Rain

by Barney Campbell

  Trueman and Tom endlessly made the boys practise filling out the MIST and 9-liner cards that they would use in Afghanistan to organize casualty evacuations. After the first session Trueman said, ‘Thing is, fellas, I hate practising casevac. It’s like you’re accepting that it’s going to happen to one of us out there. I agree, it’s not fucking nice. But if we don’t get this now, if something does fucking happen out there, then the lad who may just have survived with a bad injury will fucking die. I mean it. I’ve seen it in other regiments on Herrick 6. If some dumb cunt sends the wrong information up the net or doesn’t do it rapid-like, then they send the wrong heli which can’t land at the HLS, or they don’t bring the correct kind of stretcher or whatever. So that’s why we’re rubbing your fucking noses in it now, yeah?’

  At first the boys were awful on the radio, completely unaccustomed because of their junior role in the troop to talking on one accurately and concisely, but by the end of the week they were delivering multiple casualty reports with ease. Tom led the boys through the lessons, watching in wonder at the sick reality they were entering as Davenport, an eighteen-year-old who still only had to shave once a week, calmly rattled off a double casualty report as though it was the most normal thing in the world.

  ‘Hello, Zero, this is Three Zero. Stand by for MIST for two casualties. Casualty 1. Mike – explosion. India – double amputation. Right leg amputated above the knee, left leg at the ankle. Fragmentation to genitals and abdomen. Sierra – breathing 12. Pulse 40. Catastrophic bleed. Tango – morphine, two tourniquets and hemcon applied. Roger so far over? Casualty 2. Mike – gunshot wound. India – shot in the knee, femur broken. Sierra – breathing 12. Pulse 80. Some blood loss. Casualty going into shock. Tango – morphine, tourniquet and FFD applied. Over.’

  Tom patted him on the back. ‘Good job, Mr Davenport. Let’s just hope that you don’t have to do that in theatre, eh? Who’s next? Ellis, your turn. Three casualties from an RPG: one guy’s blinded, one guy’s hit in the gut and the other’s lost his arm. 9-liner and the MIST. Three minutes to prepare and then go.’

  After the final attack of the exercise, an apocalyptic array of destruction rained down upon targets for two hours by Scimitars, Javelins, mortars, artillery and air strikes, the squadron parked up their wagons in neat rows. Tom jumped out of his wagon, climbed onto Trueman’s and grinned at him. ‘Well, Sergeant, what do you reckon? With a performance like that there won’t be any Taliban left, will there?’

  Trueman scrunched up his nose and looked out down the range, where smoke still rose from destroyed targets and fresh craters. ‘I dunno, sir. This is good for the lads’ morale this, but it’s a turkey shoot. No twats shooting back. No IEDs. This exercise has been good, don’t get me wrong, but it ain’t reality out there. Promise you.’ He saw Tom looking crestfallen, his cheerfulness dented, and tried to make him feel better. ‘I see what you mean, sir – it’s good crack – but I’m just saying so you know, yeah?’

  Tom pursed his lips and nodded. ‘Got it, Sergeant. Sometimes I run away with myself.’

  ‘That’s OK, sir; that’s what you’re meant to do. And I’m meant to rein it in. And then one day it’ll be vice versa.’

  On the bus back from Castlemartin the officers sat at the front reading and trying to snatch some sleep in anticipation of the night out in London they had planned. In the back were the likely lads, led by Trueman in his customary place, the middle seat of the rear row, who did impressions of every member of the squadron in turn, officers included. They were very funny, and Tom couldn’t help laughing as Trueman gently poked fun at his own staid manner. All the bus was roaring, but it wasn’t mean laughter, and Tom was almost sad when Trueman switched to Clive, whose matey manner with his soldiers was completely the opposite to his. Clive and his sergeant, Leighton, even went to the pub together – something Tom would never dream of doing – and he never seemed to use rank when talking with his lads, immediately giving them all new nicknames when he took over the troop. He was content just to be addressed as the informal ‘boss’, where Tom was never anything other than ‘Mr Chamberlain’ or ‘sir’.

  Tom’s phone buzzed. He was delighted to see a text from Will.

