Killing Time at Catterick

by Jan Needle

  “Good choice, Al – it’s fucking A. I’m going to buy it off of you.”

  The lad’s eyes were pale an’ all, and you could read them like a book. They said “You what!? Sod off, why don’t you!” But his mouth said, “Er. Um. I’m not really with you, sir. It’s not for sale.”

  He was swallowing, and his Adams apple bobbed up in his neck like a giraffe. Long neck. Big Adams apple. Williams’s smile went harder. The other crap-hats were watching now. Mouse and snake. Breakfast.

  “Don’t call me sir, la’. I’ll have to Agai you, know what that is, do you? Agai 67. I said I like your coat. I’ll give you forty quid for it.”

  The eyelids were blinking now. The eyes were looking hunted.

  “But. But I only got it at the weekend...er...”

  “Sergeant,” I said. And the sergeant glared at me. First warning.

  “Sergeant,” said the crap-hat gratefully. “I mean... I mean it cost me eighty pounds. Um, eighty five. My mother bought—”

  Bad mistake. All the other trogs were laughing. Oh the release! Release of pressure. Not for the victim, though.

  “Ah,” said Sergeant Williams. “Ain’t that nice? Did I say forty, Al? Make that thirty five. No, make it thirty. Bloody hell la’, you drive a hard bargain. But thass my last offer, you tight cunt. I ain’t goin’ any lower.”

  The trog’s eyes went from him to me, as if there was something I could do about it. The sergeant’s eyes went on me too, and the last traces of a smile had gone. He fished his wallet out. Honest to God, he had a wallet, that’s how bleeding low he was.

  “Don’t fuck me about, son,” said Williams. “It’ll be twenty five if you make me wait much longer. Last offer, take it or leave it.”

  “Leave it? Can I—”

  “No you fucking can’t, you dildo. Count of three. Going, going—” He jerked three notes out, and snapped them between his thumb and fingernails. The crap-hat was brighter than a beetroot.

  “Gone,” said Williams, almost conversational. “Now get the bastard off before I kill you. Tiny here’ll tell you. I will, won’t I, Tiny? I fucking will.”

  My eyes locked with the poor sod’s, but only for an instant. Then he was looking downwards, and the jacket was half off. Oh fuck, I thought, just what the fuck is this? Just what the fuck is going on? I felt his eyes go on me again and I couldn’t look at all, I felt like utter shit.

  The sergeant took the jacket and looked at it with contempt, as if it was a disappointment, utter crap.

  “You see,” he said. “That didn’t hurt much, did it, la’? It didn’t hurt at all. Sergeant Williams,” he added. “In case you might forget. Not sir, but Sergeant Williams. And this here’s Tiny, me latest bitch, know wharra mean? He does everything for me. And I mean everything.”

  He threw the jacket at me.

  “Carry that,” he said. “You can take it down to Oxfam later, maybe. Jesus, I’m so generous it’s embarrassing. Walk on, bitch. We got more work to do.”

  I saw the pale boy later in the day, when all the formal stuff was finished, and we were going to the Naafi bar. When I say we, I mean the squaddies, not recruits, they aren’t allowed to drink for the first six weeks, they aren’t allowed inside a licensed place at all, on or off the camp. They aren’t allowed off the camp either, come to that, so no chance of getting plastered anyway. No drink, no drugs, no sex except for Mrs Palm, no mobile in your pocket to call your mum or girlfriend if you needed a good cry. People did get stuff of course, especially the drugs, which you could hide much easier than a vodka bottle. Mobiles were pretty easy, too, but they were frowned on big style. If one went off in a lecture room, or on the range, it was shit up to your trollybobs.

  No, I saw the lad when I was going to the bar, and on my own, thank Christ. Apart from me and Goughie, the five on our floor who weren’t down south were the usual bag of walking wounded, with the three youngest bunged up to the eyeballs with depression pills. It’s the quickest way these days if you miss the “get out of jail free” slots – you get depressed and with luck you get discharged. Not so long ago, they reckon, most of it was sham, but now it’s real. With half the army suicidal, the brass fight back by keeping you in until your head actually explodes. Which means that Catterick’s chockful of nutcases in uniform – who merge in nicely with the local population! The other two were older men, sane or mad I wouldn’t like to say. They seemed to hate each other in their own right, and every other bastard for good measure. The one I’d spoke to came from Cheshire, where posh people live, the polite society. He was carrying a rubber ring.

