The Fighting Man (1993)

by Seymour, Gerald

  He had his own supplies that would last him for one month, his own tablets and pills and ointments, not for sharing. If he shared them they would last for three days . . . They had not been suggestions, they had been orders . . .

  Jorge was left to pore over the map, to plot the route forward. Gord had given his lecture and had Groucho translate it on for Zeppo and Harpo, and had Vee interpret it for Eff and Zed. The lecture was on personal hygiene, and personal security.

  Jorge had the map spread out over the jungle floor and manoeuvred the compass between the crossing ant columns.

  He had lectured on the principal danger of mosquitoes, of malaria and dengue fever, and of the worm laid under the skin by the biting mosquitoes. The three Indians had been sent to forage around the camp, disappeared into the jungle, for wild garlic. They were bubbling, Eff and Vee and Zed, because after the exile years they could scent the country that was their own. Gord thought it was as infectious as the damn mosquitoes, their enthusiasm.

  He could see the sweat running on the body of Zeppo. His shirt was stained down to the stomach bulge with the sweat damp. He breathed hard. The job of Zeppo was to clear up the camp. He was to stow the sleeping bags, load each pack, clear the ground of every piece of litter, and, last before they moved out, Zeppo had been told to scatter dead leaves, small wood twigs over the camp site. At the edge of the clearing Harpo swatted at the insect flight and leaned on the short-handled collapsible entrenching tool. The digging of the hole had already exhausted him, the big man who was flab and who tried to wipe away with his sleeve the sweat streams on the wide baldness of his scalp. The work for Harpo was to dig the hole for the litter to be buried in, and then to dig another hole, deeper, for the latrine. Their eyes met, Gord’s and Harpo’s, over the width of the clearing, Gord challenging him and Harpo caving and hating.

  The task for Groucho was to make ready the meal, and to draw up a ration list, and to find water from tree pockets. Smaller and slighter than Zeppo and Harpo and grinning often so that the steel on his teeth showed, and suffering less.

  If he didn’t push Zeppo and Harpo and Groucho, then they would walk over him.

  They were eight.

  They had nine AK-47 rifles, there were sixty rounds of 7.62mm ammunition for each rifle. They had three Makarov pistols, eighteen rounds for each pistol. They had twelve pounds of military explosive and fifteen detonators. They had two RPG-7 rocket launchers and nine warheads. They had one machine gun and 800 rounds of belt-fed ammunition . . . Bloody brilliant. The noise of the explosions of munitions detonating in the fire of Whisky Alpha mocked him. It was bloody pathetic . . . They had the TPO-50 flame thrower with each of the three canisters loaded and at pressure.

  There was the scrape of a match.

  Gord looked up.

  Harpo had the cigarette in his mouth and his hands cupped to protect the flame.

  Gord called quietly, ‘I told you, no cigarettes.’

  Harpo stared back at him. The hands moved to the cigarette. A small smoke wisp.

  Gord said, ‘Put it out.’

  Harpo held the spade loosely and dragged hard on the cigarette. The smoke played in front of Harpo’s face.

  Gord pushed himself up. He crossed the clearing. The hand of Harpo tightened on the stock of the spade. Fast, sudden, Gord had the collar of Harpo’s shirt in his right fist and he had snatched the cigarette away with his left hand. Gord stamped on the cigarette and then he shook the bulk of Harpo’s body, like he was a difficult dog.

  ‘I have told you that you don’t smoke cigarettes. If I tell you then you don’t . . .’ Gord didn’t stop for Groucho’s translation. ‘. . . You don’t smoke because down here the smell of tobacco will hang for a week.’

  He let the collar of Harpo slump free. He swung away from him.

  When the Indians returned Gord told them all to peel the garlic bulbs and to chew them. He tried to make a joke of it, that they’d all stink, but that the garlic would keep away the mosquitoes. He supervised the loading up after they had breakfasted on Groucho’s cold mess of Meals Ready to Eat, Moscow style, and after they had all squatted over the latrine pit.

