‘I don’t know,’ I reply.
‘Two lesbians,’ smiles Harry. Back to the toe jam.
‘I THINK I’ve got piles,’ says Rogers, arising from the mound of newspapers that litters the floor beside his stretcher.
‘Poofters get piles,’ says Bung.
‘How?’ asks Rogers.
I am amazed at his innocence. How can a man whose life is centred on death be so innocent?
We are the arbiters. We are more powerful than God. We decide. Like clockwork in school: Check magazine. Sight, pull trigger. Head explodes. One more to the score for the Regiment’s honour. Remember the German kids at school? What’s the point? Two months to go.
‘Because they root each other,’ says Bung, his words punctuated by the snap as the metal top on the bourbon bottle separates.
THE land rover bounces along the road like a green-painted, four-wheel ball.
Harry’s face is supported by his cigarette.
‘Shit, look! A nog on a bike,’ yells Rogers excitedly, waving his arms.
‘Where? Where?’ asks Bung, standing up and swaying against the roll of the vehicle.
‘Up in front,’ says Harry, lifting his foot slightly and easing the pressure on the metal accelerator.
Rogers takes a matchbox from his shirt pocket and climbs over the low wall that separates the driving compartment from the tray of the vehicle.
‘Wait until we’re about two feet from him,’ says Harry as the land rover draws closer to the hunched, pedalling figure with the two containers balancing on the long pole that bounces with every depression of the rider’s feet on the pedals. We draw up alongside the cyclist.
‘Now,’ says Harry. Rogers lobs the burning match container into the rear container which immediately bursts into flame. At the same time, Bung leans far out over the side of the vehicle and swings his rifle, knocking the pole and sending the cyclist spinning down the embankment at the side of the road into the mud that waits like discoloured porridge. Harry stops the land rover and we peer at the mud-caked figure lying in the black slime.
‘Flamer,’ yells Rogers, grinning.
‘Ho Chi Minh’s a cunt,’ calls Bung to the dismantled figure.
We drive on knowing full well that we have just struck another blow for the cause of world communism…
Who cares?
THE frail, grey-haired, anyone-at-home’s-mother-could-look-like-her figure pounds fists into Harry’s shirt front, raising small puffs of dust.
The search and clear mission is now two days old. My nose is bleeding from the heat of the afternoon sun. I lean on the muzzle of my rifle and watch the spectacle with impartial interest.
‘I think she wants to fuck you, Harry,’ laughs Rogers, spitting and licking his lips at the same time.
Harry raises a restraining, severe, don’t-come-any-closer hand and pushes the old woman back toward the open-fronted shack that has served as her home for the past sixty years.
I jerk my rifle up and cradle it in the crook of my arm swinging the grey-blue steel finger of the barrel into line with the sobbing, screaming, ragged woman.
The old woman’s eyes meet mine as she falls onto her knees and shakes her head. I walk toward her. The split flash hider of my rifle touches the woman’s chin.
‘Inside. Now!’ I snarl.
‘She thinks you’re going to shoot her,’ says Harry, looking as if he believes that I will.
‘Get up. Move!’ I am annoyed by her very existence.
Harry drags her to her feet.
‘Inside. Get inside, fuck you!’
The old woman staggers a few feet and collapses again on her knees in the dirt.
‘What’s her trouble?’ asks a passing engineer.
Harry points to the green, bullet-disembowelled figure that lies at the front of the shack, the blood patch spreading in the red dust of the road.
‘That,’ says Harry, nodding his head at the corpse, ‘came out shooting. There were three of them.’
‘Where are the other two?’ asks the engineer picking his nose.
‘Further up the road. Your mob’s got them now,’ Rogers grins, joining the group.
‘Prisoners?’ asks the engineer.
Harry nods.
‘Why the performance then?’
‘We think it’s her son,’ Rogers answers.
Remember.
‘RANGE practice? They must be kidding,’ moans Harry, peering at the notice board.
