‘It doesn’t matter . . .’
‘Talk if you have to.’
Alex said, quiet, ‘I thought you’d want to know.’
‘Talk.’
‘. . . I didn’t take my first-year exams at college. My father used to have to spit to use the word, “dropout”. I went on the road. I suppose you know what that means, do you? It wasn’t really political, not a protest, but it seemed the right sort of thing. Quite exciting actually, looking for a place to park up with the caravan. You have to find a place where the ownership of the land is vague, or it’s common ground, that way the police can’t get the eviction order. I was three years on the road. I used to talk to my mother, at first, on the phone, when I knew my father would be at work. Got out of the habit of ringing . . . On the road you get to meet some pretty dreadful people, so aggressive, the new rich were the worst and the new rich in the Thames Valley were hideous, like all they wanted was fields that were empty, no-go zones. Sometimes we were only three or four vehicles and a dozen of us, sometimes we were a big group. One of the big groups was in Wales and those smug awful television people were there, and I was in a shot that was broadcast, and then I was summonsed by the police for a defective rear light, it was just harassment. The rear light was broken. Trouble was that the case was in the papers because I was able to prove that it was a plod’s truncheon that had broken the light. My father saw the television and he saw the court report. He put a private detective on me, to find me. They just turned up one afternoon, my father and mother, in their BMW. It was quite an event actually, them coming in a big car. I think I’d had enough anyway. I loaded up their boot, I sat in the back with my dog, and I gave the crowd a good wave, and I went home. All right, I’m a bit ashamed. I wounded my father, but what really upset me was that my auntie was ill, poorly, and I should have visited her, I didn’t know. We had a formal family gathering, pretty grim. They were all lined up, telling me that I was a privileged person and that I should do something with my life. I could do anything I wanted, and they’d back me, just so long as it was positive. So . . . I went to the Peace Movement. I had a choice. I could go to Sri Lanka or to Guatemala. I chose, for my sins, Guatemala. My father paid the air fare, my mother sends an allowance, my uncle gave me the money for the Land Rover. I suppose, Mr Hero, that fits the slot you’d given me – poor little rich girl on the loose. I tell you what, Mr Hero, if you ever accuse me again of dripping compassion then I’ll slap your bloody face . . .’
Gord trudged on.
‘. . . Well, you wanted to know . . .’
He dragged his feet forward, each pace harder than the last.
‘. . . That’s who I am . . .’
Struggling to breathe, fighting for the air in his lungs.
‘. . . Are you all right?’
They were on the wilderness, wrapped in cloud, smacked by the rain.
In the middle of the afternoon the Priest had reached the tail of the column. He had learned the language of the Ixil people.
Where would he find the one they called Gaspar, the spirit with the fire?
He was directed ahead. Hurrying past the women and the children. Striving to catch the armed men.
Where would he find the one they called Gaspar, the leader?
Finding the strength from his commitment. Going past the wheelbarrow and the cart.
Where would he find the one they called Gaspar . . . ?
On a ridge, on the summit line of the Cuchumatanes the council of war. The little group was huddled down and rain-soaked and wind-whipped. There was a man who had once been obesely overweight and it was as if the fat had flaked from his body and left the caves on his face and the sunk corridors at his throat. There was a man with a bald head that shone from the rain. There was a man of slight build who was placing stones at the edges of the map that was covered in a small plastic sheet. There was a man who seemed still to cling to youth and whose finger was pressed against the map surface and who talked urgently. There was a man who sat with his back to the Priest’s crabbed approach through the wind, and the big pack was slung on his shoulders and his upper body was wrapped in a harness of belt ammunition and whose hand rested on the stock of a machine gun.
‘I am the priest from Nebaj . . . If the majority just stand and watch then there can be no change. I ask for a rifle . . . Which is the leader . . . ?’
The man who seemed to cling to youth, his hand came up from the map, was stretching in greeting.
‘. . . The one they call Gaspar?’
The Priest saw the anger blaze on the faces of the bald man and the once fat man and the slight man, and he did not understand.
