Reginald Hill - Good Morning, Midnight

So now while the men in white suits went about their so far unprofitable work in a relatively undamaged building a couple of hundred yards away, Tod grasped the chance for a spot of R and R.

But he still remained vigilant and when he heard a noise behind him, he twisted round, bringing his weapon to bear with the unthinking instinct of a hunting dog scenting danger.

It was a kid who called to him and beckoned. Tod rose and went towards him, but he didn’t relax. Weapons of personal destruction came in all shapes and sizes.

The boy spoke excitedly and pointed downwards. Tod let his gaze follow the pointing finger.

The high sun slid a ray of light deep between shattered concrete slabs till it bounced back off white bone. The rats and flies had pretty well finished their work here but the after-smell of decay was strong. Tod drew deep on his cigarette and looked enquiringly at the boy. In this country where the smart bombs had done their smart work, corpses were sadly too commonplace to be remarkable.

The boy pointed again impatiently. Tod peered down once more and this time saw that there was something round the corpse’s neck. A chain with some kind of amulet. The kid was jabbering away, clearly irritated at Tod’s lack of understanding. Then suddenly he seized the marine’s arm and held it up and shook it fiercely.

It took a moment for Tod to confirm he wasn’t being attacked and another to get the message.

The kid’s arm was too short to reach.

Motioning the boy to one side where he could keep an eye on him, Tod inserted his arm into the crack. He had to lie flat on the rubble before his groping fingers found the chain. He pulled. It resisted. He jerked hard. It snapped.

Slowly he withdrew his arm. A graze so close to a decomposing body could be nasty.

The boy came close, impatient to see what they’d found.

He looked puzzled when he saw what it was but Tod recognized it instantly. The bust of Washington bedded on purple and framed in gold.

A Purple Heart.

He turned it over and read the name. Amal Kafala.

Sounded Arab. Weird but not very. Any American phone book was full of weird names. Maybe this was some poor bastard taken prisoner by the gooks who ended up getting popped by his own side. Could be he was a left-over from the first Gulf War. Smelt a bit fresh for that. Or maybe the guy down there had plundered the Heart from some dead soldier.

Whatever, it wasn’t his business. First chance he got, he’d pass the medal on to the unit’s i-officer with details of where he’d found it and let the machine take it from there. Knowing the way it worked, they wouldn’t rest till they were knocking on someone’s door with the sad news. Unknown soldiers were OK for foreign monuments, but the US Army prided itself on keeping a close check on its own up to the grave and, where necessary, beyond. It was a thought at once comforting and disturbing.

He scrambled off the heap of rubble.

The kid was looking at him expectantly.

He dug into his pack and produced a choc bar and a can of cola.

“There you go, son,” he said.

The boy took them, snapped a flamboyant salute, said stumblingly, “Have a nice day!” and ran off.

“I’ll surely do my best,” called Tod after him.

Then, grinning, he made his way back towards the white suits who looked like they’d decided they were wasting their time here.

As the small convoy of vehicles drove away, they passed a shattered statue of the country’s late leader. The head was dented, the nose knocked off, but the features were still recognizable. And those eyes, which had once gazed down upon his people with such menacing benevolence, now stared sightlessly from ground level across the ruins into the desert where, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretched far away.