The Way to Babylon

by Paul Kearney

  No tent, and it looked like rain. He did not trust the bivvy-bag entirely. Screwing up his face at the darkening sky, he rubbed pine resin from his fingers. He missed the sound of the sea, for he had slept on the shore for the past few nights. Now all he could hear was the rising wind in the peaks—and the settling of the geese on the loch.

  Beats the hell out of traffic. He grinned at the fire and his faintly steaming boots. Stretching, he felt a bright prickle of rain on his upturned face. Not the first night he would be soaked through whilst sleeping. A few days ago he had woken up, bivvy stiff with frost. The nights were long these days, getting longer. Snow had held off, though. Only the mountains were dusted with it. The mountains he would begin scaling tomorrow.

  ‘YOU KNOW, SIR, I sometimes think that if it wasn’t for me, you might dig a hole and hide in it. What do you think you’re doing, sitting there staring at nothing?’

  Startled, Riven turned away from the window to see Doody watching him with disapproval. He whirred the chair round almost sheepishly.

  ‘Anyway, I come here on a mission.’ Doody moved to the back of the chair and took the handles. ‘We’re off to see the wizard, me old son—but if anyone asks I’m taking you to the bog.’ He wheeled Riven out of the recreation room and away from the clamour of the television. Then, looking about him as if he were on patrol, he took Riven down a side corridor, whistling tunelessly.

  ‘Can I ask what’s happening, or is it a state secret?’ Riven demanded peevishly.

  Doody laughed. ‘Tonight, sir, since you’re off the drugs, you and me is going to get paralytic.’

  Eventually they stopped outside the door of a storeroom. Doody produced a bunch of keys with a flourish and, opening the door, bowed deeply. Riven motored the chair inside.

  ‘Fucking Aladdin’s cave or what?’ Doody asked, closing the door behind him and switching on the light. Riven began to laugh. Piled on a table in the middle of the cluttered little room were several six-packs of beer, and a large bottle of Irish whiskey. Two pint and two short glasses shone there also.

  ‘Don’t say I don’t think of everything. I made sure the beer got chilled, too.’ Doody smirked.

  A can spat as Riven pulled the ring. ‘Music,’ he said, and began pouring. Doody joined him. ‘Anne Cohen is covering for us,’ he said, ‘so we don’t have to worry about tin-knickers.’

  ‘How the hell did you get it into the building?’

  Doody took a long gulp, swallowed, and closed his eyes for a second before replying. ‘Piece of piss. I wheel laundry baskets. Laundry baskets are big. You put things in them. I could probably get a dance troupe in here if I really tried.’

  Riven half-emptied the glass at one gulp, and then put his head back to stare at the ceiling with its single light bulb.

  ‘You know, Doody, tonight I am going to get totally—’

  ‘Utterly,’ Doody put in.

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘One hundred per cent.’

  ‘Shitfaced.’

  ‘Here’s to oblivion, sir.’ And their glasses clinked together.

  THEY MOVED QUIETLY down the street. His eyes glinted in his camouflaged face and he waved his hand downwards. The brick went firm; four soldiers merged with doorways, their rifles pointing out in covering arcs. In the dark they looked like full bin liners huddled in porches.

  They moved on. The radio hissed slightly. Around them the dead windows and closed doors frowned on them. Some were boarded up, some had broken glass glittering in them. A dog barked, and there was the faint, far-off rumble of nocturnal traffic.

  ‘Hello, mike one zero, this is zero; radio check, over.’

  He thumbed the pressel switch and felt the pressure of the mike at his throat.

  ‘Mike one zero alpha, okay, over.’

  ‘Zero, roger, out.’

  They came to a junction lit by a single amber street lamp. Broken glass was strewn across the road, and a burnt-out car that the day before had been a barricade squatted black and tangled on the tarmac. One by one they scuttled across the dangerously lit space, breathing heavily as they took up positions in the darkness on the other side.

  Then they set off again down a darker, narrower street that had more than its fair share of derelict houses and graffiti. One of the soldiers kicked a stone, and it rattled across the road, making them all start. The other three cursed him softly.

  Then the night vanished. There was a brilliant flash, and a concussion that blew them off their feet and sucked air out of their lungs. A moment later came the noise, and the rain of rubble and dust. The point man of the brick was engulfed and disappeared.

