Heroic

by Phil Earle

  Time merged and meant nothing. We waited, we patrolled, we sweated.

  We gave up guessing the temperature: it was irrelevant. We were sweating like pigs, didn’t need a thermometer to tell us that.

  It wasn’t just us feeling the frustration either. The boss was simmering too.

  ‘We’re at a difficult point now, fellas,’ he growled, every inch of him tense. ‘Almost three months in, first tour for many of you, and we’ve not established the stability we’d hoped for.’

  We didn’t need telling: we’d seen the number of explosions triple in the last week, been shocked at the deviousness of the traps set, the number of their own people they were prepared to hurt in the process.

  ‘But remember, you’re here to work. No point dreaming about your own bed and Mum’s cooking. You’ll only be tasting blood if you don’t concentrate on the job at hand.’ He dropped his voice and leaned in to us, like he had a cunning plan to speed us home. ‘So while you’re out here, remember who your family is. I’m the only mother you need right now. Remember that.’

  My eyes slid to Tommo, nodding in the right places, eyes front and centre, unblinking. He was learning. Quickly becoming a better solider than me. Whatever that actually meant.

  I didn’t find him next to me as often any more, hiding in my shadow, and although he still spent most of his downtime in the yard kicking a ball to himself, it was working for him, switching his head off from the rest of the chaos.

  I envied him, had to stop myself from pinching him awake at night as he snored in the cot beside me. I was watching the sun rise every morning, snatching just handfuls of sleep when my head finally cleared itself of daisy-chain bombs and snipers.

  But the less sleep I got, the messier my head became, incapable of sifting through suspicious thoughts about every local I met. Even the toothless old women who pushed vegetables at us in the market were holding bombs as far as I knew.

  It could’ve been me, but the town felt different. You could feel the tension, smell the resentment that came with each patrol. As our notebooks came out, backs turned and doors closed. We were losing them, their faith in us dying. And if they turned instead to those we were looking for? Then we were all in danger.

  Patrols had changed for me. As soon as we stepped on to the square my head turned to Little Wayne. After his fall I’d seen nothing of him. A week had ticked by since his accident, which gave me the fear about his leg. What if I hadn’t cleaned it properly? Infection could kick in easily if I’d done a shabby job.

  Fearful, I started questioning the lads who still kicked his ball around the square, but they either didn’t know, or didn’t want to help. Their game was always more important.

  ‘Do you think the terps could ask them where he lives?’ I said to Tommo, feeling increasingly paranoid.

  ‘I reckon you should let it go, mate. If the kid was hurt, they’d have been battering our doors down to sort it out. The nearest clinic’s fifty miles away.’

  ‘But still, it’s not like him to not be out here playing.’

  Tommo took a stride towards me, arms on my shoulders, eyes boring into mine. ‘You’ve got to move on, because from the look of it, him and his folks already have. Anyway, he’s just a kid. There’s hundreds more of them out there. Pick one of them instead.’

  He didn’t get it. And to be honest I didn’t have it straight in my own head.

  Nothing we were doing made any sense, or even the slightest difference to the locals. The only thing I knew was that the sight of that kid with a ball at his feet had kept my head straight, stopped it from flipping out at the thought of what I was still doing here. That ball I gave him had made a difference, to me as well as him.

  Clocking him became the focus of every patrol I made. All right, I put a gloss on it, made sure the boss saw me doing my job, but every corner we turned, every door we knocked on in the name of intel, I was looking for the same face.

  I had to wait another week before I finally laid eyes on him. And at first it was only the ball I saw. It sat in the middle of the market square, as if waiting for kick-off. Scanning each corner of the space, I looked for Little Wayne, still surprised not to see him attached to it.

  It was early, but the town was waking, expecting a busy trading day. Boxes were being stacked outside houses, the tang of spices cutting through the dust. It would only be minutes until the ball was surrounded by stalls, so with Wayne in mind, I walked towards it to keep it safe.

  I’d only managed a handful of steps when he skidded into view. Limping slightly, but not enough to keep him from running, eyes fixed on his prize.

