The Perfect Soldier

by Hurley, Graham

  He looked up at her. His eyes were bloodshot.

  ‘On Armistice Day,’ he said numbly. ‘Can you believe that?’

  She shook her head, confused now. The Armistice Day service started in the parish church at 10.45. As chairman of the local Poppy Appeal fund, Giles would be reading the lesson. He’d done it last year, too. Beautifully.

  ‘My love …’ She held him while he blew his nose. She could feel him shaking through the thin silk of the dressing gown. ‘What is it?’

  She tried to ease his head round, coax an answer, but he stood up and pushed the chair away from the table, walking across the kitchen, reaching blindly for the kettle. He held it under the tap but it was full already. She watched him for a moment then perched herself on the edge of the table, mopping the sweat from her face with a towel from the back of the chair. Giles was still holding the kettle, staring at the condensation on the window.

  ‘Someone phoned,’ he said at last.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Someone from the aid people.’

  For the first time, she began to understand.

  ‘You mean James’s people? Terra Sancta?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘About James?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She was back on her feet now, the towel knotting in her hands.

  ‘And what did they say? Why did they phone?’

  He shook his head, unable to answer, and she crossed the kitchen, taking the kettle away from him, turning him round, making him face her.

  ‘Giles, tell me. What did they say? Has he had an accident?’ He nodded, head down. ‘And has he been hurt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it worse than that? Worse than hurt?’

  He lifted his head and stared at her for a long time. Then he began to shake again, the tears pouring down his face, all control gone. She held him tightly, sensing the worst already, thinking unaccountably of the puddle and the skidding shards of ice. The answer to her question, when it came, barely registered.

  ‘He’s dead,’ he whispered. ‘They told me James is dead.’

  *

  At Giles’s insistence, they still went to the Armistice Day service. St Michael’s, Thorpe-le-Soken, lies in the middle of the village, a sturdy brick-and-flint parish church surrounded by ivy-encrusted gravestones.

  Molly and Giles were amongst the last to arrive. Inside, the church was full. Two seats were waiting for them in a pew near the front. Molly followed her husband up the blue-carpeted aisle, acknowledging the nods, and smiles, and odd whispered greetings. They knew these people. They’d lived amongst them most of their lives. Yet, in a way she didn’t understand, they’d already become strangers, faces from a life to which she felt she no longer belonged.

  She knelt quietly beside her husband, aware of him sitting stiffly on the wooden pew. When she looked up at him, reaching for his hand, he barely acknowledged her. His face had become a mask, taut, emotionless, drained of all colour, and when the time came for him to mount the steps to the lectern and read the lesson, she barely recognised the voice, how thin it had become, and how uncertain.

  ‘To everything there is a season …’ he read, ‘a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.’

  She let the phrases roll over her, utterly meaningless, utterly irrelevant. Their little craft had capsized, she knew it, and what mattered now was to cling on to the memories that would keep them both afloat. James as a child, the way he’d totter from one room to the next, always on the move, pushing the little wheeled cart his granny had given him. James paddling in the sea, that first year they’d taken the beach hut at Frinton, Giles in his straw hat and sandals squatting beside him, explaining how to skim stones. And James years later, tall, handsome, noisy, appearing at the door one glorious July morning, his arm around a girl called Charlie. Charlie was extremely pretty. She had green nail varnish and a nose stud. James had announced they were off to Morocco.

  ‘… a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.’

  Giles finished the lesson, paused a moment, then turned towards the altar and bowed his head before returning to the pew. Molly watched him, her vision a blur. The steps to the altar were flanked by the old men from the British Legion with their medals and their berets and their drooping flags. They stood erect, true believers, waiting for the bell to toll eleven o’clock. Giles had arranged for a bugler, a local boy, to sound the Last Post, and when the time came the youth stepped forward and lifted the bugle to his lips, signalling the end of the two minutes’ silence. As he did so, Molly felt a movement beside her. Giles fumbled for a handkerchief, doing his best to confect a heavy cold. Then he stepped out of the pew and hurried away towards the door at the back of the church. Molly listened to his footsteps on the flagstones, the hollow clang of the heavy iron latch, and as the last notes died in the big old church she closed her eyes, and bowed her head, utterly certain of what she must do. One of them, at least, must hang together, stay strong. It was the very least they owed their son.