  Riven was blown across the road and somehow his rifle went off in his hand, although he had thought the safety catch on. He lay in a tangle of bricks and the remnants of a small front garden, thinking: I’ve had an ND.

  Flashes and cracks started from a house up the street, and thumps as rounds began to go down around them. He pressed the mike button.

  ‘Mike one alpha, contact—’

  Then he crawled to cover as the tarmac in front of his nose erupted in bullet strikes.

  ‘Belsham! Johnson! George!’ he screamed, vaguely realising that Johnson had been point and was now perhaps beyond hearing him.

  Answering cracks came from an SLR close by, and a voice shouting: ‘Belsham here, sir; George is hit. I don’t know where Pete is!’

  ‘Mike one zero, contact’—he looked about him—‘corner of Creggan and Wishingwell Street. Two casualties. Under fire from at least one enemy. Request QRF. Over.’

  ‘Zero, roger. QRF on its way. Out.’

  He peered cautiously around his little garden wall. The flashes had stopped. The gunman was making his getaway. ‘Belsham! Where the fuck are you?’

  ‘Here, sir; behind the shed.’

  He ran over. Belsham was kneeling beside a prostrate George, ripping up field dressings furiously. Riven felt sick.

  ‘Where’s he hit?’

  ‘Chest, sir. I can handle it.’

  ‘Right. I’ll go and look for Pete.’ He doubled off again to where the explosion had happened. A mass of rubble blocked the road. He stumbled across an SLR with a bent barrel, then found what was left of his point man. He vomited whilst the whine of the Quick Reaction Force’s Land Rovers filled up the street behind him.

  THE LIGHT BULB grew brighter, the pile of empty cans higher; the talk louder.

  ‘What was the first battalion like, then?’ Riven asked.

  ‘Laid back. What about the third?’

  Riven belched. ‘Stuck up. They didn’t like Irish subalterns.’

  ‘Funny us being in the same regiment, sir.’

  ‘I was in Ireland when you were in Belize.’

  ‘Why’d you leave?’

  ‘Got married.’

  ‘Oh, shit. Sorry, sir.’

  Riven waved his hand. ‘Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter.’ He grinned crookedly. ‘Life’s a bitch.’ He sat staring at his empty glass. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he slurred again.

  Doody refilled them both, spilt some, and sniffed. ‘What was your wife like?’

  Riven continued looking beyond the pint glass in front of him, head swaying slightly. ‘My wife. Bloody hell.’ He blinked. ‘She was tall. Tall and dark. Quite a lass. Her eyebrows met in the middle. I used to call her a witch.’ He smiled, remembering. ‘She put a spell on me, anyway. Jennifer MacKinnon, from the Isle of Skye—the Isle of Mists, in the Gaelic... Ach—’ He downed his drink in a succession of throat-scraping gulps. The empty glass glittered in the artificial light, and he smacked his lips loudly. ‘Fucking beer didn’t last long, did it?’

  Doody broached the whiskey with great ceremony, and they toasted each other in loud voices before throwing it back. Riven felt the raw liquid burn its long-lost way home down his throat, and the room wavered a little.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said again as Doody refilled the glasses. ‘Good stuff, this.’

  ‘Only the best,’ Doody affirme
d. He sloshed whiskey on the table and scowled at the bottle. ‘Fucking bad craftsmanship, that.’ Again, they threw back the spirit as though it were water. Riven was beginning to have trouble focusing. There was a window behind Doody’s head, blue with the night, but he could have sworn there had been a darker silhouette framed there for a second—a strange shape with sharp ears...

  Ah, I’ve no head for this stuff any more.

  Doody began singing quietly, an army song not noted for the delicacy of its language, and Riven joined in with a will. They bellowed out the chorus together. A sweep of Riven’s good arm sent his glass to the floor, where it shattered. They peered at it owlishly. Then there was a knock at the door, and the pair gazed at each other.

  ‘I’m only a cripple!’ Riven protested. ‘He made me do it!’

  The door opened and Nurse Cohen entered. ‘Are you two still in here? Couldn’t you keep it a little quieter?’

  Doody looked blank for a second, then recognition dawned.

