by Geoff Wolak
‘Fine, I’ll go. And I won’t hit anyone – just for you.’
Half an hour later we pulled into a large house in Cheltenham, a gravel driveway. Inside, the house was well decorated, paintings on the walls, tall vases, all of the guests dressed smart – apart from me, but at least I had a jacket on.
‘Kate, darling,’ a lady in her fifties called, and they kissed cheeks. ‘And who is this tall young chap?’ she asked with a coy smile.
‘This is Wilco, a ... marathon runner in my Programme.’
‘Dating the inmates, my dear?’ she joked before moving off.
Kate shot me an apologetic look, and grabbed a wine, a wine for me – whether I wanted one or not.
‘Try this,’ a smug guy told me, handing me a wine and rudely taking mine.
I sniffed and then sipped. ‘South American?’
‘You know your wine, old chap,’ he said before moving off, Kate staring at me.
I whispered, ‘I saw him pour it, the label, and I’ve been reading up on wines.’
‘Why ... have you been reading up on wine?’ she toyed.
‘Darling Kate, how are you,’ another woman asked, plump and forty. ‘And who is this handsome hunk?’
‘This is Wilco, an athlete.’
‘And fit he looks.’
Kate introduced me to the Army captain, the man from RTC. ‘This is Wilco.’
‘Wilco? Why does that name sound familiar?’
‘You remember a runner shot in the London Marathon?’ I asked him.
‘That was you? By god, yes, I had some of my chaps there that day. What regiment are you?’
‘RAF Regiment.’
‘RAF? Oh yes, I remember now. You could have won.’
‘Getting shot slowed me up a bit,’ I quipped.
Another guy moved past, a man in his fifties. ‘Did you say ... Wilco?’
‘Yes.’ We shook.
‘I know someone you may know from London Athletics, a ... Bob Staines.’
‘Indeed I do know him, yes.’ He led me to one side. ‘Would not have thought this was your scene.’
‘I’m dating Dr Kate Haversham.’
‘Ah. Naughty, but I hear that you’re good with secrets. They still joke about Riyadh.’
‘Where’s that?’ I toyed, and he smiled.
Ignoring the others, we got talking about the Gulf War, and Kate glanced across from time to time, doing the rounds, happy that I was chatting to someone and bonding.
The captain joined us, amazed that I was well known from my time in Riyadh. He had missed the war himself, stuck in the UK. And when he found out I was an enlisted man he brightened, a chance to try and put me down, and I was a step away from hitting him. The civil servant who knew Bob Staines made a point of winding up the captain with the fact that Intel badly wanted me in, a unique skill set.
Kate grabbed me before I hit the captain, and led me away. ‘You look tense.’
‘Prick of a captain was fine till he found out I’m an enlisted man. Other guy is OK, but wound up the captain all the more.’
An hour of talking crap to ladies, and I was ready to go, but I guy in his thirties turned up, tie undone, jacket tossed off. Kate introduced us.
‘You were the guy shot in the London marathon?’ he asked, stunned. ‘It was going to be my first marathon, but I pulled a muscle. I got an Oxford Blue, done a few endurance events around the world. How’d you know Kate?’
‘I spent five years developing fitness techniques for myself, not just marathons, I broke the record for swimming The Channel, and took up boxing and was ranked No.1 in the British Army. Kate is developing my techniques for the military.’
He was suddenly all ears, and I outlined QMAR.
‘Four runs, fifty percent of the target, third one twenty-five percent longer. That’s it?’
‘That’s the optimum. Trick is optimum fitness for least effort.’
‘Damn right, I have a job to do, time is limited, so this could help. And diet?’
‘Every test programme done has proven it makes no difference.’
‘Hah! I’ve said that all along. I eat junk and do very well. All this fruit rubbish. You need protein.’
I gave my theory on diets that worked for me, and I now had a new friend in the world. I finally said, ‘This prick of a captain?’
‘Oh he’s a pain in the arse, wannabe hero who works in admin. Can’t stand the fella, but we are related.’
Kate and I left the function without me having hit anyone, but I had wanted to, and I had two new friends, a few of the ladies quite taken with me as well.
Driving off, Kate said, ‘That went quite well. You just need to find your sort of people. Ladies all thought you were very handsome.’
‘One touched my arse.’
‘Well, they had a bit to drink I guess.’
‘Don’t you ... want to slap the bitch?’
‘Not the done thing in our circles, but ... yes, I’d like to slap the bitch.’
