Street Soldier

by Andy McNab

  King escorted him back. He stood in the middle of the floor and looked around. It was a strange anti-climax. It was cool to just be left there and not have the door locked behind him, but even so.

  ‘You been re-assigned to a lesson schedule yet?’ the warder asked.

  ‘Not yet.’ Again, his voice sounded unusually loud inside his skull. He thought of going to see Gaz or Copper to announce his return – but they would be at their own lessons. ‘Can I have a shower, Mr King? Could do with a good hot wash.’ The showers in basic were time-limited and supervised.

  ‘Not the usual time of day, but – sure, knock yourself out.’

  Sean grabbed his towel and set off.

  The shower block smelled of damp and stale water, with a stronger toilet smell than usual today. Noises echoed off the tiled floors and walls, including the trickle of water from a cubicle that was already occupied. The showers were in individual cubicles; the changing area was common to everyone. Getting naked in front of other guys had been weird at first, but you got used to it.

  He stripped off quickly and headed for the cubicle next to the occupied one. Taking a shower during the day was unusual, but hey, he was doing it so why shouldn’t someone else?

  He grinned as the hot water hit his skin. He held his head under the flow and let it wash the memories of solitary away. He was letting the water flow over the rest of him when he felt something nudge his foot. He jerked it away instinctively and looked down. Then leaped away.

  ‘Oh, fuck, that’s disgusting!’

  All the cubicles had a common gutter, so that your neighbour’s water and grime flowed along through yours and into the drain at the end. A turd, an actual lump of human shit, was bobbing along in the stream, as innocent as a scabby, flea-bitten rat turning up on the kitchen counter.

  Furious, Sean rinsed his foot and wrapped the towel around his waist. He hurled himself out and hammered on the door of the occupied cubicle. ‘The fuck do you think you’re doing, you—’

  The door swung open and he stared straight into the bloated, twisted face of a lad dangling by his neck from a towel wrapped around the shower bracket.

  Sean shouted, but only in surprise, because it took him a moment to realize who it was. The features were so distorted and it was the last person he expected to see. The two realizations came one after another. This is a guy who has hanged himself who sorta looks like Gaz. And then he clocked the Guyz tattoo, and he put two and two together, and he shouted more, and the shouts turned to screams.

  He threw himself at the body. Water streamed over him as he fumbled at the knot of the towel. It was soaking, and his fingers slid off it. He tried to work them into the knot, but Gaz’s weight had pulled it tight. He had to wrap his arms around Gaz’s thighs and heave him up, which relieved the weight – but now he couldn’t spare a hand to get at the knot.

  Gaz’s legs were swollen and dark and his skin was clammy to the touch, like uncooked chicken. Sean squeezed his eyes shut and fought back a heaving stomach. He fumbled for the taps and shut them off, still holding Gaz up with one hand.

  He knew even then that it was too late, but he wouldn’t, couldn’t leave his mate to dangle. And so he screamed again as he held Gaz’s weight in his arms.

  ‘Help me—’ He had to bite it off abruptly as his stomach took advantage of the opening, and a column of vom shot halfway into his mouth. He swallowed, and forced it down, and screamed again with words that bounced back off the dead, flat tiles. And he kept screaming through his tears until someone came.

  ‘Help me! Help me!’

  Chapter 6

  Sean’s breath condensed in the air. It was a frosty January morning outside, and the gym hall was cold enough to double as a morgue, which was a comparison he didn’t want to make. The screws had told him and a dozen other lads, all of them in their gym kit, to stand in a line. He knew them all by sight. Sean was surprised so many had turned up. There had been nods and grunts when they all set eyes on each other – the closest any of them were going to get to something like, Hi! How are you? There was a faint air of embarrassment hanging over them.

  Time was something they all had plenty of, but Sean didn’t know anyone who would spend it here without serious persuasion. He wondered if the others had been through anything like he had to motivate them.

  With Sergeant Adams, apparently, it was being knifed into a coma. With Sean, it was seeing a friend dangle from a pipe. All his life Sean had made a conscious effort to be more like Gaz – and apparently being like Gaz could lead to that.

  No. Not going to happen.