  “Charlie Spencer.” He didn’t stick his hand out or nothing; so much for polite society. “Just back from Germany. Operation for me bastard piles. What you here for?”

  Why lie? Too much like hard work.

  “We had a riot. Down on the exercise. I got kicked back. Punishment.”

  “Lucky bastard. Cushy, eh? How long you been in?”

  “Oh, about eight month. I dunno.”

  “Eh! Eight month! Cushy! ’Ere – see that locker there? Name on it says Khan. Is that a fucking Paki name?”

  Why argue? Too much like hard work.

  “Well, he’s an Asian, like. He’s alright, he comes from Oldham.”

  His eye turned nasty. It was as if I’d said a sewage farm.

  “Oldham! It’s fucking full of ’em, that is! Dump! Nice lad my arse.” He paused. “Any more in, is there? I hate Pakis, me. I always said, the day they let a Paki in, the British Army’s dead! I’ll shoot him if I see the bastard, straight up I will. It’s mine, okay? It’s fucking ours! When’s he coming back? I tell you, I can’t hardly wait!”

  Sane, then. Barking sane. That was that one solved.

  As I approached the Naafi, I saw more trouble fronting up for me, and I was getting sick of it, quite honestly, well sick. The pale trog was waiting for me, and he was with a bunch of other crap-hats. I tensed. Maybe they were going to fill me in. Oh, not another bleeding fight. I was really, really sick of it.

  “Hi, lad,” I said. “Sorry about all that shit earlier. You’ll get to know Sarnt Williams. He’s a cunt.”

  His eyes opened in a sort of shock. Unexpected, that. Jesus, it even surprised me, the way I said it. Well ’ard; not.

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh. Bloody hell, like. Thanks.”

  Well, don’t get too excited, I thought, it don’t mean I’m your best mate. I don’t give a shit for you, tell the honest truth.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well, see you, then. I’ve got to get a drink. I’m gaggin’”

  They were all looking at me, curiously. Like in a zoo. I was in combats. Sergeant’s orders. I’d be in combats till I hit the pit. Day after bleeding day.

  He said: “But it’s... it’s sort of stealing, isn’t it? Is he allowed to do that? I mean, I said it weren’t for sale.”

  “You took money for it, Jeff,” said one of them. Jeff. I’d really thought his name was Al. Albino. It hit me. Jesus. That bloody Williams.

  “I know,” said the boy, unhappily. “Christ, what’s my mother going to bloody say?”

  Nobody laughed this time.

  “Can I complain?” he said. “I mean – is there someone I can talk to?”

  I didn’t have to think for long. But I was trying to be kind.

  “Not really, mate. I mean, you can, but it’d be quicker just to cut your own throat, save them the trouble.”

  “Shit, that’s really tight,” said someone. “You can’t be serious?”

  He sounded just like my sister Vronnie. But I made a face, then smiled.

  “Who’d believe you, mate?” I said. “He’s a sergeant, ain’t he? They’d tell you to go and fuck yourself.”

  “But I’ve got witnesses! You saw it, didn’t you? You were there! What are you, are you a corporal or something?”

  “I’m a squaddie, and I need a fucking drink,” I said. “Get real, okay? You’re in the fucking army. I’m not a corporal and I never fucking will be. If I
said Williams had robbed you of that coat I’d be a corpse. You sold it to him. Get real.”

  They stood around and watched me go in silence. Food for fucking thought, I thought – surely some stupid bastard knows the rules of joining up? For the first six weeks you can just walk away, you’ve got the right, never mind what some bastard sergeant tells you. So do it. Do it while you can. Just do it.

  ’Cause one day soon you’ll find it is too late, my friends. You’ll find out soon you’ve missed the bleeding boat.

  And then there’s four more years until the next one sails… By then you could be dead and bloody buried.

  Two

  I tried to have a wank that night, to take my mind off everything. I was in a room all on my own, which was one good thing when the lines were empty, and I tried to conjure Bridgie up. It’s hard to get a proper hard-on for a girl when you don’t like her any more though, especially if you think she never liked you anyway. She’d even stopped texting now, more or less. It was safe to leave my mobile on again, not that I bothered much. I got one sometimes out of the blue, usually insulting and unpleasant, usually about money. The cheeky cow said I’d knocked off her CDs and her iPod, which is bollocks. Whatever she’d had for two whole years, she’d had off me.

