by Will Self
the stale bits … Come upon suddenly, in the heat – chickpeas? For
breakfast? – the men appear schoolboyish in their awkward helmets
and bulky body-armour, standing over their captives porting their
popguns … Trooper Arbroath has a bad crop of acne – can’t find
Clearasil in the bazaar. He squats by a prone figure in the far corner,
holding up a bag of saline – a khaki-clad figure, unhelmeted and
with a tile-white face: Bessemer! At the sight of the boy who’s just
learnt his baby boy … is another boy’s, Gawain recoils into this
sadly typical scene: he’d carpeted Bessemer, along with Trooper
Sneddon, two months ago back in the YouKay. The pair of ’em
shuffling their boots on the scrap of carpet in front of Gawain’s
desk: black eyes and split lips had been equally distributed –
they’d got into a really rather serious scrap over whose turn it was
with … the PlayStation. Gawain had told them: I had to deal with
a similar incident on Saturday – but that was between my sons.
Actual children – not highly trained professional soldiers behaving
like bloody children! They’d avoided his paternal eye and squirmed to
attention. Why? Because they are bloody children – the bloody children
of parents who’d been dumped on the post-industrial scrapheap:
white goods … old fridges and washing machines, piled up … one
on top of the other – kids get trapped inside them … toddlers younger
than Miffy – led away from shopping centres by other … bloodthirsty
children … The Rams always made a lot of their White Rose
credentials, but the truth is its petals will be forever stained by the
soot which once fell from Redcar chimneys. Most of the regiment
is recruited from further north – up the coast, past Scarborough.
Not white goods at all, really – let alone Little Englanders, but
Lynndie ones! Skinny, spotty boys raised up by hand on sugar, vinegar
and salt – stuck together with glue and old betting slips … For
their fathers and forefathers joining the service had been a way of
escaping the molten steel puddling in their guts – but for the Bessemers
and Sneddons who now made up the ranks? Well, Gawain
didn’t consider himself remotely cynical – only clear-sighted: they’d
exchanged under- for unemployment. Instead of hanging round
outside the bookie’s or sitting at home fiddling with a controller,
they hung around the canteen or outside the chogee shop – or sat
in their barracks fiddling with a controller. Yes, yes – they could
drill beautifully, and provide the wetware for sophisticated modern
figting vehicles as well – but none of this would be much use when
they ended up job-seeking … Really, Gawain thinks – looking at
the seriously wounded boy … I was meant to keep an eye on, they’re
just like me: chocolate soldiers to a man – taken out of our box
once in a while to melt in the mouth – not in the hand, Jesus! The heat!
The heat in Ali al-Garbi this May noontide, which makes the
concrete roofscapes buckle. The concrete roofscapes pallisaded with
their own reinforcing, strung with cabling and clotheslines from
which sky-blue bedspreads flutt– Pythian! Gawain yelps. The roof!
Whatabout the roof – secured, issit? Perry Rat Likes Shooting
Arseholes Regularly … The Rats may well be Perry-prepared for
battle – but there’s no Rat-returning of fire to be done as yet – given
we haven’t even, Like-located the fucking enemy! Pythian turns to
a Kiwi officer Gawain hadn’t so much as noticed, who’s propped
against the kitchen island: McClintock! Secured the roof, didja?
The Kiwi bemusedly levers himself upright – stunned not by
Pythian’s obvious contempt, but by the dawning awareness of …
the massive clusterfuck he’s perpetrated. Yet, if Gawain’s honest … if
I’m honest, at this moment in time … at this moment in time, in the
kitchen of Number Twenty-Seven, Al-Afrika Street, Ali al-Garbi,
Maysan Governate, Iraq … the Middle East, the World, the Milky
Way, the Universe … Can I be here … now? No – no, he can’t:
Double in, Pythian, Gawain says. Check and secure the roof area –
take Arbroath and Hodges … His radio barks: Hotel, Lima,
Foxtrot … d’you read me? But no, Gawain only reads the Power-Points
from a Staff College lecture that appear before him … a
heads-up display, and which’re better than a poxy old mnemonic
when it comes to remembering the key differences between AirLand
Battle and Full-Spectrum Dominance … Not that either strategic
overview alters the fundamental reality that … within the battle-space
the effective tank commander maintains multiple perspectives. Yes!
Indeed! Meaning he sees pretty much what all the men under his
command see, hears what they hear, feels what they touch and
smells what they sniff at – or at least tries to, because in practice the
Rams have mostly been trained to go mano-a-mano with hordes
of … white dots tracking across their monitors … now – Now, Asif …
As if ? Be so good as to introduce me to the Sheik of the White
Plastic Garden Chairs … The ’terp turns to the Iraqi men cross-legged
along the wall, all sporting dishdashas, keffiyehs and
black polyester trousers which’re … flat-fronted for that becoming
pot-bellied silhouette – get outta my head, Jonathan! Mutter-mutter,
goes Asif, and then: Gobble-gobble-gobble, cough-cough-cough.
