The Fighting Man (1993) (32 page)

He had his head down. He reckoned there was a problem with the aft navigation light, intermittent cut-out . . .

‘You are the American?’

He looked up. The officer wore the insignia, sewn to his shoulder flaps, of a captain. It was a hard face. It was the face of a young man who would have risen from his cot at five, or four, and who would have prepared himself to be in a firefight by the middle of the morning. Tom nodded.

‘You are the American pilot who was at Playa Grande?’

‘That’s me.’

‘And you could fly in this weather?’

‘Well, wait a minute, I could . . .’

The captain interrupted him. ‘They are toy boys, our pilots. They say it is too dangerous to fly.’

‘I don’t think you should reckon it is easy up there.’

The accusation. ‘You could fly.’

Tom said, ‘It seemed important to be out of there, but it wasn’t a good place to be . . . Why don’t you just roll the trucks?’

Pain on the captain’s face. ‘We want to go . . . Where to go? We do not know where they are . . . They were in Nebaj, you heard that?’

‘No.’

‘They took the garrison town of Nebaj, with the fire . . .’

‘Heh, Jesus . . . Heh, that’s a good-sized town . . .’ Trying to remember the map, trying to place distances from the names that he knew from the map. A hell of a distance, on foot. Right, Nebaj was a good-sized town, with a good-sized garrison . . . ‘You’ve a situation going serious.’

The captain said, ‘We need the helicopters to find them. If the helicopters don’t fly then we cannot find them, cannot block them. What is the point of deploying on the road, and they will bypass us . . . How long is the weather due to last?’

He wanted the good news. Tom dashed him. ‘Could be two, three days. Could be a week. It’s sort of vague . . . Could they get to Guatemala City, if they have the weather?’

Tom looked into the young face.

The captain said simply, ‘Fire spreads. Fire has a reason of its own. Fire
impresses
the peasants. It is a rabble out there, but the fire has brought it together. If we cannot find them, block them, then they can destroy this country. It is not a country that is perfect, but is the United States of America perfect? It is our country and the Kaibiles will die for their country . . . I apologize for taking your time.’

He ducked his head, in respect, and walked away.

Tom bent again and looked to retrieve the wiring for the aft navigation light.

His fingers were clumsy and his mind distanced. He saw the man over whom his helicopter had banked, and he saw the flame thrower. He scratched at the scar tissue on his face, at the irritation, and tried to work with the wires.

Ahead of him, where he could see them, the troops sheltered in the cover of the lorries, and the pilots stayed away.

He was rolling, as if he was drunk. Pain in his legs and the ache in his chest. Forty minutes to the next rest halt. The weight of the machine gun dragged at his arms and the straps of the backpack slashed at his shoulder flesh. Great driving pants for air and once the Street Boy had reached to help him and he had thrust the hand away, and once the Academic had sought to take the machine-gun burden and he had shrugged him off.

Always the rain and the mist of the cloud . . .

‘Is the hero suffering?’

‘Do me the favour, Miss Pitt, of walking somewhere else.’

‘We’re used to altitude. I’m here a week every month, in the mountains . . .’

‘Somewhere else, Miss Pitt.’

‘Is the hero too tired to talk?’

Gord snarled, ‘Do I want a conversation? No. Do I want a happy exchange of life histories? No. I want to get to the top of this heap of stone, and I want to get down the other side of it. Do I want to hear about your useless degree at Warwick, Reading, Sussex? No. Do I want to hear that you were brokering for some Jap bank, and were bored? No. Do I want to hear that you’ve a nice little job waiting back in brokering when you’ve had enough of dripping compassion? No . . . Be so good as to walk somewhere else.’

‘You’re every man I ever knew, just stuffed up with stereotyping.’

He looked away from her, from the mocking. The Academic rolled his eyes. The Fireman was laughing and the Street Boy giggling. The Archaeologist beamed. He wanted to sleep. Anywhere, at the side of the track, he could have slept. The water ran in a river on the track.