  I realised after a while the end was soft and useless, and I worried that I’d still gone on, absent-minded, like. Bloody hell, that was like a little kid does, isn’t it – pressing and prodding it for comfort, like twiddling your hair. I didn’t want to stop though, in case it meant I’d lost interest in sex, so I tried to think of someone else. I hit on Emma then, a girl I’d met at college as I was leaving to go to uni and she was signing on. She was young and blonde and pretty lively and I got it off another girl she fancied me. Big deal – I didn’t see her for ages after that, till I met her on the station one Saturday afternoon. I was in combats, and we had a jokey conversation, she was very flirty, and called me General, which she thought was pretty smart. Afterwards, two or three times, we met again, and she told me once, while she was pissed, that I could have her if I wore me uniform! She didn’t mean it though. I tried to bring her up into my mind, and stripped her jeans off, and her knickers and her top. Her tits were Bridgie’s though – quite small, with big spready nipples. This wasn’t going to work at all.

  Quite lucky really, because when I’d given up, the bloody door banged open and a pissed-up bloke barged in. He turned the light on and blinded me, then he let out a rousing fart. It was the other old guy, the one who wasn’t Charlie Spencer, and he didn’t seem to really know where he was.

  “Hey!” I went. “Oi, mate. What you doing? I’m in my fucking pit.”

  It wasn’t very late, so I suppose he had a right to be confused. He stood there blinking for a good long time, and he hadn’t really focused on me yet. He was a big bloke, but he wasn’t tall, and his belly looked too fat for him to be a soldier – he wasn’t fit, he couldn’t be. To me – no judge – he looked fifty if a day. Could he be, and still be in the army? Still be just a squaddie, come to that?

  He cleared his throat. His voice was deep and Yorkshire, Huddersfield, Leeds, somewhere over that way. It wasn’t the slightest bit unfriendly.

  “You’re in my fucking pit, you mean,” he said. “What is this, a present from the Captain, or am I seeing things? I’ve had this room a week now. I’ve not seen you before, have I?”

  He had seen me, although we hadn’t spoke. And I had slept in this bed the night before, and on me own.

  “I’ve spoke to your oppo,” I said. “Yesterday. Charlie Spencer.”

  “That twat. Well any mate of Charlie’s an enemy of mine, so I’m sorry, lad, you’re less than bleeding welcome. To my room, my bed, my body, fucking anything. Either you go or I do. What’s it to be?”

  This was getting serious, it was my bed. I’d slept in it, this bloke was drunk or mad or both. Now, to put the tin lid on, he sat down on the end, he plonked himself, and even with the army lack of springs he bounced me in the air.

  “I’m called Ken,” he said. “I like you, son. Shall we have a drink? I’ve got a bottle in me cupboard, it’s called a locker but it doesn’t lock. I’ve got some brandy and me old guitar.”

  He was up again, and I was bouncing, and he wrenched the locker door and it came open. Empty, naturally.

  “Fuck, I’ve been burgled! Fucking fucking fuck, that were drei Stern, German three star! And the guitar were a Martin, fuck my boots!”

  I doubted that, but then you never know, do you? I’d’ve liked a Martin but I’d never had the chance. I’d’ve liked to have my guitar with me, even, it was a sort of comfort, but I’d been warned in no uncertain terms. Squaddies don’t like proper music, and they don’t like people doing things they can’t, and most of all they can’t stand folk, the crap my mother brought me up on. If you wanted to get beat up, you might as well just try Morris dancing, go the whole damn hog! If this bloke really had a Martin they’d have smashed it, was my feeling. Destroyed it. Either that or he must be awful, awful hard.

  Suddenly, he crashed out of my room without another word, and I thought bugger it, he’s left the bleeding light turned on. No hurry though, I was well awake by now, I might even get up again and toddle off and get another lager, sure as shit I’d not see him again. Funny if he did have a Martin, though, he did look like a folkie in a way – fat gut and alcoholic. It made me miss the sorts of dumps I’d spent half my life in, despite the fact my mates all thought that I was mad. Not just the music, neither. The whole damn bit.