The eldest and most venerable-looking of the Iraqis replies:
Cough-cough-cough, mutter-gobble-mutter … He’s a moon-faced
man with pot-bellies under his hooded eyes, and as he splutters
on Lieutenant-Colonel Gawain Thomas recalls some off-the-wall
briefing about cultural sensitivity: Despite having no knowledge of
someone’s language you can still show – by nodding and making small
noises expressing encouragement – that you get their … general … drift.
Yes, a drift and a draught – the Sheik sprays the radio Velcroed to
the front of Gawain’s body armour with his spittle … stale garlic,
recent chickpeas, long-rotting teeth and the … blood of innocents …
One of the little girls is whimpering – if control of the battle-space
is to be maintained, she should really be … put on the naughty step.
– Ask him, please, Asif, who exactly his friends are, where they’re
from, and what the bloody-hell they’re up to – ‘cause innabout thirty
seconds me and my men’re gonna open that door none too gently,
and if we don’t have a pretty good idea of what’s waiting for us on
the other side … Well, let’s just put it this way: whatever grand
designs the Sheik may have re’ his home improvements will have to
be put on hold. Permanently. – So it goes: Asif and the Sheik carry
on … mutually contaminating, while Gawain maintains multiple perspectives
… climbing the bare concrete stairs with Pythian – peering
through the sights of Abroath’s EssAyEighty as it tracks here,
then there, holding on to a discarded item of clothing or a dropped
shoe, then letting it go. As Asif does his job, the S
heik stares
hungrily at the ’terp’s Adam’s apple … like to eat it: He say he don’t
know – these friends are not his friends, they are the friends of his
cousins – but, bismillah, it is the Arab way to welcome guests …
Had your men not arrived bearing arms, acting insensitively, he
would have shown them the same hospitality –. For Christ’s sake,
Asif, Gawain baas, tell the man to get to the bloody point! Up on
the roof cross-hairs quarter a satellite dish … a white plastic garden
chair … a pile of breeze-blocks … a sky-blue bedspread flapping …
The Sheik carries on coughing, while one of the three Kiwis remaining
in the kitchen comes up to Gawain, grinning inanely …
Bernard-bloody-Bresslaw: Sir … Sir … he sirs – but Gawain only
snaps: You still here? If I were you, I’d clear right out – we’re going
in, and need room to manoeuvre. Davis, Patel … double in, Rams,
and sharpish: get this lot outside – he indicates the Iraqis with the
muzzle of a sidearm I seem to’ve drawn – all of ’em. And keep ’em
covered – never know what they might have underneath their …
bedspreads … sure of my lines, eh ? Asif is as well: The Sheik says
he believes that they may have AyKays –. – Of course they’ve got
bloody AyKays! The bloody schoolchildren have AyKays in this
godforsaken country – what about anything heavier? These are
fighters, aren’t they, Asif – AREN’T THEY? Gawain’s spoken
TOO LOUDLY, and, despite the shuffling and scraping of the
Iraqis getting to their feet and stretching their cramped limbs …
EVERYONE HEARD ME. Hears him – sees him, too: because
if the effective tank commander maintains multiple perspectives
within the battle-space, so that battle-space maintains multiple
perspectives on … me! They see him – Iraqis, Rams and Kiwis
alike – see him standing hunched under the low eaves, peering
through the distorting pane at the hooded crows clustered on the
church roof – they see him turning towards Jonathan, who stands
half naked in the cold light of a winter morning … You’ve got so
bloody thin, he remembers saying – and further carping: It’s those
dreadful little pills, isn’t it – they’re drugs, aren’t they ? They’re turning
you into … a … scarecrow. And Jonathan? He’d laughed – he was
always laughing nowadays, albeit … edgily. When he’d stopped
laughing, he stretched, thrusting his ribcage into still greater
prominence. You’ve got to enjoy deception, dearest Teddy Bear, he’d
said. You must revel in the double life – else there’s no point to it.
You must experience the sheer exhilaration as you take the short
hop over the abyss yawning between one of your identities and the
next – ‘course, you’d know all about that, since you … do it all
the time. And Gawain, far from being flattered by this, was still
more … riled: I’m not like you, Jonathan – really, there’s no comparison.
I may be an … adulterer, and … um, closeted, but I’m not
some international-man-of-bloody-mystery! Yes, a world-bestriding
enigma, who let fall one exotic destination after another – Caracas,
then Cairo – to impress his lover, no doubt – but also to frustrate
any knavish tricks … For with no real idea of what Jonathan
got up to, Gawain found it impossible to … keep my eye on him.