  The dull clank of the gym door closing was followed by measured footsteps as Sergeant Adams came to stand in front of them. He was flanked by two other men, both seriously muscled. All of them wore pale green T-shirts and camo trousers, with their names marked in black on the left breast.

  The sergeant’s voice echoed around the gym. ‘First of all, well done to all of you for turning up. This was by invitation only. Some of those invited declined the offer. That’s their decision, this is yours. You’ve already made a change to who you are and what you’re about.’

  If this was just going to be a motivational chat, Sean thought, then he was going to walk.

  ‘The fact is,’ continued the sergeant, ‘that an initiative like this doesn’t work if people are forced to do it. The army is for volunteers only. Conscription’s no good. We want to work with people who want to work with us. That way, we can achieve something, and so can you.’

  Sean was getting fidgety, and he wasn’t the only one.

  ‘So if you’re ready, I will hand over to Corporals Edwards and Grant.’

  The bigger of the two corporals stepped forward. His skin was as black as the other corporal’s was pasty white. ‘My name is Corporal Grant. You can call me Corporal.’

  Sean wasn’t sure if he was trying to make a joke. Regardless, no one laughed.

  ‘For a soldier to be effective on the battlefield, he needs to be well trained and he needs to be fit. And I don’t mean being able to run a couple of miles in fancy dress for charity. If you don’t like to push yourself, then take the easy option and sod off right now. Because I promise you, you will be pushed – not simply to your limits, but beyond them. Understood?’

  No one answered.

  ‘And just so you know, if I ask a question, I expect an answer. And that answer is Yes, Corporal.’

  Sean joined in as the line of inmates chorused weakly, ‘Yes, Corporal.’

  ‘What was that meant to be?’ yelled Corporal Grant, stepping forward. ‘You need to make yourself heard!’

  Sean had seen too many war movies where the tough-as-shit drill instructor shapes an unpromising crew of cadets into killing machines, mostly by screaming at them. He had to suck his cheeks in to stop the snigger. Grant glanced sideways at him – only for half a second, but the hardness in his eye was enough to drive all the smirks right out of Sean’s system.

  ‘Again!’ the corporal ordered.

  The line tried again, and this time Grant seemed a little more satisfied.

  ‘Better. Now, in a line, start jogging round the edge of the gym. And if any of you cuts a corner, you get ten push-ups. Move!’

  Twenty minutes in and Sean was screwed. His legs were barely able to keep him upright, and his lungs felt close to being coughed up in a spew of blood and vomit.

  ‘Keep going!’ Corporal Edwards barked as Sean and the others switched from another dash down the hall, back to pushing themselves through a series of burpees – dropping from a standing position to the floor in a crouch, to spring out into a press-up, then back up again. ‘Pain is weakness leaving the body, that’s all! Do not give up! Do not quit!’

  Sean felt dizzy as he staggered to the assigned spot for the next round of burpees. They were a killer. With every rep, his body seemed to get heavier and heavier, with more and more effort needed to get himself back to standing again. Down the line he saw one lad drop onto his face. Corporal Edwa
rds was immediately next to him, yelling at him not to give up, to keep going. The lad dragged himself up, made to walk out, but the corporal followed him. Just as Sean expected to see the lad disappear through the gym doors, he turned and was back in line.

  Sean focused on his own movements. Every muscle was a line of fire, running into joints which felt like they had molten lead pouring into them. He’d been chased by the police, he had run from other gangs, he had been in fights – he had even jumped a three-metre gap between roofs and hit the wall opposite – but this was way beyond all that.

  So why didn’t he stop? No one was making him do this. He could just walk out . . .

  . . . and go back to a life of staring at walls, just waiting to return to the outside world . . . and end up like Gaz. Something was keeping him here, forcing him to push through the agony and ignore the alarms sounding in his mind to just stop.

  A whistle blew.

  ‘Right, girls, grab yourself a drink, have a breather. Well done.’

  Twelve lads slumped by the wall, chests heaving, hair plastered, clothes soaked with sweat. Sean clutched his water bottle, but suddenly found he didn’t have the strength to lift it to his mouth. He let it drop back on the floor. He would try again in a moment.

