by Will Self
So, clean ’em up a bit, will you – it stinks in here. I know it isn’t
politically correct, but besides being a damn fine medic, Captain
Petersen happens to be a lady. MAJOR MCADIE (simpering repulsively
and making a mincing gesture): Ooh, I’m a la-ady …
COLONEL THOMAS: Marty … CAPTAIN CAMBELL: Don’t you
worry, Boss, we’re recording all the teaqueue sessions anyway –
couldn’t step out of line if we wanted to –. MAJOR MCADIE: And we
don’t want to. COLONEL THOMAS: Want to what? MAJOR MCADIE:
Step out of the line, Boss – me and the missus have got very keen on
the line dancing, we have. She had to drag me along to begin with –
thought it’d just be a bunch of old fossils Zimmering about, turns
out lots of younger people’re doing it nowadays as well … COLONEL
THOMAS (staring hard into MCADIE’S pouchy red guileless face): I’ll
bear that in mind, Major McAdie. CAPTAIN CAMBELL (conducting
COLONEL THOMAS from the cell, then swinging open the door
to the third and darkest of the TeeDeeEff’s chambers): See, Boss,
we’ve set up a monitoring post in here – our equivalent of the old
one-way glass. THEWLIS here keeps an eye on everything – makes
sure it’s all recorded. CORPORAL THEWLIS (rising from the collapsible
picnic table he’s sitting at so abruptly his white plastic garden
chair topples backwards): Sir! COLONEL THOMAS: Carry on, Thewlis.
CAPTAIN CAMBELL (pointing to THE LAPTOP on the picnic
table): See? Feel free to join Thewlis, Boss. You can watch us take
one of the detainees through a cycle. Reassure yourself everything’s
… kosher. (CORPORAL THEWLIS retrieves a second white plastic
garden chair from the gloomy recesses of the cell and COLONEL
THOMAS slumps down in it. CAPTAIN CAMBELL leaves, and can
be heard talking to MAJOR MCADIE next door in undertones.
COLONEL THOMAS tries to concentrate, but he’s been awake for
over twenty-two hours – he looks up blearily at the hole hacked in
the concrete wall which serves as a window, and thinks he sees there
a huge and tufty caricature of a face … Miffy can’t go upstairs to the
loo in the new house by herself – not if it’s dark. Says Laura will be up
there – but grown all giant. Giant clown doll Fi knitted for her – red
button eyes, thin black-threaded lips … Staring at the back of poor
Miffy’s head as she … lifts her nightie –. COLONEL THOMAS is jerked
awake by:) CAPTAIN CAMBELL (shouting but muffled): You’re
beginning to seriously piss me off! You low piece of shit – you utter
fucking knob-head. Don’t look away – don’t look away from me!
Look me in the eye, you disgusting man. You disgust me. Is that
how your fucking burqa of a mother brought you up? Is it? To sit
around in your own piss and shit! For fuck’s sake! (The live-feed
from the camera set up in the interrogation room is lagging so that
everything CAMBELL shouts in the adjoining cell is repeated a split-second
later by THE LAPTOP’S crappy speaker.) THE LAPTOP
(tinnily): You’re beginning to seriously piss me off! You low piece of
shit … (and so on). MAJOR MCADIE (in Arabic and muffled): My
colleague is very angry with you – very angry! He says you have a
head that resembles a door handle and that you are improperly toilet
trained. He commands you to face him … in the eye looking …
THE LAPTOP (tinnily and in Arabic): My colleague is very angry
with you – very angry! (and so on). IRAQI DETAINEE (in Arabic,
scarcely audible): I do not understand why you are doing this to me –
I’m an honest man. Honest and peace-loving. When you British
arrived in Ali al-Garbi, I went out into the street to welcome you –
I threw flowers! THE LAPTOP: I do not understand why you are
doing this to me – I’m an honest man … (and so on). MAJOR
MCADIE: He says he doesn’t understand British, Dave – that’s a
good one. It’s like he thinks we really speak something called
British. CAPTAIN CAMBELL: Spare me the fucking commentary
will you, Marty – just tell me exactly what this bastard is saying.