  ‘It’s our guardian angel,’ he hiccuped. ‘Our lookout. Is the coast clear, Anne?’

  ‘You two are utterly smashed,’ Nurse Cohen whispered.

  ‘I am,’ Riven volunteered absently.

  ‘Doody, for God’s sake, did you have to get him completely plastered? Old Bisbee will be doing the rounds in under an hour. I can handle the auxiliaries, but not her. We’ve got to get him back to his room.’

  Doody saluted with a beatific smile on his ugly face, and then, infinitely slowly, he fell over. Nurse Cohen swore, went over to Riven and prised the other glass from his hand.

  ‘Come on, I’ll get you out of trouble, at least.’ With a final despairing glance at the mumbling Doody, she wheeled Riven out.

  ‘Nurse,’ said Riven plaintively. ‘Nurse—’

  ‘What is it?’ she hissed, looking warily over her shoulder.

  ‘I have to have a pee, nurse...’

  ‘Oh, Christ! You’re kidding!’

  Riven shook his head dumbly. She pushed him to the toilets used by the walking wounded of the Centre, then stood in front of him.

  ‘I’ll have to support you. Come on.’ She lifted Riven easily, for he was painfully thin, and half carried him to the urinals. Then she held him as he relieved himself.

  ‘This is the first time I’ve been upright in months,’ he said. But he was suddenly and painfully aware of the woman holding him. The feel of her, the smell of her hair. He clenched his teeth, and nodded when she asked him if he was finished. She took him back to the chair and laid him in it like a baby.

  ‘There. Now perhaps I can get you to bed.’ And she smiled at him, pushing a lock of hair up under her nurse’s cap.

  He looked away and whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’

  She actually laughed, and began trundling him along the corridors. ‘Boys will be boys, I suppose. But your head will hate you in the morning, Mr Riven.’ She put him to bed and tucked him in. ‘I think you’ll survive, but I wouldn’t try that again in a hurry. Go to sleep now. I’ve got to do something about that idiot Doody.’

  She left, turning out the light as she went. Riven lay open-eyed in the darkness.

  Didn’t quite make the oblivion stage.

  He closed his eyes.

  THE SLEET LASHED his face, screaming out of the darkness. The ice axe slipped fractionally. He dug in deeper, hauling himself upwards and feeling for handholds. Jagged rock iced and bled his hands. He shut his eyes to the gale that hammered him, and felt his way forward.

  Why? Why do it?

  His boot moved up, searching for a crack in the frozen rock. Snow piled itself in every crevice of his clothing, clung there in folds and lines, clogged his ears.

  I will do it. Because—

  Slipping. A lightning rebalance that tore a groan past his lips, bared his teeth in a moment of helpless anger. Then he was secure again; buffeted by the storm, but holding.

  Because I am one stubborn son of a bitch.

  THE FACE HE was staring at was pale and thin. The cheekbones stood out below the eyes, making them into dark hollows, though the eyes themselves were steady and grey. Fair hair fell over the scarred forehead, and a beard of the same colour sprouted on the lower face. A hand rubbed it thoughtfully.

  Jesus. So this is the new me. What happened to the broad-shouldered soldier? He turned the chair away from the sink with its mirror, and made for the passage beyond it that led outside.

  I was never overly tall, but I was thickset, at least. I look like a rotten stick.

  The weather was cold and fine, with a mist that wreathed up from the river in the mornings and vanished by noon. He looked across the lawn to where the willows stooped, and the water glittered.

  I’m going to paddle in that some day, if it kills me.

  ‘How’s your head then, Mr Riven?’ asked Nurse Cohen, coming up behind him.

  ‘It’s been better, but on the other hand it’s been much worse... How is Doody?’

  ‘Taking the day off. He has a stomach bug.’

  ‘Ah! Hope it’s not catching.’

  ‘I doubt it, somehow.’

  ‘You didn’t get in trouble, did you?’

  She shook her head. ‘In the end, I simply locked the storeroom and left Doody in there to sleep it off. Luckily, he didn’t throw up. I let him out this morning and he made a mad dash for the toilet. Seems he had been crossing his legs and praying for hours.’ She laughed. ‘Well, I have to go and prepare Mr Simpson to meet the day.’ She laid a light hand on his shoulder for a second, and then left.

