The Unknown Soldier

by Gerald Seymour

  Beth watched.

  'He's pretty far down the road.'

  Behind Beth, the boy squatted beside his father, whose hands loosely held a rifle across his lap.

  'I think I'm just in time but I can't promise anything. By rights he should have died yesterday. Extraordinary resilience.' The doctor spoke as if a commentary were needed from him. The needle was in a forearm vein, and he was hooking the bag, connected by a tube to the needle, on to the cross-rope that supported the awning. Then he crouched over the leg wound. 'First things first. Do the dehydration, get as much from an intravenous drip into him as quickly as possible, saline. You see, there's a big blood loss. It's all about liquids in the body. First, to counter dehydration loss, the body steals from the blood supply, then from extra-cellular space, and the last reserve is from intra-cellular space. When that's exhausted it's death by dehydration. I'm surprised he's still with us.'

  She wanted to throw up. The doctor took the other arm, without the drip in it, and firmly pinched the skin just above a bandage of dirty cloth on the wrist. When his fingers let go, the pinched flesh still stood erect.

  'It would have gone down, where I pinched, if there was enough liquid in the body. It hasn't fallen back because there's no liquid there. It's an old trick.'

  Beth thought the doctor talked because of his fear.

  He reached for the cloth on the wrist and started to unravel it.

  'We're hardly going to make a sterile area, but at least we can try -

  let's get shot of this filth for starters.'

  Beth saw the plastic bracelet. In the sand, in the night, she had found it, had tried to examine it. His strength had prevented her. She saw the doctor peer down at it. She leaned closer and made out the printed reference number. The photograph was clear to her. Alongside it, under the number and the filled-in spaces for height and weight, below sex, was 'Issued by: Delta'. She gagged.

  The doctor turned to her. 'Did you know about this?'

  'No, I didn't. No.'

  'Do you know what Delta is?'

  'I think so.'

  'Think, Miss Jenkins? Can't you do better than think? Let me help you. Delta is the name of the camp at Guantanamo Bay, the camp for terrorists. Good God, what have I got into?'

  'I didn't know.'

  The doctor seemed to gasp, to drag in a great gulp of air. 'For helping this man, I - and you, Miss Jenkins - could go to Chop Chop Square. May I assume your ignorance stops short of not knowing what Chop Chop Square is?'

  She seemed to shudder, could not help herself. 'I know what Chop Chop Square is.'

  The doctor went on - as if he had cut the square and the ritual of public execution after Friday prayers from his mind - in a flat monotone. 'You see, his tongue, and his mouth, they'll be dried out.

  It's not a worry because the drip will fix that. He will have had an extreme shock from the effect of the missile detonation and that will have surged his adrenaline, further aggravating the dehydration process. First appearances, the head wound will have caused severe concussion but not much else. The leg is the greater problem, and the resulting blood loss. There are ten pints of blood in the body and it is my estimate that—'

  'Are you going to save him?'

  'My estimate is that he's lost at least two pints - I make no promises. There is blood loss and there are signs of advancing gangrene. Do you want him saved?'

  She looked down. He lay on old sacks. His eyes were closed and his breathing was a slow, shallow struggle. The head wound was a long slice, below his forehead and above his right ear, and the hair had been cut back from it by the guide. As soon as they had arrived, the doctor had barked questions to her, for translation: What had been done for him? What, if anything, had he been given? What had been the patient's reaction? The guide had used a knife to cut away hair from the head wound, then had anointed it. He had wiped the gum from murr on to the wound's edges. Beth translated this as

  'myrrh', and the doctor had muttered, 'Commiphora molmol' , and had not criticized the Bedouin's use of the ancient healing resin. She saw the first drip bag draining steadily into his arm. A cloth lay across his groin. The leg wound was on the left side - there were flies around it. It was shorter in length than that on the skull, but wider, deeper, and the flesh around it had already blackened. He did not look, to Beth, like a threat. He seemed to her to rest in exhausted peace. She crawled closer to him and took his hand, both fists covering his fingers.

