by Will Self
was taking his rugby seriously and considering a military career …
he was going one way – I the other. Derek was probably already having
the odd toke … Christ knows where he got the stuff, while Gawain
joined the school cadet corps and acquired a permanently raw
knuckle from manipulating the bolt of a Lee Enfield – the rifle he
was instructed how to use, in preparedness to fight … the war before
the war before this one. So, Gawain, you’ll accompany the vehicles
down to Maysan, will you? He hears the GeeOhSee inside his
hot head – which is where they all are: all the British forces taking
part in Telic Eight – Royal Welch and the Anglians, the King’s Royal
Hussars and the Coldstreamers. All those battle groups – all those
thousands of men, and a few hundred women, concealed in the
static fizzing between his ears. Christ! The heat – even at dawn
it’s hot, then the sun climbs and climbs and … keeps on fucking
climbing, until it reaches a brutally effective position from which to
aim and fire its rays – projectiles which can pierce standard-issue
body armour … better than a seven-point-six-five round at five hundred
metres. Over the radio net Gawain hears his colleagues being
summoned one after another: Steve up in Al-Amarah – Donny down
in Dhi Qar – summoned from the blinding light which is itself
… another kind of darkness. And they report on petrol-smugglers
apprehended and angry mobs dispersed with warning fire – all the
Dixon-of-Dock-Green policing required once you’re done with Tim
Collins’s bullshit and are facing an angry mob armed with pitchforks
and staves, because you’re asymmetrically bogged down. He’s not
asleep, Gawain – not sliding down into the bubbly bath of sleep …
Hello, matey! Instead he’s daymaring the burning sandy wastes of
southern Iraq – the unknowable concrete-and-mud-brick towns and
forgotten bazaars where the Rams could well lose themselves … in
a wilderness of dust. All of it – the white plastic garden chairs as
well – has been folded into the complications of his sun-struck and
hurting brain, while Gawain is abandoned … Daddy’s not coming.
If he’d been called upon to identify the moment when they’d swung
past each other – Derek clambering down the chain of command,
while Gawain prepared to inch up its carefully polished links – then
it was while his father was posted to Faversham, and the Task
Force set off from nearby Southampton for those fly-speck islands
in the South Atlantic. They sat together in the airless living room
watching it all on a brand-new Trinitron – not that there’d been
anything colourful to see in that remote era, when wars were
reported using … archive footage, to the accompaniment of a commentary
delivered by … the speaking clock. Derek lay in his armchair,
his growing hair fanned out on its old antimacassar, a Heineken
can in one hand, a fag in the other – the very image of indolence,
but he sat up straight … when we sank the Belgrano. Yes, we both …
clocked that. And Derek had squeezed his Heineken can until it …
crumpled – never seen him do that before. After which he’d huffed and
puffed – said it was worse than regrettable – a fucking crime: all those
Argies – only boys, and conscripts to boot. The Thomas family had
had one of those novelty dipping birds on top of the fridge it dipped
and sipped while Derek Thomas dipped towards the telly screen and
sipped the last bitter dregs of his patriotism down: I’m not pretending
to be a great patriot, boyo – but the lady’s right, the reputation
of the country is on the line … It must’ve been a year or two later,
by which time Gawain had been away to camp, where he’d live-fired
a Bren … felt its sexy shudder, that he dared to ask Derek if he
regretted it – not having seen proper combat, that is. The Major had
thought for a moment. I don’t want to piss on your parade, son, he’d
said eventually, but combat – in my view – is something very much
to be avoided. See, any squaddie worth his salt knows how to keep
his head down. Officers? Different cuppa type oh altogether. Got to
be seen to be in the thick of it, bullets flying through the peak
of your cap, getting a fucking suntan from the falling flares. My
expertise consisted in keeping whirlybirds in the air, not putting
human beings … in the ground. But he, too, had had his moment.
When Derek finally detached altogether – told Gawain, his mother
and sisters he’d gotta go, then fluttered up from his telly chair,
flittered into an embroidered Victorian nightdress and sailed away
into the hills to join Sid Rawle and his tepee hippies – he’d left
his son – who by then was wearing the blues of a Sandhurst cadet,
and feeling … pretty ally – wondering if he’d been afflicted with
peetee-essdee all those years ago, under the hurting Aden sun.
It hadn’t been combat exactly – Derek was crewing a Saracen when
the lad on top cover panicked as the first Molotov cocktail hit,
and unleashed an ill-judged burst. Seen! but not seen, the lad doing
obs’ … knobbly knob-head poking out of the front hatch took it all
in the neck and chest … his knobbly knob-head was nearly bloody
severed. After that tour Derek Thomas felt he’d been quite as close
to combat as he ever wanted to be, so corkscrewed away into the
whirlybirds … We shouldn’t’ve been there at all, boyo. Riot control?
Bum-sucking on the fag-end of empire we were … Charlie One?
