Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

First nibbled, then taken into the mouth.

‘It would be the noose and the gallows.’

‘Whatever you want. It is intended as a gesture of friendship.’

The navigation officer, in the days since they had left their home port, and had gone into the Black Sea for a topping-up of cargo, had many times, late at night and alone in his cabin, taken the weapon out of its protective wrapping. He had held it, then had learned one piece at a time to dismantle it, then reassemble it. He had cleared the magazine, had filled it again. He had learned what he could from the internet about its history and culture, of the freedom struggle that the weapon enjoyed. Set in the metalwork was the identity of the rifle, and he knew by heart, often silently recited its last digits, 16751 , and had wondered at the heritage that an individual rifle, a killing machine, carried. Had not fired it, not stood on the deck in darkness and nestled the stock against his shoulder and aimed at a fisherman’s buoy, but had held it in the firing position inside the privacy of his cabin. The scratches on the stock, which tickled the skin of his jaw when he aimed, were of particular interest. Easy to assume that different owners had made those marks and that if their code could be deciphered then the history would be clear. They were gouges, or notches, or crude marks made from a blunt blade or the tip of a screwdriver. Young men, college students, lucky enough to bed a girl, might leave a small memento on the bed post: young men, soldiers or activists, might remember a killing by marking the wooden stock. It had fascinated him. It would be, he reflected, similar to a child abandoning a prized toy, but he could not contemplate, now that the ship was recalled and the owners bust, having Customs men go over it as they docked for the last time – not a hanging offence but the probability of a lengthy gaol term.

Enough… ‘Do you want it, or not want it? Will you take it or does it go in the sea?’

He would take it. A farewell to a friend. Never used but valued. He would add nothing to the marks made on the wooden stock but hoped it might be of help, or merely comfort, to a friend. He looked for a last time at the body of it, where so little paint had survived the years. It was wrapped again, then would go into the official’s bag – where his laptop was and his waterproof clothing, and a change of shoes. They hugged, kissed each other on the cheek, and his friend – he noticed – shook, almost trembled, had gone quiet, and his breath was fast but erratic. He thought the reason was the fear that the weapon, unused, could create.

Over the boy’s shoulder, Zeinab saw the silver line across the rough stained greyness of the road’s surface. They went towards it with all the speed that the scooter was capable of. The line she saw went only to the middle of the street, and he was steering towards the end of its bright length: the sun caught it, made it pretty.

Two police vehicles were parked up, doors open on the street side. She saw the crowd and seemed to hear also, louder than the siren behind them, a dull timpani from spectators on the pavement behind the police vehicles, when they saw the scooter and Karym and herself breast the top of the slope and then accelerating. And noted the guns… registered two handguns, pistols, and a small machine-gun. The guns were held by three men and a woman, all drab blue in the uniform of the Marseille force, what she had seen when walking with Andy… and it hurt to remember him and recall his voice, to think of him. She had no idea where they were going, what she would do. Helpless, in the hands of the kid, somewhere she did not know – lost.

‘It’s a shit old world’, the kids at the Hall of Residence would have said. ‘Can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs’, her tutor would have said. There were pictures on the TV of long-distance races through streets, full- and half-marathons, and always there were parts of the nominated course where the crowd was sparse but they were vigorous in their support for a struggling and isolated runner, and clapped and sometimes whistled to show empathy… like now. There was applause, there were yells, that she took as encouragement, and Karym took a hand off the steering bar and clenched a puny fist, shook it, as if he were a freedom fighter and they were his followers. It was what she thought. She had realised that the siren noise stayed constant, that the vehicles did not close on them. There was a car behind them but it was not easy for her to turn, see it clearly… and some on the pavements saw the rifle and yelled louder and made the gesture of aiming and firing and their laughter cascaded on her. They gave her their applause because she had the rifle, was invulnerable, strong; but she knew nothing. She liked the sound of their clapping and cheering, and held the rifle so it was better seen, and felt the power in her arms, and its weight seemed as nothing.

He veered across the street. The police stiffened, and she thought they aimed. The swerve that Karym made would have confused them, made their target harder to follow. She understood: he rode the scooter beyond the silver line. A woman stepped out of a shop doorway, 25, 30 yards away. She wore police uniform. Karym saw the pistol lodged in a holster. She had auburn hair with highlights, and was powerful at the hips and shoulders, and she carried a thick silver coil, like a big resting eel – and threw it. Nowhere for Karym to go. The road was blocked, The unravelling coil shivered on the street surface, rocked and bobbed and was almost still when he drove over it.

He had said nothing, gave her no warning. She sensed the sudden quiet, heard the squeal of the tyres, and the tight, small explosions as they burst, and the ripping sound where they were torn. The momentum of the scooter reeled under her.

The scooter skidded, slewed across the road, was past the silver line, and she had seen the teeth bared as the tyres shredded. Karym struggled to hold it, and seemed to swear in a language she didn’t know. She clung to the rifle with one hand; the other was around his waist, gripping the material of his T-shirt and feeling the little knots of his muscles. They went down and she felt the heat as sparks were thrown up.

She held the rifle. The knees and thighs of her jeans, right leg, ripped. The skin beneath was stripped. She hung on to him, clung on to the rifle. They headed for a street rubbish bin, filled to overflowing, seemed endless getting there, but reached it and the scooter took most of the impact, and Karym took some more. She felt little, until the shot was fired.

They had hit the bin.

Her thumb would have shifted the lever, taken it off safety and on to single shot mode, when her body careered into the bin. A finger would have gone into the space behind the trigger guard and caught the lever, not squeezed it, but yanked on it. A bullet was fired. It would have hit a lamppost, then ricocheted into the road, then struck the surface and maybe gone on, as a flat stone would if flipped on to smooth water, and flew down the street, until breaking a window.

The effect of the shot, fired involuntarily, was as good an outcome as there might have been. Three policemen and a policewoman taking cover, either flat on the pavements and not aiming, and the policewoman who had thrown out the tyre shredder was on her haunches in the shop doorway. She could not have said whether it was she who pulled him up, whether it was Karym who tugged her arm and dragged her upright. No sports races, running for a tape, were permitted at the school she’d attended in Savile Town. Never ran in Manchester. No cause to, no reason to run. She did now, learned how, but never released her grip on the rifle.

Karym was bent low, ducked and weaved and scampered. He took her with him. Nothing said… She had fired the Kalashnikov, had seen policemen, policewomen, cower, had known the strength of it when the kick came, and thought it the proudest moment in her life. She did not look behind her, just ran and tried to match Karym, did not see who followed her. She was panting, her chest heaving. There was a drumming of feet, and still the siren, then a rippling, chanting applause.