Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

The boy did not wish to die, but he had volunteered and now sat on a cold floor, before the sun was high enough to warm the room through the broken glass. Was it worse to be captured or to die? The boy wondered whether his name would be spoken in the camp at Tibnine, whether he would be hailed as a hero, whether he would be forgotten within a week – replaced by another who believed what the commander said. He knew no answers except that they, the enemy, would come at a time of their own choosing, when the moment suited.

The boy called to his brothers. What was happening? What did they see?

One, from the hall inside the main door, swore at him in response. One, whose sister the boy admired and hoped one day to… had a choked voice and was hard to hear, said he saw nothing from the bedroom. One, from the kitchen, with a low-pitched and laconic answer, said that military vehicles had arrived, had parked out of range of their rifles, added that the buildings to the east gave dead ground, and that the sun was rising. The hatred still burned in the mother’s face, and the contempt, and the father’s groans were softer, less frequent, and blood dribbled from his mouth. The boy had two magazines for the AK-47 taped together so that he could more easily, exchange them. The others’ Kalashnikovs were more modern and cleaner, but he would not have been separated from his, and it was a joke amongst the kids on the training courses and often they… Never in his life had he heard such a concentration of noise.

A deafening sound of an explosion, and another, and repeated, and the detonations multiplied and seemed to break through the membranes in his ears, and there were flashes that blinded him, then the hammering of firing.

Should he, should he not?

Blinking hard, the boy saw the outline of the head of the mother, was close enough almost to have touched her. It was as if she had ignored the noise and the flashes… the same messages were in her eyes and at her mouth: hatred, contempt, and the sneer that said he had failed, was dead. He tried to raise his weapon and it cavorted in his hands and the aim wavered between her head, her husband’s and the door, never locked on one. The boy wet himself, felt the warmth of the liquid and swore in frustration at what he perceived to be weakness. His finger was rigid and he could not insert it behind the guard, get it on the trigger, and his tears welled, and the first of them came through the door.

The love of the rifle, serial numbers of ***26016751, had destroyed him. His hands opened. It had broken him. It fell to his lap. The man in the doorway had his weapon up. His last sensation was the weight of the weapon, disowned and unwanted, across his upper thighs… another soldier was behind the first. He felt such fear… knew nothing more.

He did not know that his body, hit by 27 bullets, almost shredded at that range, would be tossed out through the window and would land among a group of savage settlers, residents in the new estate for immigrants to Israel, and would be hacked at with a meat cleaver and butchers’ knives. He would not know that his brothers would follow him and be dismembered, nor know that he would be buried in a hidden grave, nor know that with the reverence of a garbage collector a soldier in the storm team – known in the country’s shorthand simply as The Unit – would disarm the Kalashnikov and carry it away, and dump it as a minor trophy in the back of a jeep.

She met two men.

One could be a schoolmaster, with a Pakistani accent, and wore slacks and a sports jacket and his beard was tidily trimmed, and the other might have been a student and his body stank and his clothes were stained and he had the soft and delicate hands of a Somali, and the older man deferred to him. Zeinab had left the station, followed the directions given her, had come to the park. They had been sitting in the cold, on a bench, and she did not know how long they had watched before deciding it was safe to approach. First she was told that she had been monitored since leaving the station and that she was clean, had no tail. She’d said she was hungry and a boy had been sent away and had come back with a pie, vegetable curry, and they had seemed amused by her. She had eaten ravenously. She was passed a bottle of water, broke the seal and drank.

Then business… was given her route out, and a folded wad of notes that was bound with an elastic band. She had been about to put it into a side pocket of her coat, but the younger man had taken it from her, had pushed aside the coat at the zip, and his hand was against her breast and he seemed not to notice, and his fingers found an inner pocket. The money went there, and the zip was closed. She produced her new passport and it was examined minutely, had passed the scrutiny and was returned along with the money already given her. She was shown a photograph of Andy Knight. She recognised him, and saw the line of lorries behind him. The picture was stolen. Was she sure?

Zeinab said, ‘I am sure. He is besotted with me. He is a driver. He has no politics, only his work and a drink, and being with me.’

And he knew nothing, this driver?

‘He is quite simple, not very bright, not educated. It is because of me that he comes, and he drives well. It is a brilliant solution.’

Was she ‘fond’ of him, and the word rolled on the older man’s tongue.

‘I quite like him, not more. I use him and…’

From the younger one, asked with exaggerated casualness – and she became aware of the hole, poorly patched with a skin graft at the side of his neck and a smaller hole on the other side and presumed him a war veteran – Did she sleep with him, did he screw her?

The blood flushed in her face. ‘I do not. No. I have not slept with him.’

From the older man, an examination of a difficulty because it was hard to understand – in these times of loose morality – how she could hold the loyalty of this fellow, the delivery driver, if he did not receive sexual gratification. Did she understand his query?

‘Because he is almost in love with me, cannot do enough for me, he respects me. He thinks I am virtuous. I am virtuous. He is a good man.’

The younger man peered at her and his face was close to hers and there was a magnetism in the eyes – as there had been in her cousins’ – and the grin played on his face as if he were amused, and the question was simplistic: in France, in a hotel, would she fuck him?

‘I don’t know.’ A stammered answer, never been asked such a question before. ‘I am not a whore. I don’t spread my legs for the cause I follow. I have not…’

Not for them to know what she thought, or planned… She should not lose him, not for the sake of preserving unnecessary modesty. She lied to them… The younger man’s hand rested on her thigh and squeezed hard, as if that were a threat, squeezed until she winced and then slowly relaxed the grip and she could feel – high on her leg – where his fingers had pressed. She should keep him in this state of infatuation, should do what was required. One more thing that they wished to hear her response to, one thing.

‘What thing?’

If she had been wrong, if she had chosen the driver without due care, if she harboured a snake, if the man whose photograph they had was tainted, planted, and she learned this in France… If learned it in England then he was gone, dealt with swiftly like the cauterising of a wound, if in France and close to the pick-up point, what then?

She said it with defiance. ‘I would not be weak. I would spit in his face. I would stamp where I had spat. I would stamp until his face was unrecognisable, until the smile that deceived me was gone, lost forever. I would not hesitate.’

They would have liked what they heard. The older man gripped her hand as if further to strengthen her, and the younger man told her that the monies she carried were for a man who would make indirect contact, and the codeword for him was Tooth… And, she was a brave girl, the younger man said, and the older man nodded fervently, and God would go with her. The result of what she did would be heard across the world, would make kaffirs shiver in their beds… More tickets were given her, and two cheap phones and both had the batteries out, and she gave them hers, and they were gone.