‘. . . I’m talking to you, Miss, because he’s been bad-mouthed too much. I’ve your guarantee that you’ve no harm meant for him, for Mr Brown. I’ve that guarantee, copper solid, right? He should have had the medal. There were bastards back on their arses who never heard a shot fired, had air-conditioned rooms, three bags bloody full, sir, and they had medals, they trooped up to the bloody Palace – excuse me, Miss . . . We were on the long-range recce job, where we were out west of Baghdad. We had to scout through for what was going to be the northern push. It was bloody awful – excuse me, Miss – country because there wasn’t no cover. We had a good Land Rover, plenty of fuel, but we couldn’t use the thing in the day, had to lie up all day, try and find a dip in the dunes. The message came through on the set. There was a Yank shot down. He was a helicopter Yank. Well, it was their show, wasn’t it? They pulled the bloody – excuse me, Miss – strings. We knew we were in trouble if we went to get him because it was daylight movement. Mr Brown said we’d go for it. Mr Brown said there was no way he was leaving anybody – even a Yank, he said – out there for being captured. It was a kind of race. The ’Raqs had wheels out to get to the helicopter, and we were going shit and bust – excuse me, Miss – for it. We beat the ’Raqs to it, not by more than half a mile. They had two lorries, must have had twenty men. Couldn’t miss what we were heading for, bloody great heap – excuse me, Miss – of smoke, and the other side of the smoke was the dust of their lorries. The Yanks had helicopters every day, bumming over the sand. We heard afterwards it was just chance that they hadn’t anything in the air that could have made it faster than us. It was an Apache job, gunship job. The weapons guy was dead and the pilot wasn’t good. He’d cut his face up pretty bad getting out and he was in shock, couldn’t help himself. We were taking machine-gun fire all the way in to him. I don’t suppose you know much about shooting, Miss, but we couldn’t get a decent line on those lorries while we were belting, we were like ducks in a fairground. Mr Brown did the driving on the Land Rover. He didn’t back off, Miss . . . We were going to get that pilot or we were going to buy it. Me, it would have to have been my best mate for me to have driven into that shit – excuse me, Miss – to get the Yank. That was when I was hit, just as we were grabbing him. We got him on board and we beat the hell out of it. Mr Brown had a hip flask with him, used to say it was his father’s and his father was a right piss-artist. Hell of a big hip flask. He used to fill it each day. I tell you, Miss, we were all half cut by the time we’d lost those lorries of ’Raqs . . . Good job we didn’t find the filth out there. Sorry, Miss, my joke . . . You see, Miss, we knew what happened to prisoners if those bastards had them. No way that Mr Brown was going to let them have that Yank. They sent a casevac ship in that night, lifted out the Yank and me. I haven’t seen Mr Brown since. I just heard that he was shat on. I should have written to him but I didn’t get round to it. Something in his head and he doesn’t let go, all the way to the wire. Don’t suppose you know where he is now, Miss . . . ?’
Later, after tea and biscuits, the invalid lance corporal limped on his stick to the front gate of the terraced house in east London, and he shook Cathy Parker’s hand.
‘You’ve been very kind, Francis.’
‘Call me Eff, Miss, that’s what Mr Brown called me . . . He’s the sort of man, Miss, you’d follow to hell.’
/> The Civil Patroller knew little of life outside his village. The village was astride the Sacapulas to Uspantán road. The two towns were eighteen miles apart and the Civil Patroller’s village was almost exactly halfway between them. The Civil Patroller sought only to survive. Survival was the yardstick by which he judged every act of his life.
Once, a foreign aid worker had come to the village, and the teacher had told the foreign aid worker, in the hearing of many men who had gathered around the stranger, of the life of the villagers under military rule. The teacher had said, ‘You lift your head and they break it. You open your mouth and they shut it. You take a step forward and they kill you.’ The teacher had indeed lifted his head and opened his mouth and taken the step forward, and he was dead in a dried ditch by the morning. The Civil Patroller had never, from that day, lifted his head nor opened his mouth nor taken the step forward. He sought to survive.
He would go twice a year with his brother and his cousin, and their wives, to Sacapulas to collect salt. He would go to Uspantán twice a year with his brother and his cousin, and their wives, to sell the huipiles blouses that the women had made and the panama hats of woven straw that the men had made, and they would coincide the journey to Uspantán with the fiestas when they would eat meat, chicken, and buy thread for making more huipiles.
All the men in the small village on the Sacapulas to Uspantán road were members of the Civil Patrol. They went out into the night, one week in four, and set up roadblocks. Sometimes, if there was an officer from the regular army with them, or an NCO, they would be awake and alert. Sometimes, if they were not supervised, they could make a shelter of palm fronds beside the road and sleep the night away.
It had been a difficult day for this Civil Patroller, an agony of a day. He needed the tree. There was no escape from the need of the tree as firewood. A beautiful tree, and he had prayed to the tree for its forgiveness. He had prayed alone through the morning for the forgiveness of the tree and then after the middle of the day, in the rain, he had started to hack at the tree’s life with his axe. He had hacked with ferocity at the tree’s trunk, just as he had seen the soldiers hack, with their machete blades, at the screaming body of his father.
The Civil Patroller sought only to survive.
He was issued with the old bolt-action rifle. He had the dried tortillas in his pocket and five rounds of ammunition. The patrol would not be accompanied by an officer or a regular NCO. They were told where they should go, what track they should watch. He neither lifted his head nor opened his mouth nor stepped forward.
Where he stood, the old rifle on his shoulder, listening to the officer, was only a few paces from where his father had been hacked to death by the machetes. It was said by his brother and his cousin, whispered, that there was rebellion. Gaspar had risen, come with fire, many soldiers had died. It was said by his brother and his cousin, muttered so that the words were beyond the hearing of informers, that the soldiers had been burned by Gaspar’s fire.
The wind tugged the clothes he wore, the rain dripped from the wide brim of his hat, and the Civil Patroller hoped that the beautiful tree had heard his prayer for forgiveness.
There were a thousand to feed.
It should have been Groucho’s work, but Groucho was half on his knees.
It should have been Zeppo’s work, or Harpo’s, or the Archaeologist could have helped and so could the Academic.
But it came down to Gord.
They had to be fed.
