by Owen Sheers
A stupid thing to do.
To think I could get away so easily.
No chance. As soon as my eyes were shut,
I saw them instead. Those two Yanks,
the ones who said they’d take our place,
who drove on ahead to the front of the convoy,
then round a corner where …
By the time we got there
their Humvee was a ball of flame
burning in the middle of the street.
I saw them climb out. Both on fire.
They ran, who knows why, but they did.
Two burning guys, puppets of flame.
The first, blinded, ran into a wall,
tried to stub himself out, then fell.
The other carried on down the street,
ten, twenty feet, before dropping to his knees.
He held his arms out for a moment,
a flaming cross,
then tipped forward, on to his face,
and died.
I opened my eyes.
Sweat on my wrists.
I was back in my childhood room,
footie posters on the wall,
my opened palm closed into a fist.
The pale blue shards of the heron’s egg
scattered inside the drawer,
like a broken promise.
GWEN
That night, when you finally came home,
I felt like that egg in your palm,
crushed to the bone.
We’d waited so long.
We’d joked about it,
I’d even sent you porn,
but we both knew
this could be us at our best.
Together, tender, close.
My hands on your back,
my breaths on your chest.
I used to feel blessed
when we did it.
And I know you did too.
Stunned by how easily
we made one out of two.
But not any more.
Afterwards, I wanted to weep.
But I didn’t want to show you that.
I’d expected lust, yes.
But it wasn’t. It was anger,
and not spent either,
but still there, as you pulled out of me
and sat on the edge of the bed,
getting dressed.
‘We going out?’
That’s all you said.
Like nothing had happened.
‘Yeah,’ I replied.
Trying to understand
what it was that had died.
Looking back though,
perhaps you were right.
Cos nothing is what it was.
Nothing –
that’s what you filled me with
that night.
ARTHUR
We went out. Gwen had set it all up.
The V-Shed down in the harbour,
a Saturday night.
It was the last thing I wanted,
but I wanted her too. I did,
so I went along with what she said.
It was all the old crew,
different haircuts and clothes, that’s all.
Drinking, dancing, and who can blame them?
They weren’t doing anything wrong,
just singing along to Saturday’s song,
drinking to forget, drinking to belong.
Downstairs was rammed, so we went up instead.
I tried my best to hold it together,
but it was like I wasn’t there,
like I was alone, in my own weather,
not whatever the others were in.
I downed my pint, looked over the scene,
but instead of groups of lads down there
I saw platoons, sections, fire teams.
Young bodies waiting to be taken apart.
I turned to the bar. Started reading the drinks,
the menus, learning them by heart,
which was working till I got to the Jäger Bomb list.
Skittle bomb
Glitter bomb
Berry bomb
Cherry bomb
Fireball.
And that was all it took
to see them again,
those two Yanks, burning in the street.
I ran straight to the gents,
stuck my head in the bowl
and chucked up my guts.
And that’s when I knew.
I had to sort this, and soon.
And the very next morning, I did.
GWEN
He went to the woods.
Took his kit, a sheet of tarpaulin,
and left, early.
I don’t even think he slept in the bed.
ARTHUR
You knew that?
GWEN
Yeah, of course.
ARTHUR
You never said …
GWEN
Well, I was starting to get it.
I knew I couldn’t keep … The way
you spoke that night, in your sleep.
ARTHUR
I did?
GWEN
Yeah, stuff about crosses and Humvees.
And Hads. You called for him twice.
So yeah, I think I understood,
why you had to go and sleep in the woods.
I just hoped it would work,
so when you came back –
ARTHUR
I was better, wasn’t I?
Than before?
GWEN
Yeah. You were.
I saw a glimpse of you again
and, well, I had hope, Arthur. Then.
ARTHUR
And you were right to, Gwen,
You were.
GWEN
But it was only R and R, wasn’t it?
You weren’t back yet, not for good.
So it was just a taste. You in my bed,
then in the woods, then – gone. Again.
The engine of a bus, starting
GWEN
I didn’t know you could be so healthy
and still feel such pain.
