Akram's War Page 15
‘It’s a waste,’ I said, following Adrian into the back of a waiting car.
Richmond was like no other town I had seen. The houses were made of solid brown stone and the narrow streets, many of which were cobbled, were hilly and steep and swept into a curled distance as though hiding a secret. There were more pubs in one road than I had seen in my entire life, and young men milled about on the ancient narrow pavement, crawling from pub to pub, searching for local girls. The squaddies, who were always in groups and outnumbered the locals, were immediately recognizable: short-cropped hair, moleskin desert boots, tight blue jeans with pockets bulging with money, starch-pressed shirts, and most distinguishing of all, an easy swagger and erect posture.
We found a table in an old neglected pub. A handful of locals crowded around the bar. The landlady, brisk and efficient, lacked charm, but in the absence of music or slot machines, it was quiet, and so for me an easy choice.
‘The corporal, he’s out to get you,’ said Adrian, draining half his pint in one long glug. His glass returned to the table with a click.
I turned my full glass between my fingers on the scratched wooden table. ‘It’s normal, I bet there’s always one he singles out. It’s psychological.’
Adrian drank the remainder of his pint and then belched.
‘It makes the whole company work harder,’ I added.
‘I think it’s because you’re a Paki.’
I shook my head. I put my glass to my lips and tried to drink as much of it as I could in one go. It rose quickly up my throat and behind my nose, stinging where the gas had earlier, and I put it down.
‘As far as he’s concerned it’s his army,’ said Adrian. ‘He’s just like my dad. Why does every fucker think he owns England?’ He stood up. ‘Another? Or shall we go?’
‘Steady, we’ve got all night.’
‘Yeah, but we’ve got to get in the mood.’ Adrian did a little bicycle motion with his arms. As he loomed over me across the table, his number one haircut made him look like his dad.
‘If I have to fight him I’ve got a secret weapon,’ I said.
He put down his empty glass and looked at me. ‘Dax?’
I shook my head. ‘You, you cunt. You’d jump in if he was killing me!’
‘Won’t need to. Throat. Just remember one word: throat.’
In the next pub there was nowhere left to sit, but we found space by the bar and leant against it. I looked around for black faces but saw none. A troop of squaddies at the far end were raucously singing an army song, and girls dressed in tight, brightly coloured frocks were sitting at a bench against the rear wall, looking on bemused. Sergeants or sergeant majors, distinguishable from the men by their age and handlebar moustaches, drank quietly with their wives.
‘We should chat up some girls,’ said Adrian, shouting to be heard over the din of conversation and music. I looked around. There were boys with girls, girls with girls, many in groups, some laughing, some leaning into each other in conspiratorial conversation. A clutch of the girls were dancing on the spot, their wine glasses swaying carelessly, while men looked on. It was difficult to tell who was with whom.
Adrian kept his eyes on the entrance. After some time, two girls walked in and stood by the door, scanning the room as though wondering whether to come in further.
‘Dare you,’ said Adrian, staring at the girls. Before I could answer he was making his way towards them. I could only follow.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘I’d love to buy you a drink. Let me guess, wine? White wine?’
The girls looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, but they didn’t say no. Not waiting for a refusal, Adrian headed to the bar, leaving me with them.
‘Hello.’ I extended a hand. ‘I’m Akram, we’re recruits at—’
‘You look like it,’ one of the girls said.
‘We’re not desperate, you know,’ said the other.
I offered my best smile. ‘I’m harmless,’ I looked over one shoulder, ‘but my mate, I can’t vouch for him.’
They laughed and introduced themselves as Wendy and Dawn. They seemed surprised when I again offered to shake hands. Wendy was blonde and taller than her friend, with a thin face. She wore a short yellow skirt and cropped red top. As though in deliberate contrast, Dawn had short dark hair and wore a plain green dress that covered her arms and buttoned to the neck. She had small eyes and a freckled button nose that made her look the friendlier of the two. Unsure what to say, I shuffled awkwardly on my feet, and put away my unshaken hand. Hoping that Adrian would be back quickly, I glanced over at the bar and spotted him waiting to be served.
Dawn bent towards me to make sure she was heard. ‘What’s it like?’ The soft satin of her sleeve brushed lightly against the back of my hand, and the scent of her perfume lingered around me.
I shrugged my shoulders. Catching myself in a mirror fixed to the wall, I straightened. ‘I was gassed at thirteen hundred hours.’
Wendy and Dawn looked at each other and giggled. ‘Your friend, him too?’ asked Wendy.
I nodded. ‘But I was in for a minute longer.’
‘Was it a competition?’ said Wendy, laughing.
I shook my head. ‘I got singled out.’
Dawn leant in and briefly clutched my wrist. ‘You be careful, this here is Yorkshire.’
I was startled to be touched by a girl. Although she held my arm for only a second, it had left a faint tingling sensation. I nodded. ‘It’s beautiful, what I’ve seen of it, and posh.’
‘Posh?’ The girls looked at each other again and laughed.
‘You haven’t seen where we’re from,’ I said.
Adrian returned from the bar balancing drinks on a tray. ‘What was that?’ He dispensed the drinks and stowed the tray on the floor against the wall.
‘Your friend Akram was telling us where you’re from,’ said Wendy.
‘Least said,’ he said.
‘Where’s Ripon in relation to here?’ I asked, changing the subject. ‘A friend once told me it was the best place in England.’
‘What was your friend doing up here?’ said Dawn.
‘He was fairground,’ I said.
