Anatomy of a Soldier

by Harry Parker

  I was mounted next to another medal, like me but awarded for a different operation in another country. And then I was put in a drawer and forgotten.

  38

  We were pressed together in a row and light distorted through us in greys and blues and bright refractions. The room below me bulged around my surface as it was reflected through me.

  It was quiet and the man behind the U-shaped bar was bent over a newspaper. He looked up as the door opened and they came in and the traffic hissed through the rain outside. Tom was wearing shorts and he rocked sideways and hitched a leg up to step into the room. The other man pulled out a chair in the corner near the window and Tom lowered himself into it.

  The barman folded up the newspaper. ‘What can I get you, mate?’ he said.

  ‘I’ll have a pint of lager, please,’ the man said, and rested an elbow on the bar. He turned back to Tom, who was adjusting his legs. ‘What do you want, lager?’

  ‘Thanks, mate.’

  The barman reached up and took me off the shelf as he had a hundred times before. I was held below the nozzle, he flicked the handle and liquid poured down my side, curling up bubbles that collected in a foam.

  I was placed on a mat and the liquid in me turned the room’s light iodine-yellow. Another glass was filled and the man carried us over to the table and put me in front of Tom.

  ‘There you go, mate,’ he said, sitting down opposite and taking a sip from his glass.

  ‘Thanks, James,’ Tom said and looked down at me. ‘It’s good to see you. Cheers.’ He lifted me up and they clinked us together in the middle of the table. And then Tom’s lips were against me and he sipped through the foam.

  ‘I’ll have to be careful. This is the first full pint I’ve had in months,’ he said and grinned over me. ‘It’ll be interesting to see how it mixes with the drugs.’

  ‘Well, it’s good to see you up in town, Tom,’ the man said. ‘Hey, listen, I’m sorry I didn’t come and see you in hospital, mate. You know how it is, I just didn’t want to be a nuisance and everyone—’

  ‘It’s all right, I wasn’t much fun in hospital anyway. It’s probably best you stayed away.’ He dragged his fingers down me through the condensation and I reflected his blue jumper and the dark window and rain-flecked streetlight outside.

  ‘And rehab’s going well? You seem to be smashing it.’

  ‘It’s hard work but I’m into the swing of it now. I’m spending four weeks there and then a few at home.’

  He nodded to below. ‘The legs look good.’

  ‘This leg’s new,’ Tom said and twisted a grey robotic knee from under the table.

  ‘And that’s helping?’

  ‘It makes a massive difference. I haven’t used a stick since I’ve been on it.’

  ‘How does it work – and why’s the other one different?’ he said, staring at the two prosthetics under the table.

  ‘Do you mind if we talk about something else, James?’ Tom said. ‘I’m just a bit sick of all the leg stuff. How are you? How’s Vicky?’

  ‘Of course, mate, I’m sorry.’ He lifted his glass and drank and they talked.

  Tom watched the bubbles grow and then pop off my sides as they discussed their friends and work and girls. He used his damaged left hand to lift me once and the man opposite glanced at it before looking away.

  *

  The room filled with people and the hymn of voices grew. His friend finished first and went for another pint after joking that Tom needed to work on his drinking strength.

  While he was at the bar, a man walked towards us across the room. I reflected his jeans. He nudged the table as he sidestepped past and I tipped but Tom caught me.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ Tom said.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ the man said and looked down. ‘Didn’t see you there, fella. Hey, cool leg, mate.’ He smiled. ‘Blimey, you’ve been in the wars, haven’t you?’

  Tom smiled up at him.

  ‘Bomb, was it?’ the man said. ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Afraid so,’ Tom said. ‘Explosively assisted high jump.’ He picked me up and took a long gulp, staring out the window.

  ‘My mate’s friend has the same thing. Car crash, mind.’ He peered under the table. ‘Shit, you lost both. Sorry, mate.’

  ‘Yup,’ Tom said.

  ‘Good bits of kit now though. Must be expensive?’ the man said. ‘You heroes deserve it. Can’t think what it’s like. I’ve got a sixteen-year-old. He wanted to join up. Wouldn’t let him go near it. I’ll tell him about you.’