  Outside, the service over, Molly picked her way through the departing congregation, moving from group to group, exchanging greetings, kissing cheeks, explaining that Giles had a stomach upset, giving not the slightest indication that anything else might be wrong. Soon enough, she knew, she’d have to share the news about James. Then there’d be people at her door, voices on the phone, letters on the mat, a swamp of consolation. But for now, she didn’t want any of that. She wanted time. She wanted privacy. Today, for just a few brief hours, James belonged to no one else but her.

  She walked home alone, refusing the offer of a lift. In the lane outside the cottage a car was parked, a battered Ford Escort. Curious, she peered inside. Open on the back seat was a road atlas and a scribbled set of instructions. Strangers, she thought. Up from London.

  She let herself into the cottage. A man and a woman were sitting at the kitchen table. They each had a cup of coffee and the woman was reading the back page of the Sunday Telegraph. As soon as they saw her, they both stood up.

  Molly looked blank.

  ‘Can I help you …?’ she began.

  The man stepped forward. He was young, mid-twenties, with a round, pink face and a tiny pair of thick pebble glasses. Under the Berghaus anorak she could see a hand-knitted sweater and a denim shirt, open at the neck.

  ‘Your husband let us in …’ the young man was saying. ‘He’s gone upstairs.’

  ‘Is he all right?’

  The couple exchanged glances. The girl was a year or two younger than her companion. She had medium-length blonde hair and a warm smile. She held out her hand.

  ‘My name’s Liz,’ she said, ‘and this is Robbie. He works for Terra Sancta.’

  Robbie nodded, offering his own handshake.

  ‘I’ve come to say how sorry we are. If there’s anything—’ He broke off, glancing towards the open door that led to the stairs. ‘I think your husband’s in a bit of a state. Understandably, of course. Maybe you want to …’

  Molly found herself shaking her head.

  ‘No,’ she said, beginning to unbutton her coat, inviting them both to sit down again. They did so, the girl eyeing the pile of discarded running gear beside the Aga.

  ‘Who does the jogging?’ she said brightly.

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Really …?’ She lapsed back into silence, pursuing the thought no further. Robbie cleared his throat, visibly uncomfortable.

  ‘We drove down as soon as we heard,’ he said at last. ‘Mrs Jordan, it’s awful news. I can’t …’ He made a circling gesture with his hands. ‘It’s just …’

  Molly was at the Aga now, testing the temperature of the kettle, marvelling at her own composure.

  ‘You know what happened?’ she said.

  ‘No, not really, not the details.’

  ‘But you can tell me something, surely …
’ She turned round. ‘People don’t just die.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Then …’ she paused, concentrating on pouring the hot water over the coffee grounds, ‘tell me whatever you know.’

  The girl looked at Robbie. Robbie shifted in his seat. Molly joined them at the table.

  ‘Africa’s full of mines,’ he said at last. ‘You probably knew that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Molly nodded, ‘James mentioned them. In his letters.’

  ‘Yes, well …’ Robbie frowned, ‘it seems he stood on one.’

  ‘And it killed him?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid it did.’

  Molly lifted the cup to her lips, saying nothing. Somehow she’d assumed that James had died in some kind of road accident. God knows, it might even have been his fault. He’d always driven like a maniac. But this was very different. Getting killed by a mine was an act of someone else’s violence. She studied Robbie over the rim of the cup.

  ‘So was he killed outright?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Did it kill him at once? This mine? Bang? Just like that? Or did he … did it … take longer?’

  ‘I’m …’ Robbie hesitated. ‘Mrs Jordan, in all honesty I can’t say.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I don’t know. Communications with Angola aren’t all they could be. So far we’ve just got the bare bones.’ He bit his lip at once, colouring at the phrase. Molly barely noticed.

  ‘This mine … where did it come from? Who …’ she shrugged, ‘left it there in the first place?’