  Jorge leading, and the Indians carrying more weight than was fair, and Harpo loathing him and Zeppo despising him and Groucho avoiding him, they moved out of the clearing. Gord allowed them to get clear then checked the ground and the filled holes and cursed when he saw that the squashed cigarette butt was still visible in the stamped dirt. It was Groucho who disappointed him, not the fat bastard and not the bald bastard, but it had been Groucho who had come to the hotel room and pleaded, little smarm talk Groucho . . . He spent time on the site before he was satisfied.

  He followed them, drawn closer to them by the slow squeal of the wheels of the flame thrower’s cart.

  FROM: Strathclyde police HQ, Glasgow.

  TO: Special Branch, Metropolitan Police, London.

  REF: A/0200/79y/4/blj.

  ATTENTION: Aliens Section.

  See attached ex Fort William. Further to Gordon Benjamin BROWN – He is ICI male, 5´10, prop build, hair colour light brown (style short), tanned complexion, eye colour grey blue, only DM is 1/2 inch scar lower chin.

  No interest here.

  Where is Guatemala, query. Do we care, query.

  Have fun.

  End.

  The pilot lay on the wet towel on the beach sand. The water of the rising tide played amongst his toes. He slept away the exhaustion of the flight from his home base to the jungle strip in Guatemala, and back. He slept in the warming sun because he had taken to the limit his resources of strength, exhausted them in bringing home Echo Foxtrot. He had nursed her back. He had flown wave top at reduced speed to conserve fuel. Out in the depths of the Cayman Trench were the seats of the Antonov Colt that had been wrested out by the navigator, and the lavatory unit that had been wrenched clear with a tool kit jemmy, and the overhead racks that had been taken down with a screwdriver. He had brought Echo Foxtrot home as bare shell.

  He had spent the late afternoon and the early evening with the maintenance men of the ground crew and the first part of the night with the wife of the pilot of Whisky Alpha and the last of the night with the family of the lost navigator.

  The pilot was alone on the beach beyond the base perimeter wire. The point on the beach was close to the SAM missile battery, always manned, always facing towards the Florida land mass beyond the horizon. The men on the missile battery had watched him come in the late afternoon, barely clearing the fence, barely reaching the tarmac of the runway. It was spoken of, all around the base, where he had been, what he had achieved.

  He slept. He dreamed while the sea trickled at his ankles. In his mind was the face and the body and the grip of the Englishman who had ridden in the cockpit the last miles before the touch-down in the Petén.

  He had told his base commander, ‘It was madness. They had nothing. They have gone to be killed . . .’

  FROM: Aliens Sect., SB, Met Pol, London.

  TO: Security Service, Gordon St, London.

  REF: A/1100/79y/4/bli/ark(3).

  ATTENTION: Central America Desk.

  See attached ex Fort William and ex Strathclyde. Flash inquiry indicates BROWN, Gordon Benjamin, UK passport C796217, DOI 03.5.76, ex Heathrow for Madrid.

  Three Guatemalan citizens travelling on Cuban documents on same flight.

  Illegal to stage revolution in Guatemala, query. Know location of Guatemala, query. Affirmative, your baby, query.

  End.

  He had assumed it would be their attempt to dominate him from the start of a relationship.

  Colonel Arturo was dominated, willingly, by no man.

  He had made a show.

  He wore his best field uniform, the camouflage combat tunic and trousers that he would have worn for the Army Day parade on the Campo de Marte, the uniform of the Kaibiles, with the flash on the upper arms of the tunic of the bayonet and the fire. He wore his maroon beret. His boots for jungle marching were highly
polished. The webbing harness over his shoulders and around his waist was pristine. There was a holstered pistol on the webbing and a water bottle and spare ammunition magazines for the Israeli-made Uzi machine gun that was slung on a strap to his hip. He sat stiffly, erect, in the forward passenger seat of the open jeep, and he waited.

  Colonel Arturo had come to the corner of the military wing of La Aurora a full twenty minutes before the flier had arrived. Take-off was scheduled for 0800, the time given him in the casual, he thought patronizing, telephone call from the Country Attaché. He had seen the flier’s surprise that he was already there and waiting, awkwardness that had merged to embarrassment. It was as he had planned it. He had nodded crisply to the flier, offered no other greeting, permitted the man to begin his pre-flight checks. He had noted the deep scar left by the plastic surgeons on the face of the flier. He made his point, he sat in the jeep with his escort of Kaibil troops around him.

