Nick Harkaway - Tigerman

‘What’s the news, Jed?’ he asked, when the operator connected him. ‘I’ve been hearing helicopters all night.’

‘Your typical batshit insane Mancreu,’ Kershaw snapped. ‘While you were fucking three Bolivian pole-dancers in a hayloft, some jackass hillman went postal on a patrol. Roughed them up pretty good. You okay?’

‘Aside from being roused from my beauty sleep. Big chap, was he, this jackass?’

‘Oh, ha ha.’

‘I was only going to observe, between Bolivians as it were, that we in the British Army give our fellows guns and train them in this thing called combat, and we tend to think of one bloke attacking a full patrol of — what, eight? — as a bit of an error on his part. We tend to expect the patrol to cut such a fucking idiot into thin strips and bring him home to us for close inspection of the parts.’

‘They were a man short.’

‘Oh, well, if it was only seven to one, that explains it.’

‘Yeah, I guess it was a lot like the War of Independence, huh?’

‘Yes, I’ll tell the Queen, she loves your little japes. Here, hang on.’ He yawned loudly. ‘Did you say he roughed them up? As in, with his hands?’

‘Hands and feet. One of them has a heelmark on his ribs.’

I’ll be sure and burn the boots first. The Sergeant let a little more disdain creep into his voice. ‘He was unarmed ? Against professional soldiers?’

‘I know, I know.’

‘No, you don’t, Jed. This is one of those moments where you sort of need to be a soldier. It can’t be done.’

‘You did it,’ Kershaw objected.

The Sergeant’s heart nearly fell out of his mouth. He means Shola! Shola’s café. Not tonight! Talk!

‘That was entirely different. Five amateurs, and I got bloody lucky with the custard. Even so, I ought to be dead. It was a bloody stupid thing I did, Jed, and I honestly don’t know why except there was a child present and I thought he was next. This isn’t that. You’re talking about a fully armed, trained patrol. They’re pulling your pisser. One bloke? Nine foot tall with green skin, was he? Warned them not to make him angry?’

Kershaw paused. ‘Yeah, something like that.’

Too close to the truth. Careful. The Sergeant filled the silence with a more plausible slander. ‘Probably got into a fight with one another and it turned nasty.’

‘Lester. . I’m a little bit freaking out here. I have a guy in the hospital they’re telling me was force-fed a railroad spike.’

‘Fuck.’ Because it was the only thing to say.

‘Yeah.’ Kershaw sighed. ‘This island. . What the hell do you want, anyway?’

‘You called me. I assume you needed my superior military knowledge.’

‘I’m up to my neck in superior military knowledge over here, asshat. Pardon me if I was a little bit worried about the old British washout who lives on his own. Why the fuck didn’t you answer your phone?’

‘Went out to buy dinner. Had a glass of beer. Just woke up.’

‘You were asleep? Asleep but hearing helicopters?’

‘It was a very large glass.’

He let Kershaw bitch at him a little more, fostering the notion of chummy, earthy Lester Ferris, a bit vague and a bit hapless, serving out his time. After a few more exchanges Kershaw transparently wanted to get rid of him, reassured and aggravated in just the right measure, and the Sergeant hung on just long enough to appear a bit needy. Then he went to his bedroom and lay down. His bones hurt. His muscles ached. He realised his ears were ringing. On the other hand: full of win. From SNAFU to Mission Accomplished by dint of having balls of steel. Very nice.

So score one for the world, he told himself. Score one for kitchens and cats and woolly hats and village green cricket and score bugger all and piss off for men in offices and men in caves making war on one another by selling smack to kids in Liverpool or New York, for the sake of things none of the rest of us give a shit about.

At some point, he slept, and was grateful.

The Sergeant woke late and realised he was stuck to the Consul’s linen. His left forearm was bleeding all along to the elbow, sluggish, grazed, and painful. The sheet was solidly glued to his shoulders where he had been burned above the armour, and he had bruises everywhere. His throat was sore as hell.

‘You are an idiot,’ the Witch said unsympathetically.

She stood at the foot of his bed, a leather bag hanging on a strap across her chest. It pressed her shirt against the centreline of her body, emphasising her curves. He realised that the last time he had seen her she had been naked and gasping, and belatedly averted his eyes.

She leaned away from the bag, hauled it onto the foot of the bed, and rummaged. ‘Don’t move. You’re a mess.’

‘As well as an idiot.’

She shrugged. ‘I said, don’t move. If you pull that off it will hurt more. For longer. Tcha!’ This last in disgust, because he had turned to examine his shoulders and the movement had wrenched a wad of fabric away from his flesh. He grunted.

She stomped up the side of the bed and put her hand flat on his chest below his chin. When he did not lean back she pushed him, not with her arm but with her body’s weight, so that if he wanted to remain half-upright he must effectively carry her. His stomach muscles gave up the fight immediately, strain spiking from his pelvis to his ribs.

She nodded approval. ‘No hernia.’

‘How d’you know?’

‘You’re not screaming.’

She removed a pair of scissors from the bag. The Consul’s linen would suffer, but there was an entire room devoted to it upstairs and none of it would last much longer anyway. She began to cut.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

‘Your little friend came and got me. Said you’d come on a grassfire and tried to put it out. Did it not occur to you to call for assistance? I see you also fell on. .’ she peered at his back, ‘. . a dressed-stone wall. From a height of not less than five feet. Congratulations on not being paralysed. No, please do not tell me why it was important that you take on the inferno by yourself. If you tell me I am reasonably certain I will find that “idiot” does not do you justice. Do not answer me unless I say so. It is unwise to annoy or surprise the person who is cutting around the place where your skin is glued to your sheet.’

The scissor blades snipped. He kept silent, listening to the boy’s lies in his mind, turning them over. They were good.

‘Can you feel that?’ the Witch demanded. ‘You can answer.’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it painful?’

‘Itchy.’

‘And here?’

He hissed discomfort.

‘You’re very lucky.’ She daubed. A welcome cold spread along his scapula and down his spine.

After an hour of more or less painful ministrations she pronounced him shipshape, at least to the extent that was possible for an idiot. He thanked her and asked how the clarinet was going and she said it was going well. He went upstairs and brought her the sheet music, a little shyly. She took it with thanks, but regarded him with an uncertain expression. She was sensing a shift in his perception of her, could not entirely place it but knew it was a respectful one and did not inquire as to the reason. Perhaps she assumed someone had informed him of her relations with White Raoul.

‘Light exercise is fine,’ she said. ‘More than that and you’ll split something and bleed. The burns are extremely minor but they will be annoying. Don’t pick at them. Don’t get them dirty. Don’t sunbathe. I’ve left you a salve for the bruising, which you should apply morning and evening. You’re nodding! Don’t nod: listen! I cannot count, even on both hands, the number of injuries you have which could’ve been much worse, so don’t do whatever you did last night ever again or you’ll probably die. That’s a medical recommendation, okay?’