Harry Parker - Anatomy of a Soldier

‘Have you been prescribed any pain relief?’

‘I don’t know … Please.’

‘I’ll just go and check something.’

He was gone for what felt like an eternity and you were as scared as you’d been in the helicopter. You wished it had never happened, wished it would end. You cried for yourself in the dark.

When he came back he was with a young woman in a white coat. You were unconscious as they spoke about you.

‘He said he was in a bit of pain, poor chap,’ the nurse said. ‘But he’s not been prescribed any extra pain relief yet, just what he’s getting on IV. He only came up from the ICU this evening.’

‘Okay, he’s sleeping now anyway. He does look hot, mind,’ the doctor said. ‘Did you take his temperature?’

‘No.’

‘Well, he’s in theatre in the morning. He’ll be fine, just keep an eye on him and give me a buzz if he wakes.’

You still held me in your hand as you sweated and mumbled through the rest of the night. The nurse and his colleagues looked around the curtain a few times, and finally he walked over, lifted me out of your loose grip and put me back on the table.

*

She was there in the morning with the red handbag by her chair. She could tell something was wrong.

‘Are you okay, darling?’ she said.

You smiled and felt better for seeing her as you woke and wondered at how different the room looked in the daylight. But your leg still hurt and you found it hard to concentrate. Her face was creased and you didn’t want to upset her.

‘Yes, I’m fine, Mum. It was a slightly rough night. I’m in a bit of pain.’

You fell asleep again, or what seemed like sleep. Your mother was angry with the nurses and said you were suffering and that they should give you something. Then other nurses came, and a doctor who talked to her. She said you were going down for surgery now and that Dr Morris would explain it to her. But this would be a routine cleaning of the wounds, she added. Then they wheeled you away and your mother watched you go.

*

You did come back, but many days later. You were in a bed on the other side of the room from me. You looked different.

My first purpose was to hold my head down against the ground as I brushed sand out of a small, dirty room. It was an endless battle against the hot wind that curled around the doorframe. In time, my head loosened and the nail that held it on pulled free. Someone tried to push it back on, but my head swung round and fell off. I was discarded.

That would have been the end of me — and my head was burnt with the rubbish — but I was reinvented and became useful again.

He held me in both hands and leant on me at the edge of the flat piece of ground I was so used to. The speckled shadow of the camouflage net moved in the wind.

‘Where are they?’ he said.

‘Not sure, sir.’

The flat ground was a square, framed with a line of sandbags and green string pulled tight across it to form a grid. Men sat around three sides of the square on old ammunition boxes and a low bench. They were in T-shirts and some held water bottles.

‘They might still be handing over guard,’ one of them said.

‘Corporal Davey, make sure you back-brief them,’ he said, then looked at his watch.

‘Will do, boss.’

He straightened and held me in one hand. ‘Right, orders for tomorrow’s operation,’ he said. ‘We’re deploying most of the company for the first time and the whole platoon’s out together. It’ll be a standard route-security operation for the logistics convoy bringing in our supplies. There’s nothing complicated about this patrol, but we’ll be static for long periods and that will make us vulnerable. We have to clear all the road in our AO and then secure it so the convoy can travel safely through.’ He moved his hand up my shaft and used me to point at the flat ground.

‘Is everyone happy with the model?’ he said.

There were a few silent nods from the watching men.

‘Just to orientate you again. This is our current location.’ He pointed me at a tiny block of wood near the centre of the grid that had PB43 written on it in peeling blue paint. It was the largest of a hundred little wooden squares placed carefully across the earth and numbered in black. ‘This is Route Hammer.’ He moved my end along a piece of orange ribbon that was pinned into the dirt. ‘And this blue ribbon represents the river that runs past Howshal Nalay.’ I swept along the ribbon over a denser group of wooden blocks. ‘These red markers are the IED finds in the last three months, so there’s quite a few on Hammer.’ I hovered over red pinheads.

‘Everyone’s been out a few times now,’ he said, looking up at them, ‘and we should all be getting familiar with the ground and heat. Those who came in by road last week will have seen the area to the northeast, along Route Hammer. The convoy will be coming down the same road tomorrow.’ My end touched a piece of green string, which vibrated. ‘This is the eighty-third easting,’ he said, ‘and will be our boundary with Six Platoon.’ He ran my tip along it until I was positioned where it intersected the orange ribbon. He stepped back and rested me on the ground. ‘Any questions at this stage?’ Most of the men continued to look down at the model. ‘Anything to add, Sarnt Dee?’

‘Nothing from me.’

He started describing the plan and used me to direct their attention to different parts of the square. He said their mission was to secure the road and then provide rear protection. He told them how they would move out before first light and push along the orange ribbon, past the blocks with L33 and L34 written on them. I paused there as he explained how vulnerable this point was, and that one team would provide overwatch at the block marked M13 while others cleared the road.

I was pointed at one of the men, who nodded that he understood.

He told them how they would spread out between block L42 and the green string. Two other platoons would move through them and secure the orange ribbon farther up. Then he swept me over the zones they were most likely to be attacked from. He said the hardest part of the operation was to clear the crossroads at the area of interest named Cambridge; this was 6 Platoon’s responsibility. I hovered over where the orange ribbon was crossed by white tape.

I had done it all before: secured sections of the ribbon, dominated areas of dirt, reassured little labels, ambushed red markers and attacked through clusters of wooden blocks. I had destroyed as my end was pushed down hard and twisted into the ground. I’d drawn lines in the sand that were fire-support positions and traced casualty evacuation routes through miniature fields. I was the master of the model.

After he answered a few questions and everyone around him said they understood their part in the mission, he handed me to another man. This one told them what to do if there was a casualty, what equipment they should carry and how they should stay hydrated. He pointed me at an emergency landing site and circled me around an open section near M13 , so I left a mark in the dust.

He pointed me at a man sitting embarrassed in the corner and told him that if he acted like he had on the last patrol, he’d make him wish he had been blown up. The others chuckled but I swept across all of them and he said it applied to everyone. He told them what needed to happen in the hours before they moved down the orange ribbon, then he handed me back to the first man.

‘Thanks, Sergeant Dee. Right, that should all be clear now,’ he said. ‘Just to add to the timings, we’ll do rehearsals at eighteen hundred tonight on the HLS.’

‘Sir, are you sure we need to rehearse this?’ a soldier said from the far side of the square.