  They came at seven minutes after the given take-off time.

  The big station wagon speeding across the runway, as if they believed the runway were their property, and the brakes screaming, and them spilling out.

  He remembered faces, had always been good with faces. There was the one who went under the title of Intelligence Analyst, quiet and superior. The one who was called the Treasurer, spectacles and austere, like the bank man who had his account in Florida. The one who was the Liaison Officer down from Southern Command, who seemed to believe that an American infantry officer was a favoured creature. The flier went to them, pointed to his watch.

  He let them come to him.

  They were dressed in old fatigues. Their caps were DEA, set clumsily. The Treasurer and the Intelligence Analyst had not shaved. They carried Colt carbines. He thought that they took enjoyment from playing at soldiers, dressing up as military men. He heard the grovelled apologies. Something about the traffic coming south out of the city. He thought that they hated to apologize to anyone, and in particular to a Guatemalan officer.

  Colonel Arturo smiled with sweetness. ‘Well, if you are ready, gentlemen . . . ?’

  He walked to the helicopter. He knew the Huey UH-1H. The air force of Guatemala had five of the UH-1H machines, difficult to maintain now after the ban on all military supplies imposed by the Washington liberals for so-called human rights violations, just shit. They banned the supplies for old Guatemalan Hueys, and rippled enough muscle to demand the right to station their own helicopters and DEA personnel on the sovereign territory of Guatemala. He felt the small surge to his anger . . . They came behind him. At the hatch of the helicopter he asked to see the flight plan. He asked to be told the schedule.

  He made the last point. He checked his pistol and his Uzi, confirmed they were unloaded and then looked into the faces of the flier and the Intelligence Analyst and the Treasurer and the Liaison, challenged them.

  ‘I’m sorry, it is a rule of the Guatemalan armed forces that firearms must always be checked before they are taken onto a helicopter or fixed wing. I am sorry if that is not the procedure of the Americans . . .’

  They cleared their weapons. He would not be dominated.

  FROM: Security Service, London.

  TO: Ministry of Defence, Intelligence, London.

  REF: BREN/Rm129B/CentAm/932.

  ATTENTION: Personnel.

  See attached. Backgrounder required soonest on BROWN, Gordon Benjamin.

  Brennard G.

  End.

  They were away from the part of the graveyard where the tall stones stood shoulder to shoulder in parade, the crosses and Virgins of remembrance. The burial plot for the disappeared son of a street salesman was rough ground at the far edge of the graveyard, where waist-high weeds had been cleared. Alex shaded her eyes. The moisture was in the armpit of her best T-shirt, and streams of perspiration ran to the small of her back and were held at the tightness of the waist of the skirt. Before she had come to Guatemala she had only attended the funerals of her grandparents; her knowledge of funerals was just about all from Guatemala. The priest talked fast. Only a small attendance. If the student had died in a road accident, if illness had taken him, then the whole street in which he had lived would have come for the funeral. He had died after being seized, tortured, by the Death Squads, and few had the courage to be there. She thought the priest gabbled the service; only the strongest call of duty had beaten his fear of consequences.

  The man beside her, tired, middle-aged, smelled of sweat. She was in the third row back from the graveside and the first earth had been thrown to rattle down onto the box of cheap wood. The man beside her wore a white shirt and a good tie, and a suit that showed the creases of life in a wardrobe, and he mopped at his high forehead with his handkerchief. The father of the disappeared student was supported by his wife and his daughter. Alex thought the strength of the mother was magnificent, humbling. The man beside her, several times, swore under his breath, and his face was screwed in sharp anger. The wife and the daughter of the disappeared led the father from the graveside, and the priest was hurrying away.

  The gravediggers ladled the earth into the pit with long-handled spades.

  ‘How did you know him?’