  ‘Again, I’m sorry, I don’t know.’

  ‘But you will, you will know, someone’ll tell you, surely.’

  ‘Yes, oh yes.’ Robbie was nodding now, vigorous, positive. ‘And as soon as I hear anything, I’ll be back, I promise. In the meantime, we just came to say … you know …’

  Molly sipped at the coffee, her eyes not leaving his face.

  ‘Tell me what you do,’ she said, ‘in this organisation of yours.’

  ‘I’m the press officer. I deal with the media.’

  ‘And Liz?’

  ‘She’s my partner. We live together.’

  ‘And does she work for Terra Sancta too?’

  ‘No, but she thought, under the circumstances—’ He broke off, uncomfortable again.

  ‘Moral support?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Molly looked at Liz. Liz wore the smile of someone who didn’t quite know what was coming next. Molly extended a hand, touching her lightly on the arm.

  ‘I’m very grateful,’ she said, ‘to both of you.’ She looked at Robbie again. ‘I’ll need your help. I’m glad you came.’

  ‘Of course, Mrs Jordan. Anything.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Molly stood up and went to the window. The frost had gone now, and the chickens were patrolling the edge of the lawn, looking for scraps. Beyond the fence, in the field, she could see the four sheep they’d reared from lambs. She thought of her son again, his two years at agricultural college, his impatience to get out into what he called the real world. Desk work had always bored him, too dull, not enough action. She reached for the tap, sluicing her mug.

  ‘Muengo, wasn’t it? The place James worked?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know it at all?’

  ‘Yes. I was out in March.’

  ‘Good,’ she glanced round at him, ‘then maybe you can tell me how I get there …’

  The hear bubbled up from the baked red earth and Andy McFaul eased down on his hands and knees, reaching for the thermos of iced water. His left leg was cramping again, up above the knee, same place as before. Nearly time to stop, he thought. Nearly time for Domingos to take over.

  He lifted the visor on the big ballistic helmet, sipping the water, then wiped his mouth and glanced back over his shoulder. An avenue of red-tipped stakes marked the extent of his morning’s work: ten more metres of this shit-hole cleared of mines, another tiny patch of Angola painstakingly made safe. The mines he’d found and defused lay where he’d dug them out, an irregular row of dark green hockey pucks, no bigger than a man’s fist, upended in the dust. Thirteen down, he thought grimly. Twenty million to go.

  Up on the road, safely out of blast range, the Angolan reached for a pair of binoculars and McFaul lifted a tired arm, circling one finger in the air, a private signal which meant he was nearly through. Four more minutes, he thought. Then it’ll be Domingos’s turn.

  He sat back for a moment or two on his haunches, rubbing his leg, feeling the cramp beginning to ease. They’d been working this site for five days now, opening another path to the river bank. If the rumours of a big new UNITA offensive were true then the aid organisations would pull everyone out of Muengo, and if that happened then the locals would be on their own again. Little food, no fuel to cook with, and an ever-greater reliance on the loop of sluggish brown water that girdled the city to the north. With luck, the demining teams could make it in time. Especially if UNITA held off.

  McFaul lowered the visor again and stretched for the bucket by his side, splashing more water to soften the parched earth. Summer had come early this year, a succession of cloudless days that had taken the temperature into the high eighties. With power supplies non-existent, and fuel for the generator scarce, even life after dark had become a series of impossible challenges: how to stay cool, how to stay sane, how to relax and take your mind off the world’s worst job.

  McFaul shrugged, and began to probe the darkened earth, back on his belly again, reaching forward, sliding the bayonet into the soil, inserting it obliquely, maintaining an angle of between fifteen and thirty degrees. Survival at this game meant sticking to a handful of rules: not hurrying, not cutting corners, learning to trust the simplest of technologies. While the mines got smarter by the year – non-metal construction, clever camouflage, sophisticated anti-disturbance devices – the guys who were left to clear them up had to rely on eighteen inches of bare metal and their own powers of concentration. To anyone watching, McFaul knew he must look weird, shuffling slowly forward on his hands and knees, testing every inch of soil with the bayonet, in out, in out, time after time. If there was such a thing as Zen gardening, then this was surely it.