‘Please yourself, talk if you have to.’

‘It’s only because you looked after my dog . . .’

She walked well. The child slept on her shoulder. The old man leaned on her arm. He thought the child would have weighed at least a half of his backpack, and she had the sack of dog food still tied at her waist. The way she walked was brilliant. It was where he had first met the one woman he had cared for, walking in rain and wind at the limit of endurance. The one woman had been sent to them in Hereford, all the crack and all the snide, just a woman to be shown that the Brecons in wind and rain and at forced march speed were no place for her. That woman had kept with them, dug for the stamina, not failed. That woman had had a flat in Battersea and an answer machine. Good talk with the answer machine. He’d gone to the Gulf, she’d gone away. Just the memory of her flat, a long weekend in a sanitized two rooms that told nothing of her, and the silence of the answer machine afterwards when he had called. A last letter, sent from the post box beside the bar on the loch, returned as Not Known At This Address. Only the long weekend to remember a woman who could have walked the Cuchumatanes as she had walked the Brecons.

‘It doesn’t matter . . .’

‘Talk if you have to.’

Alex said, quiet, ‘I thought you’d want to know.’

‘Talk.’

‘. . . I didn’t take my first-year exams at college. My father used to have to spit to use the word, “dropout”. I went on the road. I suppose you know what that means, do you? It wasn’t really political, not a protest, but it seemed the right sort of thing. Quite exciting actually, looking for a place to park up with the caravan. You have to find a place where the ownership of the land is vague, or it’s common ground, that way the police can’t get the eviction order. I was three years on the road. I used to talk to my mother, at first, on the phone, when I knew my father would be at work. Got out of the habit of ringing . . . On the road you get to meet some pretty dreadful people, so aggressive, the new rich were the worst and the new rich in the Thames Valley were hideous, like all they wanted was fields that were empty, no-go zones. Sometimes we were only three or four vehicles and a dozen of us, sometimes we were a big group. One of the big groups was in Wales and those smug awful television people were there, and I was in a shot that was broadcast, and then I was summonsed by the police for a defective rear light, it was just harassment. The rear light was broken. Trouble was that the case was in the papers because I was able to prove that it was a plod’s truncheon that had broken the light. My father saw the television and he saw the court report. He put a private detective on me, to find me. They just turned up one afternoon, my father and mother, in their BMW. It was quite an event actually, them coming in a big car. I think I’d had enough anyway. I loaded up their boot, I sat in the back with my dog, and I gave the crowd a good wave, and I went home. All right, I’m a bit ashamed. I wounded my father, but what really upset me was that my auntie was ill, poorly, and I should have visited her, I didn’t know. We had a formal family gathering, pretty grim. They were all lined up, telling me that I was a privileged person and that I should do something with my life. I could do anything I wanted, and they’d back me, just so long as it was
positive
. So . . . I went to the Peace Movement. I had a choice. I could go to Sri Lanka or to Guatemala. I chose, for my sins, Guatemala. My father paid the air fare, my mother sends an allowance, my uncle gave me the money for the Land Rover. I suppose, Mr Hero, that fits the slot you’d given me – poor little rich girl on the loose. I tell you what, Mr Hero, if you ever accuse me again of dripping compassion then I’ll slap your bloody face . . .’

Gord trudged on.

‘. . . Well, you wanted to know . . .’

He dragged his feet forward, each pace harder than the last.

‘. . . That’s who I am . . .’

Struggling to breathe, fighting for the air in his lungs.

‘. . . Are you all right?’

They were on the wilderness, wrapped in cloud, smacked by the rain.

In the middle of the afternoon the Priest had reached the tail of the column. He had learned the language of the Ixil people.

Where would he find the one they called Gaspar, the spirit with the fire?

He was directed ahead. Hurrying past the women and the children. Striving to catch the armed men.

Where would he find the one they called Gaspar, the leader?

Finding the strength from his commitment. Going past the wheelbarrow and the cart.

Where would he find the one they called Gaspar . . . ?