  ‘I taught him, I taught him the seditious subject of mathematics. I also told him that he was stupid to go to demonstrations, naïve to think that because a civilian sits in the Palacio Nacional anything is different in Guatemala. He was only a boy who held banners and ran from the police when they fired the gas, and shouted. He was no threat to them . . . You are from the Peace Brigades, yes? You are the people who preach the non-violence? I tell you, the non-violence is rubbish. Nothing will change in Guatemala without violence. They will have to be burned out, the generals and the colonels and the men of the Death Squads . . . My wife this morning will be crying in fear in our house because I have made the slight and insignificant gesture of going to my student’s funeral. My dear young lady with the fine intentions, it would be difficult for you to understand the fear in which we live.’

  Alex said simply, ‘There is no-one to burn them out.’

  He made a reply. She did not hear his words. A helicopter went low overhead. It seemed to tilt in its flight as if to give the crew and passengers a better view of a dispersing crowd in a city graveyard. She followed the flight of the helicopter, watched it soar and head away for the north.

  It was what she believed, there was no alternative to the turned cheek.

  He was gone from her side.

  She walked back to the Land Rover.

  She saw the set teeth of her dog.

  There was a plain envelope tucked under one of the windscreen wipers. She snatched it, crumpled it, threw it onto the floor in front of the passenger seat.

  Down the road was the car with the smoked-glass windows and the idling engine.

  FROM: Security Service, London.

  TO: Secret Intelligence Service, London.

  REF: BREN/Rm129B/CentAm/934.

  ATTENTION: Central America Desk.

  See attached. Require soonest assessment of stability of current Guatemala regime. What possibility insurrection?

  What opposition group could BROWN, Gordon Benjamin, be recruited to? What Cuban involvement?

  Brennard G.

  End.

  The helicopter crossed above them. Vee was further ahead and Zed was further behind, but the rest of them were gathered close and squatting and sitting and flopped, rest halt, near to the wide root base of a ceiba tree. The butterflies were around them, but there were fewer mosquitoes, the bastards would be back by the end of the afternoon and Gord had seen Zeppo scratch at his neck and ankles . . . He had not spoken through the morning, at any of the rest halts, to Zeppo nor to Harpo. He had watched and he had learned. Jorge spoke to them, cudgelled them and encouraged them, and won grudged response. Jorge had the way with them . . . The helicopter, he thought, would have been at an altitude of little more than a thousand feet but the tree canopy could have muffled the beat of the rotors, it might ha
ve been higher. The noise of the engine grew. All of their eyes, useless, were turned to the wigwam frame of the stacked rifles. The noise of an engine was a threat, recognized by all of them. Groucho’s tongue slipped to his lips, nervously moistening them. Zeppo was peering up into the leaf ceiling of the trees. The helicopter was directly over them. Harpo clenched, unclenched, his fists. The power of the engine beat down through the canopy. Eff had giggled and made a play with his hands of shooting upwards. Jorge grinned, a flash of teeth. The helicopter was moving away. Their world was the jungle and the tightness of trees and vegetation and vines, and it was the world of the mosquito swarms, and it was the world of the bright fluttering butterflies. And outside their world was the fighting . . .

  Gord pushed himself up.

  He said it grimly, ‘Time we were moving.’

  He stood and wriggled the straps of his pack over his shoulders. He could watch and he could learn. Jorge pulled Zeppo up and laughed, and then Jorge lifted up Harpo’s pack and helped him to take the weight of it. He saw the way that Groucho gazed on Jorge, rank admiration. Gord felt almost a jealousy. Bloody Jorge, pretty boy, doing the rounds of hearts and minds, winning friends and influencing people, while all the won friends and influenced people detested the pompous bully that was Gordon Benjamin Brown. His turn for the pretty boy’s attention.

  ‘All right, Gord?’

  ‘Fine . . .’

  ‘You are a bit afraid?’ said quiet, private.

  ‘I am not afraid,’ Gord hissed.

  Jorge said, ‘Then you are alone, and lucky, we are all afraid of the helicopter. Perhaps it was with tourists, or with oil men, or with a rancher, or perhaps it was a military helicopter. We don’t know, so we are all afraid – all but you. You should be a very happy man. Gord, that you are not afraid . . .’

  He was squashed. Gord’s creed of leadership dictated that the front runner must never show weakness nor demonstrate hesitation. The young man fragmented the concrete of the creed. Gord thought the more of him. It was the humanity that had captured him, but then he knew sweet damn all about humanity.