  The man perched on the next table and crossed his arms. He smiled at Tom and whistled and shook his head. ‘Does it hurt?’ he said. ‘Must do.’ He held out a hand. ‘I’m Graham.’

  ‘Tom.’

  They shook.

  ‘Let me buy you a pint, Tom,’ the man said.

  ‘No thanks, I’m fine.’

  ‘Go on, it’d be my pleasure.’

  ‘Honestly, I’m fine. Just catching up with a mate.’ Tom pointed at his friend pushing back between the tables with his drink.

  ‘Oh, sorry, I’ll leave you to it then,’ he said and stood out of the way. ‘You lads are so brave.’

  ‘Not brave,’ Tom said. ‘Just trod on the wrong piece of ground.’

  ‘Well, good to meet you, Tom,’ he said and walked off to the bar.

  ‘What was that about?’

  ‘Just another of my adoring public,’ Tom said. ‘Can’t be too ungrateful – he meant well – but I hate that sort of thing.’

  ‘Must be grim.’ He looked over his pint at Tom. ‘I’m not sure I could do it, mate. I’d probably have committed suicide if it happened to me.’

  ‘What’s that meant to mean?’ Tom put me down sharply on the table.

  ‘What? I just think it’s amazing how you’re dealing with it. I’m not sure I could, that’s all, you know, running and stuff’s so important to me.’

  ‘Well, that’s a bloody stupid thing to say, James. My life’s not over and it’s a bit insulting to be told it should be,’ Tom said, watching the rain stream down the window. He tipped me up and drained the dregs through the last of the foam.

  They were silent and then the man shook his head. ‘Sorry, Tom. I didn’t mean it like that.’

  ‘I know, mate,’ he said and smiled sadly. ‘Just remember, I was quite into running too.’

  ‘Want another?’

  ‘In a second.’ Tom rocked me on my base and watched the remainder of the foam slide around inside me.

  ‘I suppose I’m just angry for you,’ the man said and lifted his pint again.

  ‘Don’t be, mate. I’m not.’

  ‘I mean, what would you do if the people who’d made the bomb walked into the pub? Fuck – I’d fill them in with that stool.’

  Tom stared back at him. ‘I don’t think you get it, James,’ he said and started to get up.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Tom pushed himself up off the chair and levered forward over his legs to stand, slid the chair back under the table and looked down at his friend.

  ‘If the men who did this to me walked in here right now,’ he said, ‘I’d offer them a drink.’ He knocked me as he turned and I tipped over and rolled across the table. His friend caught me before I dropped and stood me upright.

  Tom walked away, held each side of the doorway and lowered himself down the step out of the pub and into the rain.

  ‘Wait up, mate, I’m sorry, Tom. Stop. I need to pay the tab,’ he called after him, jogging over to the door.

  39

  It was dark. BA5799 knelt beside me and silently mouthed something he needed to remember. He switched knees and retied the other boot, wrapping the laces around three times. He pulled his faded combat trousers back down over the boots and sat on the camp bed.

  His day-sack was next to him and he arranged equipment inside, pushing a black water bottle down the green canvas and switching on a radio. He pulled the drawstring and clipped the flap shut.

 
He felt my cover. It was still damp from the last time he’d worn me. He sighed, lifted me up, pulled apart my protective plates and dropped me over his head. I passed his face and he smelt the sharp odour he’d layered into me over the past two months. He liked my smell; it was experience and survival. He held my sides together and pressed my Velcro down with the palms of his hands so I drew tightly around his body.

  BA5799 had already put me on once that night. We’d been ready and he’d walked to the front gate to meet his platoon. But someone had run out and said they had to delay: there was no air cover. The others had gone back to their tents and we had returned to the courtyard, where he had ripped open my Velcro and chucked me back down next to his bed.

  He’d tried to read and then sleep but couldn’t. The operation consumed him and the time was dead; all he could do was wait. And as he did, the will he’d summoned earlier ebbed out of him and he hoped the delay would become a cancellation. The hours passed as men finished cooking and eating and talking and went to sleep, until only those on guard duty moved across the still camp.

