Who Are You? (34 page)

Alex squats down on his haunches and has flames licking at the kindling in a moment. Ben watches the flames and rubs his hands together. ‘There’s a ration box in the front of the car, can you go and get it?’

‘I don’t want to go, Daddy. I’m scared of the dark. And I might get lost, like that little boy Tommy.’

‘Don’t be a sissy. Off you go.’

Ben walks reluctantly back to the car. Alex takes the case and opens it. He can put the rifle together blindfolded. Just a few clicks and twists, and the sight lined up in the right place. He has ammo in his pockets and a .308 rifle which can kill a man at over a mile’s distance. It’s comforting to feel the cold steel resting against his thigh as he sets it up.

Ben returns with the rations. Alex has a water pot in the boot. He’s put charcoal on the fire and it should soon be ready to cook on. In the meantime he throws Ben a bag of crisps. ‘Treat time, son.’

Ben can’t open them without taking his gloves off, and he pulls them off with difficulty. Then he manages to open the packet, but it tips up and half spill out. ‘Ben, for Christ’s sake, what the fuck are you doing?’

‘Daddy, that’s naughty. You said the F-word.’

‘You want to be a soldier like Daddy? You want to play big boy’s games? Then you swear like a big boy, OK? Listen, Ben,’ Alex talks while he opens up the ration box and pulls out a silver bag of meatballs and pasta, ‘when I was away … you know, in Afghan?’

‘Yes.’

‘Little boys, just a bit older than you, they were fighters. Did you know that?’

‘No.’ Ben’s voice is very quiet. So quiet that Alex can barely hear him.

‘Hey Ben, do you want to know what I brought for you? I brought your guns to play with. Shall we pretend to be proper soldiers? Would you like that?’

‘No!’ Ben shouts. His voice is shrill with fear. ‘NO, Daddy. I don’t like it here.’

‘Those little boys in Afghan, they didn’t like it either, but they had to do what they were told. Otherwise bad things happened to them.’

‘Pleeeeeeese, Daddy.’ Ben’s starting to cry.

‘They didn’t cry. So shut the fuck up.’ Ben’s snivelling is a fucking indulgence, just showing that he’s been mollycoddled by his mother, made soft. Alex intends to sort it, like Alex was sorted at Ben’s age. Alex can hear Ben’s breath, ragged and uneven as he struggles to stop his tears. ‘Come here, Ben. I want to talk to you, to tell you some stuff that you need to know, OK? It’s amazing what children are capable of. People underestimate them all the time. Adults try and pretend that they’re innocent little things, very different to adults, but actually they’re not at all. Children are capable of doing everything that adults do.
Everything
, do you hear me, Ben?’

‘Yes, Daddy.’

‘There’s no protection from the bad things that happen in life, the bad things that happen to people. Did children get spared in Auschwitz? What about the boy soldiers in Sierra Leone? It’s a myth that children are different. They’re no different, they’re just younger, that’s all. And they’re bloody effective, because they don’t have the useless moral baggage strapped on to them that makes them stop and think.’

‘Daddy I don’t understand what you’re saying, you’re using really big words and I don’t like this story.’

Alex puts his arm around Ben and pulls him in close. He thinks he sees a light flurry of snow beginning to muster around them. He can feel Ben’s little body shivering. ‘Let me tell you something else. It’s not easy to turn men into killing machines.There’s a lot of conditioning required, and you need to break down the levels of resistance. An unseen enemy firing at you from a mile away, with maybe a couple of walls between you as well, is not a difficult kill. You can’t see eye to eye so it’s not that real. Maybe someone you see walking around in a field, visible through a crosshair, isn’t close enough for discomfort. You can’t see whether or not they’re a good bloke, and besides they’ve just been firing the shit out of you so it’s a no-brainer. But someone a foot away from you? Someone unarmed? Someone you’ve eyeballed? That’s when your killing resistance is at its highest – are you listening, Ben?’ Alex gives him a squeeze but Ben still doesn’t respond. ‘You see, it’s a good thing that humans aren’t natural born killers because it is a good thing for humankind and it is ultimately uplifting and reassuring and comforting to know that one is not a natural born killer. And it doesn’t matter that they’re some fucking raghead insurgent, the point is that they’re part of the SAME FUCKING SPECIES.’ Alex cannot block the thoughts. And he can’t stop the tears.

‘You hear me, Ben?’ Ben doesn’t respond. Alex shakes him, but his eyes stay closed. The snow is beginning to settle now.

‘Ben! Wake up, come on you’re on stag, you can’t jack on me, mate.’ Ben’s eyes flip open.