‘As if a bloke doesn’t get enough fucking bangs in his ears as it is,’ says Bung, scratching his behind and sneering at the green-painted masonite sheet that serves as the unit information centre.
‘It won’t hurt you.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re the worst fucking shot in the unit.’
‘My arse I am.’
‘Bloody waste of time. Just another excuse to make a man clean his rifle.’
We walk back along the road towards the tents.
Harry throws a rock at the cookhouse roof.
‘Why are the soldiers going to war, Grandpa?’
‘Because they’re too bloody stupid to do anything else, son.’
I’m nearly twenty, I think.
HARRY and Rogers are discussing food.
‘Better than the shit we get here,’ says Rogers.
‘How can you speak of our chef’s culinary prowess in that tone?’
‘What chef?’
‘Cookie.’
‘Beg pardon sir,’ says Harry, turning up his nose and prising a pebble from the tread sole of his boot with a twig.
‘I like hamburgers,’ says Rogers.
‘You look as though you were raised on the floor of a milk bar,’ grins Harry.
‘No, I mean it. There’s nothing better than a hamburger.’
‘What? Two pieces of stale bread, a lump of greasy meat and a pile of limp lettuce.’
‘Sometimes you get fresh lettuce.’
‘They probably give you grass.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re an animal.’
‘You ought to talk. You should see the way you eat, and you call me an animal. Jesus!’
‘If you reckon that paradise is a hamburger cooked by some sweaty wog who’s done nothing but fart into the oven all day, then you’re an animal.’
‘Speaking of wogs,’ says Rogers, ‘I used to root a Greek bird a few years ago.’
‘So?’ says Harry.
‘She was the maddest root I’ve ever had in my life,’ says Rogers, placing special emphasis on the word ‘maddest’.
‘She was probably the only root you’ve ever had in your life,’ grins Harry.
‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ says Rogers sitting up and yawning, ‘Greek birds are one of the best bits of crotch a man can get hold of. I used to root this bird everywhere.’
‘Everywhere?’
‘Any time, any place,’ says Rogers, his face a study of fond reflection.
‘Where is she now?’ asks Harry.
‘No idea.’
‘You’ve been sitting here telling me that this Greek bird is the best invention since canned piss and you say you don’t know where she is?’
‘Well the romance ended very suddenly.’
‘Why?’ asks Harry, looking interested.
‘Her brothers sprang me one night when I was chockers outside her house, and they beat the shit out of me.’
‘That’s a good enough reason,’ shrugs Harry.
REMEMBER, fragile girl, your promises of affection and ‘Yes, I’ll write a lot,’ open-mouthed, wagging, aroused, tongue-in-my-ear devotion.
I am looking at the sores on my toes.
You bitch.
Bung is standing on my right, his shoulder jerking as the rifle in his hands spits 7.62 millimetre holes in the wooden, man-shaped figure that his foresight bisects.
‘I told you you were the worst bloody shot in the unit,’ says Harry as his left hand hooks a fresh magazine under his weap
on. ‘Watch this, me dears.’
Harry brings the rifle to his shoulder and, sighting quickly, sends a round into the thin wooden plank that supports his target.
‘One more.’
CRACK.
Harry’s second shot splinters the already weakened support and the target spins sideways into the dirt.
As one man, Rogers, Bung and I raise our weapons and within five seconds every target on the range lies flattened, the wooden supports standing like ruffled-haired, tottering drunks beside them.
Bung, still not content with having destroyed the day’s range practice, swings his rifle to the left, and sends a round from the hip into the four-gallon metal water drum at the side of the range.
The drum leaps into the air and slams into the sandbags that line the range wall.
‘Drinks for my friends,’ grins Bung, removing the magazine from his rifle.
Predictably, we are soon joined by an enraged range supervisor.
‘Weel,’ screams the corporal with arms waving, ‘what smart prick did that?’ He points to the smashed and dripping water drum.
‘Fucked if I know, mate,’ answers Rogers, wiping the dust cover of his rifle with his sweat rag.
