Vengeance

by Donald Phillips

Chapter 6

  In the heat of Belize sergeant major Martin Jenson dismissed his class and watched them shamble off across the parade ground towards the canteen with that loose-limbed walk that is totally foreign to white Europeans. The six foot two, dark haired soldier sighed and started to put the weapon back together. He knew he was supposed to treat them as equals, but these buggers would never make professional soldiers without a white man to kick their arses now and again. Their temperament was more African than South American and in his experience, and he did have a lot of experience of the Dark Continent, that meant they would never make professional soldiers, as The West understood it. If that made him a racist, then so be it.

  Today was had been a typical example. He had picked up the weapon from the stores this morning ready for the lesson in maintenance and it was already filthy when he collected it. It was as well it was an old one just kept for training because he would have hated to rely on it in a real firefight situation. He had handed it around the class and then asked if anyone would care to comment on what was wrong with it. All he got for his trouble was ten blank stares that became ingratiating smiles as he turned to look angrily at them one by one. Becoming increasingly frustrated he had started to raise his voice when he asked the question again. Still the blank looks. Then he had then asked if they would like to take it out to the range and fire it. Ten black faces had lit up and ten smiling heads had nodded vigorously. He had pointed out to them the dirt all over the mechanism, the dirt and pitting in the barrel, the worn cocking lever and totally knackered spring, but the faces just went blank again and he gave up. Now, at the end of two hours, only three of them could actually put the thing back together again after he had taken it apart and he still hadn't managed to get them to understand why the weapon had to be kept clean.

  He sighed all alone in the empty classroom and picking up the Bren put it over his shoulder. Bloody gun was practically obsolete in these days of throw away Kalashnikovs, but he knew which he would rather have to defend a fortified position. Perhaps his trainees would take weapons care more seriously if he had allowed them to fire the thing. He doubted if it would have taken more than half a box of ammunition before it had jammed solid or blown up. He sighed again and headed for the armoury. If he got it checked in now he would have time to get over to the mess and catch the football scores on the world service and see how Liverpool had had got on against ManU. He set out across the heat and dust of the parade ground.

  Martin Jensen stood straight at six feet and had the muscles and build of a good light heavy weight boxer, plenty of strength, but not so heavy as to destroy his speed. At thirty-eight years old he still had all his black hair, cropped down almost, but not quite to a crew cut and fierce grey eyes that looked out under equally dark brows. His fitness was exemplary and his uniform he had re-tailored himself until it fitted him like a second skin. He was a man who had been born to be a soldier and in any other era, from roman up until the present time, would have looked equally at home with the weapons and uniform of the times.

  He moved with a military, but fluid movement that only people blessed with perfect coordination and innate athleticism possess and was invariably surprised when others didn't share this god given ability. He suffered fools badly and in his book a fool was someone who made no effort to learn how to do a job properly. He was born to be a Sergeant Major except for his voice. Jenson never had been heard to use a parade ground voice. He could shout with the best of them, but that wasn't his way as he felt it lacked dignity and demeaned your position. Therefore, Martin Jenson gave his orders in a reasonable, but clearly audible voice and those who knew him well carried them out to the letter and without hesitation.

  He trudged across the square in the steamy heat of Belize. When he arrived back there the armoury seemed unmanned. It angered, but did not surprise him. Once upon a time when there had been a full British regiment here you could have been the armourer's mother and you would not have even got in, let alone managed to draw a weapon without a properly signed chitty. He banged the tripod of the Bren gun on the once highly polished, but now chipped and broken wooden counter in an effort to draw attention. A black corporal appeared from behind a rack of mortars, yawning as he came. He took the gun without comment and headed for the rear of the armoury until Jenson's voice stopped him.

  “Corporal!”

  The soldier turned with a look of inquiry on his face. “Yus?”

  Jenson stared at him.

  “Yes, Sergeant Major.”

  The corporal swallowed and stiffened to attention, which was difficult in the narrow confines of the weapon racks while carrying the big Bren gun.

  “Yus, Sergeant Major.”

  Jenson sighed and relaxed. What was the use?

  “Do you think I can have my chitty back, corporal, signed by you to say I have returned that weapon, before you lose it?”

