So, Kevin Andrew Thomson Stewart joined the Black Watch and never looked back.
The Army provided him with the role models and support he’d never realised he’d needed. Reaching adulthood in the schemes wasn’t the same as becoming a man: in the schemes there were just wee boys in men’s bodies without the intellect or depth of character needed to be a man.
Getting high or pissed out of your head every weekend, every night if you could afford it, and handling yourself in a pub fight does not a man make. Neither does fathering as many children by as many different mothers as possible and playing little or no part in their lives.
Sure the Army was tough and demanding, even demeaning at times, and sure there was bullying and even intimidation; but the outcome was that Kats became part of a unit of men, real men, who believed in themselves, in each other, and in their Regiment. He belonged somewhere: for the first time in his life he belonged somewhere.
He worked hard to make up the gaps in his education, relishing the new and continuous challenges to mind and body. By the time he was sent to Iraq on his first tour he was a completely different person, able to change his attitude, accent, and approach, to anyone he met depending on who they were; be it a barman or a Brigadier.
That transformation had matured him enough to realise that it didn't matter what had happened; that was now history. It was what happened next that was the important thing and the first step of that was to get down to Pete’s without attracting any more attention.
Sneaking out of the barn as soon as he heard movement from the farmhouse, he finally walked into the town after about an hour, dishevelled enough to warrant a quick visit to the toilets in Tesco to have a wash and smarten up before he went anywhere near the supermarket café.
His hand had swollen a little from the punch he’d thrown, but he reckoned he hadn’t broken anything, and it cleaned up well enough with some soap and water so it just looked puffy and bruised with a few cuts. He just looked like any old workie coming off the early shift when he was done.
They had arranged to meet in the supermarket’s cafeteria which wasn’t exactly conducive to his maintaining a low profile, but then someone having sausage, eggs and beans in Tesco was hardly likely to draw a big crowd either. He’d never met Carole before but knew her right away when she came into the store from the photos Pete had shown him when they’d served together in Iraq.
Kats had always thought she was a good looking woman, in a plain no-nonsense kind of way, but she definitely looked better in the flesh, even though at the moment she had a face like a well skelped arse. Pete hadn’t come with her because he couldn’t handle journeys of more than an hour with his legs the way they were, so he reckoned she was probably pissed off because she’d had a boring old drive up. He waved her over.
“Cup of tea? Something to eat?” he asked when she arrived at his table.
“Not for me thanks, I’ll find a loo and then we should get going. It’s been a long drive here and it’s the same back so I’d rather just be off if yer don’t mind.”
Her thick, slightly husky Scouse accent sounded alien in the surroundings of a central Scotland supermarket. It was an accent he usually didn’t take to, but in her he found it kind of sexy. He watched her walk along the line of the checkouts, heading for the bathrooms, while he finished his breakfast.
Pete definitely kept her low key. Nice mover and all.
He slurped down the dregs of his tea, and was ready to follow her into the car park to the well used Ford people carrier as soon as she came back for him.
The vehicle stank of stale smoke and there were odd bits of paper and discarded drink cartons littered about the inside. He could see the space behind him had been cleared for a wheelchair.
“No bags?” she asked with an arch of one eyebrow.
“Nah. Didnae have time to pack”
“O’rite. You can sort yourself out when we get down there then. What ‘appened to yer ‘and?”
“Ach just an accident. It’ll be fine.”
“O’rite. Suit yourself.”
At least she hadn’t asked why he needed somewhere to sleep for a few nights, and why he had to go all the way to Liverpool to do it instead of crashing with someone local. Kats was impressed. Pete had either clued her in a little or she was used to the comings and goings of his ex-army mates.
Pete and Kats had served together through many a scrape until one day Pete had just gotten plain unlucky. He was passing the camp stores when an over-enthusiastic fork-lift driver made too sharp a turn, flipped the stacker on its side and skidded into him, shattering his legs against the storehouse wall. They’d tried to save them but they were too badly crushed, and he’d lost both below the knee.