  Riven sat quite still, feeling the cold air on his face and watching the starlings squabbling in the bird bath in the middle of the lawn. Then he shoved the chair into motion and rattled across the patio. He hit the grass with a bump and a protesting whine from his steed, then continued more slowly, the motor bickering loudly. The chair lurched and shook as it hit sudden dips and hollows. The lawn was not as flat as it appeared. He wobbled dangerously and ground to an ignominious halt on the last steep slope before the river. The chair teetered at a crazy angle. He swore and leaned away from the slope, but too late. He fell over and hit the ground with a sodden thump and a flash of pain in his legs.

  ‘Shit!’

  There was dew-wet grass at his cheek, and the smell of soil under his nose. He rolled free of the chair and managed to sit himself upright, earth on his face and under his nails. His blanket was twisted around his legs, a tangle of tartan on the grass.

  You asshole, Riven. You really make a habit out of this sort of thing, don’t you?

  He looked round. He was invisible from the Centre, hidden by the slope. The river was fifty yards away, beyond the dipping trees. His legs and arm were screaming at him.

  He tried to right the chair, but it was too heavy and in too awkward a position. And he was too weak. The weakness enraged him. He punched the grass with his only useful limb.

  You bastard! You utterly useless bastard!

  Right on cue, the rain began. It started as a breeze in the willows that stirred his hair, then a fine mist of moisture that drifted down and finally a wind-driven shower that drove into his eyes and soaked his shirt. He started to laugh.

  Fucking typical!

  He began to crawl, pulling himself through the muddying ground with one arm.

  Couldn’t be more than a hundred yards. Christ, at Sandhurst I’ve crawled ten times that in full kit with a Jimpy rattling live overhead. Come on, Riven, you wimp, are you a man or a mouse?

  He stopped, gasping, when he got to the top of the slope. Runnels of water were flowing down it. He was chilled to the bone, and to the bolts. He looked up to see a sullen, glowering sky above his head, and then peered through the rain towards the Centre.

  He waved at the figures in the windows.

  Come on, you senile old bastards. One of you has got to see me.

  He bent his head into the mud.

  I don’t believe this. I can’t die of exposure in bloody Berkshire. I’d die of shame first.

&
nbsp; He began crawling again. He made the bird bath his goal and refused to look at the buildings. He felt himself going numb. The rain was turning to sleet.

  Winter has picked a hell of an auspicious moment to arrive.

  Then there were white-shoed feet in the soaking ground beside him, and strong hands took hold of him.

  ‘What happened to you, Mr Riven?’ He was being lifted up, and found himself looking at Nurse Cohen’s face.

  He smiled wanly. ‘You took your bloody time.’

  Her cap was gone and the rain had streaked hair across her face. He closed his eyes.

  A FACE BENT over him, dark hair spilling around it. Beyond it was the brightness of sunshine reflecting on snow. His eyes watered, and he blinked, bringing the face into focus.

  Grey, grave eyes and a mouth with a smile. Shoulder-length raven hair that was shining in the light.

  ‘How do you feel?’ The voice was low, with a Highland Scot accent.

  He was lying in a bed draped with brightly coloured blankets. Behind the girl’s head was a window of pure blue sky. He could hear wind in the rafters.

  ‘I’m... fine, I think. Where am I?’

  ‘You’re near Glenbrittle,’ she answered musically. ‘We found you last night lying on the western scree of Sgurr Dearg, battered to bits. You had your torch burning beside you. That’s how we found you.’

  He touched the bandage on his head, and blew air through pursed lips. ‘I remember now. I lost a crampon and went flying down the mountain.’ He winced. ‘Christ, how did I survive it?’

  ‘You’re badly bruised and you gashed your head, but apart from that, you are as healthy as I am. A wee bit peaky maybe, but right as rain.’

  He raised his eyebrows and sat up laboriously. The girl helped him. He grimaced as his bruises shouted.

  ‘Lucky, I guess.’

  ‘More like miraculous,’ she retorted, and helped him out of bed. To his embarrassment he found he was dressed in an old-fashioned nightshirt.

  ‘It’s all we could get on you,’ she said, smiling mischievously.