  McFaul emptied the last of the water from the bucket, eyeing the patch of dampened earth. On top of his overalls, he wore a heavy black waistcoat, specially woven body-armour, and he could feel the sweat running down his chest towards his belly. The waistcoats were compulsory now, standard kit in the minefields. Some of the guys called them ‘LCV’s, a glum, fingers-crossed acronym for ‘Last Chance Vests’, and after Kuwait, McFaul knew why.

  He felt the bayonet snag, the faintest tremor, and he eased the blade out, readjusting his position before inserting it again, the same line. Keeping the bayonet at a shallow angle meant that when you found a mine you were likely to make contact with the side of the thing, away from the sensitive pressure pad on top. The pressure pad was the bit you stood on. Even the weight of a child’s foot would be enough to set it off.

  McFaul began to work the soil away, using a soft, camel-hair paintbrush, tiny circular movements, gradually exposing the mine. It was the same kind as the others he’d disinterred, a Chinese Type 72A, a tiny thing, no bigger than a tin of shoe polish. Inside, it contained six ounces of high explosive, not the biggest bang in the world but quite enough to take your foot off. Mines like the 72A were perfect for a war like this, and a bargain too if you had three dollars to spare and weren’t too fussy about the ethics of maiming women and children.

  McFaul scraped away the last of the soil, lifting the mine gently from its bed. Keeping it level, he began to unscrew the top of the body, working the casing anticlockwise. Inside, he removed the tiny metal booster cup, the primary charge which detonated the larger explosive. Putting the booster cup to one side, he screwed the two halves together again, leaving the mine standing sideways on edge, a signal to the clean-up crew that the 72A was disarmed. Later,
before the kids got hold of it, the thing would be collected for storage and eventual demolition.

  McFaul eased his body backwards and then stood up, his eyes still on the mine. The design was simple but clever. The rubber pad on top rested against a convex carbon-fibre diaphragm which would buckle under the pressure of a passing foot. In Cambodia, the locals called them ‘ungkiaps’. ‘Ungkiap’ meant frog, a reference to the distinctive ‘crick-crack’ of the collapsing diaphragm the instant before it detonated the charge and changed your life for ever.

  McFaul stooped to retrieve the bucket and the thermos and then limped back along the safe lane between the stakes. Up on the road, Domingos was standing beside a Land Rover, talking to the driver. The usual crowd of kids had gathered round and some were already climbing onto the back of the vehicle, doubtless looking for goodies, stuff to play with, things to nick. As he got closer, McFaul could hear them chattering to each other, curiosity spiced with shrieks of excitement. He loved their innocence, their appetite for each new day, and their laughter was one of the sounds of Africa that drew him back, time after time, in spite of everything.

  Domingos turned round when McFaul reached the Land Rover. He was a small, quick-witted man in his early thirties with a ready smile and a mouth full of broken teeth. He was paler than most Angolans, and McFaul suspected Portuguese blood, a generation or two back. Now he introduced the stranger behind the wheel.

  ‘Senhor Peterson,’ he said. ‘From Luanda.’

  McFaul muttered a greeting, loosening the buckle on the helmet strap and taking it off. He ran a hand through his greying crew cut, aware of Peterson’s eyes on his face. McFaul’s chin and cheeks were cross-hatched with blue shrapnel scars, a legacy of the accident in Kuwait. They went with the plastic and titanium prosthesis that had replaced the shredded remains of his lower left leg. The prosthesis was state-of-the-art, a real masterpiece, and on a good day McFaul could walk as naturally as any man.

  Peterson got out of the Land Rover, extending a hand. He was dressed like a war correspondent. He wore a loose khaki jacket with epaulettes and big button-up pockets, and the logo on the T-shirt underneath read ‘Kill The Criminal Justice Bill’. He was a tall man, with a long, narrow face and a shock of iron-grey hair, and he had the pallor of someone newly arrived from Europe. His manner was intimate, as if he were greeting a long-lost friend.