James Deegan - Once A Pilgrim

At least the blokes seemed to understand what he wanted.

‘Fine, thanks, corporal,’ he said. ‘I was just having a last minute refresher.’

Carr’s face was an expressionless mask, his mouth hidden by a drooping, bandito moustache of the sort the men seemed to favour.

‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘Mean fucking streets out there.’

‘Yes,’ said Guy de Vere, slightly nervously.

A month earlier, the Paras had lost three A Coy men to a remote-controlled bomb hidden in a ruined cottage down near Mayobridge: the city just beyond the gates was every bit as hostile.

De Vere was fresh out of the box, new in the battalion, and in the Province, and today’s was his first patrol, on his first tour. He was nominally in charge, but really his role was to watch everything that Scouse Parry and John Carr did and said, and learn.

Not all that long ago, he’d been enjoying a lucrative career as an investment banker in Hong Kong. But, vaguely unsatisfied with life, he’d chucked all that in to come home and do something more meaningful with his life – a decision which had left his Toms shaking their heads in wonderment when they’d found out about it.

Half an hour earlier, Carr had seen de Vere take a wander up into one of the sangars overlooking the streets outside, and he tried to imagine what the officer was thinking.

Probably:

Last year I was earning six figures and living the dream .

Now I’m in a shithole where half the population wants to take my bastard head off .

What the fuck have I done?

‘Boss, you’re doing top cover,’ said Carr. ‘It’ll give you a better look around so’s you can understand the Area of Operations.’

Plus, it’ll do you some fucking good to go through what the lowest, youngest, newest crow in the multiple goes through , he thought.

De Vere nodded. He didn’t fancy top cover one bit – you spent the whole day exposed, on offer to whoever wanted to have a pop – but he didn’t show it.

‘Right you are, lance corporal,’ he said.

‘Main thing is, keep your eyes peeled for that RPG cunt down on Kennedy Way,’ said Carr. ‘He’s an ex-French Foreign Legionnaire. Knows what he’s about.’

De Vere nodded again: he’d had that worrying piece of information stuck into his head a few times in a series of scary briefings.

‘If he gets one off and it hits the wagon, that’ll seriously ruin your day,’ said the Scot, with a cheerful grin. ‘You’ll be lucky if it only takes your legs off.’

De Vere pushed his shoulders back. He thought for a moment about the journey up from Palace Barracks the previous evening. That had been bad enough, and it had been in the back of a Saracen, a purpose-built armoured vehicle with sixteen mil of steel protecting him. Hot, and claustrophobic, but at the end of the day sixteen mil was sixteen fucking mil. The Snatch was a lot more vulnerable.

‘I’ll keep my eyes peeled, corporal,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’

‘Good,’ said Carr. He looked at the second lieutenant more closely. ‘You okay, boss?’ he said. ‘You look a bit white.’

‘I’m fine, Lance Corporal Carr.’

Carr felt for him, momentarily. He remembered his own first time out of the gate: he was a fighter by nature, but even his arse had been going a little.

‘Listen,’ he said, leaning in closer and lowering his voice. ‘Everyone shits themselves the first time. The trick is, dinnae let the blokes see.’ He looked over at the Toms. ‘It’ll be fine. The RA have got snipers, but they’re shite. I’ve never heard of anyone being hit in a moving vehicle. And that cunt with the RPG?’ He looked at the young officer’s rifle. ‘You see the fucker, just give him the good news with that.’

He threw back his head and laughed, and at that de Vere felt a weight lift off his shoulders. He looked at Carr: at a shade over six feet tall, and thick-set and hard-eyed, he held his loaded 6.5kg SA80 rifle like it was a toy, and wore his parachute smock folded back at the sides in a style the men favoured. His helmet was covered in camouflage scrim held in place with a thick black rubber band. All in all, he looked very ‘ally’ – the current Para Reg slang for cool.

‘Thanks, Carr,’ he said. ‘Much appreciated.’

‘Nae problem, boss. Just another day. It gets a lot easier after this one.’

‘John,’ shouted Scouse Parry, from across the yard. ‘Get ready to roll.’

‘Aye, Scouse,’ yelled Carr. ‘Two minutes.’ Then he looked at the soldiers. ‘You lot!’ he barked, in his thick Edinburgh growl. ‘Let’s start fucking sparking! First three to the loading bay!’

Three Toms made their way over and stood pointing their weapons casually into the bay.

‘Load!’ said Carr.

The soldiers went slickly through the drill, checking their safeties, inserting a magazine, securing their pouches, hands gripping front stocks.

‘Make ready!’

The sound of three SA80s being cocked, racking a live round into the chamber. Three sets of eyes and thumbs re-checking three safety catches.

‘Mount up!’

They stepped away from the loading bay and walked to their vehicle.

‘Next group. Come on, get a frigging move on!’ snapped Carr. He looked over at de Vere. ‘Then it’s you and me, boss!’ he shouted, in a voice that almost sounded like an order. ‘Let’s get weaving. No time to think about your girlfriend.’

‘I don’t have a girlfriend, lance corporal,’ said de Vere, his voice higher and reedier than normal.

He realised immediately that he had responded too quickly, too sharply.

He hadn’t meant it, but stress does funny things to people.

‘Boyfriend then, is it, boss?’ said Carr, with a broad grin. ‘I mean, equal opportunities and all that. And you being a public schoolboy.’

From across the yard, Carr heard Scouse Parry cackle.

He saw de Vere open his mouth to speak, and then shut it, and force a grin.

Good boy , he thought. You’re learning .

A moment later, Carr and de Vere made their own weapons ready, and Parry walked over.

‘My vehicle first then, boss,’ said Parry, to de Vere. ‘Then the RUC, then you and Carr. Eyes on stalks, eh?’

Parry walked off to the front Land Rover, whistling tunelessly, nodding at the RUC and chivvying his driver and Toms aboard.

Carr watched Guy de Vere bend his tall frame to get up on top and then climbed into his own vehicle.

He looked at his driver, a young Cornish private called Shaun Morris.

‘This new rupert’s shitting himself, Shaun,’ he said, with a chuckle. ‘Long way from the playing fields of Eton.’

‘Where’s that?’ said Morris.

‘Never mind,’ said Carr.

Up ahead, Parry was running through a final check, making sure everyone was on-board.

Then he looked toward the men manning the gate.

‘Get it open,’ he shouted, and stepped into the vehicle, shutting the armoured door behind him.

And then his driver put the vehicle into gear, and they all headed out through the gates.

4.

IT’S A BIG THING, to kill a man in cold blood.

So Gerard Casey had slept badly in the little back bedroom in the terraced house in Lenadoon Avenue, a mile or two distant from Whiterock.

He’d woken up at 5am in the middle of some kind of sweating nightmare, and since then he’d been sitting on the edge of his bed, watching the red digits on his clock radio move slowly onwards.

Nearly six now.

He sparked up another Red Band and grimaced as he sucked down a lungful of cheap, bitter smoke.

Right leg jiggling on the frayed carpet.

Sure, you’ll be fucking fine, Gerry , Sean had said, a day or two earlier. The first time’s the hardest. But after that it gets easy .