Anatomy of a Soldier

by Harry Parker

  The injured man’s chin was flat against his chest and his grey trousers were dark with blood. He was held between two men. Faridun knew them all and he backed away. These were Hassan’s men and Latif was with them. They have come to punish me, Faridun thought.

  ‘You. Come here, we need help,’ one of them said. His accent was foreign.

  It was the man who had pushed us over at the checkpoint. The weapon he had forced into Faridun’s mouth was slung across his back and the eyes that had threatened his sister flashed up at him. He didn’t seem to recognise Faridun and was less frightening now. His turban had been knocked back, exposing his forehead, and he stooped under the weight of the bleeding man, his expression desperate.

  Faridun stepped away and held my handlebars.

  ‘I said come here, boy,’ the man said again, trying to be forceful through the strain.

  Faridun didn’t move. He looked at Latif under the other arm of the hurt man. He was struggling to control his breathing, which came in faltering wheezes.

  ‘Latif?’ Faridun said. He was concerned for him.

  ‘How do you know Latif?’ the man said. He tried to heft the injured man up. ‘Quick, you can help us. We need to get this man to safety.’

  ‘Are you okay, Latif?’ Faridun said but the young man didn’t reply. Faridun pushed me out from the wall. ‘I know a place that’s not far. Follow me,’ he said, taking their weapons and hanging them from my handlebars. They dangled down beside me as I was wheeled across the field back towards the small building. They carried the injured man behind us, stumbling through the wheat and over the hard clumps of earth. A fourth man was with them and kept checking behind to make sure they weren’t being followed.

  Faridun unlocked the door and pushed me into the small room. ‘You will be safe in here,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Latif said. He coughed and looked up at Faridun.

  They came in and lowered the injured man down onto the slab floor. Faridun saw Latif stagger away towards the wall and crash into a stack of shovels. He steadied himself.

  ‘What should we do with Paugi? He might die,’ Latif said still coughing.

  ‘I will go for the doctor,’ the man said. He came over to me and unhooked one of the weapons from my handlebars. He was in the doorway now with his weapon and glanced back down at the body but didn’t seem to know what to say.

  Faridun went over to the injured man and crouched beside him. ‘You must stop the blood leaving him. Here, let me,’ he said and tore off a piece of his shirt. He lifted the leg up and fed the cloth under, wrapping it around the thigh. He pulled it tight and tied it off.

  ‘Thank you, Faridun,’ Latif said and joined him, ripping his own shirt.

  The man who’d threatened Faridun and kicked me over at the checkpoint looked down at Latif and Faridun tending to the bleeding man and told them to do what they could. He stepped out of the door and the other man went with him to guard the hut.

  They tore more strips and helped each other wrap the man’s leg but he had stopped moving and his breathing was shallow; they didn’t know what else they could do. They sat back against the wall between the upright tools and waited, their shoulders touching, each feeling the other’s body heat. Neither spoke for a while.

  ‘Do you remember when we used to ride that bike to the river?’ Latif finally said.

  Faridun looked at me and thought of all the times they had spent together when they were young. When they were best friends.

  ‘Why did you join them, Latif?’ he said.

  ‘Why do you not?’ He looked across at him. ‘Do not judge me, Faridun. I have family duty to them.’

  ‘But at the checkpoint? After everything?’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Latif said.

  In the silence they both gazed at me over the dying man and Faridun remembered the time they’d tied a kite to me, trying to make it fly.

  The guard came in from outside and nodded at the man on the floor. ‘How is Paugi?’

  ‘I cannot tell, Abdul,’ Latif said. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Aktar will soon return with the doctor,’ the man said. ‘He may survive that long. It is quiet out here, the infidels haven’t followed,’ he said and ducked back out.

  ‘I am scared, Faridun.’

  ‘You will be safe here.’ He reached for his friend’s hand and held it between them.