(Fully awake once more, COLONEL THOMAS blearies at THE LAPTOP’S
screen, and sees looming there the IRAQI DETAINEE’S bruised
and bloody caricature of a face, while to either side of it hang the
red and sweaty ones belonging to CAPTAIN CAMBELL and MAJOR
MCADIE.) MAJOR MCADIE: As I said, Dave, a literal translation
from Arabic’s always tricky: it’s a flowery sorta language, doesn’t
lend itself to matter-of-fact statements – unlike Parseltongue! (Both
men laugh.) IRAQI DETAINEE (wonderingly, and in Arabic): Who
are you idiots? You call this interrogation – this isn’t interrogation. I
was interrogated by the Mukhabarat after the ninety-one rising –
the one you and your allies, the Great Satan, said you would support.
I was taken at dawn, together with six of my fellow fighters,
to the EssEssOh’s aitchqueue in Kut. The first question they asked
me – which is the first question any Iraqi asks another he wishes
to obtain information from – was: Who’s your Sheik? You people
really are the most consummately, comprehensively ignorant occupiers
it’s possible to imagine – this remains, at root, a tribal society,
and over this have been imposed still more divisions – religious,
ideological, ethnic – such that any given individual will have an
immensely complex and ever changing network of friends, enemies
and potential allies. So, in ninety-one, Saddam’s torturers first
asked who my Sheik was – and then, when I’d told them, they got
out the car battery and the jump leads. A little later on a chainsaw
was brought into play – if you clowns had bothered to physically
examine me you’d know this already. So, I ask again: who are you
idiots? Clearly you’re not cut from the same cloth as the British
officers who came here in the nineteen twenties – men my own
grandfather remembers from his childhood. They were racists, pure
and simple – yet they took the trouble to study our culture and language
systematically, whereas you – you! You’re a pathetic joke!
CAPTAIN CAMBELL: Voluble fucker, ain’t he, Mart. What was all
that carry-on, then? IRAQI DETAINEE (continuing in Arabic purely
for his own grim amusement): Nor can you be the descendants of
the men who were stationed here – because they were mostly Indian
sepoys. Traditional behaviour on the part of the Little Satan – get
one subject race to oppress another. But now the Great Satan’s in
on the act, too – those pictures of the abuse at Abu Ghraib, the
prisoners all piled up on top of each other – Kurds on top of Sunnis,
Sunnis on top of Shias – same martial-races policy, really – and
that Munchkin standing alongside, looking like some public-school
educated British subaltern of the imperial era, tormented by his
homosexuality and his inability to grow a bear –. CAPTAIN CAMBELL:
All right, all right – shut the fuck up with your jabbering.
Anything in that lot, Marty? MAJOR MCADIE: Difficult to ma
ke
out, Dave – seemed mostly … background info’. CAPTAIN CAMBELL:
Not interested in that, we want hard intel’ – and preferably a
confession. C’mon, Marty, put your fucking back into it – either
this muppet or one of his mates mowed down Bessemer. Slotted
Asif as well – a ’terp like you, albeit rather better at his job. His relatives
– his peeps, they’re still out there, prob’ly with bombs under
their burqas –. IRAQI WOMEN: Ullalullaullalullaullalullaullalulla!
IRAQI DETAINEE (musing to himself in Arabic): Could be the
dawn prayer – these jokers wouldn’t know even know the difference.
It’s the Fifteenth Night of Shabaan – and they certainly don’t
know the signif –. CAPTAIN CAMBELL: Will you shut the ruddy-fuck
up! It’s like you’re … you’re … under the misguided impression
you’re the important person in this room – that you’re holding the
fucking conch shell and have the right to speak. Well, you’re not
holding the FUCKING CONCH SHELL! Can you see a conch
shell in this dumb rag head’s greasy-fucking-hands, Marty? MAJOR
MCADIE: Can’t say as I do, Dave … CAPTAIN CAMBELL (screaming
into the IRAQI DETAINEE’S ear): No! No! No fucking conch
shell! You’re not the main man here – I’m the fucking main man
here! If you don’t start cooperating with us, you’re fucking set,
you are – fucking set: we’ll go round your miserable stinking hovel,
we’ll rape your mother and your sisters … IRAQI DETAINEE (to
himself, in Arabic): Always with the raping! I’ve no sister, only one
much older half-brother – probably not to your taste when it comes
to sexual violation. And my mother is currently dying of ovarian
cancer in the hospital the SeePeeAy claims – in a report I’ve
seen – to’ve rebuilt, but which is in fact a burnt-out shell to this day.