“Fookin’ typical,” he’d complained afterwards in hospital to anyone who’d listen. “Come all the way out here to this shithole, dodge RPGs and IEDs every day on patrol and some Geordie no-mark twat does me in ‘cos all he’d ever driven before was knocked off motors and he takes every corner as if the bleedin’ bizzies were after him.”
Kats had plenty of other mates he could call, but he knew that he needed to be well away from Scotland for a while so Pete was top of his list. The police and emergency services sirens were still wailing in the background as he’d spoken to Pete, so he knew something was wrong right from the off.
The cops didn’t worry him one bit, even though he knew that with all the hassle at the service station he’d forgotten to put his gloves on and so his prints would be all over the lorry cab. Probably some blood from his hand as well come to that. There was nothing he could do about it now though; he’d just have to hope they didn’t show up on any computer records or DNA matches.
No, the cops he could handle – his main concern was Big Davie. The only good thing was that DJ hadn’t seemed to have been hurt badly in the accident, if at all in fact, so there probably wouldn’t be a full hit out on him: why would they take the additional risk? The wee love bite he’d given DJ with the tyre iron he discounted, it was an occupational hazard and very few gangsters had movie-star looks.
Maybe the Big Man would just have him knee-capped. Still, they’d have to catch him first and Kats had no intentions of letting that happen. At least Liverpool was far enough away to be safe for a while but close enough to get back in a hurry if need be.
“Want me to drive?”
“No, yer o’rite. We can’t afford the fully comp insurance so it’s only insured for me. It’s not much of a car but it’s all we ‘ave, so.”
“Ok, up tae you.”
He buckled up his seatbelt and settled in for the drive as Carole started the car. It wheezed a bit and then burbled into life. She crunched it into first and headed for the car park exit.
“How’s Pete doing?” he asked when they got rolling.
“How the hell do you think he’s doing?”
“That bad?”
They lapsed into an uneasy silence.
She lit a cigarette and puffed vigourously as she slid onto the M8 and headed west for the M74 junction which would take them south to England.
Since Carole wasn’t feeling talkative, Kats opened the book he’d taken from the dead woman. He’d seen his share of bodies in Iraq; he’d killed more than a few insurgents himself, so death was no stranger to him. All the same, this poor old biddy just being in the wrong place at the wrong time felt somehow different.
He scanned the pages, looking for anything of interest. It was clearly a diary of some kind from the entries he saw, but it was mostly just female blah-blah-woof-woof; nothing of any real interest. He now knew she was called Maureen and where she worked for example, and also what she thought about blue curtains and how she thought she was becoming allergic to boiled eggs, just boiled eggs as she could eat other kinds.
There were recipes for things like “Pink Fluff” and clippings from newspapers and letters and notes stuffed in there as well. A brief snapshot of a small life.
“What are you reading?” asked Ca
role.
“Nothing,” he said, recovering from his daydream and slipping the book back into his pocket. “Just something I picked up at a service station.”
“Suit yourself,” she muttered.
“You always ask this many questions when you pick guys up in Tesco?” he said, attempting humour, smiling his friendliest smile, trying to be charming.
She looked at him, hard, “You have some bleeding nerve coming out with something like that. I have a life too yer know and I happen to have had plans for today and tonight but instead I am told to drop everything and come all the way up here to pick you up. Why? God only knows because I sure as hell bloody don’t. It’s just good enough that you’re a mate of Pete’s apparently, and I’m only his bloody wife after all…”
She trailed off clearly blazing.
“Whoaaa. Where’s all that coming from?” said Kats. “Look…I’m really sorry I screwed up your plans. I didn’t realise you had something else on and Pete didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t have called him but it was an emergency and I am really grateful to you for doing this for me.” He looked directly at her. “Honest. I am really sorry for imposing on you but I had no choice.”