  ‘I am always scared. I am scared of what they think of me and whether I will be able to live up to what they expect. And I am scared when they send me to dig bombs under the roads or shoot at the infidels. I am scared of them when they have been trained in the mountains and are hard and know only fighting and God.’

  ‘You must leave them,’ Faridun said.

  ‘Today I didn’t think I could shoot at the camp again. We try and do it every day, but this time I was so scared I could hardly walk. Other times I make peace with it, with God.’ He fidgeted with his assault vest and spoke slowly. ‘I do not mind dying. It would be an honour to be martyred. I have lived and it would not matter if it were all over. But today I could hardly lift my weapon or follow them and my legs went forward without me. I wanted to be anywhere else. And then the fighting started and it was breathtaking. I was with them and I loved them. It is so exciting, Faridun.’

  ‘You are safe now, Latif,’ Faridun said, releasing his hand. The room had grown darker and the horizon was silhouetted through the door. ‘I should go home. You can stay here until your friend returns,’ he said as he stood up.

  ‘No, please stay, for just a minute; it is good to talk to you.’

  ‘You have your friends now. I have to go to my family.’

  ‘These are not bad people. They are better than the government. They just want what is best. I have tried to make sure they won’t hurt your family, Faridun. But your father—’

  ‘I must go, Latif. If this ends, maybe we shall talk again.’

  ‘It will never end,’ he said and looked down at his lap.

  Faridun stepped over to the injured man, crouched and rested his hand on his chest. ‘Your friend is dead,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ Latif said, his eyes following Faridun over to me.

  Faridun placed his hands on my grips and wheeled me towards the door, then looked back.

  ‘Peace be upon you, Latif.’

  The young man inhaled to reply.

  Faridun held me and was staring at his friend. In a flash, his existence became a dot, deprived of anything physical, and he couldn’t comprehend the extent of his body as his consciousness churned over, folding on itself, and slammed into a final moment. There was no time for pain but confusion turned to loneliness and the despair of knowing was complete.

  I was ripped away from him in the vacuum and the walls smacked together with the farming equipment and humans and then thumped outwards in an explosion of dust and debris. I was flung into the air and cartwheeled away with rock and mud and landed in the field on my rear wheel. It buckled and I bounced on and then my front wheel broke free and rolled across the field through the dust, wobbling from side to side before it slowed and fell.

  I was bent and dented and broken in two. The dust drifted away as my spinning rear wheel slowed and its squeaking stopped and the mound where the building had been settled in on itself.

  The last glow of dusk was replaced by night and it was still.

  *

  The torch flashed across the field and then was switched off. Two figures were hurrying down the road. One of them had to run every few steps to keep up with the taller figure striding quickly towards me. It was Faridun’s father, the man who had bought me five years earlier. He was with Latif’s mother. He turned the torch back on and walked off the road into the edge of the field.

  ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God. Please, no,’ she was saying as she stumbled into the wheat. Faridun’s father stopped to help her to her feet.

  ‘It could be all right,’ he said. ‘Please, do not panic. Aktar might be playing with us.’
<
br />   ‘He was not lying this time. I could see it in his eyes.’

  ‘Try to be strong.’

  ‘Oh God,’ she said again. ‘I cannot bear it.’

  The two figures were dark against the field as they approached the destroyed building they couldn’t yet see.

  ‘It is just over here,’ he said to her and swept the torch around the field. He saw the dark clods of earth and frowned and then the oval of light glinted on my spokes and he shone it over my wheel and recognised me. Faridun’s father knew it would not be all right.

  They walked past my bent frame and the beam of light tunnelled through the dark, flecked with insects and dust. Then Latif’s mother saw the pile of rubble, let out a wail and ran ahead. He called for her to be careful but she climbed over the scattered debris and broken wall and started scrabbling at the earth.

  ‘My son,’ she cried. ‘Latif.’