Charlie One? Even dripping through the radio net the GeeOhSee’s
chocolate tones are unmistakable. Everything going well up there
in Ali Baba, Gawain? – covering everything in soft, warm sweetness
… not a scratch on him – never will be. Relishes the smell of napalm
in the morning … as he pours it on his cornflakes … For a moment
Gawain considers saying something along these lines: It’s Ali
al-Garbi, Boss – I know you’re only trying to lighten the mood, but really
it doesn’t help: it’s our basic insensitivity to their culture that’s making it
so fucking hard to connect with these people whose nation WE’RE
MEANT TO BE REBUILDING! But these words only fall
to the floor of his own hot head, while he replies: Some bad boys in
town the past few days, sir – locals shut up shop, coffee stalls all
closed. Our int’ cell has a local asset of their own – says they’ve at
least a couple of mortars, arrpeegees … etcetera … Says they’re not
all Mucky’s boys – if any. Says the Dawa lot’re active here now –
and we’re only twenty-five clicks from the border. I’ve doubled
patrols and put it on standing orders the lads’re to be lidded at
all times when they’re out. – What’re you saying, Gawain? – I’m
saying it’s a bit of a rum do, sir – the atmos’ is dodgy, and my lads’re
fed up with having to fetch and carry for these Kiwis, who’ve
bugger-all to do except Force Protection for this team of Jap construction
workers. They’re a hell of a liability –. �
�� Who? The Kiwis
or the Japs? – Well … both, sir. – That doesn’t sound like the
Fighting Rams’ SeeOh talking – chin up, Gawain, I remember you
in sparkling form on the rugger pitch – and with your chaps, these
Japs and Kiwis you’ve half the Six Nations. Organise a sevens
tournament, old chap, that’ll build morale … A calendar hangs on
the Portakabin wall behind the radio – presumably advertising a
local business, although, since the whole thing is in Arabic, it’s
difficult to tell what kind. The picture page features a young woman
in jeans, abaya and headscarf … Filthy Fatima not showing anything
she’s got! Phwoar! It’s hot! standing in front of what appear to be large
refrigeration units. Some culturally sensitive wag in the sig’ unit has
embellished this with a black Biro … I’ll have to have a word – the
’terps come in here … loopy-looping down from the hem of the
young woman’s robe, the dense, pen-stroked curlicues merging with
the pubic-hair type, and making her the smiling possessor of … the
biggest fucking bush this side of Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan – now
that was soldiering, that’d been the Fighting Rams at their finest:
their squadrons all in beautiful playing-card formation: five Chieftains,
three Scimitars, seven aypeesees, laid down in patient rows
on the plain, which rolled away in undulating waves of scrub
towards a lowering and cloudy horizon. Gawain had at long last
been in command: sitting there in the grinding, winking gloom,
listening to the servos calibrate the cannon’s aim – registering the
hushed interplay between gunner and targeter, and seamlessly
integrating this with the continual positional updates coming
through his cans … I was in the flow, kayaking down the cataract of
action, precisely adjusting the disposition of this mighty force –
hundreds of men and officers, scores of fighting vehicles – with
mere dabs of … my paddle. Saskatchewan – there’d been lighter-than-lite
beer in the mess, on tap twenty-four-seven … and we all
had a thirst. It’d been a joint show with the YouEssEmm and the
Rams’ Canadian hosts. Inter-operability was the latest buzz-word,
but in practice they’d lent us poor boys their gear. Although this wasn’t
a live-fire exercise, they’d the kit necessary to simulate one – a round
on target would hit the kill switch, disabling the vehicle. Nothing
for its crew to do but sit there, smelling each other’s farts while
they waited for it all to be over … but can it ever be over when
it’s never exactly … begun? Gawain forgot about the brass who’d
flown in that morning to observe, and who no doubt were sitting in
their stand – a giant sort of bird hide, rising up proud of the scrub
and its attendant mosquitoes – snacking on garden salads, cold
cuts, asparagus and mayonnaise, slurping up lighter-than-lite beer
before taking an idle peek through bipod-mounted bins. He forgot
about the miserable months he’d spent with the Export Support
Team, posing at arms fairs … a showroom dummy in uniform,
demonstrating state-of-the-art materiel, even as his beloved Rams
were suffering … death by a thousand defence cuts. The talk was
all of putting stuff out to private tender, creating profit-centres
and public–private partnerships – getting a corporate sponsor and
changing the Rams’ name to the the Yorkshire Carphone Warehouse
Hussars. Gawain remembers giving sales spiels to dodgy Middle
Eastern buyers – men with furtive, sweaty faces, their eyes quailing
behind dark glasses, their fingers nervy with worry beads, their
queries matter-of-fact and to the point: the unit prices of shells and
the extent of after-sales support. You’re not a fucking salesman, he’d
told his reflection in the mirror above the basins in the gents’ at
the arms fair again annagain – and, it being an Indian convention
centre, everything was conventionally filthy: shit- and snot-stained
tissues strewn in the stalls, and plastic pots soupy with bacilli for
those who … manually wiped. Waiting in the hot darkness for the
GeeOhSee to extrude another dollop of wisdom, Gawain sees
himself as he’d been four years before: a dinky little Glengarry
perched on his blond hair, the breast pocket of his sandy-coloured,
belted tunic edged with modest amounts of braid, ribbon and a
couple of bits of tinware: What’s that one for, mister? – That one, son?