‘Meatballs?’ He likes the meatballs, but they’re a bit hot, he says. Alex ignores his whingeing but hands him a can of beer.

‘Eeeugh, tastes horrible,’ he says.

‘Knock it back.’

Ben takes a couple more swigs from the can. Alex belches.

‘Can you do that?’

‘Mummy says it’s rude.’

‘Fuck Mummy. She’s not here.’

‘I wish she was,’ Ben says, quietly.

‘We don’t need her here, silly fucking tart.’

‘I don’t like you saying nasty things about Mummy.’

‘OK. We love Mummy really, but I’m cross with her because she took you away from me.’

‘She’s frightened of you, Daddy. I’m frightened of you. I wish you and Mummy were back in our old house, and I could play with my friends. I wish we could do that. Can’t we, Daddy? I’m cold, Daddy, and I want to go home …’ Ben’s voice is a thin whine, and his teeth are chattering.

‘Man up, Ben. I’m going to teach you how to shoot. Don’t spill pasta sauce down you, or we’ll think it’s blood, won’t we?’ Alex laughs. Then he goes silent. ‘Hey Ben, did you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘Shhh!’ Alex tunes his ears to the tiniest little scraping but he thinks it’s too loud to be made by an animal. It could perhaps be a deer, but it’s odd for it to be so close. Alex’s senses are on high alert so it’s possible he imagines hearing things sometimes. But he hears it again. It sounds like a distant, rhythmic thudding, like heavy boots marching towards them.

‘Ben,’ Alex whispers, ‘Get back to the car. Now!’

‘No! I want to stay with you. I’m scared, Daddy, really scared. Please Daddy, can we go home now …?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Ben, I said get back to the bloody car. Just do it.’ Alex reaches out for the rifle. He hears Ben’s sharp intake of breath. Alex takes a bullet from his jacket pocket and then slips the round into the chamber and closes the bolt. He braces his back against a rock and rests the stock of the rifle on top of his knee. Then the shaking starts. He feels clammy and sick, lightheaded. He forces himself to stand up, pointing the rifle in the direction of the sound. He can’t see anything. He needs the torch. He pulls it from his pocket and switches it on, shining it all around. The powerful beam lights up snowflakes the size of cotton-wool balls, skirmishing chaotically on the gathering wind. It also serves to pinpoint Alex’s position. He feels the sudden urge for a slug of whisky to calm his trembling. He could end up a gibbering wreck on the floor soon, and there’s nothing he can do about it. He hears the scraping again. There’s someone out there coming for him. An unseen enemy moving in closer, and he’s a sitting target. His gut goes into spasm as if a knife has cut through his lower bowel. He feels bile in his throat, then he starts to retch and finally he vomits, shattering the silence of the night and telling whoever is out there exactly where he is.

‘Drop the gun!’ Alex pulls himself up, clutches the rifle, ready to aim in the direction of the voice.

‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I said drop the gun.’ Alex aims in the direction of the voice and pulls the trigger.

The sound of the gunshot fades and for a moment there is silence. And then a voice: ‘Drop the gun unless you want me to blow your head off.’

Alex realizes he knows the voice. ‘Price, you fucker. What the hell are you fucking playing at?’ Suddenly the darkness turns green. Price has cracked a Cyalume. Alex can see Mark. He’s armed with a pistol.

‘Enough, boss. This is where it ends.’

Where it ends … where it ends …
Alex takes aim; Price is only ten metres away. He could take him out before he raises the pistol. Maybe they’d take each other out. But then his hands start to shake again. He can’t hold the gun straight. He can no longer do the one thing he was always so good at. ‘What are you going to do? Shoot me? Because you know what, you’d be doing me a bloody favour, mate. So why don’t you? Pull the fucking trigger, eh? What are you waiting for … ? Go on, just do it …’ The rifle in Alex’s hands judders so much he can barely hold it.

‘Christ …’ he swears to himself, angrily. Despite the cold, sweat is pouring off his brow and stinging his eyes. ‘Well?’ he shouts. ‘What’s the matter with you? What are you, a fucking coward?’ Alex drops the rifle to the ground, and then he falls to his knees. He puts his hands to his head, covering his ears, screwing his eyes up tightly, and then he slides his body down to the snow- covered rocks, unable to stop the convulsions knocking him about like fists on a punchbag. He’s sobbing like a baby, and the pictures, the fucking awful pictures are there in front of him again. He’s back there. Exhausted, frightened, exhilarated, but most of all shocked to the core at what he has just done. He’s been to the edge of the abyss, looked into it and realized that he was staring at the evil inside himself. Alex can’t hold back the tears. He takes ragged breaths. ‘It just won’t stop. It won’t bloody go away. I just can’t get that bloody kid out of my head …’

And he hears Mark beside him, picking up the weapon, removing the bolt from the chamber. ‘It’s all right, boss. It’s over. It’s all OK.’