  The corporal looked offended, but he put the weapon on the floor and came back to the counter. He reached underneath and brought up a small wooden box the size of a shoebox. He took out the half a dozen chits that were in it and started to examine them, holding them close to his face. Jenson reached forward and taking them from his hand turned them up the right way. He put them back into the shoebox just retaining the one he had himself signed two odd hours ago. He held it out to the corporal.

  “Sign it.”

  The corporal laboriously signed his name and gave it back to Jenson, who studied the scrawl in front of him for some time before putting in his pocket and heading for the door, shaking his head as he went.

  “Christ” He thought. “The beggars can't even write their names so what chance have I got?” He headed for the sergeants mess.

  Although the building was still called the Sergeants Mess, in these days of reduced manpower all the non-commissioned officers now used it. When Jenson arrived there were only five people in it including the barman and the other four were playing darts. He signed for a bottle of beer and then went and turned on the short wave radio in one corner of the room and finding the BBC World Service he settled down to wait for the football results. Sergeant Jimmy Curtis rumoured to be the oldest sergeant in the British Army, left the dart players and came and sat beside him, putting another bottle of beer down on the table by his first one. Jimmy’s lived in face was creased in what he evidently thought was a conciliatory look as he pushed it across the table to Jenson. He cleared his throat nervously and then began on the speech that the lowest score with three darts had decided he should make to Martin Jenson, first pushing the fresh beer closer to the other man.

  “Have one on me.”

  He hesitated and waited for Jenson’s response. None came and the silence built. Curtis could stand it no longer.

  “Look, I know you're the top sergeant here, Martin, but don't you think it would be polite if you at least said hello to the rest of us when you come in. After all, there are only two hundred of us in the whole bloody country now and it doesn't do to fall out with your mates, you know.”

  Jenson turned to him.

  “I'm sorry, Jimmy, but sometimes I wonder what we are doing here trying to make soldiers out of these thick bastards. I really do.”

  Jimmy Curtis glanced around anxiously to the black barman, but his attention was on the other three non-commissioned officers still playing darts in the far corner.

  “You want to keep those comments to yourself, Martin. You could get the rest of us in trouble if they are heard and reported and I wouldn't want the squaddies here to think we all felt the same way about them as you do.”

  Jenson glared at him.

  “These buggers wouldn't have lasted ten bloody minutes in the Falklands and you know it. They are fucking hopeless.”

  He glared in the direction of the barman who was still watching the dart players while absent-mindedly polishing a pint mug. Curtis followed his look before he replied, softly but firmly.

  “No, I don't know it. They are a bit lazy, but so are a lot of B
ritish squaddies I know and these people do live in a country far too bloody hot to be running around snapping to attention every time one of us walks by. Also, these are conscripts and that does make a difference. You weren't in when we had conscription in our lot, but just be glad we only have volunteers now.”

  “They are bloody idle and useless. They are morons. I could have walked off with the whole bloody armoury just now.”

  Curtis gave him an old fashioned look.

  “They are also black and I think that's your problem. If you don't like them why the hell did you volunteer for this place? You would be better off at home or in Bosnia.”

  Jenson gave a strangled little laugh.

  “Better off at home? There are more of these buggers in Bristol than there are here, and you have to almost call them Sir, these days.”

  He ignored the beer Jimmy Curtis had bought him and standing up straightened his uniform blouse before walking out, football results unheard. Curtis stared after him for some minutes and then picking up the unwanted beer walked over to rejoin the dart players shaking his head at their raised eyebrows of inquiry. They all knew that Jenson’s problems were a slut of a wife and a deep-seated prejudice against anyone who wasn’t white. Belize and its black conscripts just exacerbated his natural prejudices.

  When Jenson reached his room he found a message pinned to the door saying that the C/O wanted to see him. He went inside and checked his appearance in the mirror before heading off across the square to the administration block. When he got there the orderly corporal snapped to attention and knocked on the C/O's door. A brusque voice answered immediately.

  “Yes?”

  “Sergeant Major Jenson is here, Sir.”

  The door opened and Major Harry Wallingford, the C/O’s number two stood there looking unusually pensive and nervous. He ran a hand over his thinning hair and then rubbed it across his beak of a nose and thick-lipped mouth before speaking. Jenson always made him nervous with his Calvinistic self-righteousness.

