by Will Self
experienced as the Butcher can feel a little trepidation when he’s
plying the scalpel on my own flesh … Is it Amir, is it? This question
has tormented him ever since Dicky asked him to do this little
favour – other colleagues have been out in the field, desperately
trying to tie up any loose ends. Clearly, now fuck-all’s been found
in the way of ennbeesee, the official enquiries are going to go from
now until the Last Trump: the Butcher sees a committee room in
Portcullis House, its bland slab of conference table and modular
multimedia carousel – sees a harrumphing Chairman and dozing
EmPees and scratching hacks. Sees the Angel of the Lord slice off
all their foggily bureaucratic heads with his Samsung scythe … Yes,
it’ll go on forever, with the pols grilling their barely civil servants,
even as their own disingenuous noses grow and grow … But, while
the source known as Curveball has bounced out into the open,
and the Iraqi provocateurs who claimed to’ve had sources in the
Mukhabarat are too flaky to be a threat, there’s this other fellow …
is it, Amir – is it? whom Dicky, John – maybe even TeeBee’s filthy
little fucker of a flack – were dumb enough to trust, and possibly
even meet with, although they couldn’t be that stupid – could
they? And if it is Amir? Well, he wouldn’t scruple to dump them all
in it since he’s no fucking scruples at all. No scruples – and no hesitation
in going to the highest bidder, because if you’re a half-Iraqi,
half-Iranian Shia, with smarts enough to’ve worked your way up
from nowhere to become a senior officer in the Islamic Republic’s
intelligence services, then defected during the great patriotic war,
then played both ends against the middle, well: loose ends are your
stock-in-trade. But is it Amir … is it? The intel’ had come through
via the slime’s aitchqueue – then to the Doughnut, and finally to
VeeBeeArr: the asset they were interested in had successfully
crossed the border near a town called Ali al-Garbi, but before he’d
had the opportunity to identify himself to Coalition forces he’d
been scooped up in a hard knock and taken to the local base …
hard edge – and the light touch of … fate. The Butcher is buzzing: he
hasn’t spoken to Gawain in over a month – they risked one call
shortly after the Rams arrived in theatre, and Lieutenant-Colonel
Thomas had waxed unexpectedly lyrical about the black sheep:
You’re not gonna b’lieve it, Jonathan … when the Republican
Guard pulled out of here they set fire to the wellheads, whole town
was blanketed in the smoke for days – turned all the sheep black!
It’s pretty bloody funny, really – when we arrived at the camp
gates there was a flock of the poor silly things waiting for us …
Prophetic – or what? Deplaning in Kuwait, the Samsung Barry gave
him clonks lightly against his hip – the Butcher’s cresting the great
wave of his own humanised electro-being. He popped a couple more
pills on the flight … it’ll be a long day, and watched a film in which
a young couple both get it together … and don’t – a fairly tedious
counterfactual, he thinks, compared to the one he’s trying to
engineer. Close protection are waiting for the Butcher ground side,
and he can tell they’re impressed by how insouciantly Savile Row-suited
he is – and how unencumbered: No luggage, sir – not even
carry on? says the burly, shaven-headed Green Jackets Sergeant
commanding the detail – and the Butcher says nothing, only shoots
my cuffs … a silent rebuke to the Sergeant’s own exposed forearms,
with their childhood Biro doodles called tattoos … At his request
they drive him to the Shuwaikh district, where the general provisioning
shops are. The Bangladeshi has purple lips and a boil on his
forehead – he disappears between stacks of jerry-cans and coils of
tow-rope to search for the items he’s been asked for, and, when he’s
assembled the pile on the counter, the Butcher points out a canvas
holdall and asks him to, Put it all in there, will you? He slings the
bag in the back of the Wimmik and, getting in beside the driver,
turns to the Sergeant: I’ve business at the Hilton before we can
get going … They take him along Arabian Gulf Street, past the
kebab joints. Kuwaiti girls sit at the pavement tables smoking
shisha-pipes – the Butcher smells the fruity fumes as the car barrels
by, and thinks of Sally lying tiger-striped by shadows while he rubs
lip balm around her anus. The driver pulls up by the Hilton sign,
and the Sergeant says: Off limits to uniformed personnel, sir – we’ll
park up and wait. The Butcher walks along the curving concrete
esplanade between the white reef of the hotel and the white sand of
the machine-made beach. There are parboiled Brits on sun loungers
– the families of EffOh staff stationed in-country. He hears them
talking about Sven-Göran Eriksson’s love life – someone sing-songs
in an undertone, You’re beautiful … it’s true. He enters an air-conditioned
shopping mall through soundlessly sliding doors, and,
passing by racks festooned with pashminas, lifts one to his discerning
nose so he can savour the faintest odour of … Kaaaashmir.