MAJOR MCADIE: Um … he said ‘ukht, Dave … CAPTAIN CAMBELL:
What? He said yuck-ten? MAJOR MCADIE: No, he said ‘ukht,
Dave – it means sister. He said sister – I reckon this one understands
a sight more British than he’s letting on. CAPTAIN CAMBELL
(shouting into the IRAQI DETAINEE’S ear): So, you’re holding out
on us, are you, you fucking fuck! Turns out you’re the only gay in
the village, does it? (He disappears abruptly from the laptop’s screen
and can be heard shouting still louder:) Haynes! Haynes! Get your
sorry arse in here – and bring that crowbar with you … COLONEL
THOMAS (bleary from his nap, and speaking of inconsequential
things, as you do): What’s the book, Thewlis? CORPORAL THEWLIS:
It’s an old Harry Potter one, sir – Harry Potter and the Chamber of
Secrets. COLONEL THOMAS: Oh … yes … I remember reading
that aloud to my kids – it’s jolly good, isn’t it? CORPORAL THEWLIS:
Yes, jolly good, sir – and sorta ‘propriate reading material, given
the circs … But I can’t wait for the new one – my mum’s gonna go
into Gateshead, queue up and buy it for me, like. COLONEL
THOMAS: It’s such a phenomenon, Thewlis – that’ll be a jolly long
wait. CORPORAL THEWLIS: Jolly long, sir – but she’s a real trooper,
my mum. She’ll take along a fart sack and some scran – plot up just
like a Ram on stag –. SERGEANT HAYNES (his voice issuing from
both tinny speaker and from the vestibule): Ollie-ollie-ollie! THE
IRON BAR: Zoing! Zoing! Zoing! SERGEANT HAYNES: Ollie-ollie-ollie!
THE IRON BAR: Zoing! Zoing! Zoing! CAPTAIN CAMBELL
(speaking through the laptop): You hear that, do you? That’s my
main man, Billy Haynes, that is – and he isn’t a commissioned
officer in Her Majesty’s army, you fucking fuck, he’s come up the
hard way, has Billy. You hear that iron bar? He’s gonna shove it
right up your homosexual arse if you don’t start giving us some
answers: What were you doing in Sheik al-Abhadi’s house? Why
did you have percussion grenades on you and five hundred YouEss
dollars in cash? Are you a spook? You look like a fucking spook – a
fucking gay spook! IRAQI DETAINEE (in Farsi): Did my beloved
only touch me with his lips, I, too, like the flute, would burst into
melody … But he who is parted from them that speak his tongue,
though he possess a hundred voices, is perforce … dumb. CAPTAIN
CAMBELL: Marty? MAJOR MCADIE: Haven’t a bloody clue, Dave –
it’s not Arabic, must be one of the Persian lingos. CAPTAIN
CAMBELL: I know you understand English, you piece of shit in
human form – and if you understand it, you can fucking well speak
it, eh? So speak to the iron bar! THE IRON BAR: Zoing! Zoing!
Zoing! COLONEL THOMAS: We mostly read comics in my day –
English ones were difficult to get when we were overseas, but I’d an
aunt in Caernarfon who’d send me a bundle every month or so …
Hotspur … Victor … the Eagle. It was pretty unsophisticated stuff
by today’s standards, all about square-jawed Brit bulldogs taking
the fight to the beastly Hun, but I pored over them, sopping it all
up. CORPORAL THEWLIS: Sir … COLONEL THOMAS (rising unsteadily
from his white plastic garden chair and looking bemusedly
at the darkened chamber ill lit by THE LAPTOP’S screen): Oh …
Oh, well – better be getting on, then … You – you carry on, Thewlis
… Carry on with your … reading. HARRY POTTER AND THE
CHAMBER OF SECRETS: Try and stop him – ‘cause I’m a real pageturner,
so I am – and that’s how I’ve got hundreds of thousands
of boys like this one into reading, making them capable in due
course of absorbing the entire Western canon, and along with it the
values of liberality and tolerance which have underpinned our
civilisation for millennia. THE IRON BAR: Zoing! Zoing! Zoing!