  They pulled the rock and earth away and flashed the torch into the gaps. They kept digging for the rest of the night. They found an older man they didn’t recognise and they hoped there might be some confusion. But then they found Faridun and hugged each other and sobbed together. There was another body and they shone the light over his distorted face. They didn’t know him either. It was dawn when they found Latif’s body and she wailed again for her son.

  32

  You pressed your stump into me and we became one for the first time. A man was crouched in front of you and guided us together.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Push down. Can you feel the bottom of the socket?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  You were sitting on a treatment bed and held its edge as you leant forward. Your stump was covered in a white sock. As it descended into my foam insert, filling my interior, I cupped around you.

  ‘It all feels fairly odd,’ you said. A nerve tingled in the side of your knee as I squashed your soft tissue.

  ‘It will for a bit. Here, you pull up this suspension sleeve.’ He pulled the grey silicone sleeve up from me and rolled it over your knee and around your thigh. Now we were securely joined together.

  ‘How does it feel?’

  ‘There’s quite a lot of pressure on the sides,’ you said.

  I was pressing painfully into your medial condyle and the head of your fibula.

  The man ran his thumbs along where my plastic and foam curved in and you could feel his fingers through the silicone. ‘We need this area for lateral support, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘I can always push it out a bit. Getting the sockets just right will be a balance of comfort and support. The more we shave off here, for instance, where it’s digging in, the less support the socket will give you.’

  ‘It’s not too bad, Mike. Let’s see how I get on, if that’s how it’s meant to be.’

  ‘I can always adjust it later.’

  He walked over to a collection of other legs propped up by a mirror, each topped with a different-shaped socket moulded to fit the stumps of broken people like you. He picked one out and brought it over.

  ‘Now let’s try the above-knee socket,’ he said. ‘We’ll try you on this mechanical knee to start.’

  You pulled a white sock up around your stump and took the end of the plastic socket from him.

  There was no symmetry to your injuries. The other socket was bigger than mine and plugged around your stump up to the base of your pelvis. The metal frame and cylinder of the knee joint knocked against me as you adjusted it, grunting as you pushed into the socket and wincing at the unnatural feeling.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘You won’t need this belt forever, but we normally start people with one, just while they learn. It’ll keep the prosthesis on until you can take a better suspension system.’ He pulled a strap up from the socket and helped you pass it around your back. You secured the Velcro.

  ‘Want to give it a go?’ he said.

  ‘Of course.’ You were nervous and shuffled across to your wheelchair. You felt the weight of me pulling down awkwardly on your stump, out in front of the chair. You wheeled forward and positioned us at the end of the parallel bars.

  ‘Wait a second, Tom,’ he said. ‘I’d better get Kat before we send you off. She’s always telling me I’m not qualified. She’ll want to be here to make sure you’re doing it right.’

  ‘We don’t want her missing any of the fun.’

  He went and you looked down at us. We made your proportions right again and you smiled. We were metal, a collection of bolts, carbon tubes, plastic and rubber. We didn’t fill the space your muscles and flesh used to; we were too thin and hard-edged, but suddenly, at the end of me, there was a shoe. Your nerves fired and you could feel the ghost of your foot, right where you could see it. You could feel what you saw.

  You tried to wiggle your toes and almost expected to see the shoe flex, but your feet were frozen in their final moment. You lifted your leg and I pulled forward and the weight of me tugged down, lifeless, and the illusion was painfully broken. You stopped smiling. You ran your fingers over my components, studying how the carbon rod was bolted to the bottom of my socket and holding my foot at its end.

  This is what I’m going to be, you thought. This is the beginning.

  She came back with him. ‘Hi, Tom,’ she said. ‘Mike says you’re ready for lift-off.’

  ‘I didn’t want to be responsible for any of your patients doing a face plant, Kat,’ he said, spinning an Allen key in his hand and leaning over the bars to look at us.

  She stepped around beside you.

  ‘Quite,’ she said. ‘No face plants on the first day if we can possibly avoid it.’

  ‘We save them for later, do we?’ you said.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You just wait for your first stairs session, Tom. They’re usually very entertaining.’

