Harry Parker - Anatomy of a Soldier

Tom walked away, held each side of the doorway and lowered himself down the step out of the pub and into the rain.

‘Wait up, mate, I’m sorry, Tom. Stop. I need to pay the tab,’ he called after him, jogging over to the door.

It was dark. BA5799 knelt beside me and silently mouthed something he needed to remember. He switched knees and retied the other boot, wrapping the laces around three times. He pulled his faded combat trousers back down over the boots and sat on the camp bed.

His day-sack was next to him and he arranged equipment inside, pushing a black water bottle down the green canvas and switching on a radio. He pulled the drawstring and clipped the flap shut.

He felt my cover. It was still damp from the last time he’d worn me. He sighed, lifted me up, pulled apart my protective plates and dropped me over his head. I passed his face and he smelt the sharp odour he’d layered into me over the past two months. He liked my smell; it was experience and survival. He held my sides together and pressed my Velcro down with the palms of his hands so I drew tightly around his body.

BA5799 had already put me on once that night. We’d been ready and he’d walked to the front gate to meet his platoon. But someone had run out and said they had to delay: there was no air cover. The others had gone back to their tents and we had returned to the courtyard, where he had ripped open my Velcro and chucked me back down next to his bed.

He’d tried to read and then sleep but couldn’t. The operation consumed him and the time was dead; all he could do was wait. And as he did, the will he’d summoned earlier ebbed out of him and he hoped the delay would become a cancellation. The hours passed as men finished cooking and eating and talking and went to sleep, until only those on guard duty moved across the still camp.

And when he finally thought there was no chance it would happen tonight and he’d let himself relax, a man ran in and told him they should go. He’d begun the ritual again, but rushed and incomplete this time, and he forced the resolve to return with each piece of equipment he secured to himself.

BA5799 now checked me again. He opened the pouches attached to the front of me, pulling out a magazine and rolling his thumb across the top round, making sure it was correctly seated. Grit crunched so he removed it and blew down into the magazine before pushing the copper cylinder back. He stood and felt the weight of me. I had become part of him, another layer of the courage that let him step out of the gate.

He lifted the day-sack over his back and it banged into my rear ceramic plate. He caught its strap and tightened it against me. All of our weight moved as one and he jumped up and down to make sure nothing rattled.

He took a map from a small pouch on my breastplate and thought the plan through, bending his head forward as he studied it so his chin rested against my sweat-stained neck opening. He looked at the small T he’d drawn to indicate where they would form up for the strike.

A soldier walked into the courtyard and waited silently as BA5799 marked the map’s surface with a pen.

‘Sir?’ the man said quietly, not wanting to interrupt. ‘Can I have a word, please?’ He took a step forward.

BA5799 glanced up at him. ‘Oh, hello, Rifleman Lewis,’ he said and looked back down at the map. ‘How can I help?’

‘I just wondered if I could have a word.’

‘Shoot. Make it quick, though, we need to be at the gate in five.’

BA5799 was still peering at his map and then sat back on the bed and took a GPS from his pocket. The soldier was in full combat kit. He wore his armour with pouches attached and glow-sticks and pens pushed down its front. His zap number and blood type were written on it in marker, LE2482 — O NEG .

On me was BA5799 — O POS .

He held a light machine gun at his side. His kneepad was pushed down to his ankle and a dump-pouch hung by his thigh. His helmet shadowed his eyes.

‘I was chatting to Rachel last night and, well, she’s not happy,’ he said. ‘And with the little one on the way—’

‘Rachel?’ BA5799 said as he entered a grid into the small handheld machine.

‘Yes, my wife, boss.’

‘Yes, of course. Sorry.’ BA5799 made another mark on the map.

‘Well, she’s having a few problems with the pregnancy and she hates me being out here. So I wondered if there was a chance, you know, I could sit this one out − she really wants me to call her. And maybe,’ he looked down at his boots, ‘maybe I could get home on compassionate soon? She had to go into hospital, I think.’

BA5799 pushed the map back into its slip and pulled his headset on. He pressed the radio switch and spoke into the microphone at his mouth. ‘Hello, Zero. This is Three Zero Alpha, radio check. Over,’ he said. Then he looked up at the soldier. ‘I’m sorry, Rifleman Lewis, what’s up?’ He pressed the switch again and said, ‘Okay. Out.’

The rifleman explained again but his voice tailed off.

BA5799 stood up and walked over to the soldier. He looked under the low rim of the man’s helmet and saw the boy from a small town. ‘So your girlfriend wants you home and you don’t think you should go out tonight because you need to speak to her on the phone?’

‘I’m just finding it tough, sir, and my slot on the phone’s already booked for later,’ he said and dropped his eyes. ‘And with what happened to Davies a few weeks ago …’ He glanced up at BA5799. ‘She keeps bugging me on the phone, that’s all, and I told her I’d ask. And well − I don’t like going out any more.’

‘You know you can’t sit this one out, Rifleman Lewis. Your section needs you, and we’d be down a man.’ BA5799 placed his hand on the man’s arm. ‘The platoon needs every man it has. I can’t do this strike without you.’

The soldier hefted his weapon and they both stood in silence.

‘Swap places with Rifleman Taylor,’ BA5799 said abruptly.

‘What?’ The man looked up and his eyes glinted in the dark. ‘I can’t, boss. He’s point man and I haven’t done that job yet.’

‘You’d better get to the front gate, Rifleman Lewis. We’re leaving soon,’ BA5799 said and checked his watch. He turned away from the man, back to the camp bed.

The young soldier watched him readjust my shoulder popper, attach his night-vision goggles and pull on his helmet, tilting his head to clip the chinstrap together.

‘And Rifleman Lewis,’ he said, his back still turned. ‘You can, and you will. You’ve done the same training as everyone else in this platoon.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the soldier said quietly and walked out.

We were alone in the courtyard and BA5799’s body heat warmed me. He picked up his rifle and we strode out past the ops room. The antenna protruding from his day-sack brushed the camouflage netting above as we passed the model pit and its little wooden blocks in the dark.

*

We approached the front gate and he saw the single file of his platoon lined up and ready to leave. Some of the men stood when they saw him, dragging their kit up onto their shoulders. Others held ladders between them and someone forced a laugh at a nervous joke.

A man trudged over to him from the back of the line. ‘On the bus, off the bus, sir,’ he said. ‘All good to go now though.’

‘Thanks, Sergeant Dee.’

‘You swapped Rifleman Lewis to point man. What’s that about?’ the man said, looking at the front of the line near the concertina wire.

‘Is that okay with you?’

‘Of course, boss. And Rifleman Taylor’s over the moon.’ His teeth flashed in the blackness. ‘I moved him back into Corporal Monk’s section.’

‘Thanks.’