Harry Parker - Anatomy of a Soldier

The man shook his head, stood up and walked towards the door.

‘Tell him to wait,’ BA5799 said.

‘He says he is going to his son. He does not like leaving him out there on the road.’

‘Tell him I can help him.’

When the translator started to speak the man stopped and turned to look at BA5799. He shook his head and the bulge of tears grew in his eyes as he spoke.

‘He says that he does not see how you can help now,’ the interpreter translated.

‘We can help him claim compensation for his loss.’

The man listened, said a few words, then turned and pushed through the hessian.

‘What did he say?’ BA5799 said.

‘Well, he swore at you. It was not very nice, and then he told you to follow him.’

BA5799 put on his helmet, grabbed me and went after the man. He felt very young as he followed the old man under the hessian screen. He was dealing with death in an alien culture and he had no idea how to relate to this man or the death of his son. It was too foreign. It felt like some odd training exercise and he was getting it wrong.

One of the soldiers followed him. ‘Boss, don’t go out there, it might be a trap. Remember what happened up north.’ He put his hand on BA5799’s shoulder. ‘We haven’t searched the wheelbarrow.’

‘It’s all right, Corporal Carr. I know him. It’ll be fine.’

‘Sir, I’m not sure you should go out there.’ He walked with him up to the concertina wire.

‘Stay here, Corporal Carr,’ he said to the soldier and stepped around the wire.

‘Here, you’re unarmed, sir. Take this,’ he said and offered a pistol.

But BA5799 turned to follow the man down the road next to the wall of the camp. He held me and the notebook under his arm. He looked at the wheelbarrow and the dread that this might be a trap pulled through him, constricting his throat. If we can’t trust then we have nothing, he thought and walked on.

BA5799 felt naked without his weapon but glanced up at the slit of the watchtower and knew they would be covering him. I was his weapon now and his palm was clammy against me. He could hear the interpreter behind, jogging to catch up. The man was by the wheelbarrow. A bent leg flopped over its lip and BA5799 could see the top of a head as he approached.

And then he was standing next to the man looking down at the twisted body. Through the swelling and frozen violence, which was somehow worse for not having ripped the body apart, it took him a moment to recognise the boy who had helped him. He tried to see if there was anything suspicious hidden beneath or inside the body and hated himself for thinking only of his own safety. He checked again and all he saw was the glint of the eyeballs through the nearly closed lids and trickles of dried blood from the nose and ears. BA5799 wanted to feel compassion for the man and his dead son but only felt discomfort and the man’s eyes challenging him. And all he cared about was getting back into the base and the loss of a potential asset in securing the area.

‘Tell him I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I know this is his son and I know they are good people.’

The interpreter turned to the man and then delivered his response. ‘He says he is not sure he will continue to be good any more. He thinks — how do you say it? — he thinks he can no longer command trust so he will not believe you again.’

‘Tell him I understand. It isn’t what any of us wanted to happen, but we still need help from good people like him. This will never be undone, I know, but if we let the insurgents win there will be even greater loss.’ BA5799 felt the absurdity of what he said — he’d never experienced any loss. Suddenly he was thinking of a wedding he’d been to in a country church and the flowers and laughter, the falling pink confetti — he had no idea why and now felt like a child who couldn’t take it seriously.

The man listened and then said he didn’t think the soldiers understood anything — there is always loss, he said. But their lives had been much harder since the foreigners had come. He went to the handles of the wheelbarrow and lifted it.

‘Ask him to wait,’ BA5799 said and stepped towards the man. ‘I can help.’

He pulled me out with four others. He rested his notebook awkwardly on his knee and scribbled on a piece of paper, then he held me out to the man along with the receipt.

‘Here, please take this. I can only offer you one hundred dollars. It is all I’m allowed to give to one person, but if you take this receipt and go to the district centre you can claim more money. These dollars will more than pay for your journey.’

The interpreter translated and the man lowered the wheelbarrow back down.

‘He asks how much he will get. How much is his son worth?’ the interpreter said.

‘I’m not sure,’ BA5799 said. ‘Probably two thousand dollars. It will be a life-changing amount.’

The man’s face was rigid as he stepped forward and took me. He looked down at the foreign words and symbols printed on me, the face of the long-dead politician, then peered at the slip of paper. If he could have read it, he would have known that the foreigners did not accept liability for the death of his son but said he could be compensated.

The man spoke quietly while looking down at me.

‘He says this is a sad thing. He says taking money from you in payment for the death of his son is the very worst thing he has ever done. You talk of life-changing money; his life is already changed. He wishes he could be strong and reject your offer but he says you are correct, he cannot resist this much money. He wishes he could, because he wants no debt and no link to you.’

The man looked up from me at BA5799 and spoke a final sentence.

The interpreter didn’t translate.

BA5799 glanced from the old man to the interpreter.

‘What did he say?’ he asked.

‘He wishes you no peace,’ the translator said. ‘Or words like that.’

Then the man picked up the wheelbarrow again, crushing me between his palm and the wooden handle, and started to wheel it down the road. BA5799 and the interpreter watched us go and then returned to the camp.

As he walked the old man became angry and tried to swipe the flies away from his son’s face but they landed again and he couldn’t keep stopping, so he watched them gather on the body as he pushed it back to the village. He knew he must bury his son today and the thought made it final.

When we got back to his home and his garden, which was suddenly a deceit and arrogance and brought him no pleasure, he thrust me in his pocket and held his wife close.

*

When he next took me out he was standing in a long queue in the district centre. Men used to queue up to see him and he was ashamed. He finally got to the front but the man said it was too late, they were closing and he should come back again tomorrow. He tried to use me and the others he’d been given by BA5799 to bribe the man behind the counter but he was ignored. He waved the receipt for his son through the glass. The man at the desk looked up at it and said they no longer accepted that form and he would have to return to the issuing officer for the new paperwork.

He walked out into the busy street. He used me to buy his journey home and I entered circulation.

‘It’s good to see you, boss,’ said the man who held the box I was in. He lifted me out and handed me to BA5799. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Not too bad, thanks, Sergeant Collins,’ BA5799 said as he took hold of me. ‘I’m just back from an admission at the rehab centre.’

‘Well, it’s good to see you on the mend, sir,’ he said and moved to the next person and gave them one of me.

We were on the edge of a parade ground that had a white carpark grid painted on it. At the other side, on the grass, green tents were lined up and people gathered around rows of chairs. BA5799 looked down at me in his hand.