Gerald Seymour: Rat Run

The voice was muffled through the wool. 'Is that you?'

'It is me.'

'Wanted to hear your voice, know it was you.'

He knew the voice. 'What's a piece of shit like you doing here?' and 'You look after that lady… Watch out for her.' He said curtly, 'I know your voice and we do not need, for whatever your purpose, this crap in the middle of the night.'

'Fighting talk from a big brave boy. Understand me, I am not here, I was never here. Ever get the idea that I was here and shout about it, and it'll be your word against mine – and your medical history against the busload of people who will stand up and swear on the Bible, good and firm, that I was elsewhere. Forget it. Those are the rules. I am not here and you never met me here. You got hold of the rules?'

'If you say so.'

'I say it. I said that I'd find out about you-'

'You did.'

'Don't interrupt me, doesn't make me happy.' A pencil torch flashed on in the car, and the beam shone down on a file of papers. 'You are Malachy Walter Kitchen?'

'I am.'

'Son of Walter and Araminta Kitchen, born 1973?'

'Yes.'

'On leaving school, a year's teaching in Krakow, Poland?'

'I cannot see that that is relevant to anything.'

'Everything of you, to me, is relevant.' The papers on the lap were turned. 'You joined the army. Your father was a senior officer, now retired. You were recruited into the ranks. Basic Training, then Germany, Logistics Corps. I suppose it was a gesture

– a poor one, and it did not last. Right?'

'I'd have thought you had better things to do with your time than pry into my past.'

'Easy, Malachy, easy, there's a good fellow.' There was a stifled chuckle. 'You were pulled out. There's a letter in the files from your father. A request was made to friends to give you a hand up.'

He ground his teeth. 'I didn't know. If I had I wouldn't have accepted the offer.'

'That's convenient – always good to keep the pride.

So, you went to Sandhurst, to the Royal Military Academy, to be made into an officer. Not much of one, only "fair" ratings for team work. Described as a

"loner" – but they're down on numbers, these days, and they pass through what they've got.'

'My academic work was graded "above average". I was good enough for what I wanted to do.'

'Absolutely right. You were accepted into the Intelligence Corps in '96. Dad couldn't complain about that – it was respectable. You were at the corps' base at Chicksands for three years. Your assessments give no indication of what will happen. It is said of you that you show aptitude for working under pressure on your own. You were one of those solitary people who makes a virtue of not needing company.

Where I am we have a few. They've slipped through the net, and they're arrogant, opinionated, not good work colleagues. Once we've spotted them they're out. Do you recognize yourself?'

'I recognize nothing. It's your game.'

'You married Roz in '98. Wasn't clever but you did.

Daughter of a warrant-officer instructor at Sandhurst.

You set up home in married quarters at Chicksands.

But that's not my business.'

'That is not your bloody business.'

'Not my business except when I can see I'm pouring salt on to a raw wound. Trekking on, you're then posted to Rome to be on the military attache's staff.

That must have been nice, bit of a doddle, I'd have thought. Cocktail parties, NATO exercises and updating the Italian army. Heavy stuff.'

'I did what was asked of me.'

'Back to Chicksands. Working to Major Brian

Arnold. Rarefied long-range guessing on the agenda.

What do we know about the Iraqi order of battle?

How mobile is a Republican Guard armoured division? Who are the personalities in command of Iraqi units? Where have they been trained? What is the quality of Iraqi logistics and support arms? War is getting closer, work hours longer – earlier away from the little woman and later back. Immersed in work, head never above the parapet… Am I getting it right?'

'If you want to believe it, you can believe it.'

'Don't get shirty with me, Malachy. I'm the one with a home and family to go back to. You've neither. The war starts. All those clever papers you've written, they're all proven crap. The Yanks slice through the defences, which was not in your predictions. No, you hadn't got that right. Hardly time to blink and the fighting war's over, and it's peace. You are one of many, suddenly sitting on your hands and looking at the sun shining down on Chicksands. Your trouble, though – and it's the same trouble for all the work-obsessed geeks – is that you don't do hobbies.

Nothing to fill your days, and nights. Not going well with the lovely Roz, eh? Then Major Arnold drops his bombshell. You're off to Iraq.'

He understood. It was as if a rope had tightened round his throat. He said hoarsely, 'There was work, worthwhile work, to be done there.'

'That's better. Now we're singing from the same hymn sheet – excellent. And the excreta's in the fan.

Supposed to be mission accomplished, but it's not.

The time for rose petals chucked under the tracks of tanks is a memory. It's about terrorism and about improvised explosive devices and law-and-order breakdown and the assassination of collaborators, and a dream that's as sour as old milk. First you get to Brigade in Basra. I expect they get the message – another junkie from Intelligence, boasting brain power over brawn and telling the brigadier where he's doing it wrong – short-cut to getting popular, eh?'

'I was coming with a different viewpoint.'

'Soon as they could get rid of you, Brigade did the business and packed you off to a battalion of Jocks, somewhere out in the sand. That must have been a thrill. They're real soldiers, getting their arses shot at, and now on their territory is a guy from outside their ranks. I expect you didn't hesitate – with the full weight of your Intelligence Corps expertise – to point out to the commanding officer where they were going wrong. I read a little note from someone at the HQ: a gathering in the officers' mess and everyone's yapping about what should be done, but the I Corps officer reckons they're talking shit and can't keep his mouth shut, says, "My opinion, anyone who thinks he knows the short-fix answer to southern Iraq's problems is ill informed." I'll bet that went down as well as if you'd pulled the pin and dropped a hand grenade. So, they sent you-'

'All I did was tell them what I thought.'

'Back to the old self-opinionated stubbornness – couldn't let it go then and can't now. They sent you up to a company base, codename Bravo. I'd hazard that there were a fair few at Brigade, Battalion and Company who'd have raised a cheer if they'd known you were going to fall on your face. You went out on patrol-'

'That's enough.'

'Not good listening, eh? Getting sensitive, is it?'

'It wasn't like anyone said.'

'What did they call you, Malachy, after the patrol?'

'I don't have to listen.' He was shouting.

'What was their description of you, Malachy?'

'Go fuck yourself.'

'A bit of spirit, Malachy – that's what I want to hear.

I think we're progressing. You don't want me to say what they called you, all right, how they described you, all right, you haven't forgotten. It's hung round your neck. I said you were a failure – a man can live with that. But a man can't live with what they called you. Am I right, Malachy?'

'Cannot.'

'Anyone stand your corner, speak for you? I don't think so. Think of topping yourself, Malachy, ending it?' 'Thought of it.'

'And you fell – no work, no wife, no family, no friend. Collapse, booze, mind broken… You were lucky you ended here.'

The fire beyond the pillars flared and there was a shriek of laughter that echoed through the car park, across the empty bays.