  ‘Jesus.’ The lad next to him forced the words out between gulps for air. Sean couldn’t turn to look at him; his head just sort of flopped round on his shoulders. The lad’s face was split with a huge grin. ‘I feel . . . I feel like . . . like I just had the best . . . shag . . . ever.’

  ‘You . . . you’re . . .’ Sean had to take even bigger breaths just to get a sentence out. ‘You’re definitely doing it wrong, then.’

  They collapsed in helpless sniggers which they didn’t have the strength to stop. Then the whistle blew again.

  The rest of the session raced by in a blur of sweat, pain and exhaustion. Back in his cell, it was all Sean could do to stop himself spinning down to unconsciousness on the floor. He managed to make it to his bed, limbs aching and shaking. He lay down. Passed out.

  ‘No. Fucking. Way. You’re joking.’

  Sean was sitting with Copper over dinner and the conversation wasn’t going well.

  ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’m proper serious.’

  Copper stopped eating, chucked his cutlery down on his tray. The knife landed in a puddle of congealing gravy. He didn’t seem to care. ‘You can’t be,’ he said. ‘You hear me?’

  ‘Well, I am,’ Sean replied.

  Copper shook his head, pointed a thick finger at him. ‘Nah, you’re not listening to me, Seany. You can’t be serious. It’s a statement, right? It’s me telling you. So you’d better listen.’

  Sean stopped eating, eased himself back on his seat, just far enough to be out of Copper’s range. He didn’t like the dark look in those eyes. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you,’ he said. ‘It’s my life and my decision.’

  Copper lowered his pointing finger, but not his stare. ‘So you want to join the army.’

  ‘Didn’t say I wanted to. Just said I was thinking of it.’

  It had just been there, in his head, when he woke up. He had opened his eyes and looked at the grey wall of the cell, and then there was an explosion in his brain.

  It doesn’t have to be like this.

  He had a way out, if he wanted to take it. It was like all the physical punishment in the gym had torn something open inside him. He was thinking thoughts he would never have dared think before.

  ‘Because what? You think that’ll solve all your problems? Is that it?’

  ‘It’d beat ending up back in here,’ Sean said. ‘And if I go back to what we both know, then that’s what’d happen. I could do it. I could do it easy. I’ve got my community service after this. I can do my entrance tests while I’m doing that, then go in as soon as all this shit is over. It’s a no-brainer.’

  Copper laughed. It was not a sound Sean enjoyed. It had teeth and claws.

  ‘The only no-brainer here is you, you pussy. Where’s your loyalty? What about everyone else? Your friends? Think this is what Gaz would want?’

  Bringing Gaz into it made Sean want to plant one right in the middle of Copper’s large, angry face.

  Gaz wanted to be dead. That’s what Gaz wanted.

  ‘And what about Matt? Look. Three weeks’ time, I’m out of this place. You want me to go back to Matt and tell him this? You’ll break that guy’s heart, all he’s done for you!’

  ‘Didn’t say I was going to,’ Sean repeated, forcing himself to be calm. ‘Just said I was thinking of it. Can’t a guy think? And anyway, my friends is my friends, always will be. It’s not like I’d turn snitch or anything like that. Give me some credit, bro.’ He pulled his sleeve up to show his Guyz tattoo. Just like Adams had shown him his. ‘I’ve got this and always will have.’

  ‘Seany,’ said Copper. ‘Mate. Dude.’ He took a breath. ‘Bro. You join up, you’re out – you know that, right?’

  Sean stared. ‘Why?’

  Copper leaned forward to rest his arms on the table. ‘You only get one family in life and it’s the one you’re born with. Us. Me. Matt. Against the foreigners.’

  Sean looked blankly at him. ‘What foreigners?’

  ‘Oh, fer Chrissake. Haven’t you noticed? There’s foreigners moving in, Seany! Used to be you could walk one end of Littern Mills to the other and only see familiar faces. Now you can’t step outside your flat. New people, taking over. Like that lot.’

  He nodded over at the crowd of East Europeans who hung together in one corner of the canteen. Sean hadn’t mixed much with them, but he respected them. They showed up at every class that Burnleigh offered and would be leaving here considerably better educated than him.

