Harry Parker - Anatomy of a Soldier

He wondered if anyone had been hurt. The blast site was still obscured by dust but men were beneath it, swallowed by the instant cloud and showered in debris — perhaps surrounded by twisted metal, their hearing pierced by a monotone ring and their breath punched out of them — perhaps worse than hurt. He hoped it had been a lucky escape, as it so often seemed to be.

And then I transmitted in his ear.

‘ZERO, FOUR ZERO ALPHA, CONTACT IED. WAIT. OUT.’

BA5799 knew his friend’s voice. From his tone, he knew they hadn’t been lucky. And then an angry shout carried to him: ‘Medic, medic. Get a fucking medic up here!’

Men ran through the dust to the stricken truck and pulled the rear doors open to help. BA5799 waited in silence with the men around him.

Then my speaker vibrated in his ear: ‘ZERO, FOUR ZERO ALPHA, CONTACT IED ON VEHICLE TWENTY METRES EAST OF CROSSROADS AT CAMBRIDGE. LINE THREE: ONE CAT A, ZAP DA6721, AND ONE CAT B, PL9804. SUGGEST EMERGENCY HLS IN THREE ZERO’S AO. OVER.’

BA5799 watched the soldiers working on a body in the field, then turned to the men around him. ‘Sounds like there’s two casualties, fellas,’ he said. ‘One Cat A, one Cat B.’ He stood up. ‘Let’s get ready to move. We need to secure the HLS.’

And then I was emitting again: ‘ZERO, ROGER, HOW LONG UNTIL YOU CAN HAVE THE CASUALTIES THERE? OVER.’

‘TWO ZERO, JUST WITH THE CASUALTIES NOW. WE’LL MOVE THEM BY VEHICLE. I RECKON IT’LL TAKE FIVE MINUTES. OVER.’

‘CHARLIE CHARLIE ONE, MEDEVAC IN THE AIR. EHLS AT THREE ZERO ALPHA’S LOCATION. THREE ZERO ALPHA, ACKNOWLEDGE. OVER.’

BA5799 pressed my switch again: ‘THREE ZERO, ROGER. SECURING IT NOW. OUT.’

We jumped a ditch to run out into the field and I bounced around on BA5799’s back. He was glad to have some influence on the situation, to have something to do. He beckoned to a group of men and told them to clear a section of field and they started waving their detectors over the ground. He shouted at a rifleman to cover them, then spoke through me to the team at Mike 13, instructing them to fan out and secure the north edge of the landing site.

BA5799’s face was livid beneath his helmet. He watched his platoon morph around the new area and his team commanders move into position. He dropped the day-sack off his shoulder and grabbed the smoke grenade, then swung me up onto his back and pushed my pressel. ‘ZERO, THREE ZERO ALPHA, EHLS NOW SECURE, GRID 825 460, THREE HUNDRED METRES SOUTH OF MIKE ONE THREE, I’LL MARK WITH RED SMOKE. OVER.’

‘ZERO, ROGER, RED SMOKE. OUT.’

One of the trucks drove down the road towards us. It rocked in the potholes and stopped.

‘CHARLIE CHARLIE ONE, THIS IS ZERO, HELI ETA THREE MINUTES. THREE ZERO ALPHA, ACKNOWLEDGE. OVER.’

‘THREE ZERO ALPHA, ROGER. OUT,’ I sent.

They pulled a stretcher from the truck and carried it to the field followed by a man supported between two others, dragging his legs, his face pulled back in pain. They crouched there at the edge of the field, waiting. Someone readied the stretcher and another held a clear bag above it. BA5799 walked out into the open area and knelt down.

The sound of the helicopter was distant and then burst above us as the aircraft banked low over the field, its two rotors beating through the air. BA5799 pulled the pin from the grenade and it clicked and fizzed. He threw it onto the ground and powdery red smoke spurted from its base.

The helicopter circled up and around as the cone of red smoke built across the field. It reared its nose as it descended, slowing over the road and ditches. BA5799 watched it disappear inside the fountain of dust streaming towards us; the wind buffeted and then we were engulfed. He turned his head away as the downdraught curled the smoke up and the grass flattened and shimmered.

They hurried with the stretcher to the back of the aircraft, ducked below the rotors and passed it inside. The other casualty was helped up the rear ramp to the medical crew. Then they crouched into a huddle as the ramp began to close and the aircraft lifted away.

The grenade had left a dark red burn on the earth. It was quiet and the men walked back up to the road and down towards the junction.

*

The logistics convoy had to detour around the stricken truck and the crater blocking the road. I sent and received messages as they cleared the new route. One of them ordered BA5799 to spread his platoon more thinly. He moved some of his men up to the crossroads and we waited with them in the shade of the trees. They asked how bad the casualties had been. BA5799 said they’d have to wait for news from headquarters, but he knew it was bad from the way the stretcher-bearers had walked off as the sound of the helicopter had receded.

Farmers came back to the fields as the afternoon cooled. BA5799 felt safer with them close. It was dusk when the six logistics trucks wallowed down the potholed road and turned the corner at the crossroads. One of the men joked about meals on wheels and they all wondered if there was any post for them on board.

BA5799 pushed my switch: ‘ZERO, THREE ZERO ALPHA, THAT’S THE CONVOY PASSING ME AT CAMBRIDGE. HEADING DOWN ROUTE HAMMER TOWARDS YOUR LOCATION NOW. OUT.’

That should have been the end of the mission but they struggled to lift the damaged truck from the ditch. BA5799 yawned as tiredness took hold. He had to change my battery again as we waited. One of the men pulled a foil packet from his day-sack and squeezed cold hotpot into his mouth, then offered some to the others. The setting sun bruised the sky and a man said softly that it was the end of another day in paradise.

Headlights from a vehicle cast long shadows from the soldiers who worked around the blast site, creating a small theatre of light in the dark. Their voices and the clank of metal carried as they attached cables and waved recovery vehicles into position. In a rush of activity, the broken truck was pulled out of the ditch. They hitched it up behind another vehicle and dragged it back to camp. As it passed the crossroads, BA5799 could see the warped front end and thought of the energy needed to twist and deform metal like that.

A message came through me that they should collapse back onto the road behind the trucks. BA5799 watched the other platoons trudge past before he ordered his teams in and they followed the track marks. His men swayed with exhaustion as they walked home.

We entered camp through the gap. The logistics convoy was being unloaded and a forklift swivelled between the containers. His platoon gathered to one side and waited silently; their eyes were bloodshot and sweat had washed clean streaks down their dirty faces. They unloaded their weapons as a man told them what they needed to do in the morning, and finally they trudged off to their tents. BA5799 watched them go and felt hollow.

He lifted his day-sack off with a groan. ‘We’d better go to the debrief, Sergeant Dee,’ he said.

‘That was a long one.’ The man was looking at his watch. ‘Nearly twenty hours. I’m just going to dump my kit and make sure they get their batteries on charge before they all hit their gonk-bags.’

‘Sure, I’ll meet you at the model.’ BA5799 reached into his bag and felt for my switch. 10010101111100000.

You struggled with consciousness. The concoction of drugs played with your mind. Your body had been battered: infection had showered through it and all of it was compromised and weak. You’d been damaged again; by doctors this time. They’d had to do it to save you.

You didn’t know this yet. They were trying to wake you up but you weren’t ready. I hung over you. I’m a mix of red and white blood cells, clotting factors, plasma and platelets. Gravity fed my contents down a tube. It dripped through the cylinder flow-regulator and cannula, down into you to replace what you lost when they disfigured you.