‘So, any more of these functions?’ I said with a sigh.
‘I get invites for most weekends, yes. I’ve been absent for a while, staying with you, so they gossip. Next weekend is all military doctors I’m afraid.’
‘Your uncle?’
‘Well, not looking forwards to breaking the news to him.’
‘It’s a court martial offence.’
‘They need me more than I need them. And I have a year or two left.’
I glanced at her. ‘I don’t want you to be the centre of things, getting some shit because of me.’
‘Well, we can’t keep skulking around, so ... if we stay together you have to move in my circles.’
‘And will some of the doctors have known your ex?’
‘Oh yes, and some may still chat to him regular.’
‘So ... they will report us together,’ I nudged.
‘Really? I hadn’t considered that,’ she said less than convincingly.
‘If the aim of next weekend is to upset some people ... then I’m definitely up for it, yes.’
‘Your rebellious streak coming out.’
‘It has been suggested that I have a rebellious streak, yes. Once or twice. We’ll be Mr and Mrs Grumpy.’
‘I’m not grumpy.’
‘Except at that time of the month...’
‘Well, a little bit.’
‘Ha!’
After a week of driving the Air Commodore I turned up at a place outside Uxbridge, late, a slightly bruised eye, in uniform, pistol in its holster, and due to pick up the Air Commodore at noon the next day.
‘Can I help you?’ the man at the door said.
‘Looking for Kate.’
‘If you mean Flight Lieutenant Haversham, she’s inside.’
I closed in. ‘Get out of my face before I put you in the hospital you work at.’
Kate saw me and stepped over. ‘Terry, it’ OK, this is my date.’
‘Your ... date?’
‘Terry, this is Wilco.’
‘Wilco! The boxer?’
‘Yes,’ she said as she led me past. She fetched me a drink.
‘I can’t drink, still have my pistol under my arm.’
‘Oh, soft drink then. And please don’t shoot anyone, not unless I point them out of course. You came straight from work?’
‘Air Commodore is at a function tonight, London, I pick him up at noon. I have a room in London waiting.’
‘Well at least you made it. But ... kind of a loud statement as to who and what you are.’
Colonel Haversham approached, he and everyone else in black tie. ‘Wilco?’
‘Sir.’
‘You ... you’re in uniform, and ... here.’
‘I do Close Protection, armed, London, just dropped off the Air Commodore, so popped in to see Kate.’
‘Kate..?’ he repeated, a question for her in his look.
‘I’m breaking a few rules,’ she teased him.
‘You and ... Wilco,’ he coughed out.
‘Shocking isn’t it. Might get back to ... others as well.’
‘Well, yes, and that will put some noses out.’
I said, ‘Why’s that? What’s wrong with me?’
‘How long do you have?’ he quipped, making me smile.
Kate dragged me off, and to the food table, everyone glancing at me, the big guy in combats and boots, not black tie.
‘I say, old chap, straight from work?’
I turned to face the man. ‘Yes, flying visit, but I did wipe my boots at least.’
He glanced at them. Then at Kate.
‘This is Wilco.’
‘Wilco? So we finally meet. Heard your name often enough in Riyadh, and ... before. I sit on the board of the military boxing club, medical panel.’
‘I don’t box any more, sir.’
‘I heard rumours ... that they asked you stop.’
‘They did, but I lost interest at the last bout. I thought the aim was to win, the officer in charge of the boxing team thought otherwise.’
‘And you don’t run any more either,’ he nudged.
‘Once tripped, twice shot, third time fucked off – with the idiot officers who sent me to prison.’
‘Ah, I heard rumours about that as well.’
‘I broke a man’s neck.’
‘If that was true ... they would not have overturned the decision.’ He waited.
I sighed. ‘I woke to find some drunk pissing on my face, shoved him, he hit his neck on a chair. Accidental grievous wounding. And since then, and despite the overturn, officers and NCOs have felt that I should be punished for having gone to the Corrective Facility anyhow.
‘One officer was arrested, his career ruined, after he tried to have be locked up in the guardroom. So you see, trouble follows a man, no matter how hard he works, what medals he wins.’
‘Wilco! By god.’
I recognised the face, smiled and we shook. He had been in Kenya.
‘What are you doing here, and in uniform?’
Others were listening in.
‘I’m seeing Kate.’
He glanced at her. ‘Ah. And in Kenya..?’
‘There’s no proof that I dated a lady doctor.’
‘She was caught humming and smiling.’
‘Damming symptoms of an affair, sir, yes,’ I said with a smile.