  “Ah, Sergeant Major Jenson. Please come in, please come in.”

  Jenson knew it was bad news from the way he was being treated. Wallingford was usually a mean bastard who thought being pleasant to anyone under the rank of colonel was a sign of weakness and he always used only a mans rank to address him, never his surname. He walked past the Major into the office and stood to attention in front of the desk.

  “Please sit down and relax, Jenson. This isn't a military matter.”

  Jenson perched stiffly upon the edge of the only other chair in the room while Wallingford scurried behind his desk and took his own chair. Once more in the position from which he was used to commanding he squared his shoulders and reverted to form.

  “Rather bad news I'm afraid, Sergeant Major. You have a young daughter I understand?”

  Jenson's heart went cold and the icy spasm of fear he experienced showed clearly on his face. Wallingford caught it and responded. He waved his hands in a gesture of protest.

  “Its all right, Sergeant Major, she's not dead or anything.” He stumbled on. “She's not even hurt. Well, not in the physical sense anyway.”

  He ground to a halt. Jenson stared at him for some time waiting for him to speak until he could wait no longer.

  “Don't you think you should tell me what's happened, Sir?”

  Wallingford nodded and took a deep breath.

  “I had a telephone call from Bristol Social Services about twenty minutes ago. It seems that your daughter told your wife she was going to stay with a friend, but actually went out to some dance.”

  He stared down at the desk and then said in a quiet voice.

  “It appears she has been raped.”

  Shock went through Jenson like a spear. Alison? His little girl? Raped? He realised that Wallingford was still talking to him.

  “So as you only have three weeks to go to complete your tour here before getting six weeks leave before your next posting, I have arranged for you to leave tonight on a RAF transport. It will give you three extra weeks to find out what really happened and sort things out. We can call it compassionate leave.”

  He stood up, came around the desk, and opened the door, anxious to get rid of the Sergeant Major and his non-army problems as quickly as possible.

  “The corporal has all the times and details so I will leave you with him. Good luck and I hope its all some terrible mistake.”

  Still in shock Martin Jenson limply shook the Major's proffered hand and walked out of his office and unknown to him at the time, out of the British Army.

  Annabelle Courtney-Jenson was sat at the breakfast bar in her modern, but tiny kitchen, drinking black coffee and sorting through the post she had just picked up from the front door mat. It was eight o'clock in the morning. She had been home for just ten minutes and her head was aching from a mixture of too much wine and too much noise from the all night disco she had attended the night before. Annabelle was a small, petite blonde with a page three figure, but at this moment in time she looked decidedly faded and out of focus. Removing the hated reading glasses she drained the last of the now lukewarm instant coffee from her cup and shuddered at its bitterness. She shoved the bundle of bills and junk mail on the breakfast bar away from her in exasperation and rummaged around in her purse for her cigarettes and lighter. There was no noise from upstairs and she wondered if Alison was in the house or if she had been out at a friend’s place for the evening. She knew she could no longer control her, if she ever had been able to and had given up trying. She sighed and poured some more of the black coffee into her cup and lighting her cigarette reluctantly gave some thought to her wayward child.

  The social worker had been absolutely scathing when she had come to visit her after the Metal Heaven business. She made it quite clear that not only did she expect Annabelle to know any family Alison said she was going to stay the night with, but that she was also expected to check that she had actually been invited before allowing her to leave the house. She blew her cheeks out in an expression of disgust. What did they think she was, the bloody Gestapo? She could just imagine her daughters reaction if she found her spying on her like that. She would probably move out and take all Annabelle's best clothes with her, while she, Annabelle, was slaving away in that rotten boutique. She wouldn't mind betting that the bloody Social Worker couldn't have managed to control her any better than she could.

  What the child really needed they said, was a stable family life with both parents at home. Annabelle had scoffed at that. What she needed and had always needed, was hers fathers belt across her backside, but he was always too soft to do it. God knows she had felt the weight of her father the Colonel's strap a few times as a child and it had never done her any harm. At least she hadn't been a gang banging an entire rock group while she was still at school. At this she smiled to herself. She had done her share of banging afterwards though, once she had thrown off the shackles of her girl’s only, private school education. It took her mind back to last night. Her daddy, the Colonel, would be absolutely furious if he knew she was having it off with his own adjutant. The thought gave her a secret glow and she made another effort to sort the mail out.