He was just beginning to be himself,
and now he was off.
ARTHUR
Just one month more.
GWEN
That’s what he said,
whispered into my ear
as I hugged him goodbye.
ARTHUR
Four weeks. Then it’s done.
GWEN
I held on to him, nodded into his chest,
afraid of what I’d do if I tried to speak.
They held all I hoped for, those four weeks.
Arthur back, and then the rest of our lives.
I’d ask him to leave The Rifles early,
get out, so we could get on.
And I think he would have too.
We’d get married, have children.
There was just that month to get through.
Then, then I’d make him promise.
Never again. Never again.
ARTHUR
It wouldn’t have taken much.
I’d seen and done enough.
I’d answered our childhood call,
the one Hads, Taff and me
used to shout out in school.
Who wants to play war?
Who wants to play war?
We’d said ‘us’,
I’d made sure of that.
And now we had.
But this – saying goodbye to Gwen, again.
This wasn’t in the brochure.
Or the worry on the face of my mum,
or the thickening of tears in my chest
as I looked out the window
and saw them both waving,
and Gwen still crying,
as if that, a disappearing bus,
was the last they’d ever see of me.
Which it was.
5 HOME TO ROOST
Military vehicles rolling out of a compo
und.
Radio chatter. The howling of dogs
ARTHUR
Sometimes at night, around Sangin, Kajaki,
they’d howl like dogs. To communicate.
We had our radios, our channels.
They had the calls of animals,
the darkness, a terrain they knew,
black and green through our NVGs,
like the world had turned computer screen.
I’d been back a week, so had just three to go
when one night we were sent on an op,
supporting J Company, 30 Commando.
I knew this one was going to be hot.
Those bootnecks, they tend to be at the front of stuff.
A strange lot, mind, the Corps –
a dress and a thong in every kitbag,
think nothing of wandering round camp
dressed like a trannie crossed with a whore.
All of them, thick with face furniture.
But in a fight, you wouldn’t want anyone else.
The Yanks are brave enough, sure,
and they have the firepower.
But the length of their tours?
A year, no R and R?
They get spun out, get themselves shot.
But this one, with the marines,
yeah, I wanted that.
I volunteered for top cover,
manning the WIMIK’s 50 cal.
If it all kicked off, I wanted to be the one
who’d give Terry hell.
GWEN
You had three weeks left.
Why? Why would you do that?
ARTHUR
Before I went back, I went to see Taff and Hads.
They were both doing rehab in Headley Court.
I had to see them. I mean, how they were –
It was my fault.
TAFF
No it wasn’t, Arthur.
HADS
You know that isn’t true.
ARTHUR
It was. End of.
It was me who put it in front of you.
When I got down there Hads was in physio
having massage on his scars,
so I went to the the gym, to wait for him.
Apart from one bloke, it was empty.
He was trying to walk between two parallel bars –
regimental T-shirt, shorts, his amputated thighs
in two plastic sockets,
then an inch of steel on a rubber square.
That’s all.
‘Stumpies’ they call them,
what you first wear
when learning how to walk again.
His back and head were drenched with sweat
as he shifted his weight on to one,
then the other,
moving each time just an inch or two.
I could tell he’d been a big fella,
Six-three, six-four?
Now, only as high as my belt, no more.
There’s a signature to every war,
and this, I guess, is ours –
a bloke with no legs, wincing in pain
as he shifts himself forward,
inch by inch,
again and again and again.
HADS
Still got yours then?
ARTHUR
I turned and saw Hads,
wheeling towards me in his chair,
the wounds on his arms still healing
and his board shorts rolled,
to show where his legs weren’t there.
‘Hads! You bastard!’ I said to him.
‘Christ, you gave us a scare.’
Then I knelt and held him,
didn’t want to let go.
‘You seen Taff yet?’ he said
speaking into my shoulder.
I pulled away – ‘No.’
Hads shook his head. ‘You should,’
he said. ‘Before you go.’
LISA
The first time I saw him I wanted to be sick.
Covered in tubes, his arms all burnt,
his stomach a cross-hatch of scars and stitches.
