Rat Run

by Gerald Seymour

  Keep your head clear. Start feeling bloody sorry for yourself and you'll show out. Stay focused.

  Everything you see in front of you is relevant,' the chief instructor had said, at the end of the last Thursday.

  He'd been packing away his clipboard of notes When a young sergeant had raised her hand diffi-dently. 'Excuse me, I've just one question,' she'd said.

  What do you do if a dog's right up against you, a mean dog?'

  The chief instructor had grinned. 'I tell you there's not a dog I can't handle. Get through to them and they're all soft as brushes. Act like you've the right to be there – if you show fear the dog'll recognize it and you're screwed. You want to be on your hands and knees and offering love, tender loving care. Any dog'll fall for it. And don't ever forget that a dog that lives in a home is always put out at night for a sniff round and a crap. Last thing, the dog's going to be out and free to run. When I was based at Bessbrook Mill and we were doing a lie-up near a farm at Newtown Hamilton, there was this big hound, a massive bugger, and… ' Malachy had slipped away, had felt the need for more time on his Italian files.

  There were no sheep on the Amersham, no flies in the darknes dog. s to get up his nostrils, but he had seen the It had come out with the woman an hour earlier.

  She'd pushed the pram one-handed, and had hung on the short leash with the other. It had strained and pulled her and its head had been high as it sniffed the air. She'd been gone twenty minutes, in the direction of the kids' play area.

  A television was on in the pensioner's unit living room and the brightness flicked at the curtains and lit the bars.

  After she'd come back, the man – the target – had brought a plastic bag out through the door and dumped it in the wheelie on the pavement. He thought of all those who had made the demons. They cavorted in his mind: soldiers, officers, medics and Roz, the retired brigadier, who was his father, and the prim, tall woman, who was his mother. The little man who had owned the estate agents had called up the last of the demons… He wondered, crouched in the darkness, whether any of them considered what had happened to him – often, rarely or never – and whether he was a source of amusement or was forgotten.

  With him, Malachy had the sticky-backed binding tape, rope, a length of cloth, the plastic toy and half a packet of digestive biscuits. A mini-bus came to the edge of the estate, the road beside the pensioners' block.

  He watched. Three youths jumped down from the side door. He had seen them, each face lined with terror, as they had been hoisted up, then lowered jerkily over the rim of the flat roof. They would have blinked at the view, bird's eye, of the spinning pavement below. Freed on police bail, Malachy assumed.

  There was division among them, sullen argument, as they stopped close to the ground-floor door – where they would have gone before. But this was another night, after unpredicted change. The door opened. The dealer's voice came sharp to Malachy: 'I heard your bloody voices. Don't come here no more.

  Get the message – you're dead, history. Piss off.'

  Malachy felt nothing, as if the demons had cauterized emotion, no sympathy for them and no anger. He saw them drift away and one gave a finger to the closing door. Youths joined them. They were jostled, pushed and one fell. Then they ran. He had no concern for their future.

  He had gone feral, did not recognize it and none who had known him would have. He wore the vagrant's clothes, damp and stinking, and the lustre of the shoes was gone, with smeared mud from toe to heel.

  It was past midnight. Malachy ached with stiffness as he huddled into the hedge's shadows. A chain was loosened, a bolt drawn, a lock turned. Light flooded the pavement. The dog, off the leash, bounded out, crossed the road and came to the grass in front of the hedge. He saw the man stand in the doorway and there was the flash of a cigarette lighter. The dog came to the hedge, cocked its leg. If you show fear, the dog'll recognize it and you're screwed. He saw the smoke, across the road, rise from the man's mouth. He cooed softly, so gently, and in his hand were biscuits. There was a moment when the hackles on its neck were up and the growl was deep in its throat – then the docked tail swung, wagged and against his hand was the warm wet slobber of the mouth. He gave it love, tender loving care. He stroked the jowl fur of the dog and murmured at its ear.

  The snarled shout came across the road and the grass. 'Come on! Where are you? Just get on with it, you little fucker. Hurry up! Do I have to come and get you?'