  ‘I told you, Tom,’ he said. ‘You lucked out with your physio.’

  ‘Right, hold on to the bars and pull yourself up. No heroics. Just check for comfort.’

  You grabbed the two parallel bars that extended towards a mirrored wall in front of us, then pulled forward and levered yourself out of the wheelchair. Your stump squashed down into me as I took your weight.

  I was designed to push in against certain areas of you, where there was less damage and scarring, against your patellar tendon below your knee cap and up around the back of what was left of your calf. I pressed in there now and you blew a sharp breath.

  ‘Okay?’ she said.

  ‘A bit sore.’ You were bearing your weight through your arms and slowly relaxed them so you sank into me, the soft tissue of your stump compacting. We were taking all of your weight and your hands hovered above the rails. You swayed forward and back. And then the mechanical knee beside me collapsed as the geometry passed its breaking point and you grabbed for the rails and sat back heavily into the chair.

  ‘Well caught. Just remember that the above-knee will release if you flex it too much,’ she said. ‘How did that feel?’

  ‘Not too bad,’ you said and looked down at me.

  ‘What about comfort?’ the man said. ‘Still pressing in?’

  ‘It is a little.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’ll sort that.’ He ducked under the bar and knelt in front of you. ‘Let’s whip it off.’

  You rolled down the sleeve that held us together and slid out your stump. The man carried me into a workshop where other men were bent over machines wearing goggles and masks, cutting carbon or moulding sockets around casts. He’d made me in here, forming me around a plaster copy of your stump. And then he’d fastened an adaptor to me and assembled me, bolting on my pylon and attaching my foot. He walked over to a bench now and filed down the lips of my socket, widening my opening.

  ‘Try this,’ he said after he’d taken me back into the treatment room.

  You pulled me on again. ‘Thanks, that feels better already.’

  ‘Stand up,’ she said. ‘We’ll attempt a few steps.’
/>
  You pulled yourself back up with a grunt, lowering your weight down into me as you slowly released your grip on the bars.

  ‘Keep holding on, Tom, and then just place your foot forward. The below-knee prosthetic should be a fairly natural action. The above-knee will take more getting used to. It’s all about using your bum muscles for control.’

  You edged forward, lifted me off the ground and I swung. The weight of me acted like a pendulum, and then my heel touched back onto the ground and you’d taken your first step. You rocked your weight over me and the mechanical knee was swinging past, its hydraulic piston arm sliding gently out among the crossing struts of the knee’s polycentric frame.

  You gripped the bars and looked up at the mirror and saw yourself standing there, upright and walking. You watched us move forward and took another step.

  She was behind us, holding your waist to steady us. ‘That’s it,’ she said and looked around you, smiling.

  You saw her in the mirror and smiled back. ‘It feels amazing to be up,’ you said.

  ‘You’re doing well. Try and lengthen your stride a bit. That’s it.’

  You stepped out again, placing me farther away from you, and your stump wobbled in me as we impacted with the ground. Then you rolled over me as the other leg swung past. I was hurting you but you concentrated and didn’t feel it.

  ‘Well done,’ she said. ‘Take it easy turning around and then just head back to your chair. You’re on your own now.’

  She bent under the bar and stood with the man. You shuffled around and noticed how clumsy I was when I wasn’t walking forward. I bumped into the right leg and then caught up against it. You were stuck on one foot, my toe trapped behind the pylon of the other leg. You couldn’t get me free.

  ‘Do you need a hand?’ she said.

  ‘I should be okay.’ Your lips were pursed. You looked down and tried to move me as if I was yours but couldn’t. I was odd and clumsy and you struggled to animate me, your brain sending signals to muscles that no longer existed, and I wouldn’t do what you wanted.

  You pulled me free with an exaggerated jerk of your knee. I flicked out and swung around and you nearly fell but grabbed the parallel bars and breathed out with a whistle.