Why, I won that for building a new shower block in an abandoned
Bosnian paint factory … But the pathetic accessory which had
shamed him the most … wouldn’t look out of place in Claire’s, compounding
the offence to his amour propre … only took the job ‘cause
I’d been passed over, was a little arse-wipe-sized piece of chainmail
attached to the right epaulette of his tunic, which dangled down his
left shoulder. Chinka-chink the chainmail flip-flopped about all day,
every day, a constant reminder of his true status … no chaste knight,
me – only an impotent one, with a balsawood lance and a foam-rubber-fucking
sword. It’s a fool’s errand, Uncle Rodney had told him when
they dined at his Victoria flat – Gawain bunking off from both
regimental and domestic duties … on some pretext or other. Rodney
had been Derek Thomas’s best mate when they were stationed in
Germany – a committed bachelor, is what Derek called him, which
had been his way of saying gay – and he didn’t have any problem
with that, an enlightened man, the Major … I could’ve told him –
could’ve had a better life, made an honest man of myself. He and Jenny
Thomas had settled on Rodney as their eldest’s spiritual mentor …
Did they have intimations – had they noticed my enthusiasm for the
dressing-up trunk? It’s a fool’s errand, Gawain … Rodney had said,
carefully applying a pat of duck pâté to a beautifully crisp and
feather-light slice of toast … peacetime soldiering, that is. Derek
had dropped out altogether – but his friend had slipped sideways
from the Remmy to take a job handling the pyrotechnics for the
Royal Tournament. – If you’re going to be a chocolate soldier,
Gawain, you may as well be in a presentation box … Although his
godson suspected rather more venal motivations, as Rodney rose up
the chain-of-direction, eventually becoming responsible for auditioning
… all the principal boys. Had a bit of money, did Rodney …
might be a little something for me, and did right by himself. That evening
there’d been the pâté and the Pomerol – Château Le Gay, how
obvious was that? – the veal and a vintage Reuilly. All the time
they’d been eating, there was a very young naval ensign hard at
work in the bedroom – Rodney took him a plate through, but
it wasn’t until after Medjool dates, some chèvre and a glass of
Muscatel that he did his Big Reveal: taking Gawain’s elbow in his
large and fleshy hand, smiling at him enigmatically from behind
his bushy-black moustache … must dye it by now, and guiding him
into
the gilded gloom where the boy crouched, silk-bristled brush
in hand, laboriously painting tiny figures on to the wallpaper.
At once Gawain had realised the intent: to create a waist-height
frieze, running the entire way around the room. The ensign had
looked up from his task … bum-fluffy brunet, a tight grouping of
acne on the tip of his nose – yet still perfectly fanciable and smiled. Very
difficult to get the highlights right on this cuirass, sir, he’d said – or
words to that effect. It had been then Gawain saw exactly what the
ensign was minutely rendering: miniature figures in the full-dress
uniforms of all the British Army regiments there’d ever been – Since
Waterloo, his godfather had put in: I mean, going back further than
that … well, there was no sort of consistency, not even with the
New Model Army – officers were always customising their kit.
Gawain had gawped at the strange procession: the tiny figures
marching in profile around the room, every-man-jack zealously
undertaking … a fool’s errand which might well endure … from
here to eternity. The dinner must’ve been, Gawain thinks, a couple
of months before I left for Delhi, but it stayed with me … such that
he couldn’t help seeing himself as a brightly painted little figure,
rendered in exquisite detail, right down to the highlights on his
arse-wipe of chainmail, marching around the arms fair and giving
these pathetic demonstrations: running the video loop which
showed the negligible impact of shaped-charge projectiles on Chobham
armour, directing the tiny team of gunners as they creaked
about on the carpeted dais, pretending to unlimber, then fire a
mobile artillery piece – and all the while the balloon inside of
Gawain was being … filled up with shit. Once, twice … twenty
times he’d quickstepped back to the gents’ and squatted over the
hole. Once, twice … twenty times he’d sworn to himself that
this was the end: if he couldn’t return to the Rams as their SeeOh,
he’d do whatever was necessary … to get the fuck out. He wasn’t,
he believed, like Rodney at all – and would never be satisfied
by chocolate soldiering. Besides, he didn’t think of himself as a
homosexual – he was more of a Jonathansexual, or one of those
indisputably macho Latin men he’d heard about, who confirmed
