Gerald Seymour - The Unknown Soldier

Getting to his family was his goal, his reason for survival.

The courier had been and had gone. The sentry, low down in the rocks in front of the cave's entrance, scanned the desert's expanse.

The courier had reached the cave after the first prayers at dawn and had left before the prayers at midday. He had brought with him a sealed, lead-encased container – the size of a water bucket – and had taken away with him finely rolled cigarette papers on which coded messages were written in minute script.

The heat shimmered the sands in front of the sentry, but he squinted, looked ahead and watched for them.

For midday prayers, men had emerged blinking from the cave, and one had held up the compass so that the direction of Makkah would be exact and not an estimation. They had prayed, then returned to the dark recesses.

The sentry had watched the courier in, had watched him out and away over the emptiness of the sands, and had not prayed. He had stayed hidden among the rocks with the rifle always in his hand and with the machine-gun, loaded with belt ammunition, close against his knee. During prayers, an eagle had wheeled high over the escarpment where the cave was. The sentry's eyes ached as he looked for a sign of their coming.

If they came in daylight he would have long warning of them.

He would see a speck of movement, then the shape of a small caravan would materialize. If they came in darkness he would see them, from three or four kilometres away, on the night vision glasses, Russian military, that hung from his neck. They were late.

They were late by four days.

But four days mattered little to the sentry and to the men inside the cave whom he guarded. The war was without end. He did not doubt that they would come, but he hoped fervently that they would come during his long watch, not after he was relieved. His eyes scraped over the sands and little images danced in his mind, small hallucinations, but he did not see the caravan. Their importance was to be measured by the ordeal they endured, crossing the Empty Quarter for secrecy and the preservation of their security. He wanted to be the first to greet and welcome them.

He watched for them, as he had watched for each of the four days since they had been due. He searched the sands that were without limit for the caravan. But he saw only the desert and the dunes, heard only the silence… They would come, he was sure of it. Their importance, in the war without end was too great for them to fail the journey.. . and the one of greatest importance, he had heard it whispered while he rested in the cave's depths, was the one who would carry the suitcase when it was loaded with the content of the container the courier had brought that morning. That was a man to be greeted and welcomed.

Billy Boy said, 'He was all right when the boss brought him in. He was OK then, but he changed. Then he was shit. When he changed he hadn't the time of day for us. Don't expect me to care, not if Caleb Hunt's got trouble on his doorstep.'

Half a pace behind Lovejoy, Jed stood and absorbed. Lovejoy's way, as lectured in the Volvo, was to begin at the bottom and work up. It was the explanation as to why they were not knocking at a front door and interviewing a family, but instead were in the workshop of a grimy car-repair business. He had seen a derelict gasworks to the right side of the complex built in a passed-over factory, and a once-fine church on the left side with graffiti sprayed over the plywood covering the windows. Jed thought the place reeked of failure.

But flesh now stretched on the skeleton that was Caleb Hunt – and on the taxi-driver, Fawzi al-Ateh, who had sat across a table from him at Delta, in his interrogation room, and who had screwed him.

Vinnie said, 'We helped him when he started. When he didn't know a carburettor from a clutch, we covered for him and treated him like he was one of us. He was learning, he was good, then it all went sour. One day he was fine, then it was like we weren't good enough for him.'

They came forward in turn, called out from under a bodywork . chassis and from the examination pit, and they talked with what he believed to be utter honesty – and confusion – and almost a trace of sadness. It was as if they had been rejected and still wore the marks of it. Each, his name called, came and shuffled awkwardly and spoke of the man who had duped Camp Delta's finest, and him. It made hard listening for Jed.

Wayne said, 'He told us, at the end, the day he left, that the work bored him and that the boss bored him, and that we bored him. You know, I'd shared sandwiches with him and my towel, shared bloody everything with him, but we were crap – we were beneath him. He let us know, not laughing at us but arrogant-like, we were second-rate and he wasn't.'

They moved into the inner office. Files and worksheets were dumped off chairs for them. He remembered the docile, humble young man – light skinned, but so were many Afghans – who had been a taxi-driver and he thought it remarkable that the lie had been sustained against all the pressure that Camp Delta had thrown at him. Jed had never before been on a field investigation: his life had been spent behind a desk, a suspect in front of him or a computer screen. He admired the quietly spoken expertise of Lovejoy, who started men talking and never interrupted them. A kettle whistled, instant coffee was doled into mugs, the water was poured and milk added from a bottle. Jed knew flesh on the skeleton would now become features.

The boss said, 'I gave him the chance because Perkins asked it of me. Perkins taught me and my wife and taught our girl. Perkins got him the chance. It's not the top of the tree, but it's a start. If a lad wants to work, and to learn, then I'll give him a damn good apprenticeship. Won't pay him much, but a start's a start, and a trained engine mechanic is in work for life. For two and a half years he was good as gold and it had got to the stage where I'd give him my best customers, my regulars, for services and MOTs, and he'd do all God's hours… Don't quote me, but I was going to put him in charge of that lot. He had what it takes, the leadership thing. He could take responsibility, seemed to enjoy it. Good with customers.

They liked him because he told them it straight – you know, "Your motor's a wreck, sir, and us fixing it is just chucking good money after bad," or "No, we can do that, sir, do it over the weekend – I'll come in Saturday and Sunday and do it." People had started to ask for him. Whether it was an engine strip or knocking out a front-wing dent from a shunt, people used to say, "I'd like Caleb to do it." Then it all went pear-shaped. There was two lads started to hang around for him. First they'd be outside, then they used to drift in and sit around, talk to him while he was working. I should have told them to piss off, but I didn't – suppose I thought Caleb would walk out on me. Shouldn't have bothered. He did. They were Pakistani boys.

Don't go getting me wrong. I'm not a racial nut – plenty round here that are, but I'm not one of them. They had a hold on him. At the end, they'd show up and he'd just down tools – whatever he was doing – and he'd be gone. No more weekends and no more Sundays either, and half the Fridays he was gone. There was this Tuesday, and they came in for him. I was going to fire him that evening anyway, would have done it a month earlier if it hadn't been for old Perkins. They came in late morning, and he went off and wiped his hands – and we were busy as sin – and he told me, like my problems didn't matter to him, that he'd be gone for a couple of weeks. I told him he could be gone for a couple of months or a couple of years because there wouldn't be a job here when he came back. Both the Pakistanis were laughing at me, but not Caleb. I turned my back on him and I went in the office. He followed me. Nobody else saw it. He'd this spanner in his hand and his fingers were all white round it. God's my witness, I thought he was going to belt me, I reckoned he'd lost it – then he put the spanner down. You know what it was? I'd said he was sacked. He was not in control, and he couldn't take it. What I saw in his eyes, when he had that spanner, he'd have killed me and just walked like nothing had happened… I don't know why you're interested in Caleb Hunt, and don't suppose you'd tell me if I asked.