  Sean shrugged. ‘Everyone’s new somewhere, once. Shit, my mum works in Lakhani’s shop. He came here when he was a kid but he’s lived here all his life. So, you calling him a foreigner?’

  ‘Missing the point, Seany. Missing the point.’ Copper gave a big theatrical sigh and a shake of the head. ‘And speaking of your mum, what about her, then?’

  Sean’s eyes narrowed. ‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘If you’re out, who will look out for her?’

  ‘I will, you bastard. Me. Her son.’

  Copper shook his head. ‘I’m just telling you how it is, Seany. If you’re not around, if you’re not in with the rest of us – she’ll be on her own, right?’

  Sean gripped the table to stop himself jumping across it. ‘I’ll keep her right,’ he said. ‘And if anyone lays a hand on her . . .’

  Copper stood up. ‘You won’t be able to stop them, will you, Seany, if you’re off playing soldiers? And if you’re not rolling with us . . . I’m not sure we’ll be able to stop them either.’

  ‘Right!’ Sergeant Adams’s voice echoed in the gym. He thumped one fist into the other. ‘This is a controlled aggression exercise.’

  The lads were sitting on benches set in a square the size of a boxing ring. Sean was standing in one corner, his gut twisting itself into knots, focusing on not being sick. In the opposite corner stood Copper.

  It had been two weeks, and Sean didn’t know if he was more surprised that he was still in the cadets, or that he was still alive. The fitness training was brutal, with the sergeant and the two corporals pushing him and the others beyond what any of them thought possible. Word was spreading. A few other lads had accepted Adams’s invitation to join in – and Copper was one of them.

  ‘The fuck?’ That had been Sean’s involuntary reaction when he saw Copper’s bulk straining against his gym kit, standing in line with the rest of them. He had mostly succeeded in avoiding Copper since their argument in the canteen, and with only a week to go before Copper’s sentence was up, Sean had been hoping he could make it all the way through without any more encounters.

  Copper had winked. ‘Someone’s got to keep an eye on you, Seany.’

  Now Copper was smiling. It didn’t make Sean feel any b
etter about what was about to go down. They were both wearing boxing gloves. Sean was surprised by just how heavy they were. They seemed to drag his hands towards the ground.

  Adams continued to brief them.

  ‘As soldiers, you need to be able to manage your ability to draw on something that most people cannot comprehend – to switch from calm to mental in a beat.’

  Sean noticed Copper’s grin get even wider. Fuck, he thought, the big bastard is going to kill me . . .

  ‘You have a minute in the ring with your opponent. It is not a question of winning or losing. Instead, this is about not quitting. You get knocked down, you get back up and pile in. You get smashed on the nose, you retaliate, harder. Best defence is attack. You will be nervous. You will get hurt. But it’s just sixty seconds. Get in there and fight. That’s all there is to it.’

  Sean took a slow, deep breath. The sergeant’s pep talk had done nothing to make him feel any better.

  ‘Ready?’ Adams asked.

  Sean nodded. Copper nodded. Of the two of them, only Copper was smiling. The sergeant bumped his fists gently together as a sign. Sean held out his gloves; Copper knocked his own gloves against them. Technically it was the same as shaking hands, but the gleam in Copper’s eye was still there.

  ‘When I give the word, you fight,’ said Adams. ‘Fists only. No biting, kicking, head-butting; if your man goes down, you let him get up again. Keep it clean, above the belt. And just keep going.’

  He stepped back. ‘Fight!’

  Copper was into him like a freight train, and Sean was barely able to get his hands up in time to block the attack. He fell back, dodging as best he could, arms in front of his face for protection. Copper was relentless. Sean knew the rest of the lads were cheering them both on, but he couldn’t hear them. The only sound he was aware of was thud-thud-thud, Copper’s fists pummelling into his arms. He had to do something, but what? He’d been in fights, but most times it was little more than a quick exchange of blows, then a lot of running away. Here, there was no escape.

  Copper kept going, his fists arcing in left and right, left and right, always aiming for the face, giving Sean no opportunity to drop his guard. And that was how Sean saw his chance. There was no variety to Copper’s attack. It was just all in, no change of target or punch. No jabs, no crosses, just bang-bang-bang.