  The doctor made room for her, then stood and changed the drip hag. 'I can't do anything about the leg until he has more strength. It's the leg that worries me. Maybe in an hour I can start on it.'

  What did she want of him? Everything. How far would she go to help him? To the end of the road, to the square. What did she know of him? Nothing.

  She sat and held his hand. The father and son stared at her, eyes never off her. A camel pushed its head against her arm, competed with her to touch him. The doctor now knelt at his bags and packages and checked an inventory. She did not look into his leg wound, but at his face. Never before had Beth held a man's hand with such caring softness. The drip worked. She thought of a dried-out flower that was watered and straightened. She felt his fingers stir in her grip. The breathing quickened. The doctor broke off, came closer.

  Lips moved. The doctor crouched to listen. The eyes opened. She saw the eyes fastening on the doctor's as he strained to listen.

  The voice came weak but clear: 'Don't look into my face, don't.'

  The fingers tightened in her fists. 'Don't see my face, don't ever.' He seemed to sink back. 'Don't. . .'

  She reeled, clung to his fingers but shook.

  'That's all I bloody need,' the doctor wheezed beside her. 'He's English - as English as you or me. He spoke English like I do, like you. Well done, Miss Jenkins - this just keeps getting better and better.'

  'You can stand there as long as you like but until I see identification you're not coming in,' Eric Perkins had said. He'd been behind his door, opened to the extent that the security chain would permit, and his wife had been behind him. 'You can stay on my step all the hours that God gives but you're not coming in till I see who you are.'

  The retired maths teacher was wizened, small, and his cheek was cut from shaving, but he seemed to have the obstinacy that came with age and bloodymindedness, and he had been behind his front door, as if it was the portcullis of his castle. The door had been closed on them, and for ten minutes the rain had dripped on them. It went against Lovejoy's grain to show his card. He'd rung the bell again.

  He'd shown the identification card that gained entry through the electronic barriers at Thames House, and the American had shown what was good enough for Camp Delta, far away on Cuba.

  'Eh, wasn't so difficult, was it?' Eric Perkins had said, then had turned. 'Violet, love, we have visitors from the Security Service in London and what's called the Defense Intelligence Agency in America - and they're half drowned, not that it's my fault. They'd like a cup of tea, love, and I think some cake might see them right.'

  The chain had come off the lock. Their coats had been hung in the ball and yesterday's newspaper was under them to protect the carpet.

  They sat in the front room.

  Maybe, Lovejoy thought, they should have taken off their shoes.

  The room was pristine. Perkins held up the photograph in front of his face. He'd demanded to hold it, handle it, and Dietrich bad shown ill-concealed reluctance to pass it to him. Dietrich had covered the top of the head and the whole of the body with his hands, but the retired teacher had insisted.

  Perkins chuckled. The photograph was close to his eyes. The prisoner's camp reference number was stamped at the bottom. He chuckled till he coughed. The light of his eyes danced. 'I used to do mathematics. The basis of mathematics is solving problems. I'm wondering if your problem, gentlemen, that needs solving, is that you don't know who he is.'

  'I don't think you need explanations, sir,' Dietrich said sourly. 'We

&nb
sp; .are merely investigating background to—'

  The wife, Violet, was in the doorway, holding the tray. Her husband's arm was up, like an old-time traffic policeman's. 'Sorry, love, waste of your time and effort. They won't be staying. They don't trust me, love.'

  Lovejoy playing his winning smile, and said, 'Just so we have no misunderstandings, and I remind you, Mr Perkins, of the strictures of the Official Secrets Act, this man was a prisoner, designated as an unlawful combatant in Afghanistan, at Guantanamo Bay. He was released, because the authorities there thought him a taxi-driver from Herat in that country. While he was being transferred from the airbase to Kabul, he ran away. We don't know who he is, but believe him to be from this area. If he is from here he would most likely have gone to Adelaide Comprehensive. Mr Perkins, we are looking for your help.'