  And when he finally thought there was no chance it would happen tonight and he’d let himself relax, a man ran in and told him they should go. He’d begun the ritual again, but rushed and incomplete this time, and he forced the resolve to return with each piece of equipment he secured to himself.

  BA5799 now checked me again. He opened the pouches attached to the front of me, pulling out a magazine and rolling his thumb across the top round, making sure it was correctly seated. Grit crunched so he removed it and blew down into the magazine before pushing the copper cylinder back. He stood and felt the weight of me. I had become part of him, another layer of the courage that let him step out of the gate.

  He lifted the day-sack over his back and it banged into my rear ceramic plate. He caught its strap and tightened it against me. All of our weight moved as one and he jumped up and down to make sure nothing rattled.

  He took a map from a small pouch on my breastplate and thought the plan through, bending his head forward as he studied it so his chin rested against my sweat-stained neck opening. He looked at the small T he’d drawn to indicate where they would form up for the strike.

  A soldier walked into the courtyard and waited silently as BA5799 marked the map’s surface with a pen.

  ‘Sir?’ the man said quietly, not wanting to interrupt. ‘Can I have a word, please?’ He took a step forward.

  BA5799 glanced up at him. ‘Oh, hello, Rifleman Lewis,’ he said and looked back down at the map. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘I just wondered if I could have a word.’

  ‘Shoot. Make it quick, though, we need to be at the gate in five.’

  BA5799 was still peering at his map and then sat back on the bed and took a GPS from his pocket. The soldier was in full combat kit. He wore his armour with pouches attached and glow-sticks and pens pushed down its front. His zap number and blood type were written on it in marker, LE2482 – O NEG.

  On me was BA5799 – O POS.

  He held a light machine gun at his side. His kneepad was pushed down to his ankle and a dump-pouch hung by his thigh. His helmet shadowed his eyes.

  ‘I was chatting to Rachel last night and, well, she’s not happy,’ he said. ‘And with the little one on the way—’

  ‘Rachel?’ BA5799 said as he entered a grid into the small handheld machine.

  ‘Yes, my wife, boss.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Sorry.’ BA5799 made another mark on the map.

  ‘Well, she’s having a few problems with the pregnancy and she hates me being out here. So I wondered if there was a chance, you know, I could sit this one out − she really wants me to call her. And maybe,’ he looked down at his boots, ‘maybe I could get home on compassionate soon? She had to go into hospital, I think.’

  BA5799 pushed the map back into its slip and pulled his headset on. He pressed the radio switch and spoke into the microphone at his mouth. ‘Hello, Zero. This is Three Zero Alpha, radio check. Over,’ he said. Then he looked up at the soldier. ‘I’m sorry, Rifleman Lewis, what’s up?’ He pressed the switch again and said, ‘Okay. Out.’

  The rifleman explained again but his voice tailed off.

  BA5799 stood up and walked over to the soldier. He looked under the low rim of the man’s helmet and saw the boy from a small town. ‘So your girlfriend wants you home and you don’t think you should go out tonight because you need to speak to her on the phone?’

  ‘I’m just finding it tough, sir, and my slot on the phone’s already booked for later,’ he said and dropped his eyes. ‘And with what happened to Davies a few weeks ago …’ He glanced up at BA5799. ‘She keeps bugging me on the phone, that’s all, and I told her I’d ask. And well − I don’t like going out any more.’

  ‘You know you can’t sit this one out, Rifleman Lewis. Your section needs you, and we’d be down a man.’ BA5799 placed his hand on the man’s arm. ‘The platoon needs every man it has. I can’t do this strike without you.’

  The soldier hefted his weapon and they both stood in silence.

  ‘Swap places with Rifleman Taylor,’ BA5799 said abruptly.

  ‘What?’ The man looked up and his eyes glinted in the dark. ‘I can’t, boss. He’s point man and I haven’t done that job yet.’