“Hmmph,” she said, but rather less petulantly than before. “Well I’m ‘ere now and apology accepted.”
“So… how is he doing… really?”
Chapter 7
It took four hours to get there, including fuel and comfort breaks, but eventually she turned the corner into a cul-de-sac comprised of neat, terraced, ex-council houses and randomly parked cars. Kats spotted the house right away as it was the only one with a ramp instead of stairs at the front door and it had an extended driveway to let the car back right up for ease of access.
“O’rite Kats.” Pete was waiting by the lounge door when he came through the hallway. “What the fook have you gotten into now then?” He was smoking a large joint and was already pretty stoned.
“Och ye know me mate, a wee bit of this and a wee bit of that. Thanks for sorting me out like this, I owe ye one.”
“Erm, you owe me a lot more than just one you dizzy twat,” said Pete smiling. “I don’t suppose the ‘wee bit of this and wee bit of that’ involved a hijacked lorry that was on the news after crashing on the motorway in Scotland yesterday?”
Kats just shrugged and Pete rolled his eyes, “You’ll be needin’ a drink then.” Spinning his wheelchair, he led Kats through into the lounge.
The bottle of vodka was already open and by the look on Pete’s face he’d had a few to chase the hash. Carole looked helplessly at him, then at Kats, and walked out.
“Don’t mind ‘er,” said Pete. “She’s used to it. Wonderful woman that she is, yer know.” He poured two generous shots of the clear spirit into the waiting glasses.
“Oi, Carole, stick the tea on gerl wouldya?” he roared.
There was a mumbled reply from somewhere in the house which sounded neither friendly nor compliant. Pete just grinned goofily and shrugged.
“So…” he said, “Here’s to us and to the Queen and to the fooking regiment!” And knocked back his drink, immediately refilling it in one fluid, practised move. Kats took a healthy swig of his too and felt the relaxation follow the fire all the way down. They both grimaced and exhaled slowly and deliberately, as if they had just drank moonshine for the first time. It was all part of the ritual of old drinking buddies becoming reacquainted.
“That hits the spot mate, ger another one down yer.”
Kats held out his glass automatically and waited while Pete poured. His friend’s hand shook slightly and the vacant, slightly glazed eyes strained in concentration as he held the bottle. He looked old.
The stumps of his legs were clad in jeans, the redundant ends of which were tucked up under his chair seat, and he had on a scarlet Buckcherry T-shirt bearing the legend “Crazy Bitch” which had more than one unidentifiable stain on it.
His hair was a lot longer than Kats remembered and it wasn’t a look that suited him. Pete had been fastidious in the Army; everything neat and tidy and spick and span. To see him like this was a bit of a shock. He looked like a jaikey and Kats immediately had a wave of guilt. He hadn’t kept in touch as much as he should have after he’d been flown out of Iraq to Headley Court, the Army’s rehabilitation centre in Surrey. But then, what could he do for him that wasn’t being done by the experts?
Pete knocked back another vodka in a single gulp and reached once more for the bottle. Kats understood well enough: it was every soldier’s fear to be taken out of the squad and put into the system. It was probably the only thing that scared them outside of raw combat, if only because they all knew what awaited them: substandard housing; indifference from Joe Public; unemployment; next to no professional support; obscurity; chemical dependencies and/or alcoholism.
If a major accident happened that caused the deaths of a few hundred civilians and the life-changing injury of a few thousand more there would be billions in government and charitable aid poured into programs to help the “victims”. Neither Kats nor anyone else in the Armed Forces could explain why the same wasn’t available to returning soldiers.
He looked at Pete, trying to hide the pity he now felt for a good man lost, and said a silent thank you that at least he’d come home whole.
“How ye doin’ then mate?” he said eventually, dropping his gaze to his glass, swilling the dregs of his vodka. Something in his tone alerted Pete.
“Oh aye Kats, what’s this then? ‘Av you come down ‘ere to play the shrink, or what?” said Pete, in a tone of mild challenge. “What’s she been saying to you then?”