He faced the man I had been talking to. ‘Wilco is a top medic, but also superbly fit. He carried a wounded soldier on his back six miles through the bush, got an award, and last year he treated a local teenager gored by a bull, some DIY artery clamping, chest drain in, wounds stitched. Has been known to drain a chest with a pocket knife and a pen.’
‘I did that for a young Para on Weston Green, a letter of commendation. Had to do both sides, as his chute had tangled, and his mate landed on his chest. Zero pulse for six minutes, revived at the scene, full recovery.’
‘Good work,’ the doctor from Kenya commended.
I raised a finger. ‘Tell me ... the Paras sternum was bust up, so I was hesitant, fluid in the mediastinum during CPR.’
The first man I had spoken to keenly began, ‘You do it anyway, even when you know it’s a risk. In the field you have no tools, just guesswork. Could have had some fluid or a lot of fluid, and with a lot of fluid your CPR is working against itself.’
The guy from Kenya said, ‘Stick to the dictated procedure, no options when your knees are in the mud.’
I nodded. ‘And the military ambulance at the drop zone ... no fucking oxygen.’
‘Poor show,’ the first man said with a scowl.
The second guy put in, ‘It’s there for broken ankles, they don’t expect anything complicated.’
I said, ‘If it was me, I’d have oxygen at a soccer match. And I don’t go anywhere without my tubes. Used a few. In London, this druggy lady gets knifed, and impacts the car, Air Commodore in the back. I kick the assailant, lift her t-shirt thinking about a collapsed lung and chest drain, only to see the scar and realise that she had the good fucking lung removed.’
They tipped heads back and laughed.
‘What were the chances,’ I said with a sigh, and I knew how to play these guys.
‘I once prepped to remove a leg, only to find it gone already, and that rota had been cocked up,’ the first guy put in.
The guy from Kenya asked, ‘Is it true, you used a paper clip on an artery?’
‘Paper clip and elastic band,’ I told them. ‘Now I have a few haemostats I stole away. But I found both sides of the cut artery and did both sides.’
‘That can be necessary, but there are valves that stop blood flowing back – so the book says.’
‘Odd part was when I noticed his anus, and something sticking out. Well, in that part of the world they hide what little money they have well.’
They roared with laughter.
‘Be one for the books down at St. Barts. What’s that stuck up his arse, nurse?’
Kate returned. ‘I hope it’s nothing rude,’ she scolded us all.
‘Certainly not,’ they said.
‘And how is Fl Lt Johnson..?’ the guy from Kenya teased.
‘I haven’t seen him since I punched him in the face,’ Kate told them.
The guy from Kenya warned me, ‘Mean right hook our Kate has, so watch out.’
‘I have been known to block a punch,’ I told them. ‘Duck and weave.’
Half an hour later, she introduced me to her cousin, also a military medic.
‘I’ve heard much about you. Marathons, boxing, medicine. You’re quite an all-rounder, and never out of the news it seems.’
‘Trouble follows me around, sir.’
‘No need for sir in here.’
‘I’m in uniform, sir.’
‘You swam the Channel as well...’
‘Straight forwards enough, but I hated the litter floating by.’
‘Yes, I can imagine, I’d not want to swim in the Channel. So what’s next for you?’
‘Quitting and getting a proper job, sir.’
‘You’re leaving the military?’
‘Looking at options, sir. I’m not taxed where I am. Aero-meds is one option, or some remote mine that needs a medic.’
An hour later and Kate wanted sex, I could tell. And she had downed a few wines.
As she fetched her bag, a grey-haired man approached. In Russian he began, ‘How was your small war in the Gulf?’
In Russian I responded, ‘Enjoyable for the most part, nice hotel.’
‘And did anything ... interesting happen?’ he asked in Arabic.
In Arabic I responded, ‘I was caught having sex during a Scud raid on Dhahran.’
He laughed. ‘I heard, yes. And you career plans..?’
In German I responded, ‘A remote mine in the jungle ... as a medic. Long way from everyone. I don’t get on with people.’
‘You’ll have to come in from the cold at some point.’
I stared back, cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing, Kate approaching. We linked arms, seen by everyone, and stepped out. Breaking a few rules, I drove her in my MOD car into London, to a hotel paid by the MOD, and shagged a lady officer.
In the morning I dropped her near Harley Street, “where Daddy does his thing”, and headed off to pick up the Air Commodore, soon back to doing the usual but thinking of the unusual.