  I forgot who and what I was, a greeting booming from my lips before I could stop myself. The early traders broke their step and looked my way, as did Little Wayne, a cocky grin snaking from ear to ear. My arm lifted into the air, then pointed at the ball. He saw what I wanted and half ran, half hobbled towards it.

  In that moment, I was the happiest I’d been since arriving.

  It made sense, all of it; even the heat and the suspicion didn’t matter. With a quick movement, I shook my pack to the floor then unclipped my helmet, waiting for the pass.

  But it never arrived. As Little Wayne planted his right leg by the ball and swung with his left, the world did a strange and sinister thing. It twisted and bucked, kicking a storm of debris into the air with a boom that lifted me clean off my feet. The ground surrounded me, flew with me, then landed on top of me.

  And in that instant, with a simple kick of the ball, the world ended. Everything changed.

  Jammy

  I panicked. The new world didn’t make sense. Buildings lay in weird shapes, jutting from the ground where the stalls should’ve stood. There were craters, cavernous holes straight from a lunar landscape. But most of all, there was dust. A thick thunderous cloud that had fought the sun and won: it clung to every strand of clothing, swirled in every particle of air.

  I tried to stand but couldn’t, not until I heaved a chunk of rubble off my stomach, which felt battered and grazed.

  There wasn’t time to worry about myself, though. I had to find Little Wayne, check he was all right; hope that somehow he might have avoided whatever had just gone off.

  Groping blindly in front of me, I searched for my helmet and pack but found nothing but my rifle, which I leaned on to push me up.

  I felt more dust rain down, sticking to my forehead, which was already wet to the touch. Dabbing my scalp, I held my hand in front of my face but saw nothing. It wasn’t until my fingers were practically touching my eyeballs that I could see the blood coating them.

  Stumbling over rocks that littered my path, my ears stopped ringing enough to tune in to the noises of the square: bricks being thrown, walls still tumbling, words screamed into the darkness, pleading, then desperate.

  I didn’t get it, could only think it was our mistake, that a fighter plane had got its co-ordinates wrong and missed its mark, but as I tripped over another hunk of masonry, still yelling Wayne’s name, I heard the truth.

  ‘IED in the square. MAN DOWN. MAN DOWN.’

  What? It didn’t make sense. Improvised devices here? Set ’em outside our camp or in the ditches, like they had the whole time we’d been here, but in the middle of their own people?

  My stomach twisted and my breakfast left me, the acid threatening to burn a hole in the dust. I retched until empty, only stopping when I felt an arm lift me to my feet, heard a familiar voice.

  ‘You all right, Jamm?’ asked Tommo, his breath rasping.

  ‘What’s going on? Where’s the bomb?’

  I felt him grip my shoulders, bracing me as the words tumbled out.

  ‘You didn’t see? The kid. Little Wayne. They must have rigged it …’ The pause lasted too long, he wanted me to fill in the gaps. ‘It must have been set with a pressure switch. Soon as he kicked the ball, it all …’

  I didn’t hear anything else apart from the sound of Tommo hitting the ground as I pushed him away. My head was bursting
, full of my own screams and gunfire as I waded forward, unloading rounds into the mist. They were out there, they had to be watching, and I was going to take them down for it.

  The rifle’s nozzle spat left and right, arcing wildly until spent, the crack of bullets being replaced by the boss, screaming in my ears.

  ‘HOLD FIRE! HOLD FIRE!’

  It made me want to laugh. Was he crazy? They’d just blown the world sky high and he wanted us to stop? Was he going to have us with our notebooks out again, gathering gossip? That moment had passed. No more.

  I looked for ammo in a pack that wasn’t there. Searched my pockets instead for anything I could launch, a boiled sweet if I had to, but instead found myself wrestled to the floor, rifle knocked from my fists, Giff’s voice in my ear.

  ‘JAMMY! Calm yourself! The lads are in there. You’ll take them out.’

