Harry Parker - Anatomy of a Soldier

They talked for a while but fell silent and then one of the radios transmitted through a speaker. The signaller put on a headset and told them he could hear them. Other voices, heavy with the boredom of keeping watch, sounded through the speaker, testing their radios. He replied to them all and then told BA5799 that the three o’clock check was complete. BA5799 jotted this in the log and then asked if he’d like a coffee. He went out and the signaller doodled on his design with a black biro.

BA5799 came back, put the man’s mug next to him and sat on the bench, blowing on his own mug. ‘Do you know the service station near our barracks back home, Signaller Williams, on the motorway?’ he asked.

‘Know it well, boss.’ The signaller put his pen down and pursed his lips to his coffee.

‘If you could go in there now, what would you order?’

‘Now you’re talking. It’s got everything, that one, hasn’t it?’

‘Yup, any fast food you could possibly wish for.’

‘How much have I got to spend?’

‘I’ll give you a tenner,’ BA5799 said, staring into space over the mug.

‘Is that all?’

‘How much do you need? Our bellies are so small.’

‘I could eat for a week, sir,’ the signaller said and started to doodle again.

‘So what would you go for?’

‘Well, I’d have a burger from the King.’

‘Obviously.’

‘And chips from Mr Mac.’

BA5799 smiled. ‘Controversial. So you’d mix it up a bit?’

‘Of course. Then I’d get a side of chicken from the Colonel.’

‘It’s making me hungry just thinking about it. Finishing with chicken’s a great shout.’

‘And I’d take it all back to the car park and sit in my car and listen to the football scores come in. Bliss. I hate sitting inside with all the horrid civis.’ He slurped his coffee. ‘I think I may have to make that trip on R and R now,’ he said.

‘You could take Mrs Williams.’

‘God, don’t. We’re not married yet, boss.’

*

They opened a melted pack of biscuits and prised them apart with a knife, chatting and laughing. Then they were quiet again and the signaller continued to draw while BA5799 read. First light showed dull in the doorway and the camouflage netting outside sighed with the first wind of the day.

One of the radios hissed on and they both looked up at the square speaker.

‘Zero, this is Sangar Five. Over,’ it emitted.

The signaller picked up a headset, pressed the switch and spoke into the microphone. ‘Zero, send. Over.’

‘I’ve got an unknown male walking towards the base from the east. He’s pushing a wheelbarrow. About five hundred metres away but looks like he’s heading for us. Over.’

The signaller turned to BA5799. ‘What do you reckon, boss?’

‘Give it here,’ he said and took the headset.

‘Hello, Sangar Five, this is Zero. Normal procedure. Stop him short, send out the guard commander and make sure he’s searched. Then take him to the holding area and see what he wants. Out to you. Front Gate, this is Zero. Over.’

‘Front Gate, yup, we’ve seen him,’ the microphone emitted a new voice. ‘Corporal Carr and the terp will go and intercept if he comes towards the base. We’ll wake the medic if needed. Over.’

‘Great, thanks. Let me know if you need any help. Over,’ BA5799 said and put the microphone down on the desk.

‘Roger. Out.’ The microphone clipped off.

BA5799 wrote in the log and then picked up his book again.

Moments later a man dressed in full combat kit stepped through the doorway. ‘Boss, there’s an old dude here. Says his name’s Kushan Hhan—’

‘Kushan Hhan? Great, what’s he doing here?’ BA5799 said and shut his book.

‘Not so great, I’m afraid. You’d better come. And I’d bring the compensation pack if I were you.’ The man ducked back out of the door and was gone.

‘Oh shit,’ BA5799 said and stood, walked over to me and took the pile I was in.

‘You okay holding the fort, Signaller Williams? I won’t be long. I’ll be at the front gate if you need me.’

‘Tickety-boo, boss.’

BA5799 carried me out of the ops room. He picked his armour up from beside the door and dropped it over his head. With his helmet at his side, he walked out under the netting and across the flat open vehicle park to the front gate.

Next to the gate was a temporary lean-to. Rock-filled protective walls surrounded it, wooden slats were pushed together as a roof and a hessian cloth hung over the entrance. He held me in his hand with the notebook and approached the building. A soldier standing by the concertina wire that covered the gap out onto the road looked around.

‘Morning, sir,’ he said. ‘The man’s in there, we’ve searched him. Nothing on him but he’s not best pleased.’

‘Okay, thanks, Rifleman Dean,’ BA5799 said and pulled the hessian to one side and went into the small room. The old man was sitting in a white plastic garden chair, talking to the interpreter. He spoke quickly and the interpreter replied, his arms gesturing in the small space.

They ignored BA5799, who put me down on a little table with the notebook and his helmet and turned to the soldier. ‘What’s going on, Corporal Carr?’

‘I have no idea. I can’t get a word in edgeways. But neither seems to be very happy. The man brought a dead body in his wheelbarrow.’

‘Where is it now?’ BA5799 said.

‘We made him leave it below Sangar Five, he wasn’t too chuffed with that. We haven’t searched it yet, I didn’t want to get too close.’

BA5799 stepped forward and tried to interrupt. He rested a hand on the interpreter’s shoulder but it was brushed away and they kept talking. The old man looked up and recognised BA5799. He stopped talking.

BA5799 stared down at the old man and he didn’t know what to say. They’d last met across a rug and sipped tea in his house with its garden oasis. Now he looked like any other labourer from the fields. He was covered in dust and his hands were flaked with dried blood. He smelt of stale sweat. And seeing him now, BA5799 realised he wasn’t that old. Hidden behind the beard and sun-damaged skin was a middle-aged father.

The interpreter explained that he had brought his dead son to the camp. BA5799 hoped it wasn’t the young man he’d met on the bike and told the interpreter to offer the man water, then sat down in a plastic chair opposite him.

‘He does not want your water,’ the translator said.

BA5799 looked up at him and then back at the man.

‘Tell him we are pleased that he has come to our base.’ As his words were translated, BA5799 knew they were ridiculous. The man stared at him and there was confusion and bitterness in his eyes.

‘He says that your bomb last night killed his son,’ the interpreter said and fidgeted. ‘He says he has tried to support you and now you have killed his son. He asks why you have done this?’

There was a leaflet that BA5799 had read tucked in the notebook next to me. It described how to deal with this. What to say, what not to say. But the man’s eyes were full of mistrust. BA5799 thought of the leaflet; in front of this man, it meant nothing.

‘Tell him that if this is true, I am sorry,’ he said. He felt uncomfortable; the clear, glassy eyes wanted an explanation but he had none and the man started to speak again in the undulating language that was so alien.

‘Why?’ the interpreter said. ‘That’s what he wants to know.’

‘Tell him we were attacked by insurgents yesterday and we used aircraft to stop the threat. If his son was caught up in that then I am sorry, but we were defending ourselves. The compounds around the base are generally empty.’

‘He says his son has never held a weapon. He does not let him. He was innocent and working to make the land better.’