  ‘Guess who’s back in town?! Got back to Brize a couple of days ago, now very much in the smoke, keen for a session tonight. Nuclear alcoholocaust. Keen? House party Wandsworth Bridge Road 9ish. Come along! Babes coming too. Get involved. Callsign Weakdrinker!’

  Tom tapped back, ‘Oi oi matey, the wanderer returns! Defo bevvies tonight; we’re doing a captains and subalterns’ session in Ken High St so I’m fixed there until 2200.’

  Will replied in an instant: ‘Ace fella; buzz me then and we’ll meet up.’ Another text then followed from him, this one suddenly less happy. ‘Thanks for this, mate … really need to speak to someone about it all. So weird to be back. Am properly darked out by this city for some reason.’

  Tom frowned, put his phone back in his pocket and went to sleep.

  Back in the mess they met the A and B Squadron subalterns, who had been back for hours and were champing to get into town. The de facto kingpin among the young officers, rakish, beanpole-thin Operations Officer Jules ‘The Menace’ Dennis, shouted at them, ‘Come on, slackers; minibus leaves half an hour ago; get upstairs, get your poof juice on, and let’s offski, schnell machen. Go!’

  They needed no further encouragement, and soon they were on their way, twelve of them crammed into a minibus, chanting songs as they whizzed up the A3 into London, swigging cold lagers and laughing and singing.

  They gathered in their usual pub, just off Kensington High Street. They arrived at eight, dived straight into pints of beer, and by nine they were tackling shots of vodka and tequila. Half an hour later three of them had already been kicked out, another two were about to be, and Jules Dennis was lying beneath the bar as Clive poured a bottle of sambuca with unerring aim into his mouth. Tom, who had tried with only partial success to keep a grasp on his senses, decided to make his escape by pretending to go to the loo and then slipping out a back door. As he left a hand grabbed his collar. It was Jules.

  ‘Where you going?’

  ‘Just for a piss.’

  ‘Bollocks. You’re pulling Op Cat Flap, aren’t you?’

  It was no use lying. ‘Um, yes. I’ve got a mucker from my platoon at Sandhurst who’s back on R & R tonight, and I need to see him.’

  Jules’ tone changed. ‘Why didn’t you say? Of course you’ve got to see him. Before you go though, I just want to say one thing.’

  Here it comes, Tom thought. Jules, who had already done two tours, one of Iraq and one of Afghanistan, both of which had seen heavy fighting, and who now as operations officer was the commanding officer’s right-hand man for the tour, was famous in the mess for telling new officers exactly what he thought of them.

  ‘Before I get too pissed, although to be honest I think I passed that mark some time ago, I just want to say that you’re doing an awesome job.’

  ‘Thanks, Jules. Er … that’s very kind of you.’

  ‘Shut up, crow. It’s not about being kind; it’s about being truthful.’ He dragged Tom closer and continued, conspiratorially, ‘Trueman was in my troop in Iraq. He tells me everything. And he likes you. Which is impressive because he’s one of the hardest NCOs to win over in the whole regiment. He says he’s never met someone who cares more for the lads. Good job. Keep it up, Tom.’

  They were interrupted as a group of men swarmed past them on their way into the pub and they had to step back. Jules muttered under his breath, ‘Tossers.’

  The two at the rear of the phalanx stopped, surprised and aggressive.

  ‘What’s that, mate?’ one said, burly and wearing a Harlequins rugby shirt.

  Jules took a long drag on his cigarette and said, with innocence writ across his face, ‘Nothing, pal. Nothing. Sorry, just wondering, are you guys in the army?’

  The man sneered at him. ‘Are we fuck, mate. Bollocks to that.’

/>   Jules nodded and said, again innocuous, ‘Oh. Sorry. Just wondering, that’s all. My mistake.’

  The man, puzzled, went inside the pub to join his friends, and Tom looked at Jules quizzically. ‘What was that all about?’

  Jules smiled. ‘Nothing really. Just wanted to stir some trouble, gauge what those blokes were like. And there you have it: most people in this country, most blokes anyway, think we’re mugs. He said it himself.’