Alex hears his own voice, choked and ranting into the freezing night: ‘He was screaming. We all thought the kid had taken a bullet after we’d been firing at Terry in the compound. We thought we’d shot the little bugger, remember? Boothe was in front of me. I yelled to him, ‘Watch the fucking ground …’ and that was it, the last thing I ever said to him. I was on the deck, bits of Boothe all over me. That kid, he didn’t move. He’d stopped screaming. I picked myself up and went over … there was nothing wrong with him. He was a lure. Terry knew we were soft when it came to injured kids. Hearts and minds. The British don’t shoot Afghan kids. And I looked in those big brown eyes, so fucking innocent, and I blew his fucking head off. In that moment of sheer blinding fury I took a kid’s life. So what does that make me? I’m an animal. He wasn’t much more than Ben’s age now.’

‘He lured Boothe to his death.’

‘Yeah. But he wasn’t fucking responsible. He was just a kid, just like Ben.’

Where is Ben, Alex?’

‘Ben? In the car. I told him to go back to the car.’

‘So he’s all right. You’re sure he’s OK?’

‘Yeah. He’s fine.’

‘So, is that whisky in that bottle? I could use a drink.’

Alex passes him the bottle and he takes a swig, then Mark sits down beside him. ‘That kid. Yeah it was shit. But after everything that happened to us … no one can know what it was like unless you were there. And Boothe – he was one of the best. Something snapped inside you that day and somehow you’ve got to deal with it. I was worried you might do something stupid. There was a time when I thought I might … when I didn’t think I could live with myself. But there’s help out there. I just wish I’d realized that before I lost everything. When I look back I can’t believe how tough I was on Zoe. I didn’t want you to make the same fuck up with Juliet. We always looked out for each other, remember? Now I’m looking out for you. Why don’t we go home and see her, eh? Take Ben back. I’m going to help you, boss. And it’s too fucking cold to be out here. Let’s get the little lad home. It’s all going to be OK. Shall we go and find him? He’s probably bloody terrified after hearing that gunshot. Christ, you could have blown my bloody head off. Lucky you’re such a shit aim!’ Mark goes to the car. Then Alex hears him shout: ‘Ben? Where are you, big man? It’s me, Mark. You hiding somewhere?’ Alex runs to the car and looks inside, at the back seat where he thinks Ben should be. Never could do what he was bloody well told. His mother’s fault. No fucking discipline.

‘Poor little chap must be petrified,’ Mark shouts to Alex.

‘Guess he’s hiding somewhere. Ben … come on now, it’s cold, and you’re going to be safe. Everything’s all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of …’

The blizzard is thickening, forming a deadly shroud of freezing snow all around them, and around wherever Ben is. It deadens the sound of their boots and their voices, it covers their clothes and numbs their extremities. ‘Christ, must be about minus three, I reckon. And the wind’s picking up.’ Mark calls again. ‘Where’s that torch?’

‘I put it down and now I can’t bloody see it. The snow’s covered it.’

Mark cracks another Cyalume and it illuminates a large area, but there’s no sign of life.

‘Ben …’

‘Bennnnnn …’

Their calls get more and more urgent. Alex is swearing at himself, shouting to himself, words that get snatched from his mouth by the wind. ‘Christ, what have I done,’ he wails to the night. This is all his fault. Again. All his fault. Everything – Juliet, the baby, the Afghan boy, and now Ben. Mark’s right. He can’t live with himself. He knows that he can no more live with his future than he can with his past. He lets out a howl of anguish. He goes back to the place where he and Ben were cooking and drinking their beers together, like men. He takes the 9mm Glock pistol from his pocket and pushes the muzzle against his right temple.
This is where it ends …

EPILOGUE

Juliet finds it surprising how she can go through the motions of living: eating, sleeping; dealing with the endless domestic duties that the act of survival requires her to carry out each day. She feels as though she has become an automaton, performing the necessary acts but having had the ability to feel anything stripped out of her. She suspects it’s a defence mechanism, this shutting down of emotions, because if she were to start to feel anything – despite what people have told her – she knows the pain would destroy her. Apparently it’s all right to cry. If she wants to break down then that’s fine, it’s healthy. But she can’t. Not now. Not after everything. She’s always been good at distraction techniques, almost to the extent of dissociation, so it has been said by the so-called professionals: the various counsellors and shrinks she’s seen over the years. It’s how she’s always dealt with the difficult things in life.