‘Must have been a ricochet,’ says Bung, looking innocently at the furious NCO.
‘And I suppose it was a fucking ricochet that did that, too,’ says the corporal, now pointing to the smashed targets, his hands shaking.
‘Don’t know, mate,’ says Harry, turning his back on the corporal and walking from the firing mound to where our fighting belts lie in the dirt.
‘Don’t you, don’t you fucking “mate” me, soldier,’ snarls the corporal, almost running to where Harry is bending over, packing his magazines into the faded green webbing pouch.
‘You’re on a charge, soldier,’ screams the corporal, his face now white with rage.
‘What charge?’ asks Harry, standing and turning to face the corporal.
‘Wilful destruction of Army property.’
‘Oh,’ says Harry, his face expressionless.
‘And that goes for you three smart bastards too,’ he says, turning and facing Rogers, Bung and myself.
‘What unit are you from?’
‘Artillery,’ answers Bung.
‘OK, let’s have your names,’ says the corporal pulling a spotless field note pad from his shirt pocket.
Bung rattles off a string of the most improbable names that I have ever heard. Rogers starts to laugh.
‘What’s so funny, pal?’ asks the corporal, staring at Rogers.
‘Nothing, corporal, just something I read yesterday.’
Bloody liar.
‘OK, laughing boy, you can take notice now that I’m going to throw the book at you four, OK?’
‘Yes, corporal,’ answers Rogers hoisting his rifle onto his shoulder and holding it by the barrel.
‘Now piss off.’
‘Yes, corporal.’
We trudge down the road towards our lines.
‘What name did you give me again?’ asks Harry.
‘Oakover,’ answers Bung.
‘Any such bloke?’
‘Yeah, it’s the Task Force 2 IC’s name,’ answers Bung from behind the cigarette that hangs from his lower lip, his face a study of immobility.
‘Oh Jesus,’ laughs Harry. Rogers and I grin at one another.
‘Who said crime doesn’t pay?’
ROGERS lies in the red dirt. The remains of his lips are flecked with blood and saliva. Now and again a red-coloured bubble forms, grows and then bursts on the hole that less than five minutes ago was the side of his face. Harry is taking a morphine tube from his medical roll.
‘Just hang on now pal,’ says a medic, wrapping burn dressings around the red stumps that were formerly Rogers’ feet.
‘Dustoff’s on the way,’ calls the signaller.
The medic screws up his face, looks at me and shakes his head.
‘No?’
‘Not a hope. Shock’ll kill him before they get him on the table.’
‘Pig’s arse,’ says Harry inserting the needle at the end of the saline tube into Rogers’ arm.
‘I’ll be surprised if he does make it,’ says the medic, wrapping gauze around the quickly reddening dressings.
Rogers coughs. A clot of blood jerks from his mouth and balances on his torn bottom lip.
‘Jaw’s broken too,’ says the medic. ‘See if you can stop his face bleeding.’
Harry probes the huge gash in Rogers’ face, looking for veins, and spreads his hand, stopping the flow from the torn blood vessels with finger pressure. The disarranged red teeth grin stupidly from beneath his hand.
Rogers has his eyes glued to Harry’s face.
‘No more tap dancing for you, mate,’ says Harry as Bung eases a shell dressing under Rogers’ head, tying the long strips of gauze together on the uninjured side of our comrade’s face.
The green helicopter descends, bumps up from the ground and sits flatly on its skids. The red cross under the Perspex windshield reminds me of a band-aid on the nose of a drunk.
‘How bad?’ yells one of the chopper medics, running towards us.
‘Fucking awful,’ answers the medic, still wrapping gauze around Rogers’ legs.
‘What happened?’
‘Mine.’
The spinning rotor blades send clouds of dust into the already filthy group that occupies a few square feet of this shot to pieces country.
‘What’s gone?’
‘Both feet and cheekbone. Smashed jaw, too.’
The stretcher party arrives and gently rolls Rogers’ broken-at-both-ends body onto the green canvas.
‘Keep his legs elevated. He’s losing blood like hell.’