Kats just spread his hands and cocked his head to one side.
Pete sighed.
“Erm…yer know, I’m gettin’ by,” he eventually answered, but Kats noticed his lack of eye contact. “The biggest problem is the boredom, yer know? There’s fook all to do now. They’re trying to retrain me so I can get me a job answering phones or some such fooking nonsense but it’s hardly the job for a trained killer now is it?” he laughed at his own irony.
“Hmph – you got that right Pete. You heard from the C.O. or anyone since you got back?”
“Not a fooking peep mate, those fooking Ruperts don’t give a shit outside of theatre and even then, I’m the invisible man you know? I didn’t take a bullet, I didn’t get hit by an RPG, I didn’t go down in contact and I didn’t step on an IED. All they have told me is that it was just a fooking accident and it could have happened anywhere, even in fooking B&Q. It’s not being treated as a war injury, just an industrial accident. Fookin’ typical…” he trailed off.
Kats didn’t know what to say. Pete was right of course – no one goes into a war zone expecting to get medi-vac’d out because one of his comrades couldn’t drive a fork-lift. Not that Pete was a glory hunter or anything. He was known as Captain Careful in the squad as he never took chances. He checked his gear two or three times before every patrol and the slightest flaw or failure he had fixed or replaced immediately. Pete was a good soldier. That’s why it was such a cruel twist of fate to find him in this position now.
“Captain Careful Comes a Cropper ‘Cos of Careless Cunt,” Pete had rhymed shortly after the accident. A soldier’s Haiku.
Carole hinted at the problems in the car, although even when she’d thawed a bit she hadn’t exactly opened up to him. It was a long road however and she’d told Kats that the veterans’ people had been round of course, and the social services to get the house fixed up, all the practical stuff. And, despite what Pete had said, Carole told him their old CO had been on the phone pretty regularly to check on things.
He’d even come round in person once when he was on leave, going well out of his way and taking up time he could have spent with his own family to do it. Kats was impressed with that, as had Carole been at the time, but despite the man’s obvious concern he was unable to lift Pete’s mood nor fix the main problems with the bureaucrats. Eventually Pete had sniped at him once too often and th
e contact dwindled and died.
“I reckon it was his pride or something,” Carole had said. “He just kept saying that everything was great and he was getting along just fine. Captain Morgan did try to get him to open up but it was no use and after Pete started noising him up that was it, no-one else took any long-term interest in him. Even if he was on their radar, we just got the feeling that whatever was on the go was aimed at guys with battle wounds and PTSD, not accidentally injured blokes like Pete. His body’s fine, as far as it goes, but it’s his bleedin’ attitude that’s all wrong. His head is totally screwed up. He won’t get out of that bleedin’ chair for a start, even though he has been fitted with new legs. It’s as if he feels he hasn’t the right to walk anymore…” She’d trailed off at that point and Kats could see how upset she was getting, and so dropped the subject. But now, with Pete sat there in front of him, Kats could see the evidence with his own eyes. The man had given up.
The rub was that Pete was right: he didn’t qualify for the normal combat injury allowances and compensation schemes. That only went to soldiers who sustained injuries whilst fighting. After she had composed herself Carole had gone on to explain to Kats that they had finally been told by Captain Morgan that they would have to take out a civil action against the MOD for negligence in order to get any money for Pete’s injuries.
She had spoken to a lawyer and he almost creamed in his pants at the size of the fees he could get for the action, all of which would come out of Pete’s award, if he got an award at all that was. There were no guarantees and it could take years. The MOD fought all claims tooth and nail. The information had knocked them for six, and Kats could understand why: it wasn’t something he had even considered, that there wouldn’t be automatic compensation in such cases.
Pete emptied his glass yet again just as Carole came back into the room, and he smiled drunkenly at her.
Waging War To Shake The Cold Page 4
