Owen Sheers - The Two Worlds of Charlie F

AngusScared, scared to close my eyes. Scared to put my head on the pillow.

Women

It’s not re-living it, it’s living it. You’re in it, you’re there, doing it.

LeroyMine has its own timetable. It’ll come and go. It’s like, really awkward. It’s space that brings it on. If I sleep in a double bed, then I dream I’m on patrol again. But in my sleep I can control where we go. I still get blown up, though. Every time. Sometimes I’m in my wheelchair, but no one says anything, like, ‘Why’s Leroy in a fucking wheelchair?’ But, yeah, if I sleep in a corner, up against a wall, holding my stumps, that makes it go away.

CharlieFor my missus I’m the nightmare. Sweating, reaching for my weapon, taking cover across the carpet. She has to sleep in the corner of the bed. Or I just stay awake, listening to the night. Sometimes I hit myself in the face. To take my mind off it. Or you drink. Hopefully between finishing drinking and falling asleep you don’t have too much time to think. Hopefully.

RichardIf you do you’re fucked –

ChrisFucked –

RogerFucked –

AllFucked.

LaurenHe was drinking so much he’d just collapse into bed and then, God! The snoring! All night.

MichelleHe thrashes around. And the sweating. The sweating’s the worst. One night he was shouting, ‘Contact!’ ‘Contact!’ So I touched him, to wake him, and … and he punched me in the face.

SarahFor months he didn’t sleep. We’d just read until morning. Or talk. He doesn’t like the silence, it gives him time to think.

LaurenOne night, I feel bad saying this, but one night I leant over and whispered into his ear, ‘Gas, gas, gas!’ Like I said, I felt bad, but I did get some sleep.

SarahI have it too. It was five in the morning when they came to tell me. And now I wake every morning at five. That knock on the door, it’s in my head, in my body clock, forever.

Women

It’s not re-living it, it’s living it. You’re in it, you’re there, doing it.

All

Worse at night, always worse at night. Worse at night, always worse at night.

Men

Scared, scared to close my eyes. Scared to put my head on the pillow.

Scared, scared to close my eyes. Scared to put my head on the pillow.

Women

It’s not re-living it, it’s living it. You’re in it, you’re there, doing it.

All

Worse at night, always worse at night. Worse at night, always worse at night.

RichardIt’s the pain that triggers it. It’s always there, bubbling away, but worse at night. Always worse at night.

ChrisSometimes I just cry, because of the pain, the things it makes me think about.

LeroyIt won’t go away. It makes me want to smash something. I can’t do anything to stop it. Like nails under the skin.

RogerIt’s all down the left side of my neck, in my brain, down my shoulder and into my back. I try to put it in on a shelf, over there. I use distractions too — reading poetry, stripping my weapons, a shitload of drugs. But then sometimes it just takes over and that’s when I have to ring the kids’ mum and say, ‘I can’t have them this weekend.’ And that’s terrible, because its my kids that keep me going.

BeckyAs the nerves in my leg began to die I developed neuropathic pain. For three months I lay on the floor holding my leg, screaming as 10,000 volts went through my body. Whenever it wanted, for as long as it wanted. I put my fist through a computer screen. I hit people. You can’t focus on anything but the pain. You take the meds and they make you live in a fog. So I asked them to cut my leg off, but now I have phantom pain. Those 10,000 volts still going through a leg I don’t have. Nails being driven into my heel. A lit match stuck under my toenail and left to burn for days.

All exit.

SCENE FOUR — BRIEFING 2

Daniel enters upstage in his major’s uniform. He begins to walk downstage.

DanielNostalgia.

Melancholia.

Wind contusions.

Soldier’s heart.

Abreaction.

Effort syndrome

NYDM (not yet diagnosed — mental)

NYDN (not yet diagnosed — nervous).

Exhaustion.

Battle exhaustion.

Combat exhaustion.

Shell shock.

Neurasthenia.

Traumatic neurosis.

Psycho neurosis.

Fear neurosis.

Battle neurosis.

Lack of moral fibre.

Old sergeant syndrome.

War syndrome.

Combat fatigue.

Acute stress disorder.

Acute stress reaction.

Combat stress reaction.

Post-combat disorder.

Post-war disorder.

Post-traumatic illness.

Post-traumatic disorder.

Post-traumatic stress disorder.

Daniel exits.

SCENE FIVE — COMMON ROOM

The common room of a PRU. A group of wounded and injured soldiers congregates around a singing teacher who leads them in ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’.

All

The grand old Duke of York,

He had ten thousand men.

He marched them up to the top of the hill,

And he marched them down again.

And when they were up they were up,

And when they were down they were down,

And when they were only halfway up,

They were neither up nor down.

Singing TeacherNo, no, no. Stop, stop. Enunciate, enunciate. The Grand Old Duke of York!

Leroy( wheeling away ) This is bollocks.

Singing TeacherLeroy. Leroy, where are you going?

LeroyFor a fag.

Leroy exits.

Others begin to drift away.

Singing TeacherRight, OK. Yes, OK, let’s take a break. Fifteen minutes. Back here at two!

The Soldiers disperse. Chris is on his laptop. Frank inserts a DVD into his and starts working. The others sit in a group.

AliWho does he think we are? The Army Wives’ Choir?

MarcAh come on! It’s for BLESMA. You have that leg off and the cash we raise’ll be going straight to you.

AliWell, we’d better come up with something better than ‘Grand Old Duke of York’ then, hadn’t we? Cos last time I checked a top-of-the-range C-leg cost more than fucking 50p.

RogerSixty grand. That’s what I heard. Same as a Javelin missile.

RichardI took out a Tali with one of those once. Fucking pink mist mate, pink mist.

AliThat, my friend, is the power of economics. They pay a farmer ten dollars to take pot shots at you, and you fucking obliterate him with sixty grand’s worth of missile.

RogerAll’s fair, like they say.

CharlieIn war maybe. Not in fucking love.

AliYou’re not still bleating about your missus, are you?

CharlieYeah, I am actually. You got a problem with that?

DarrenI’m telling you, you’re better off without. Mine fucked off before I got back. I wasn’t even injured yet. They look nice enough, but they’re all fucking nuts.

AliYours didn’t even look that nice.

RogerThat’s no way to talk about your mother, Ali.

AliFuck you.

DarrenHe’s a got a point. Not that I ever saw that much of her. Which was a bit ironic seeing as she worked for Ann Summers. Had sex toys coming out of my ears, but no sex. Three double penetrators but no one to fucking penetrate.