But on that occasion – in Bardney, on the cold winter morning
when he’d exposed his hand to Brian and John, Gawain was
emboldened, and apprehended the battle-space, so for once asked him
directly: Where’re you going? I don’t mean in general – I mean right
now: Where the fuck’re you going? But Jonathan had only deigned to
answer obliquely. Downstairs, signing the register with someone
else’s name, he finally replied, Me? Well, since you ask, Brian,
I’m just popping back to my London flat to pack, then it’s off to
Kuwait – my firm keeps me on the move, sorta
circus-dog-trotting-on-a-big-rubber-ball sitch … Next they were standing out in
the lane, scraping the frost from their respective windscreens. The
hooded crows had been restive, Gawain recalls: kraarking from
the squat flint bell tower of the church … hakuna matata. Jonathan
had arrived in what passed for his casual wear – an expensively soft
brown-leather jacket, a cashmere crew-necked sweater, cords and
leather loafers … delicate as Miffy’s ballet slippers – but he was leaving
in full Whitehall fig: spongebag trousers, black jacket and waistcoat,
patent-leather dress shoes, Crombie overcoat with a velvet collar …
And of course he’d been driving the silver-grey pillarless coupé, a
vehicle which was almost as absurdly visible! Gawain had pictured
him then – pictures him now: the long ribbon of Lincolnshire
tarmac unrolling from the Merc’s rear bumper, and from time to
time a burst of chaff being fired from concealed barrels – glow worms
up too late in the Fenland day, draping their smoky tails over
drenched fields and dormant hedgerows. So that’s it, Gawain had
spat. You definitely want us to be found out, don’t you? Why – is it
the only way you can get your kicks any more? Or perhaps that
bullshit about Kuwait was just another lie – or cover story, as you
call them … Scccraaape. Jonathan had rubbed his hooded fingertips
together – icy shavings fell at his well-shod feet. No, he said, that’s
not it – I really am going to Kuwait, Teddy Bear, it was just my way
of letting you know without having to say it right out – which goes
rather profoundly scccraaape against the grain. There’s no need to get
tetchy – after all, it’s rather a tricky time at work at the moment for
both of us … To’ve shown public affection is, was – would always
be: unthinkable. That morning, as on all the others, they’d kissed
before leaving their room – kissed the famished kiss they always did
on parting … Kaaa, feeding on each other’s lips and tongues
beyond the point of satiety, ‘cause we never know when we’ll make
another … kill. So, in the lane, they’d formally shaken cold hands.
What did we look like? A to-the-manor-born saying farewell to his
man-of-all-work – a deferential type, who, even in this egalitarian
age, reaches for an invisible forelock to … tug. Some of the ’terps go
armed – others not. When Speedwell, the Brigade Political Officer,
visits from Amarah, he looks askance at Asif and the others lounging
about Camp Val with the off-duty Rams – their Kalashnikovs
locked in the same rack, while they, too … squabble over the PlayStation
controller. Asif’s hand twitches – and it’s notoriously tricky,
the safety on an AyKay. The armourer went over it all on Gawain’s
last Optag: Some fighters’ll do a field modification and fuck it
up – see, there’s this flange on the dust cover’s edge, catches the catch if you
aren’t … careful – rendering it off when it should be on, with predictable
results. Shocked, Asif stutters: I am t-truly not knowing – this
Sheik-fellow, he
is saying they’re friends only –. Okay, that’s
enough, man. Gawain silences him by raising the muzzle of the Sig
Sauer … I’m using my sidearm in a combat situation – never done that
before … Patel, you go right – Jenks, you go left … He waves the
muzzle to indicate where the troopers should take up position so as
to have the widest possible field of fire when … I open the door.
Bessemer is being carried out on a stretcher – saline feels chilly
going in, or so Fi told him after one of her deliveries when she
haemorrhaged. This much Gawain remembers – but which of their
children was it? Troubling, that – makes a bit of a mockery of my
claim to be a conscientious husband and father … Bessemer looks
up at his SeeOh, his lips pale and cracked, his top lip sweat-shiny.
Sir … Sir … he kraark-kraaark croaks. He may’ve lost a lot of
blood, but he still glows with pride – pride at his great and valiant
achievement: wounded in the line of duty when commandeering vital
supplies … is what he probably thinks the citation should read –
while there’s a gaudy Ruritanian medal dangling from the crimson
ribbon which unrolls in his mind’s eye: cast by Thos Askew and
Sons, Jewellers and Engravers of Pickering, Yorkshire, est nineteen
hundred and four. Ting-ting goes the swinging door: You again,
Colonel Thomas – back from that Eyeracky carry-on, are you? Sssir,
sssir … Bessemer hisses – and his SeeOh says: Rest easy, Trooper,
you’ve done your bit … then squats down, and before he knows it
Gawain’s bestowed a fatherly hand on the poor boy’s burning forehead.
Straightening up, he cries: Carry him away! Before returning
to the … jeweller’s: Bit of an unusual one for you, Mister Askew –
my boys got mixed up in a little bother, somewhere we, ah, shouldn’t’ve
been – if you get my drift … Acquitted themselves fine – Rams always
do, but non poss any sort of official recognition, and my chaps are
understandably aggrieved … Together with my senior officers, I thought
we’d do a little something for them – if you’d oblige … Like a charm-thingie
for one of those bracelets – like the one I bought for my daughter
but bigger … In silver as well – good old sterling silver, like the
Rams’ table decoration … He passes Mister Askew a colour printout
