the whooping and joking with other students once he detonated his first bomb. He thought of feeling jealous for not being considered the best – he would make up for that now. And then his breathing settled and he slept.

  18

  He took me from the top of the day-sack. He’d kept me there because he thought there was a chance I might be good luck. I had been there for a while and had flattened. The last time he’d used me, he’d poured ammunition into me in a rush.

  He pushed me open and looked at the faint words, TOM BARNES, that he’d drawn on my lining. He had used Tipp-Ex to write it after I’d been given to him at the end of training. He pulled me onto his head, smoothed my side down flat and adjusted my cap badge above his left eye.