Harry Parker - Anatomy of a Soldier

A large black grip-bag and a Bergen lay open, ready to be packed. Everything was named in black, like me.

The man sat on the single bed. He put his foot into me and I was pulled tight to his ankle by the laces he wrapped around my neck three times before carefully tying a knot. I could feel his toes wiggle and then he pulled the mirror of me onto his other foot.

He walked around the room and flexed his toes again. We left the room, went downstairs and outside.

I flashed past my pair and then was stationary on the ground. It flashed past me. We were running. We went quicker as we pounded up a chalk and flint track through gates topped with razor wire. The track was lined with hedgerows and we skipped around puddles and plunged out of a tree line and up a green hill.

We settled into a rhythm and the man breathed with practised control. My tread folded and bent around rocks and grasped the mud with each stride. The puddles reflected the blue and white sky above and my cloth surface formed creases as I flexed to the movement of his foot. He increased the tempo because he knew he could and indulged being able to. He was strong and his breathing was still measured as we pounded on. The fitter he was, the harder he could fight and the longer he could survive.

He pushed himself faster, motivated by nothing but oblivion and he drove on up a steep slope. He stopped at the top and looked over the wide plains below, crossed by lanes and squared with wood blocks.

He tried to empty his head but thoughts washed over him. He was already there, focused on what it would be like and its inevitability. When he thought of the final week before he deployed it seemed unreal. He thought of saying goodbye.

We left the track and ran through grass. Blades stropped over my toe, leaving green scars. We went down a steep slope and he jarred through me as we descended. I started rubbing on his left heel and a blister formed. The creases in me deepened and the shape of each of his toes moulded my inner sole.

We dropped off a kerb and ran on along a metal road that was hard on my tread. We turned a corner to a gate where he showed his ID card to a soldier and stopped.

‘I didn’t know you were on guard, Rifleman Macintosh.’

‘Deep joy, sir,’ the soldier said.

‘Not losing any leave, I hope.’

‘No, I finish tomorrow morning, then I’ll go straight home. You been for a run?’

‘Just breaking in my new boots,’ he said and looked down at me.

‘Keen, boss. Carry on like that and you’ll be colonel one day.’

‘I’m sure it won’t come to that, Mac,’ he said and turned. ‘See you later.’

It started to rain and the tarmac speckled dark in front of me. He sprinted hard for the final half-mile back to the building we had left.

He walked, his hands on his head, his chest heaving. He recovered quickly and we went back to the room. I was taken off and the heat of his foot dissipated. I was placed carefully among all the kit laid out on the floor.

He slept in the bed and in the morning shaved at a sink. He dressed in a green camouflaged uniform and pulled on boots, like me but black and leather. He smoothed a green beret over his head, positioning the silver bugle above his eye, and went out. When he came back he rearranged the piles and counted the socks again before adding another tick to a list.

The next day he put jeans and a T-shirt on and old trainers that had remained unused in the corner of the room since I had been there. He stuffed a few things in a bag and left, locking the door behind him.

I was alone in my spot, next to my pair among the piles ready to be packed.

*

He came back a week later, unshaven. He sighed and sat on the floor and began to pack the kit. Everything had a place and each item on his list was finally crossed through. Once finished he stacked the Bergen on the grip and I was placed next to a chair with a desert combat uniform draped over it and the green beret on top.

Another man peered around the door.

‘You coming for some food?’ he said.

‘Sure, give me a sec, I’ve just got to call home.’

‘Okay, mate, see you down there,’ the man said and left.

He picked up his phone.

‘Hi, Mum, it’s Tom,’ he said. ‘Yup, fine, just finished packing — all ready to go …’ He walked around the room and then sat on the bed. ‘Just pizza and a film, probably, with the others … I think it’s about ten tomorrow but we have to be ready for the buses at five … Thanks for the weekend. It was great to see you all.’ He listened to the phone, twisting his fingers through the duvet cover. He stood and went over to the window. He talked and laughed and walked over to the chair to pluck at a loose thread on his combat shirt. ‘I’ll call in a few days,’ he said, ‘when I get there … Okay, will do … And you, take care … Bye … Bye.’

That night he slept fitfully and at four his alarm rang. He immediately clicked the light on. He sat up, gripped the side of the bed and yawned. It was still dark outside and he leant on the sink and shaved off his stubble. He stared at the reflection and its bloodshot eyes. It looked different from how he felt. He smiled, but his eyes were empty as he pulled the razor across his chin. It didn’t matter what he looked like.

He packed the last of his kit into his Bergen, dressed in the combat uniform and then pulled me on.

At breakfast other boots like me fidgeted under the table. None of the men had slept well and they talked of little other than timings and the co-ordination of the next few hours.

Back in the room, he shouldered the Bergen and grunted as he lifted the grip up until it was stacked on top. He held a green day-sack in his right hand. Now almost twice his weight pushed down through me. He looked around the empty room, flicked the light off and left without locking the door.

We walked through the camp lit by pools of yellow streetlight. Other dark figures, hunched beneath heaped bags, moved from buildings and converged on a long row of buses. Voices became clearer and then we were among the bustle of people and activity in the darkness beside the road.

A voice called from farther along the line, ‘B Company down the end. Grips on the four tonners, Bergens underneath. Stop mincing, you lot.’

We pushed past a flustered man unpacking his bag on the grass.

‘Come on, Rifleman Milne, you’ve had your entire life to pack — what have you forgotten now?’ a man said as the soldier ran off.

‘Morning, sir, B Company’s at the other end.’ Someone pointed down the line.

‘Thanks,’ he said and he stepped me over a bag and walked along the pavement.

‘Any more for weapons and serial number kit? CQ wants you now,’ a storeman shouted from a container.

We walked to a truck. The grip was lifted from his back and stacked with the others and then he pushed the Bergen into a space below the coach. He stood in a queue of yawning men and signed for a rifle. Finally we stepped up into the bus and sat in the first row. The green butt of the rifle rested on the floor next to me.

A man slowly moved down the central aisle counting the soldiers relaxing against the windows.

‘That’s everyone, sir,’ he said and sat down next to us. ‘Just waiting for Rifleman Smith — he’s helping the CQ’s party with the grips.’

‘Thanks, Sergeant Dee.’

The bus left the camp, an oval of light on the road in front. The trees were dark through the windows as the sky began to lighten. His foot relaxed and he slept.

When he woke he looked at the countryside flashing past until he nudged the man next to him.

‘We’re nearly there, Sarnt Dee,’ he said.

‘Cheers, boss,’ the man said. He stood up and looked over the back of his seat. ‘Listen in,’ he said. ‘Stop window-licking, Rifleman Macintosh, that’s it. When we get off, the bags will go separately to the plane. No one is to get creative. Check in as a platoon.’