In the lobby area he speaks with an Indian dressed in the chain’s
natty-green uniform, and then he’s conducted to a back office.
The sign on the door reads: MISTER MARSHALSEA, HEAD OF
SECURITY. — Less than an hour later their convoy is under way:
three Wimmiks, no less – the one carrying the Butcher in the
middle. The desert, the Butcher thinks, should be clean and stark
and ecstatically eternal – but the environs of Kuwait City are grubby,
cluttered and painfully … provisional. A breeze has got up and grit
spatters the windscreen. They drive out along Highway Six, passing
old Mercs and newer Toyota pickups coming the other way, plus the
occasional British military truck painted the colour of old custard …
with young squaddies lolling on top, keffiyehs round their necks,
goggles masking their exhausted eyes. They take the road for Umm
Qasr, which curves around the city, and the Butcher watches the
sun set into a golden haze of dust behind the gleaming towers of …
El Dorado, while a perfect crescent moon rises in the west, its low
rays lighting the scrublands along the coast and glimmering on
the waters of the Gulf. The border is, the Butcher thinks, similarly
allegorical: a Portaloo in lieu of a guardhouse, which is manned by
someone who does indeed have shit-for-brains. They wait while he
phones here, then there, to check their authorisation – then wait
some more for the aypeesee to arrive from Shaibah. The Butcher
wants to get out and stretch his legs, then sit in the cool of the desert
night on a conveniently located white plastic garden chair – but the
jobsworth Sergeant won’t let him unless he puts on a helmet and
twelve kilogrammes of body armour. Clearly, this is a man who
knows nothing of what it takes to preserve … fine tailoring
. When
the vehicle finally arrives, he insists the Butcher cross-deck into it,
which he does purely in order to keep the peace. They continue north.
The Sergeant says, In-and-out job, is it, sir? And the Butcher, his
hips painfully grating in the poorly upholstered bucket seat, gives
a small, tight smile. Looking through the tinted side window at
the moonlight glazing the dune crests, the Butcher ponders the
revolution that’s taken place inside his head. It began, he thinks,
years ago – although he failed to notice it, so slight, to begin with,
was the modulation in the tone adopted by my malignant deceiver.
But then he stopped lisping! Stopped lisping – and stopped teasing
and back-biting as well. His voice became deeper, his accent more
public school – and he began delivering little homilies rather than
snide asides (Such a bore, that – there’s a limit, isn’t there, to such
badinage, don’tcha think?). When, with the darkened desert
streaming into his gaping pupils, the Butcher considers his relationship
with Squilly … a hundred and one nights of jittery fabulation, it
occurs to him that at some point in the past decade or so … I passed
him by. Squilly, who, for as long as the Butcher could remember,
had been dominant, always yanking his chain, forever threatening
him with the lash of his lisping tongue, had failed to move with the
times – failed, specifically, to get older. What was it Kins used to
sing after his second drink of the evening … Put your head on my
shoulder, You need someone who’s older … his saggy red face suffused
with sentiment. The Butcher, who’s now been up for twenty hours
and is strung out taut as Tamsin’s gee-string, wouldn’t mind resting
his head on the shoulder of the man sitting next to him – a private
contractor who’s customised his rifle with childish decals …
Eat Lead … Die Another Day … Pudsey Bear … Shits, Shits – I See
No Shits … He must’ve slept (With his head on my shoulder), the
sweat pooling in the bucket seat, because next he’s waking up, and
drenched … shivering – have to run a caucus-race … They’re under
searchlights in the rat-run. The Sergeant swivels round and delivers
this snide critique: Bit of a late arrival, sir, I hope whatever you’ve
brought in that holdall justifies the risk you’ve exposed me and my
men to … But the Butcher only grunts, and, sitting up, begins
groping under the seat. You’ll need to sit tight ‘til they’ve check– the
Sergeant begins, but stops because there’s a small group of very
obvious brass coming towards them along the sandbagged gulley,
and next the door of the Fuchs is being opened: I’m Major-General
Fitzhugh, says a tall, stooping, donnish man, and this is my Two-EyeSee,
Gerry Fox – and you are? Jonathan, says the Butcher,
getting out of the aypeesee and stretching luxuriously. Reaching
back in, he pulls out the holdall, and, turning to the Sergeant, says,
loudly enough for the rest of his men to hear: You’re not a fucking
nanny, man – and this is no nursery. If I ever run across you
again, I’ll thank you to do as you’re told and keep your fucking trap
shut … A little abrupt, Fitzhugh says as they weave through walls
of sandbags and chainlink fences draped with hessian cloth – did
he do something to nettle you? And the Butcher, stepping lightly,
says, I’m here on a matter of state security, General – something
profoundly important to AitchEmmGee. That chap seemed to feel
the safety of a handful of ‘roided-up ex-nightclub bouncers was
more important – I didn’t … There’s silence for a while, except for
the crunch of their shoes on sand, then their cold slap on cooling
concrete. Met you once before, the General says, as they come round
the end of a T-wall and see the base spreading out before them,
row upon row of low concrete buildings, set out with something of
hell’s lack of imagination … You were lunching with your Chief
at the Cavalry and Guards … Pulling up short, the Butcher reins
in Fitzhugh, Fox and the other unnamed bods, and, giving the
General a full scan, matches him: Ah, yes – Charles, isn’t it? You
were taking your wife to see the History Boys, and wondered
whether either Dick or I had been … Fitzhugh’s face is an allegorical
painting in the moonlight: Unease and Relief fighting each other
to a standstill, he says, Yes … yes … that’s right – astonishing
memory you have … I s’pose that rather goes with the territory.