  It was too much, all of it. My brain was rolling around my head, knocked senseless by the blast, but I had to sort this out, track the boy down. So I shook Giffer off, not bothering to pick up my rifle. He was welcome to it.

  ‘Where are you going? Boss says hold your line. You could be walking into anything!’

  I ignored him and paced forward, tripping on my first step. He chose to pick me up, I chose to push him off and move on again.

  ‘I have to find him.’

  ‘Find who? Tommo’s behind us. Taking orders. Like you should be.’

  ‘Not him!’ I was in his face now, washing him with my spit. ‘He doesn’t need me. It’s the kid. He was walking straight into it before it went off.’

  The world twisted again, but there was no second blast. Instead I was pinned to the floor by Giffer, straddling me, right hand clenching my cheeks.

  ‘LISTEN! LISTEN TO ME! You won’t find him, Jamm. He’s gone. He triggered it. When he kicked the ball, that’s when it blew. They set it, pal, but probably hoped you’d be the one to kick it.’

  I heard his words, and felt something break. It started in my chest then sped to every muscle, every joint, every cell in my body. It was like they’d plugged me into the socket then set me loose.

  Giff was way bigger than me, with a neck almost as thick as my waist, but his head still rocked back when my fist made contact. He fell, and as my chest filled with air I leapt to my feet and into the abyss.

  I had no idea what I was looking for, could do nothing but waft stupidly at the dust, flooding my eyes with the stuff. Every third step brought another tumble, another knock to the legs and head. But I wouldn’t stop, not till I had to, not till I found him and got him safe.

  There was noise, but none of it meant anything. It was all static. White noise. My only thoughts were of him.

  Figures stumbled past caked in dirt and blood. War-torn zombies, walking dead. I grabbed each one as they reached me, only pushing them on when I was convinced they weren’t him.

  Not everybody I saw was as mobile. The square had been filling up and the blast had been so shocking that many had been sucked into the middle of it. Arms waved from under piles of rocks, which I pulled at furiously, exposing whoever lay beneath. Bile brewed and spat in me angrily. On I went.

  I finally caught sight of him, half-buried in a mountain of bricks. I put a dozen unbroken steps together, only falling as I reached him, my fingers jammed to his neck. Pulse. Pulse. Pulse?

  I shouted for medics. At least I think I did. My hands scooped and pulled at the wreckage. If I could get him flat and pump his chest, then we had a chance. The medics could do it. They had to, they wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t dare.

  The rubble piled up around me. I was winning; I’d have him out in time. It would all be fine.

  But then the bricks kept coming, and his body … stopped. I’d reached his waist, expected to dig around his thighs, but there was nothing there. Instead, there was only blood and dust.

  It was wrong, a mistake.

  I clawed furiously at the brick and plaster, all stained the deepest red.

  There was nothing more to free.

  A noise left me, louder than the roar that had filled his last seconds.

  I wanted to bring every single wall down.

  And I didn’t care where they fell, as long as they covered me too.

  Sonny

  When the call came I was ready. Terrified but ready.

  Cam sounded broken, like he’d beaten fifteen years out of her, and she was three years old again.

  ‘Sonny, I need you.’ I could hear how difficult it was for her to even spit out four words.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I shouted. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘Please come. Come now.’ And she was gone, leaving me to tear towards the door. As I reached it, I considered turning round for something – a knife, rolling pin, anything that would help me give Larry back everything he’d dished out. But that meant time, and she needed me now. I didn’t bother with the lift; instead I took the stairs as quickly as I could while punching in Den’s number. He answered on the third ring. I ignored the small talk.

  ‘Can you get over to Cam’s?’

  ‘What’s the rush?’

  ‘I think it’s all kicked off again. I might need you.’

  ‘I’ll be there before you. Want me to call Wiggs too?’

  Wiggs wasn’t much of a scrapper, quicker with his mouth than his fists. But he was another body to put in front of Larry if he’d really lost it.

  ‘Yeah, please. See you in two. Quick as you can.’