There were tins of food and condensed milk, taken from Nebaj barracks. There were tortillas, stale and hard, that had been carried from Playa Grande. Not possible to make a fire, not in the gale wind and the rain.
Groucho lay on the ground and Gord kicked him. Where were the tin-openers, who carried the bread, why had he not thought through the problem of food? Gord kicked him in frustration and Groucho just rolled away, disappeared.
They were down on the south side of the long ridge of the Cuchumatanes. The force of the weather hit them. The darkness was around them, pinpointed by torches and the flares of flame that men sheltered with their bodies. The darkness had come before they had reached the lower tree line. They had to be fed, a thousand souls, in the open. They would have to sleep in the open . . . Alex helped him, and the Street Boy. Christ, and he missed Eff and Vee and Zed, gone ahead . . . The Priest came to him, and helped. It was an hour after darkness that he found the tin-openers, and it was two hours after darkness before he had the lines in place, seven of them, waiting for food, and taking it away into the black night. They were wonderful, and he thought their patience was magnificent. He loved these people. Each man and each woman and each child, standing in the line, taking what they were given, bobbing their heads in gratitude, disappearing. No complaint from any man or woman or child that the food distribution was screwed up.
The Priest had them singing, as they waited in their lines, and away in the night was a guitar.
Hungry, himself . . .
Tired, himself . . .
Short-fused, himself . . . The lines were in place. The food was being given. The lights winked in the mist darkness. He made his way down, towards the head of the column, away from the singing and the guitar.
Gord found them in a shallow cave. His torch caught their faces. Jorge was at the back of the cave and there was a rain-damp blanket draped over his head and his shoulders as a tent. Harpo held the tin and the moment the torch was on them was as Zeppo gouged with his fingers into the tin. Groucho hissed at him, might have been a cat defending territory, couldn’t speak because his mouth was filled. He smelled it, long days since the taste had been in his throat and the smell on his clothes. Harpo was looking up at the torch beam, challenging him, holding up the tin for Gord to take his share.
Gord said, ‘Well, they’re only fucking Indians, aren’t they . . . ?’
Jorge’s head was down, shielded by the blanket, staring at his knees.
‘. . . Quite right, let the Indians sort themselves out. Top buggers first, eh . . . ?’
Harpo gazed back at him and did not flinch.
‘. . . Filling your guts with salmon. A good tin of salmon liberated from the officers’ mess at Nebaj, not put in the pool, not put in the pot, kept for the big bastards, right . . . ?’
Zeppo’s defiance, feeding from his fingers, then pulling the tin back from Harpo for more.
‘. . . Back there, they’re half dead for lack of food – only Indians – they’re not sitting down, not in shelter, waiting to be fed – only Indians. Right . . . ?’
Groucho cringed from him, swallowing.
‘. . . You’re not fit to lead, but then they’re only Indians, eh?’
Harpo said, ‘When I lived in Guatemala City we employed a maid. It was the one luxury we allowed ourselves. We employed the maid to do the work that was dirty. The maid lived in a shed at the back of the house, in the yard, because we did not have a big enough house for her to have a room inside. The maid knew her place. She did not expect to join the debate in the family when there was a matter to be decided. She was content with her position.’
‘I am not your fucking maid.’
He heard Harpo’s dry laugh. He stepped between Harpo and Zeppo, and Groucho wriggled fast away from his boots, and he settled beside Jorge.
‘Can we have the map? Can we plan tomorrow?’
Jorge shrugged, as if it was not important, lethargically pulled the map from the wide pocket of his trousers.
Gord jabbed at the map. ‘Where we are, good? Early start in the morning, moving at six. Straight across the Sacapulas – Uspantán road, no stopping for a bath and coffee . . . Need someone local to get us across the Negro river, all the bridges will be defended, and I don’t want to fight again just for a bridge. I want them not knowing where the hell we are . . . Then, straight south . . . I want to get into that high ground by night, no roads and no villages. Great, and the day after it will be Santa Cruz del Quiché, right? Departmental capital, right? Is that s
traight, Jorge?’
He cuffed the wet blanket over Jorge’s shoulder, encouragement.
‘They tell me we have gone far enough.’
‘What?’ Like he had not heard the voice muffled in the blanket depths.
‘They say we cannot go further.’
The silence hung on them. Jorge’s head was bowed. He thought that Jorge was beaten by the bastards. He shone his torch into their faces.
Deliberate, quiet. ‘Who says we have gone far enough? Who says we can go no further?’
Groucho said, ‘You have pushed us too hard, beyond the limit of what is possible for us . . .’
‘You should take a bus down to the airport and present yourself at the ticket counter, cash, one way to Havana.’
Harpo said, ‘We are exhausted and sick and ill. We should go back to the triangle.’
‘Where they can surround you, mince you, as they did before.’
Zeppo said, ‘We should stand our ground here. We should tell them that we demand political negotiation, a cease-fire in exchange for dialogue.’
‘They will laugh at you, and know that you are beaten.’
Groucho shouted, ‘Can you not understand, we have no strength left . . .’
Harpo spat, ‘You have pushed us too hard, broken us . . .’
The Fighting Man (1993) Page 24