Now, er, Jonathan, this matter in hand – this man you’re interested
in … Well, thing is, our people up in Ali al-Garbi may’ve braced
him a little hard … I don’t know – could be he had some preexisting
condition … Anyway, when they arrived here at eleven
hundred he was –. Really? the Butcher interrupts. That’s splendid
news – now I won’t have to do the business myself, chop him up,
bung the pieces in this holdall I picked up in Kuwait City and bury
it in the bloody desert … A suitably shocked silence meets this
lethal insouciance: the professors of violence stand staring at him,
waiting no doubt for the rider: only joking … which doesn’t come.
Instead, the Butcher says: In which case you might tell me where
I can get my head down, General – I can identify the body in the
morning. They walk on, passing guard posts manned by … heavy
smokers (Wouldn’t mind bumming a fag myself). From reports
he’s read, the Butcher knows the Shaibah base is the size of a small
town – a home to tens of thousands of mainly British troops, their
support staff and civilian contractors. By night it’s … a faubourg
of shadows, out of which, from time to time, a helicopter lifts …
spitting out feux d’artifice, and dances away over the perimeter
wall. They pass by the tinted windows of a bar established circa two
thousand and three in a reinforced concrete bunker – looking in,
the Butcher sees all the gamesmanship to be expected: big men –
and a few big women – taking time out from punching well below
their weight to play pool and darts by little boys’ rules … On a wall-mounted
screen there’s the former Royals and Blues officer
reassuring them they’re … beautiful, although, in his parka, in the
purity of his love, awaiting his angel, he most certainly … isn’t.
They trudge on – and the Butcher knows Fitzhugh is silent
only because he’s struggling to find the appropriate words. In the
Butcher’s experience, which is rich, varied and includes being
roundly buggered by them … military men are usually pretty inarticulate.
But at last, as they near what are clearly accommodation units
of some sort, the General chimes up: Thing is … ah, Jonathan …
Thing is, our man from Ali al-Garbi’s still here – in a bit of a state
actually … Sound chap, so far as I can gather – played loose head
for the army in his day … Anyway, Provost Marshal’s sort of
got … involved – inevitable, really, after the kerfuffle up at Majar
al-Kabir … The General keeps tailing off, clearly expecting the
Butcher to interject – but he doesn’t, so eventually Fitzhugh is
compelled to: Thing is … he’d rather like a word with you. Of
course – the General now rushes on – I realise this is pretty
unorthodox, but, given the highly unusual circs, we rather thought
you might be able to put his mind at rest … smooth things … over
… as it were. In the silence which follows this ridiculously big breach,
the Butcher hearkens to his own inner-counsel (In my not especially
humble opinion, Johnny, you’ve no need to remain loyal to any of
’em – politicians, the military and especially your own doubly
duplicitous colleagues. I always counselled you against this career –
and now look where it’s taken you.) To which he soundlessly replies,
What’s it to you, anyway, you bigoted old fool – this is my lover
you’re talking about, my noon, my midnight – my talk, my song?
Everything you refused to acknowledge about me – everything you
could never accept. (Well, not to be too pat, or too pi: times change –
I do accept that. Y’know, I, more than most, am able to concede
that my prejudices were formed by my background. Views which
were once wildly heterodox have become really rather mainstream –
you take my own field, local government finance … Why, when I
published my first book in …) On it drones onanon, but, whereas
when it issued from living lips, the Butcher experienced each and
every phoneme as … a lash across already opened wounds, he now
finds these familiar words nothing but comforting, so, as Kins
pontificates, he says to Major-General Fitzhugh: All right, then, I’ll
see if I can calm the silly fucker down – then I’ll have a word with
the Provost Marshal, find out exactly how far things have got. You
can dump your bag in here, sir, says one of the General’s bods,
unlocking a metal door and swinging it open. The Butcher walks in
and Fitzhugh follows: We call ’em pods – for obvious reasons. None
too comfy, but you’re under hard cover, which is more than can be
said for the majority of our men – certainly those in the outlying
bases – but I’m sure you people in London are perfectly well aware