  He did have a Martin though, and he had a bottle ditto – next door down the passage where his room really was. He came back in laughing, guitar in one hand, brandy in the other, flipped the bottle on my bed, nodded, winked, and struck a chord. Then started cranking up his B-string with his tongue between his teeth.

  “Pissed!” he said. “Hang on. That sound better? That’s it. Get some glasses, can’t you? I’ve done my fucking bit.”

  I was a bit self-conscious standing up in only a little teeshirt but what the hell? Bridgie had failed me so there was no embarrassment there, and the three star brandy looked just the job. I found a cup, and gave him the water glass, and while I poured he played a pattern of chords that sounded great.

  “Is it a Martin then?” I said. “Honest to God?”

  “Is it fuck as like! Got nicked years ago, that did. Johnny Roadhouse cheapo, I buy a new one every time some drunk cunt buggers it. What you want? English, Irish, Scottish, bluegrass, Dylan, blues, Bert Jansch, Bogle, or some other modern shite? I don’t do rock and pop though, mate. I’m too old and it’s too crappy. Gimme that brandy. Cheers!”

  The session started then, and just went on and on. He was amazing, this drunk old get, he had a voice like nails – not like his speaking voice – and he played brilliant. Every now and then he stopped to suck down three star, and give me snatches from his life. He’d come back from Krautland with Charlie Spencer for “a medical complaint” but he didn’t say what it was, and he drank the brandy in big gulps, never letting up. It was a litre bottle, and he was pissed before we started, and although I kept my end up I was outclassed. Good stuff though – as rough as arseholes, a German supermarket’s worst. And however much he supped, he never played a wrong note or muffed a chord. By the time he pushed the box at me and told me it was my turn to torture it, I was incapable. I strummed a bit, I bolloxed up my chords and words, and Ken laughed his cock off and chain-smoked.

  And then he changed. It was gradual at first, then he went down pretty fast. He asked me if I’d ever killed a man, and I said I hadn’t, and said I wasn’t sure I ever could. Then I said: “It’s funny that.”

  He looked at me across the nasty little smoky room. His eyes had sunk into his face, sort of. And he was sucking on his fag, his mouth covered by his whole hand, cupped in front of it.

  “Funny?” he said. “Why? Why d’you think that’s funny?”

  I didn’t like his tone at all. His eyes were hooded. His head was l
ost in smoke. I tried a smile, but I was struggling.

  “Well, I dunno,” I said. “I mean…well it’s what I’m paid for, in’t it? I guess they’d chuck me out.”

  “You’re not paid to kill, you’re paid to fucking die,” he said. “Ain’t you worked that out yet, you little twat?”

  He was looking at the lino on the floor. He dropped his fag butt and watched it smouldering.

  “Killing’s all right, mate,” he said. “Don’t knock it till you’ve fucking tried.” He put his foot on the dog-end and ground it out. “First time I got the chance was Kosovo. I got this bloke square in my sights and the adrenaline shot through me like a fucking fire, I went bloody near delirious. And then an officer moved in front of me. Deliberate. He could see the state that I was in. To shoot the target I’d’ve had to shoot him first. I bloody nearly did. I wanted to. I hated him. I fucking hated him.”

  And suddenly he picked his glass up just like that and drained it. Then he picked the brandy up, the drop left in the bottle, then his guitar. It was as if he hated me as well. His face had gone like poison. He hated me.

  He nearly knocked the door frame out in leaving, and the impact of his shoulder shook the room. I could hear him in the passageway, crashing from side to side. No guitar sounds, though. He never banged it once. He didn’t drop the bottle, neither.

  It was well gone two o’clock. Work in the morning. I switched off the light and lay there in the bed and felt like death. I’d seen Ken’s face as he’d gone out the room, and I didn’t know what to make of it. It had gone from poisonous to utter fucking misery. He looked like a poor old useless sod.

  Ah well, I thought. It had helped to pass the time away…

  Three

  Normally in camp, I’d start trying to wake up about half six, and out of bed by quarter to for block jobs. Today though, no reason to get up, I thought I’d take a little lie-in. Fat chance. Sergeant Williams didn’t get to be a sergeant by being lax, and he’d decided to start his morning fun by beasting the new recruits at the crack of dawn. I was still his bitch.