On a ridge, on the summit line of the Cuchumatanes the council of war. The little group was huddled down and rain-soaked and wind-whipped. There was a man who had once been obesely overweight and it was as if the fat had flaked from his body and left the caves on his face and the sunk corridors at his throat. There was a man with a bald head that shone from the rain. There was a man of slight build who was placing stones at the edges of the map that was covered in a small plastic sheet. There was a man who seemed still to cling to youth and whose finger was pressed against the map surface and who talked urgently. There was a man who sat with his back to the Priest’s crabbed approach through the wind, and the big pack was slung on his shoulders and his upper body was wrapped in a harness of belt ammunition and whose hand rested on the stock of a machine gun.

‘I am the priest from Nebaj . . . If the majority just stand and watch then there can be no change. I ask for a rifle . . . Which is the leader . . . ?’

The man who seemed to cling to youth, his hand came up from the map, was stretching in greeting.

‘. . . The one they call Gaspar?’

The Priest saw the anger blaze on the faces of the bald man and the once fat man and the slight man, and he did not understand.

‘. . . I’m talking to you, Miss, because he’s been bad-mouthed too much. I’ve your guarantee that you’ve no harm meant for him, for Mr Brown. I’ve that guarantee, copper solid, right? He should have had the medal. There were bastards back on their arses who never heard a shot fired, had air-conditioned rooms, three bags bloody full, sir, and they had medals, they trooped up to the bloody Palace – excuse me, Miss . . . We were on the long-range recce job, where we were out west of Baghdad. We had to scout through for what was going to be the northern push. It was bloody awful – excuse me, Miss – country because there wasn’t no cover. We had a good Land Rover, plenty of fuel, but we couldn’t use the thing in the day, had to lie up all day, try and find a dip in the dunes. The message came through on the set. There was a Yank shot down. He was a helicopter Yank. Well, it was their show, wasn’t it? They pulled the bloody – excuse me, Miss – strings. We knew we were in trouble if we went to get him because it was daylight movement. Mr Brown said we’d go for it. Mr Brown said there was no way he was leaving anybody – even a Yank, he said – out there for being captured. It was a kind of race. The ’Raqs had wheels out to get to the helicopter, and we were going shit and bust – excuse me, Miss – for it. We beat the ’Raqs to it, not by more than half a mile. They had two lorries, must have had twenty men. Couldn’t miss what we were heading for, bloody great heap – excuse me, Miss – of smoke, and the other side of the smoke was the dust of their lorries. The Yanks had helicopters every day, bumming over the sand. We heard afterwards it was just chance that they hadn’t anything in the air that could have made it faster than us. It was an Apache job, gunship job. The weapons guy was dead and the pilot wasn’t good. He’d cut his face up pretty bad getting out and he was in shock, couldn’t help himself. We were taking machine-gun fire all the way in to him. I don’t suppose you know much about shooting, Miss, but we couldn’t get a decent line on those lorries while we were belting, we were like ducks in a fairground. Mr Brown did the driving on the Land Rover. He didn’t back off, Miss . . . We were going to get that pilot or we were going to buy it. Me, it would have to have been my best mate for me to have driven into that shit – excuse me, Miss – to get the Yank. That was when I was hit, just as we were grabbing him. We got him on board and we beat the hell out of it. Mr Brown had a hip flask with him, used to say it was his father’s and his father was a right piss-artist. Hell of a big hip flask. He used to fill it each day. I tell you, Miss, we were all half cut by the time we’d lost those lorries of ’Raqs . . . Good job we didn’t find the filth out there. Sorry, Miss, my joke . . . You see, Miss, we knew what happened to prisoners if those bastards had them. No way that Mr Brown was going to let them have that Yank. They sent a casevac ship in that night, lifted out the Yank and me. I haven’t seen Mr Brown since. I just heard that he was shat on. I should have written to him but I didn’t get round to it. Something in his head and he doesn’t let go, all the way to the wire. Don’t suppose you know where he is now, Miss . . . ?’