He was in a coma. He’d woken once, attacked his nurse,
screaming he’d been captured.
She told me he wasn’t the first.
‘I’m Pakistani,’ she said. ‘Last thing they know,
they’re in the field, so …’
But all that. The wounds where he’d been shot.
The burns, the hallucinations, even his back.
All that healed, in the end.
But something else had been hurt,
something the surgeons couldn’t reach.
His mind, his soul,
call it what you will,
but that bit of Geraint had gone.
It’s been the hardest thing.
I mean, you see him now, walking down the street,
and you’d think him fine.
You can’t see the raised pink scars,
the twenty-three ops,
the X-rays more metal than bone.
You’d think he’s OK, he’s home.
But he’s not.
At least, not yet.
ARTHUR
I saw straight away what Hads had meant.
It wasn’t the cages round Taff’s legs, his back,
the burn on his face, infected –
none of that.
It was the look in his eye,
as if a wire had been disconnected.
That was what got me the most.
So that’s why, Gwen. That’s why top cover,
cos that’s what I took back to Afghan.
Hads with no legs, putting a brave face on,
and Taff, screwed over by a blue on blue.
I wanted to hurt someone,
to satisfy that hunger
before I missed my chance,
and came back home to you.
GWEN
I swear I woke just seconds before,
as if I’d been waiting.
My eyes snapped open,
looked at the clock. Four a.m., then –
A doorbell
And I knew. I knew.
ARTHUR
I don’t remember any of what happened.
Just those howls, like dogs, as we drove out.
The fields and trees all black and green.
Perhaps some of the very first rounds.
but nothing else.
I had to pick it up all second hand,
as my hearing came back in the chopper,
and then again in Bastion.
How when my driver had reversed
he’d hit a roadside IED.
How the explosion hit a fuel tank, or ammo box
right under me.
Shot me out, like a jack in the box,
Sixty feet. And then how it all kicked off.
Rockets, grenades. The lot.
They took me straight to Rose Cottage.
A special room in the medical centre
deep among the tents and containers of Bastion.
A room for the lads or lasses who’d taken a hit
which even the surgeons on camp couldn’t fix.
It was manned, back then, by two blokes,
Staff Sergeants Andy and Tom.
It was them who took me in, off the ambulance,
and into their room.
It smelt of sweet tea.
‘That scent,’ Andy said to me. ‘It’s the eau de toilette. Rose.
The Afghans insist we spray it on their guys.’
‘Don’t worry though, Arthur,’ Tom added on my other side.
‘You’ll soon get used to it. We did.’
And then they laughed. Not for themselves,
but for me, I could tell. And they carried on talking too,
chatting me through all they’d do,
as they put what they’d found of me on to a shelf,
saying ‘Sorry it’s so cold, Arthur,’
which it was, like a fridge.
Then they said ‘Sleep well’ and slid it shut.
My first night of three in Rose Cottage.
I saw them again just before I left.
When they slid me out into the light,
still passing the time of day
as they placed me in the coffin
that would carry me home.
Always calling me by name.
‘Not long now, Arthur.’
‘You’ll be back in no time.’
Gently, they lowered the lid,
then, like two maids making a bed,
they unfolded, smoothed and checked for snags,
before draping me in the colours of the flag.
LISA
It was hearing about Arthur
that did it for Geraint,
it was that what tipped him over the edge.
He’d been hitting the bottle, upping his meds.
Sometimes the pain was so bad
he didn’t sleep for a week.
Then, when he did,
he’d scream out in bed, shouting for Stevo and Lee,
crying into his hands about fires and pink mist.
He put on weight – the meds again –
which put more strain on his spine.
So what happened that night, in the pub,
it was only a matter of time.
Like ever since he’d got home
there’d been a mine planted in him,
and that poor bloke who’d spilt his pint,
without knowing it, he stepped on it that night.
TAFF
I got a year. The judge said I was lucky,
took my service into account. GBH.
Eighteen stitches to his head.
It was the night I’d heard about Arthur.
I just saw red.
The worst thing?
I missed his funeral, and then his memorial too.