  His face had lit as each morsel of trust was given him, and he'd laughed till his cheeks flushed.

  'I was wrong again, Violet, they're staying. A late run for the post, getting by on the rails. Tell Violet whether you'd like sugar, gentlemen. Yes, I know him.'

  Tea was poured and cakes were passed.

  'Not that he was any good at mathematics. If I was judging him solely by the ability to multiply and divide, add and subtract, I'd have little to say. I digress. Most of the boys going through my final-year classes would have competency to add up profits from drug-pushing, or to subtract the days of a sentence remaining to be served in a young offenders' institution. That's about it. Adelaide Comprehensive isn't a school known for its shining successes but, over my time, I did have a couple of them. For this lad, well, I was able to provide something - call it motivation. Yes, there are little victories to be won, even at Adelaide Comprehensive.'

  He broke off. He called to the kitchen to thank his wife for the tea.

  Lovejoy saw the impatience building in the American: the shaking hands rattled the cup and saucer and the cake on the plate on his knees had gone untouched. He caught him with a glance: bide your time, man.

  'There was a boy who was being bullied, an Asian child. There were two problems with the boy: a stutter and a wealthy father, cash in the child's hip pocket. You'll have learned a little of the area from which the school draws pupils. The money and the speech impediment made this pupil a predictable target - that's the real world. I induced your man here to become the pupil's friend. He did, and no doubt was paid for it, and the bullying was a thing of the past. The motivation was more complex. He sided naturally with the minority.

  He went against the majority - not, I fancy, for any altruistic reason, not for any defence of the handicapped in a cruel world, but because it gave him pleasure to run against the tide. Are you with me? Are you beginning to see him?'

  'Just getting a glimpse,' Lovejoy said drily.

  'Second time around was more interesting. Our then esteemed headteacher, before he fled to the quieter world of local-education-authority inspections, wanted a competition launched for public recitation. Pupils standing on a stage and declaiming to their peers, such was the headteacher's plan. Most of the males could barely communicate, other than to demand their rights in a police station on a Friday night. The headteacher was very keen. I was given the job of organizing it. Was it a fiasco? It was not. Why not? Because this boy agreed to participate. What did I choose for him? I'd been to a funeral that week, in West Bromwich. There had been a reading from the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter fifteen, starting at verse fifty-four. Do you know it, gentlemen?'

  Lovejoy did not, but he saw beside him the American's lips move.

  They kept time with the recitation.

  'He stood on the stage, in front of the school, and he silenced the chatter, stilled the movement. "So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in Victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" He did it, did it well. You see, by doing it he showed he could stand alone. It was nothing to do with the spirituality of the words, their uniqueness. Again, he just needed to run against the tide

  . .. Would you like more tea, or another cake?'

  Lovejoy shook his head patiently, and the American followed suit.

  'I liked him enough to make a small effort to find him work when he left us - a garage, Harrison's Auto Repair Unit, on the industrial estate behind the high street. I don't know whether he lasted there.

  Sometimes I see pupils I taught, on the street and hanging about, sometimes I read their names in the paper, remanded in custody or remanded on bail. I haven't seen him since the day he left school.

  What was different about him was a desperate, unsatisfied restlessness, and nothing here that could satisfy it, and the response to my trivial efforts was a minimal answer to the symptoms. I have to believe, because you have come to see me, that he is now considered a danger to society. I suppose trained men will seek to kill him before he can kill others - and I'd not argue with that. Where would he have learned the hate? Probably from your camp at Guantanamo Bay, Mr American. No, I won't argue with you, nor will I cheer you on - I rather liked the boy. You'll have to excuse me because Violet has a dentist's appointment.'

  He stood. He looked a last time at the photograph. 'Oh, yes. What you came for. His name. I presume that with his name it will be easier to find and kill him.'

  The American said, 'It will be easier to find him and stop him in his tracks before he can murder innocents.'