  For the following minute my head spat out every scenario imaginable. Cam was badly bruised; he’d beaten her unconscious since she called; even that she was leaning over him with a knife, fingers wrapped around the handle, blade buried in his chest. I shivered as I ran. It was possible, everyone had a limit.

  It was hard to keep calm when I was so out of breath, and as I approached their ominously open front door there was a split second where I thought about turning round and running the other way. But it was Mum who stopped me, cos she didn’t think I had this in me. And even if she couldn’t see me front it out, I’d know. And that was a start.

  It was deathly quiet inside, but that wasn’t a surprise. If Larry had got tasty, he wouldn’t have stuck around to fetch ice packs and plasters. The surprise came when he was the first thing I saw; sat on the hearth, head in hands, shoulders shaking violently. Instantly I looked for Cam, seeing instead a huge wet patch on the wall opposite the fire, a whisky glass shattered on the floor below.

  Something had gone on, but it wasn’t as clear-cut as I’d expected, especially when the next person I saw was Dennis, who paced into the room and straight into me, arms snaking round my shoulders, holding me way too hard.

  ‘What’s going on? I asked, but there was no time for him to reply, as in stumbled Cam and her mum, Gill.

  In that second I knew. There wasn’t a bruise or cut on either of them, yet every inch of their bodies screamed in pain. It was scratched deep into Cam’s eyes, causing tears to snake down both cheeks, so many that she hadn’t the energy to wipe them away. With difficulty I removed myself from Den, feeling his tears on my t-shirt before catching Cam as she collapsed.

  ‘Two soldiers,’ she wept between violent shudders. Every sentence was punctuated by a wail. ‘Came. With news. There was a firefight. Jamm and Tommo. They were caught at the front. On their own.’

  I listened hard. Harder than I’d ever listened to anyone in my life, but my heart was pounding with such violence that I could barely hear her. Who was hurt? Not Jamm. Please don’t let it be Jamm.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I whispered, kissing her tears, not caring who saw. ‘You can tell me. I’ve got you.’

  ‘They found guns on a patrol. Explosives. And followed them into this village. Tommo and Jammy were trying to get to them and make it safe. But there was a stand-off. They were isolated and jumped on. And Tomm … Tomm …’

  ‘It’s OK. It’s OK.’

  ‘It’s not OK!’ she screamed, her heart splitting in two right before me. ‘They shot him. He�
��s gone. He’s gone.’

  I thought I’d have an answer for what I’d find here, even if it simply lay in my fists, but this floored me. Even in her devastated state, Cam was the only thing separating me from the floor. We clung to each other, bodies shaking in tandem, my head craving details that it didn’t really want to hear.

  ‘They found him with Jammy. He’d tried to keep him alive.’

  I wanted, needed to know that Jamm was OK, but how? How did I ask that question of her when Tommo was gone?

  ‘I can see him. See him bleeding. And the only thing that makes it bearable is the thought of Jamm being with him, being the last thing he saw.’

  ‘Jamm loved him. Tomm was his brother as much as me.’

  ‘Jammy killed the guy who got Tommo. Shot him. I know that shouldn’t help, but it does. He’s a hero. They both were.’ She choked on the words and shoved her head deep into my chest, the responsibility terrifying me.

  All I wanted to do was take the pain for her, but knew I couldn’t. Would I have swapped my own brother for hers? Never. How could I even think about it without tearing myself in two? Every sentence I could offer her, every line that came into my head wasn’t either enough or even vaguely true.

  It’ll be all right.

  I know how you feel.

  We can get through this.

  I had nothing, so offered nothing, apart from every ounce of strength I had, knowing it was nowhere near enough.

  There was movement around us, Gill stooping to collect the broken glass from the carpet, Den spotting Wiggy in the doorway and leading him into the hallway to explain. The only thing I didn’t hear was Larry moving up behind us. It wasn’t until he spoke that I smelt the waves of alcohol pouring off him.

  ‘Cam,’ he whispered, his right arm trying to wedge us apart. ‘Cameron. Cam, Cam!’ But she didn’t want to move. I felt her arms tense, pulling me closer to her as his efforts increased.