  Chapter Seven

  The sirens had sounded across the estate and there had been a single shot from a low-velocity weapon, muffled and distant. Then Malachy had slept.

  He was curled on the living-room floor, his breathing regular. No dreams to toss him. On the carpet, he was a fallen statue. If he had dreamed it would have been of old Cloughie, sixth-form history, the romantic, who broke up the Thirty Years War or the Industrial Revolution or the Rise of Parliament with un-connected poetry. Sometimes Tennyson, more frequently Keats or Shelley. Hunched, as if broken by exhaustion, he lay without a cushion at his head. If old Cloughie had been with him on level three, block nine, his surrogate parent would have found the relevant passage

  Near them on the sand,

  Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read, Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, and would have recited in his falsetto tone, shrill with excitement. But he did not dream. The images were gone, lost under the shifting sand – he slept deep.

  He was naked.

  The vagrant's clothing was back in the bin-liner, under the bed in the next room with what remained of the tape, the rope and the plastic toy. When he had come back he had eaten the few biscuits left in the packet and had put the wrapping into the rubbish can.

  Then he had begun to clean the shoes. Like a fanatic, fighting off tiredness, he had wiped off the mud that had camouflaged their shine, smeared on the polish and rubbed till they glowed in the dull light. Only that self-given task had kept him awake.

  He needed to hear the sirens: they were proof that what he had done was not mere imagination. They had come, finally, before dawn. When the wind had pushed back the curtains and first light had seeped inside, he had heard the shot and had not known what weapon had fired it.

  Malachy slept. Far from him, as if briefly he escaped their reach, were the voices that accused. Then…

  Maybe a door slammed on the walkway. Maybe a car below screamed when the gears failed to mesh.

  Maybe the dream was never far enough away. He twisted and jerked on to his stomach.

  He woke.

  Rubbed his eyes.

  Felt the cold of the air on his body.

  Hands on his ears, as if that would shut out the voices that dinned in his mind.

  His body shook.

  'God,' he cried out. 'What do I have to do? What?'

  ***

  13 January 2004

  'Where's that wretched man now?'

  'Outside, sir, sat on a chair.'

  'Bloody hell, it's all I need.'

  'On a chair, sir, in the sunshine.'

  The major, commanding Bravo company, paced his operations bunker, made a little trail of bare concrete where the dust was kicked aside. Frustration, not the Iraqi heat, flushed his face.

  'You know, Sergeant McQueen, what I've got on my plate?'

  'A whole load of shit – excuse my vulgarity – sir.'

  'Piled up and bloody high with it… What's he saying?'

  'Nothing, sir. Far as I've heard, not said a word.'

  'And lost his weapon?'

  'Could say dumped his weapon, sir. The section retrieved his helmet and his jacket, which he apparently abandoned in the street.'

  'No explanations?'

  'Not that I've heard, sir.'

  Around the major were his second-in-command, his signals corporal, the platoon commander of the section involved in the patrol, and his batman, who had brought him a meal-ready-to-eat su
pper that he had not touched; he did not know when he would get a mouthful down him.

  Sergeant McQueen was by the sandbagged doorway and, looking past him, the major could see one of the chair's legs and one of the wretch's shins and boots. None of the men in the bunker would offer help or be asked to.

  'I can't go on the net on this.'

  'No, sir. It wouldn't be wise. Better to put down on paper what you know. Personal to the colonel. Not clever to broadcast it on the radio. You to the colonel.'

  'Where do I find the time to do that?'

  'Respectfully, sir, you have to find it.'

  'Right now I haven't the time.'

  'No, sir.'

  T am trying to organize a lift and I have an O Group in an hour, and the chance of getting in at dawn fast and out faster is receding by the bloody minute. I am waiting to hear back from the village elders, who are complaining about the section's response to a full-scale ambush. Christ, what are we supposed to do? Chuck toffees at them when we're taking live rounds? X-ray 12 is reporting barricades going up round the market and they're gathering for the funeral, and… And a high-velocity weapon is missing, and I've got an officer I'm told is a coward.'

