Harry Parker - Anatomy of a Soldier

He looked down, deciphered the information on me instinctively and fixed his position.

I’m an aerial photograph taken from a satellite, depicting a network of ditches and walls. Most of me is covered in fields crossed with roads and bridges over blue rivers and paths that ghost into the desert. I show the shadows of walls and compounds. Each building has a round dot imposed over it and labelled with an alphanumerical indicator. A grid of northings and eastings is laid over all of it and each kilometre counts up and across me.

He pushed me back down into the pouch, pressed a button and reported our location. He turned to the interpreter and asked if he was okay. The man reclined beside the path, his hands behind his head, and chewed a piece of grass. He grinned.

BA5799’s men were waiting for him along the track and he beckoned to them. He stepped over the path and headed diagonally across the field, the crop scrubbing against his boots. He looked at the dried mud through the young leaves and tried to guess what was below the surface.

It’s always someone else, he thought. It never happens to you. But he watched his boots press onto the ground and was scared. It was affecting him more often, as patrolling this land became routine. It held him now, each step bringing him closer — increasing the odds — until he’d taken one too many and he trod on the inevitable. But he couldn’t show any sign of it, couldn’t think about odds and chance. His men were following him and he spun around and watched them crossing the field.

His radio emitted in his ear and the distraction was gone as he began to work out the best route into the village.

It could never happen to him.

He led his platoon down a track that cut through the first sparse compounds of the village, past windowless walls that each contained a family unit. A young man was standing on the next corner. He was peering around a wall with his back to us. BA5799 swept his arm down and the men behind him moved into cover. When he called hello in the local language, the man spun around in surprise. He was backing away so BA5799 pushed his rifle behind him on its sling.

‘Peace be upon you,’ he said awkwardly. And then he waved the interpreter up and they walked towards the young man.

‘Tell him we want to talk to him,’ he said.

The young man’s eyes were heavy with mistrust. He wore a long green shirt under a sleeveless cream jacket and dirty trainers that were too big for him.

‘Ask him to open his jacket so we can check he’s not armed,’ BA5799 said to the interpreter.

The man slowly parted the jacket and pulled up his long shirt, exposing his smooth stomach above loose trousers tied with a drawstring. He had done this many times before.

BA5799 smiled and asked him his name and where he was from, then took the notepad from beside me and started to write.

‘He says his name is Mohammad,’ the interpreter said. ‘He says he lives some way from Nalay.’

The young man flicked his head to indicate a direction.

‘Ask why he is north of Nalay,’ BA5799 said.

‘He is helping service the ditches for Kushan Hhan. He helps them at this time of year.’

‘I’ve heard of Kushan Hhan. He’s one of the Nalay elders. Find out if he’s still opening the school.’

The interpreter spoke to the young man for a long time and became agitated.

‘What’s he saying?’ BA5799 interrupted.

‘He claims not to know much of Kushan Hhan or his business. But I do not believe him.’

BA5799 felt for the young man. His furry top lip showed his age. He imagined him willing it to sprout into a proper beard so he could be respected.

‘This person is not good,’ the interpreter told BA5799, as the young man averted his eyes. ‘He is lying. Look at his shoes. He is dressed like a terrorist.’

The young man shifted and then said something.

‘What did he say?’

‘He says he needs to go back to work. I do not think there is any work. Only not good work.’

So BA5799 called up two of his men and they searched the young man. He had a phone in a pocket and they said they had to take it from him. They put it in a plastic bag and gave him a slip of paper as a receipt with instructions on how to claim compensation.

The young man glanced at the paper. It meant nothing to him and he was frightened. They let him go and he walked away, turning back and staring at the soldiers. The interpreter was annoyed and said they should have arrested him but BA5799 told him that a pair of trainers, a phone and a bit of attitude was not enough evidence; they would send the phone in for forensics.

He pulled me out and wrote with a permanent marker on my laminated surface. Many traces of ink were still on me: report lines, boundaries, named areas of interest and the codes of past operations, with new information written over them. He slotted me back next to the notepad and walked farther into the village.

BA5799’s men spread out around the crossroads. They stood and knelt in pairs by oil barrels or in doorways, slipping into shadows and covering the market. The local people watched them. Some went about their business as if his men weren’t there, reaching under awnings to inspect green-blue melons or buying eggs from piled trays.

Under the awnings, shopkeepers crouched on mats beside their goods. Farm tools were stacked behind them and bags of crisps hung from wooden posts above piles of sweets, spices and cans of fruit. They grew cautious as BA5799 walked forward, his antenna and the following interpreter marking him as the leader.

BA5799 looked at his watch and started talking to them. Some ignored him but others spoke. One gesticulated up the road and complained about the craters. When would they be fixed? The produce could not get through. And BA5799 told the interpreter to say they planned to do it soon. Others smiled and joked and a few said that bombs from his planes had burnt their crops. BA5799 told them to come to the base for compensation, but they said it was too dangerous to be seen going there.

Children gathered in an alley, having heard the foreigners had come. They sniggered and hid behind one another. A little girl waddled up to a crouching soldier and asked, wide-eyed, for food. She motioned to her mouth. He said he couldn’t help but she didn’t understand and kept begging. Another soldier smiled and took out his camera. The children lined up for a picture and looked serious, then craned over each other to see as he turned the digital display towards them. When they saw themselves they ran away laughing.

BA5799 needed information about the balance of influence. He asked them about the insurgents, but they all replied there were none here; they were good people and wanted a peaceful country. He asked them if they’d seen any men digging mines into the roads near the village, but they said they knew nothing about it.

He took me out and noted something down after one conversation. And then the atmosphere changed and no one was willing to talk any more. BA5799 looked up the road and saw a group of men standing around a motorbike, watching. He thought the young man from earlier was among them but couldn’t be sure. Those in the market drifted away and a shopkeeper began to lift his produce inside, then rolled up his sunshade.

BA5799 looked at his watch and decided it was time to move on. His men emerged from their cover and followed him out of the village. He wanted to get a strip of trees between his platoon and the village, so he took me out and traced his finger across my surface to work out the safest route back. He sent a message to the camp reporting his location and intentions. In the operations room, a small blue sticker labelled B30 was moved across a map pinned to the wall. That map was identical to me.