  Tom left Jules, went to the house party and was let in by a horsey-looking girl wearing a hairband. Tom hadn’t seen anyone with a hairband since he was eight. Someone thrust a thimbleful of lukewarm wine into his hand. He mumbled his thanks, realizing that he was by quite some distance the drunkest in the room. He talked to a few people. Everyone seemed to work in banking or for hedge funds. For fuck’s sake, Tom thought, can everyone just stop working for hedge funds? He’d now asked about twenty people what they were, and even he, a relatively sentient being, hadn’t been able to understand the explanations.

  At least, he thought he was the drunkest until Will came staggering in, having just been sick. The raw and beaming smile that tore over Will’s face was glorious, and he ran forward, and he and Tom hugged each other. Tom could smell the vomit on his breath, but he still clung to his friend with fingers driven into his back. He couldn’t believe how much he had missed him. The rest of the room looked on nervously. Tom quickly felt self-conscious, and he and Will went out to the garden to smoke and escape the oppressive sitting room.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Will as he lit a cigarette. The small flame threw a glow over his dopey eyes. ‘Why the hell has Will dragged me along to a party that makes chess club look like Ibiza?’ He grinned.

  ‘No, mate, not at all … ’

  ‘Don’t worry, they’re all right.’ He flicked ash into a plant pot. ‘They’re some maniacs I went on a cookery course with in my gap year. They always have this annual reunion. They were dull then and they’re duller now, and normally I fuck it off, but the thing is there are these two absolute babes who are meant to turn up later on, and I’m just thinking that if civvies lap up Afghan as much as they say they do, with this Help for Heroes malarkey and everyone wearing some kind of military wristband, then I can’t fail to slay. What do you reckon?’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘You kidding? Did you look at any of them? I wouldn’t touch them with a telescopic barge pole. Not even Afghan makes you that desperate.’

  They both laughed – callous, self-righteous, arrogant.

  ‘All right, mate,’ Will continued, ‘before we get stuck in I’ve got to give it to you on Afghan.’

  His mask dropped, his tone changed, he lost the sparkle in his eyes and he fixed Tom with them. He started to speak as though he was talking not to his friend but to one of his soldiers. He was quite violent in his manner, and he had small tears in his eyes. He unloaded on Tom, telling him for almost twenty minutes what had happened to him, smoking cigarette after cigarette, taking long, urgent gasps. When he had to light another, if he couldn’t work the lighter at the first or second attempt, he clicked his teeth and swore under his breath. It was horrible. The letters had merely been the start of it. Tom listened as he went on, horrified. Then, hearing the hubbub from the sitting room start to move through to the kitchen and threaten to come out and disturb them, Will wound up his diatribe almost as quickly as he had begun it, hurrying out his words.

  ‘Mate, I can’t tell you how bad it is. It’s minging out there. Just make sure your lads are as prepped as possible before they get out. If your drills aren’t 100 per cent up to scratch, lads will die. They have to be all over it. There’s no room for fuck-ups, no room. One mistake, one slack drill, boom.’

  The door to the garden opened, and a handful of guests poured out. Will put his mask back on, stubbed out his final cigarette and turned to hug one of the girls.

  After half an hour the party started to fill up, the music got louder and, it seemed to Tom, the guests got a bit edgier. Back inside, Will liberated a bottle of vodka from somewhere and they tackled it; they were only interrupted by the arrival, Tom was amazed to see, of the same man in the Harlequins shirt who Jules had confronted outside the pub earlier. He didn’t recognize Tom. Evidently he was also one of Will’s gap-year cookery gang. Will greeted him with no particular enthusiasm and they were forced to talk to him, or rather listen to him, trapped in a corner by his boorishness. Tom got restless. Who the hell was this bloke? As if he had heard him, the man thrust out his hand. ‘Sorry, chap. Didn’t say hello. Jonty Forbes.’ Tom winced. He hated being called chap. He squirmed his hand forward and had it crushed by his new acquaintance.

  Jonty changed tack: ‘What say we get this party going, amigos? Your nostrils as hungry as mine?’

  Tom watched as Jonty grabbed a fold-out table, wrestled with it and finally succeeded in erecting it with an undignified grunt of triumph. Drawing up a stool he cut some cocaine into lines using a credit card, ostentatiously wetting his forefinger, dabbing it on the powder and then rubbing it onto his gums. Will was encouraging him: ‘Wow, thanks, mate. This is really kind of you. Is it good?’