  'Of course, of course . . . He's from that estate near the school, by the canal. Perhaps I sell him short, perhaps he's more than I've

  .

  painted him.' His jaw jutted and his fists clenched. 'Always interesting to hear how former pupils have progressed. He is Caleb Hunt.'

  Caleb did not know that a third bag dripped saline solution through the tube and the needle into his arm.

  'They'll hear my name, won't they? The bastards'll hear it. Hear it loud. They're walking dead, got nothing - all they got is radios out of Beemers and sucks and smokes, got nothing. They're not really living. I live. Everyone will hear my name.'

  Caleb did not know that Beth stared bleak-faced at him.

  'Guys, where are you? What you doing? I did something else.

  You'll live, fucking die, no one will know, you're nothing. What you got? You got fuck-all.'

  Caleb did not know as he rambled, as the drip gave him strength, that Bart prepared a scalpel, scissors, clips, forceps and sterile swabs, and listened, or that Beth bit her lip.

  'It's the biggest desert in the world, it's got worse heat than anywhere in the world. I'm walking in it. I'm barefoot in it. You wouldn't have lasted in it a day, not half a day. I'm going through it because my family's waiting for me . . . That's a proper family. I belong to my family.'

  Bart loaded a syringe with Lignocaine, the local anaesthetic.

  'When you hear my name, all of you bastards, it'll be because I've done what my family wants of me. Anything . . .'

  Caleb exposed his mind, made his mind as bare as the wound on his leg.

  Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay.

  'This is him?'

  'This is al-Ateh, the taxi-driver.'

  'Have we done him?'

  'No, the Agency haven't interrogated him. The Bureau have hut not for eight months. The DIA done him since eight months back. These are their transcripts.'

  He stood with his head bowed in docility. In front of him were two men he had not seen before. He had learned well to give no sign that he understood what they said.

  'Who did him last, from the DIA, which of those creeps?'

  'Dietrich. You know Dietrich, Jed Dietrich?'

  T know him. What does he say, Harry?'

  'He doesn't say anything - he's on vacation. And won't say anything -

  not back till after the due date, if this jerk goes.'

  The chain manacles bit at his wrist, and the shackles at his ankles. He stared at t
he floor, made a target of his feet and did not watch them as they shuffled paper between them. The interpreter stood beside them, an Arab, and his respect for them told Caleb of their importance.

  'It's the quota, that's what matters. Two old guys, a middle-aged guy and a young guy to make up a quota minimum of four - if they're clean.'

  'Too many of them are clean.'

  'I hear you, Wallace. Try not to think about i t . . . You going to the club tonight, that concert?'

  'Marine brass band - woiddn't miss . . . OK, let's go process this guy.'

  The interpreter translated. The one called Harry told him that the United States of America had no grievance against the innocent, the United States of America valued the freedom of the individual, the United States of America was committed only to rooting out the guilty. The one called Wallace told him that he was going home, back to Afghanistan, to his family then had checked as if a paragraph in the file about the iviping out of the family by B-52 bomber had been, for a moment, forgotten. He was going back to the chance of making a new life with his taxi.

  Through the interpreter, Harry asked, T hope, young man, back in Afghanistan you won't come out with any lies about torture?'

  The meek answer. 'No, sir. I am grateful, sir.'

  Through the interpreter, Wallace queried, 'You have no complaints about your treatment here?'

  'No, sir. I have been treated well, sir.'

  Through the interpreter, both of them: 'You take good care, young man, of the opportunity given you . . . You help to build a new Afghanistan . . .

  Good luck .. . Yes, good luck.'

  The guards' hands were on his arms, and the waist chain was tugged back.

  He heard Harry say, 'Pathetic, aren't they, these jerks? He's lucky to be out. I reckon the lid's going to come off this place.'

  He was being led out through the door. Wallace said, 'Too right -

  discipline's cracking, more suicide tries and more defiance. When the

  .

  tribunals start up and when that execution chamber comes on line, the lid could come off big-time. What time is the concert?'