  ‘You’d better get to the front gate, Rifleman Lewis. We’re leaving soon,’ BA5799 said and checked his watch. He turned away from the man, back to the camp bed.

  The young soldier watched him readjust my shoulder popper, attach his night-vision goggles and pull on his helmet, tilting his head to clip the chinstrap together.

  ‘And Rifleman Lewis,’ he said, his back still turned. ‘You can, and you will. You’ve done the same training as everyone else in this platoon.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the soldier said quietly and walked out.

  We were alone in the courtyard and BA5799’s body heat warmed me. He picked up his rifle and we strode out past the ops room. The antenna protruding from his day-sack brushed the camouflage netting above as we passed the model pit and its little wooden blocks in the dark.

  *

  We approached the front gate and he saw the single file of his platoon lined up and ready to leave. Some of the men stood when they saw him, dragging their kit up onto their shoulders. Others held ladders between them and someone forced a laugh at a nervous joke.

  A man trudged over to him from the back of the line. ‘On the bus, off the bus, sir,’ he said. ‘All good to go now though.’

  ‘Thanks, Sergeant Dee.’

  ‘You swapped Rifleman Lewis to point man. What’s that about?’ the man said, looking at the front of the line near the concertina wire.

  ‘Is that okay with you?’

  ‘Of course, boss. And Rifleman Taylor’s over the moon.’ His teeth flashed in the blackness. ‘I moved him back into Corporal Monk’s section.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I hope this works, boss. Our first chance to really get at them.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ BA5799 said. He stepped towards the front of the line, passed the lead soldier and glanced back at his men. He gave a nod to the man guarding the gate, who pulled the wire aside. He made to step off but the man behind tapped my shoulder panel.

  ‘Sir,’ he whispered, ‘I thought you said I was point man.’

  ‘I’ll go first, Rifleman Lewis,’ BA5799 told him. ‘I’ll tell you when it’s your turn.’

  ‘But you said in orders you’d be second in the order-of-march. I should lead, we don’t need you at the front.’

  ‘Well, I changed my mind,’ he said and smiled. ‘Stay well spaced out and keep me covered, Lewie. You’ve got my back.’

  BA5799 reached over his rifle and dragged the cocking handle back and the sound of other weapons being made ready rippled down the line. He stepped past the wire and out onto the road.

  He led the platoon under the dark watchtower and out into the gloom. He turned off the road and they walked parallel to it through a field
and towards the remains of houses. His head swivelled above me, his face fixed under the dark rim of his helmet.

  The compounds were destroyed and he skirted around craters and past crumbled walls. The buildings were no more than fifty years old but now were ancient ruins in the night and he knew the weapons that had accelerated their return to dust. The compounds had been abandoned and he thought of the destruction required to create peace.

  He twisted his head and looked out to his left at the black strip of trees bisecting a field and then walked backwards to check on the man behind him and the other soldiers snaking through the open country. He held his rifle across me in two hands and its telescopic sight bumped against my front plate. He passed around a corner, stopped and lowered himself down. He beckoned and the man behind handed him a detector.

  And then we were moving again. He pushed his rifle back on its sling so it dangled off me and I pressed down on his collarbone as he swept the detector over the track ahead, its red lights indicating what was below the ground. He focused on the task: on the track, on his route – which he held as an image in his head – on the radio emitting in his ear, and the detector in front of us. All the time his jawbone protruded above me, his teeth clamped.

  We moved on into the murky night and the still trees. Insects grated around us and the crops stroked his legs. He lowered the night-vision goggles on his helmet above me and they swivelled as he scanned the landscape. The tension built in his arm as it waved the detector beside me, his damp combat shirt rucking up so that his lower back was bare. He stopped and the bottom of my protective plate pushed into his thigh as he knelt. He let the men compress together and waited for a message that the callsign was complete. And then we moved on, deeper into the countryside.

  He led them through tracks he knew well and down others that were less familiar and then on into a field he’d never crossed. He collapsed the detector and the man behind strapped it to the side of his day-sack. He walked on without it and tried to ignore the humid night air and the weight of me making his shoulders feel hollow.