  ‘Good? The best, pal!’ Jonty looked at his deftly drawn lines with pride.

  Will egged him on: ‘Go on, Jonty, we’re in. Put some more out. I’m good for the cash.’ Delighted, Jonty emptied out a packet to form a little mountain of white powder on the table. Out of his wallet came a twenty-pound note, which he rolled into a tube.

  ‘Right, who’s first?’

  ‘No, after you,’ said Will.

  ‘OK. Get your skis out, lads, because here comes a blizzard!’ announced Jonty as first one, then two lines disappeared up his nose, reminding Tom of films about aliens coming to earth and beaming up unsuspecting humans. Manfully, Jonty was about to tackle the third line when out of nowhere Will kicked the table away, seized him by the throat, lifted him up and slammed him back against the wall.

  ‘You twat! Do you have no idea that your fucking drug money goes back to fund the same cunts who blow up my soldiers?’ he screamed at him, eyes blazing with unblinking hatred, mad in his skull. He looked to Tom as though he thought he was back in Helmand in a firefight with the Taliban, in a one-track mania to kill. Jonty’s own eyes bulged out of his sockets, his eyelids unable to close around them. Will drew his head back as if to butt his quivering victim, and Tom winced in anticipation, but then he stopped, blinked and said quietly, in a low snarl of contempt, ‘I’d headbutt you if it wasn’t going to kill you. You make me sick, you piece of shit.’

  He threw Jonty to the floor, where he choked and spluttered, his face pasty with dribble and cocaine. Will looked around him and calmly addressed the cowed crowd: ‘Sorry, everyone. I think I’ve ruined this party. Oh well. Come and visit me when I’m in Selly Oak lying in bed with no legs. Or come to my funeral and pretend that you were my best mate. Enjoy your spreadsheets and calculators. I’m going.’

  As Will turned away, the hapless Jonty, with a speed that belied his girth, leapt to his feet and charged at him. As if on autopilot Tom stepped over the fallen table, drew his fist back, threw it forward and smashed him back to the floor again. ‘And stay down, prick,’ he snarled, amazed at how infectious Will’s anger was. He turned to leave.

  Will clapped him on the back, and as they pushed through the onlookers Tom stopped dead, rooted in front of a girl who had arrived just in time for the fight. She was still wearing her coat, and her hair was wet with a rain shower that had caught her on the way to the party.

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘Cassie.’

  Why now? Why had she come back into his life at this moment, when his brain had at last completely expelled everything about her from his memory? A sudden love for her bounced itself to the front of Tom’s head before a strange hatred hit him too. She had always dismissed the army. He remembered her loathsome father. He saw Will in the street through the open front door, standing in the rain. He should be loo
king after him, but he wanted to be with her.

  He heard himself say to her, polite and distant, ‘I’m sorry, Cassie; I must go with my friend. Hopefully see you soon.’ He left her and walked out the door. At the end of the road beside a bus stop Will collapsed in tears.

  Tom knelt and hugged his friend. ‘All right, mate, all right. Everything’s going to be all right. Everything’s going to be all right,’ he whispered over and again as Will sobbed into his shoulder. Tom looked back up the street towards the party, but the houses were blurred in the dark and the heavy rain.

  Pre-tour leave began, and Tom went home. Constance surprised him by announcing that she had rented a cottage on the Devon coast for a week. Tom found the total peace down there the tonic he had needed all along in the testosterone-fuelled last few months. It wasn’t Las Vegas, where Clive and Scott had gone, driving from San Francisco in a rented Mustang – far from it – and Tom could only imagine what they were getting up to, but he was pleased he was in Devon.

  It was like being a boy again. In the mornings Tom and Constance would go round nearby National Trust properties and castles, then have lunch in a pub and go back to the cottage, where Constance would read. Tom would go with Zeppo for walks along the cliffs, wind picking the sweat off his face and emptying his brain. There was a cove a quarter of a mile down from the cottage, completely secluded, where an Edwardian swimming fan had had a seawater pool dug into the rocks. It was straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. In the sun it warmed up quickly, and Tom spent hours swimming in it.