Rogers gurgles, then vomits.
‘See you mate,’ says Bung, running beside the stretcher to the chopper, not realising he is talking to an unconscious man. Rogers’ eyes are closed.
The stretcher slides into the chopper’s belly. The green shape lifts from the ground, hovers for a minute, then swings its tail in a one-hundred-and-eighty degree arc, and disappears towards the operating theatre, twenty or more miles away.
BUNG, Harry and myself sit in the side cubicle just inside the door of the bar and watch the slim backs of the two bar girls seated on the cane stools.
‘Morning shift,’ says Harry, his finger pushing the ice cube that bobs in his whisky around the edge of the glass.
‘What?’ says Bung, his eyes closed.
‘Morning shift.’
‘What?’
‘Forget it.’
One of the girls slides from her stool and stands facing us.
‘You buy my friend and I drink?’ she asks, coming over and sitting down beside Harry, her oval face smiling.
‘Why not?’ says Bung, opening his eyes and sitting up, his every nerve now alive at the prospect of female company.
‘Bring your friend over.’
The other girl drops one foot from the rung at the base of the stool and slides the other foot down to join it on the floor. I look, close my eyes and look again in disbelief as she turns towards us.
‘She’s white,’ says Bung from two thousand miles away.
‘Half French, half Chinese,’ she says, sitting down beside me and reaching for the packet of cigarettes on the table. Bung and I fumble in our pockets for our lighters, each trying to light her cigarette before the other.
‘Where from?’ asks Bung, leaning forward, almost climbing over me.
‘Saigon,’ answers the most beautiful girl in the world.
‘My father he soldier. French.’
I slide an arm around her waist. She takes my hand and returns it to its former position on the table.
‘You are very beautiful,’ says Bung, desperately searching for an eloquence of praise that none of us possesses.
‘Thank you.’
‘Like a drink?’ I ask.
‘Too early,’ she replies.
‘
What? No Saigon tea?’ Bung asks in amazement, still trying to climb over my head.
‘You can buy me coke.’
Bung and I dive our hands into our shirt pockets, our fingers groping frantically for the rolls of paper money that lie there. Our hands hit the table as one.
Bung and I look at one another. Remember the ‘You bastard’ look on Bung’s face.
‘I get drinks,’ says the girl, standing and smoothing the front of her baggy white trousers. ‘You like whisky?’
‘Yeah! Doubles please,’ answers Bung.
Harry, wearing one of the most astonished looks I have ever seen hold a face together, turns his eyes from the neck of the girl seated beside him and stares at Bung.
‘What did you say?’ asks Harry.
‘When?’ asks Bung, his eyes fixed on the wiggling ‘You can’t afford me; officers only’ arse, that snaps tauntingly by as she walks to the bar.
‘You said “please”.’
‘What?’ ignoring Harry’s gaze, his eyes now climbing through the jungles of imaginary pubic hair.
‘You said “please”. Are you bloody deaf?’
‘No,’ says Bung, looking as if he is seated with his feet up in the girl’s vagina and thumbing his nose at me.
‘I haven’t heard him say “please” since we got here,’ says Harry, now returning his eyes to the small, teenage breasts of his girl.
‘Well, who’s going to have her?’ I ask, looking straight at Bung.
‘Both of us?’ suggests Bung, drooling.
‘Not much chance of that,’ I answer.
Harry, overhearing the conversation, reaches for the cigarette packet on the table, taps out three cigarettes from it and drops his hands below the level of the table. He raises them with the three cigarettes spread like peacock’s feathers in his fingers.
‘Short one wins,’ he says, extending his arm towards me.
‘After you,’ I say, grinning at Bung.
‘OK.’
Bung draws the cigarette from between Harry’s fingers.
‘Bad luck,’ says Harry, shaking his head at Bung.
I screw my nose up and sneer triumphantly at Bung.
‘It just goes to show, you don’t have to be dead to be stiff, eh?’
The Odd Angry Shot Page 7