Confessiamus! COLONEL THOMAS (distracted): Yes … carry on,
Thewlis … (He leaves the cell and meets SERGEANT HAYNES in
the vestibule.) SERGEANT HAYNES: Everything all right? COLONEL
THOMAS (glancing into the large cell where the IRAQI DETAINEES
are kneeling, hooded): It’s just like a game of slaps, really …
SERGEANT HAYNES: Slaps? COLONEL THOMAS: Y’know – like
boys play at school: you touch your fingertips together and then try
to slap the other chap before he … slaps you. SERGEANT HAYNES:
Oh, yeah, slaps. (He strides into the cell and walks along the row of
IRAQI DETAINEES, yanking down each pair of plasti-cuffed hands.)
Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! Fucking slap! IRAQI DETAINEES’
CHOIR (in yanking order): Ooh! Aah! Eek! Arr! Incomprehensible
Arabic oath! Fuck you! Aah! SERGEANT HAYNES: That’s it, sir,
isn’t it – that’s the go of it. COLONEL THOMAS: Yes … well …
carry on, Haynes. (He takes one last look round at: the stained concrete
walls and floors, which now and forever are the set-dressing
of suffering, then leaves the TeeDeeEff. THE AFTER-IMAGE of
THE LAPTOP’S screen goes with him: a mystically glowing portal
into another world, beckoning him on across the compound towards
the Regimental Aid Post. He follows it, oblivious to the restive
troopers, who’ve crep
t back once more from the squadron lines and
stand in loose knots, smoking and swearing.) THE AFTER-IMAGE:
I’ll never leave you, GAYwain, I’ll always be with you – I’ll always
be right at hand to show you smooth young stomachs with CALVIN
KLEIN stretched across them … And show you down below, as
well! Mm! Such loveliness once the male shape-wear is removed …
COLONEL THOMAS (to himself): I never so much as laid a finger on
any of the men under my command. THE AFTER-IMAGE: Under
being the operative word –. COLONEL THOMAS: What’re you
talking about, you evil sprite! I’m not a bloody paedo! CAPTAIN
PETERSEN (arriving at a brisk trot and saluting sketchily, her
handsome face uglified by anxiety): Boss? Boss? Are you okay?
COLONEL THOMAS: Perfectly all right, Gail – just tired, but then
we’re all tired, aren’t we? How’s Major Townshend getting on?
CAPTAIN PETERSEN: Not at all well, I’m afraid –. COLONEL
THOMAS: Has h-he b-been s-saying things? CAPTAIN PETERSEN:
Dreadful things, Boss … THE AFTER-IMAGE: If you’ve forgotten
what the instructor tried to din into you as you drowsed in Lecture
Room Nineteen after lunch, let me, with my connection to the
world wide web, reacquaint you with the exact wording: According
to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, any act is outlawed
by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental,
is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining
from him information or a confession … COLONEL THOMAS:
I’m well aware of that, Gail – he said some pretty dreadful things
to me. THE AFTER-IMAGE: … When such suffering is inflicted
by, or at the instigation of, a public official or person acting in an
official capacity, this will constitute under the terms of the Convention
a … war crime. CAPTAIN PETERSEN: He was really raving,
Boss – I had to give him a heavy sedative, he’ll be out for hours
now. COLONEL THOMAS (more focused): Time enough to get him
down to Shaibah before he starts up again? CAPTAIN PETERSEN
(bemused): We-ell … I s’pose so, Boss. COLONEL THOMAS: That’s
the ticket – you carry on, then, Gail, they’re expecting you over at
the TeeDeeEff. High time those detainees were given their medical