  'That's what the men are saying, sir.'

  'A coward. It's about as bad as it gets.'

  'The men with him, sir, they're using choicer language.'

  'I'll hear it again – warts and all. Makes no difference that he's an officer… Wrong, does make a difference because he is not an eighteen-year-old Jock, first time away from his mum with eight weeks' Basic behind him and never out of the UK before. He's a bloody officer, experienced, supposed to lead from the front. Tell it to me, and don't stop if I throw up.'

  He was told the story for a second time. He recognized the canniness of Sergeant McQueen: no opinion of his own offered. As he listened, the major cursed the interruption to his planned lift. He saw the interpreter – a former policeman, not trusted a bloody inch – hovering at the door, and gestured irritably for his second-in-command to field him.

  He thought his section had done well: the corporal had shown fine leadership, and the Jock who was the marksman had performed in the best traditions of the regiment. In his grandfather's war, the wretch on the chair outside the bunker would have been tied up to a post, blindfolded, given a lit cigarette and shot. In his father's war, there would have been a stamp on the file: 'LMF' – dismissal and disgrace for lack of moral fibre, and a job digging field latrines. The second-in-command handed him a scrawled note: the elders would be at Bravo's main gate in two hours, after the O

  Group briefing. Then he might get down some of his bloody meal-ready-to-eat, if the flies had left any.

  '… So, that's it, sir, according to what the section members have said. Do you want me to bring him in, sir?'

  I do not.'

  'They're all good men, sir.'

  '1 think I've heard enough.' He broke the pacing. In his own war, somewhere buried in a filing cabinet, was a paper he had never bothered to read: it was titled Battleshock.

  Might as well have been Bullshit. He felt no guilt that the paper was unread. He could not have imagined that one of his own men, his Jocks, would ever be labelled a coward.

  'What's to happen, sir?'

  'Put him somewhere in isolation where he can't infect anyone else. He can be shipped down to Battalion in the morning with prisoners. We've ivasted enough time on him.

  They can sort him out down there.' The major's voice softened, as if puzzlement caught him. 'It'll run with him for the rest of his life, won't it? I don't know how you'd ever get shot of it, being called a coward. Can't imagine there's any way back.' He paused. 'Right, the world moves on – without him. I'll do the O Group myself

  'I'll find him somewhere to sleep, sir,' Sergeant McQueen said, impassive. 'It's not your worry, sir, what his future is or isn't, and what he does with it or doesn't.'

  Her knee nudged the bucket, spilling it. The water flushed out over the floor and the suds went with the flow. The tiled floor of the first storey of the ministry was, momentarily, awash. Dawn's stockings were soaked, as were the hem of her skirt and her dull green regulation apron.

  The bucket, on its side, rolled crazily and noisily away from her. Her supervisor came running.

  Dawn should have had a look of humble apology on her face, should have ducked her head in shame at her clumsiness. She had been late to work that morning, and in less than twenty minutes the first of the gentlemen and ladies who occupied the ministry's offices would be pouring through the main door to be confronted by a danger zone of slippery tiles. She laughed, and saw a frown pucker her supervisor's forehead.

  The response was icy. 'Perhaps you'd care, Dawn, to share the joke with me.'

  She pushed herself up, took her weight on the mop's handle, grimaced, righted the bucket, then began to swab the river and shepherd the suds towards her. She didn't care about the frown and the scowl. She had been with the ministry early-morning cleaning team longer than any of the other women, had a reputation for reliability. .. but that morning she had been late to work, then tipped over her bucket. She laughed again and the echo rang down the corridors off the landing.

  'Are you well, Dawn? Do you need to go and lie down?'

  Her laughter, infectious, wiped the frown and warmed the chilliness of her supervisor. The young woman squatted beside her. 'Well, you'd better tell me.'

  She lowered herself, laughter shaking her body, and sat on the top step. 'I was late, Miss.'

