Owen Sheers: The Two Worlds of Charlie F

Charlie

British Officer

Charlie’s Mother

Lauren

Angus

John

Daniel

Roger

Leroy

Marc

Chris

Ali

Simi

Young Simi

Becky

Darren

Dave

Frank

Richard

Michelle

Sarah

Tracy

Marie

Rob

Psychologist

Chaplain

Singing Teacher

Delivery Men

Businessmen

Dancer 1

Dancer 2

Waitress

Nurses

Doctor

SCENE ONE — WAKING

Footage of soldiers’ boots on patrol is projected on to gauze.

Lights fade.

Blackout.

Silence.

The sound of an IED explosion. In its wake military radio chatter, the thudding of a helicopter, loud at first then fading down.

Charlie(voice-over) Your hearing’s the last to go.

The radio crackle melds into the sound of a hospital, the digital heartbeat of medical machines getting louder.

And the first to come back.

The lights come up on a cloud of dust, still clearing from the stage. A hospital bed surrounded by screens, backlit. The silhouette of a man lying in the bed.

A non-Caucasian nurse enters and walks behind the screens. She carries a tray with a water bottle and a glass. She, too, is silhouetted as she works. As she dresses her patient’s stump he begins to stir.

NurseWhat’s your name?

He stares at her, his breathing becoming rapid.

CharlieFuck. You.

NurseYou’re in Birmingham, in hospital –

Charlie/ Fuck you, you Taliban bitch!

Nurse/ Can you remember your name?

Charlie( shouting ) Help! Help! I’m in here! Here!

He tries to get out of bed but fails.

NurseYou’re in Selly Oak Hospital. Please, can you remember your name?

Charlie( shouting ) ANA! ANA! ANA!

NurseYou’ll wake the other patients.

CharlieHelp! Radio my position! Radio my position! ANA! ANA! ANA!

NurseWould you like some water?

CharlieANA! AN.… Water?

She pours a glass of water.

Oh no you don’t. You’re going to poison me. You think I’m fucking stupid? You’re going to kill me. That’s fucking cleaning fluid!

NurseIt’s from a bottle.

CharlieShow me.

She opens a fresh bottle in front of him and pours it into a plastic cup. As she approaches him Charlie knocks it from her hand .

Fuck off! I’m a British soldier! Help! Over here! It was the terp wasn’t it? I bet it was the fucking terp.

He begins singing ‘I’m Henry the Eighth I Am!’

The Nurse exits. When she re-enters she is with an Officer in British military uniform. Both enter the screens. Charlie stops singing.

You fucking turncoat! You motherfucking traitor! I swear, when I get out of here I am going to rip out your throat, shit down your neck and wipe your fucking gene pool from the face of the earth.

The Officer nods, then leaves. Charlie returns to his song.

NurseYou’re in Birmingham. In hospital. They’ll move you off the ward if you carry on like this.

Charlie( between bursts of song ) Yeah, Birmingham, of course I am. Birming-fucking-ham? I don’t think so. Boss! Boss! Don’t leave me in here! Don’t leave me!

The Officer enters. He is with a young woman, Lauren. They both walk behind the screens.

At first Charlie doesn’t see her. He continues his shouting and swearing.

LaurenCharlie? Charlie, it’s me.

He turns to look at her and immediately starts crying.

CharlieOh Jesus. Lauren, how did they get you? I swear, when I get out of here I am going to kill every one of you motherfuckers. Baby, have they hurt you? Did they torture you? If you’ve touched one hair on her head –

Lauren, shocked, begins to leave. The Officer exits with her. He returns with an older woman, Charlie’s Mother.

Charlie’s MotherCharles? It’s your mother. Calm down now, calm down.

CharlieMom? No, no, not you too. No, this has to stop! This has to stop!

The cubicle goes dark. Charlie suddenly bursts through the downstage screen. He is in uniform, one leg missing, walking with a crutch. He walks downstage and looks at the audience.

CharlieYou know when you fell off your bike? As a kid? Do you remember that pain? The one you don’t feel at first, but then you look down at your hand, your knee and it’s all gritty from where you bounced along the pavement. And that’s when it comes on, pulsing, and you’re like, ‘Ow, ow, ow, what the fuck?’

That’s what I remember. That kinda feeling. Grit in my hands, my knees.

In my mouth. The taste of it.

And the smell of Afghan. Gritty and shitty. Sand, skin flakes and shit.

That’s what I remember.

Beat.

I don’t remember waking up.

I don’t remember eating breakfast.

I don’t remember being given orders, or loading up, or leaving the compound.

I don’t remember going where we went.

I don’t remember walking through an archway, a low archway.

I don’t remember the IED going off.

None of that.

Beat.

What I do remember is taking down our ponchos the night before because there was a heelo coming in the next day. Then lying down in my trench on some shitty deflated air mattress and looking up at the Afghan stars which, let me tell you, are like no other fucking stars anywhere else.

Next thing I know, I’m being tortured by the fucking Taliban. For three weeks.

If anyone tries to tell you an induced coma is any kind of fun, they’re fucking lying. So, yeah, I realise I must have looked like a class-A asshole back there just now, but you have to understand I wasn’t in that hospital bed. Sure, I was in that bed, and as far as my fiancée and my mother were concerned I was there. Their Charlie was back. But at the same time he wasn’t. That round light above me? That was an observation hole. The screens? A temporary Taliban holding station. The nurse? Some devious fucking interrogator. The pain and the tubes? That was the torture.

‘I Am Henry the Eighth I Am’? No fucking idea. Didn’t even know that song had more than two lines.

Beat.

When British soldiers were wounded in the Napoleonic wars it took them months to get home, if they did. In World War One a fortnight at least. World War Two, about the same from France, much longer from India, Egypt, Burma.

Now? Medevaced from Nad Ali north to Bastion in twenty minutes, back in the UK in twelve, thirteen hours tops. But in here –