  She started to put them into piles, junk mail to the left and bills etc to the right. Halfway down she came across a letter addressed to her with the crest of the Royal Marines on the envelope. She wondered what they wanted now. She thought they had given up on getting her involved in the regiment's activities long ago, when it became plain that the only part of it that she had any interest in were the younger and better looking officers. She opened it and read it, her mouth dropping open in disbelief and her half smoked cigarette dropping down the front of her nightdress, causing a frantic leap to her feet to retrieve it before it ruined the material. She read it again desperately hoping she had got it wrong. It still read the same. Not only had the interfering bastards told Martin about Alison and her gangbang, but they had given him compassionate leave as well. He would be here within twenty-four h
ours, God, how she hated the bloody army.

  It was her own fault. Her father had told her that if she insisted on marrying an enlisted man she could no longer look to him for anything in life. He had not sent her to private schools and finishing school just to see her throw herself away on some piece of Scottish beefcake. Her mother, a duke's daughter, had merely been a frosty silent elegance that had refused to talk to or admit the existence of her daughter, from the day she announced her engagement to an enlisted man. With nowhere else to go they had gone to live with Martin's parents in their tiny council flat in Aberdeen until the wedding. If she was honest she had known then that she was making a mistake. A council flat in Aberdeen in the middle of winter had almost convinced her that her father was right, but her stubborn streak and the fact that she was by then four months pregnant and an abortion at that stage may have been dangerous to herself, had decided things for her and they were married. Since then her father had thawed enough to admit to her existence, but her mother still totally ignored her and her husband and daughter.

  Martin had been hurt and angered by her parent’s attitude. He had always been brought up by his own socialist parents to believe that bloodlines didn't matter, because it was the man himself and his achievements that counted. The only previous contact either of them had ever had with the British aristocracy was when his own father was in the army and that was not quite the same thing. An ordinary chap could be treated a lot more as an equal when you were his superior officer as he still had to do as he was told. Out of the army the same was not true. It had been a rude shock to Martin when he had been transferred down south to England and met and fell in love with Annabelle, only to find that her parents totally rejected him because of his background. The other thing that had shocked him was the amount of black faces the country had.

  Before his father had gone to work on the oilrigs and they had moved to Aberdeen, they had lived in a small agricultural community and the only black faces he had seen were on television. Now he seemed to be surrounded by them and he didn't like it. Their attitudes and culture were foreign and distasteful to him and with his Calvinistic background he always felt immediately superior to any one who did not share his religion and nationality, let alone his colour. Any blacks that joined his regiment had a rough time coming as his naturally assumed British superiority complex over the natives came out.

  When they had moved to near Bristol with its Large West Indian community Martin Jenson had hated it and would not even go shopping with his wife on a Saturday afternoon in case he had to rub shoulders with them. He himself could not explain why he felt the way he did for in most other things he considered he was a moderate and reasonable man who was always prepared to listen to the other persons point of view. Except on matters of religion, politics and women's rights that is. It was not really his fault. He was merely carrying on the rules his parents had lived by. His mother had no time for women’s rights and the only use she ever made of them was to cast her votes as her husband told her. Added to this Jenson didn’t really like the English, was fiercely pro an independent Scotland and consequently was very lonely away from his birthplace.

  These attitudes combined with the strains of living on the army base in its shabby married couples accommodation, the attitude of Annabelle's parents to their marriage and Annabelle’s own refusal to realise that their income was limited, had seen things had go from bad to worse between them until he had volunteered for service abroad at every chance he got. That meant Annabelle had become very isolated on the great big army base left on her own with just a small daughter for company for months on end and had eventually succumbed to the blandishments of a young lieutenant.

  That had been the start of it and a string of affairs with the junior officers had started despite the dangers to their careers, as Annabelle was very good at sex, a thing her puritan husband with his limited sexual experience had never realised. Martin Jenson had eventually found out about her adultery, but to her surprise had ignored it. He seemed pleased to be just left alone to get on with his soldiering. She sighed. Not this time though if she was any judge. This time Alison was involved and some of the men were black. This time the shit would hit the fan and they would all share it.