  'Correct, Dawn, you were late.'

  'I was late, Miss, because I just seen the best thing ever.'

  An audience had gathered, the rest of the cleaning women, brought by Dawn's laughter.

  'You'd better tell us, Dawn, or the place'll be a tip.'

  One more convulsion, then she launched: 'The Amersham is tough. The Amersham is a hard place. I know, I have been there twelve years. The Amersham is the toughest and the hardest. Druggies, thieves, muggers, we've all of them – but what we don't have is police officers. Maybe the Amersham is no-go for them. My friend next door, she is in the hospital and they have pinned her arm because the druggies thieved off her. There is no law on the Amersham.

  Two days ago, three boys of a gang that pushes drugs were attacked and hung upside down from a roof, which was good, but today was better.'

  'So, what was the big joke today, Dawn? And do hurry it up if this floor's to be done.'

  'Yes, Miss. Of course, Miss. Today would make a dead man laugh, I promise you. On the estate, the dealer is untouchable. Everybody is frightened of him. Jason Penney. We all know his name. The police, who we never see, are alone in not knowing his name.

  I don't know where he lives but we know his name – don't speak it, I am afraid if I say it, but know the name. This morning I came out of my block to go to the bus – I am not going to be late – and I hear the sirens. The Amersham now is filled with police. I follow the sirens. I see Jason Penney. It is very funny, Miss… Jason Penney is tied to a lamp post, tied at his ankles with tape and his arms are behind him and round the lamp post and the wrists are tied. He has this cloth in his mouth and cannot shout and there is more tape over his eyes. It is better, Miss, more funny

  … Also tied to the lamp post, with rope, is his dog.

  The dog is a brute. The dog strains to attack the policemen who want to come close to free Jason Penney. The dog does not understand – it will not allow them to be near. None of the police will approach the dog. They are on their radios. He has been there all night, with his dog, and his woman will not telephone the police because he deals heroin and cocaine, and the neighbours, all old people, will not telephone because that involves them. He wants to be freed, Jason Penney does, because he has been there all night and he needs to pee. But the dog keeps the police back. He has to piss. It's all down his leg, steaming. I promise, you can see the steam because the morning is cold. Everybody there, watching, is laughing at Jason Penney. Nobody before, nobody would laugh at
him. We are all laughing. The police bring an officer with a gun. It is the Amersham, not Baghdad. Because of the dog they have a gun, and the dog will have to be shot. I would not have complained but this woman pushed to the front. She works at the Dogs' Home, at Battersea. I clean the offices here, she cleans the pens there. She said the dog must not be shot, must be put to sleep.'

  'Tranquillized, Dawn, that's the word tranquillized.'

  'Yes, Miss, put to sleep. Everyone now is shouting at the police that the dog must not be killed. We wait some more. Jason Penney, he cannot wait, he pisses again in his trouser. Another man comes and he shoots at the dog with a dart, but that is not enough.

  The dog is too powerful for one dart. Another is used.

  Then we have to stay back until the dog is asleep.

  Only when it is snoring, like a man with beer, do the police go forward. What I then heard – because Jason Penney is finished, cannot make fear any more and we have laughed at him – a woman who knows took the police to a place in the children's play area where the drugs are stored, and the police took them. It is what I heard. What I know, the police cut the wrist binding and put handcuffs on him. He will never come back. Nor will his woman and his baby. We are rid of them.'

  'I have to say, Dawn, that vigilantism can be ugly and is dangerous.'

  'No, Miss, you do not live on the Amersham. You do not know how rare it is for us to laugh. I promise you, Miss, if you had seen the steam on his trouser leg then you would have laughed, however wrong it was.

  I am happy… '

  She squeezed the last of the water off her mop and it dripped back into the bucket, and from the high windows above the landing the sunlight glistened on the tiles.

  'I think it will be dry, Miss, when the gentlemen and the ladies come.'

  The trawler rode the light swell, made seven knots, and pulled the net behind it on the North Sea's bed.