‘Cogger’s Funfair. Next to the fête it’s about the most exciting thing that happens around here,’ said Wendy drily. ‘Stays for a fortnight.’ She turned to her friend. ‘Camps on Burnham’s fields.’ Dawn nodded.
‘That’s it!’ I cried excitedly. ‘Dax Cogger.’
‘Well, if you want to see Dax I expect Cogger’s Funfair will be Yorkshire-based about now,’ said Dawn.
Adrian opened his mouth to say something. I silenced him with a glance and said to Dawn, ‘How would I get there?’
‘She’ll take you,’ said Wendy, nudging Dawn with her elbow. ‘Won’t you, love?’
Dawn looked at her friend and blushed. She turned to me and smiled nervously. I felt myself redden too.
‘He’s free Sunday,’ said Adrian.
‘Go on,’ said Wendy to her friend.
‘Just the two of us?’ said Dawn, looking put upon. ‘This weekend?’
The girls finished their drinks and left soon after, saying they had to meet friends. Dawn gave me her mother’s telephone number on a slip of paper, in case I was put on a charge and prevented from going. It seemed quite a precise thing to do and I wondered if she had previously known a recruit, perhaps a former boyfriend. She said she’d borrow her mother’s car and agreed to pick me up outside barracks on Sunday at noon.
‘You got a date,’ said Adrian, breaking the silence that fell upon their departure, ‘and she drives a motor.’
‘It was when she mentioned the field. Dax was mad about this girl whose dad owned the field. I just want to go, see the field and that. It seems right.’
Adrian shook his head. ‘You’d better do that for me when I’m gone.’
‘I’ll pay homage to Old Hill tower blocks,’ I said.
‘I hope I’ll have staked a claim somewhere better by then.’
After we’d had a few more drinks, each one at a different pub, last orders were rung. Not wanting to join one of the queues outside the many nightclubs, lines of rowdy squaddies with disappointingly few girls breaking up their number, we flagged down a taxi and rode through the dark rural night back to the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute on base. Like prisoners, we had been allowed into the NAAFI only once previously, to purchase sweets, chocolates and, for those who wanted them, telephone cards and cigarettes. There might be army girls at the NAAFI; if not, at least it had a late licence and the beer was cheap.
In contrast to the pubs in Richmond, the NAAFI was a new building with decked pine lining the walls, ceiling and floor. The planks were randomly studded with knots, and standing by the door narrowing my eyes, the room looked as though it had been peppered with gunfire. The bar was largely empty, and at the far end of the cavernous room, soldiers played at pool tables and attended to slot machines. A pair sat in opposition, playing chess. A lone figure, dressed in a green T-shirt and jeans and with a Yorkshire flat cap at a slant on his head, slouched over the bar, his back stooped in a perfect quarter-circle. Above him, behind the counter, hung a large framed portrait of the Queen.
Adrian and I each took a stool at the other end of the bar.
‘Let me buy you a drink.’ The man swivelled on his stool and touched the brim of his flat cap. ‘And your bum boy,’ he said to Adrian, ‘what’s he having?’
It was Corporal Longbone, his voice slurred. Without waiting for an answer, he turned to the barman. ‘Two lagers, and the same again for me.’ He returned his attention to the small glass before him, turning it between his fingers.
‘Th-thank you, Corporal, sir,’ I stammered.
He patted a stool next to him. Adrian and I went over and took a stool on either side of him. ‘Don’t call me sir, not in here.’
We looked at him. He was obviously drunk, his cheeks flushed and nose strawberry red. His eyes were glazed over, and as he focused on me, they seemed to soften and a thin smile spread across his lips. ‘I like to know who I’ve got in my company,’ he said.
The barman put our pints on the counter before us. Swiping away the corporal’s empty glass, he replaced it with another of whisky neat.
‘Something the matter?’ Adrian said to the corporal.
The corporal laughed, exposing strong brown teeth. ‘Not in here. Here we’re all friends. Here you’re one of us.’ Leaning over, the corporal briefly put an arm around my shoulder. He stank of sweat and whisky. Adrian rolled his eyes at me. ‘Out there,’ continued Longbone, ‘is the British Army. And you, Recruit Akram Khan, you need to prove yourself worthy of the uniform.’
Adrian’s eyes slipped down, fixing on the bulge of the corporal’s Adam’s apple.
Longbone shook his head and for a long minute he stared at his glass. ‘But,’ he raised a finger, ‘you need to get past me first.’ Turning to the portrait of the Queen, he picked up his whisky, took a sip.
‘I could have killed Her Maj,’ he said, addressing the portrait. ‘Truth is, I was just clowning around, but I thought about it.’ He turned to me again. ‘Would you have done it? Recruit Khan, would you, like me, have acted the clown?’
I reached for my pint and drank half in one go. ‘That would be murder.’
‘England forever England would never be the same again,’ said the corporal.
‘But for some,’ I said, ‘it would be martyrdom.’
‘Not for an Englishman,’ he said.
‘For a Paki, for some, I can see it,’ I said.
The corporal nodded. ‘It would have made me the most famous person to have ever lived.’
‘Some would see you as a hero,’ I said.
‘Everyone would know where they were the day the Queen died.’
‘It would be like the enemy within,’ I said.
The corporal drained his glass, signalled the barman for a refill. ‘We were standing around these tables having tea and dainty cupcakes and she came up and stood right next to me. I put my hand in my pocket, felt my penknife in there.’ He laughed. ‘Used it to clean the shit out of my boots. Fucking hell, I thought, how the hell did that get in unnoticed by security? And then it occurred to me, I could fucking have her, I could just lunge at this little old woman, one split second.’
The corporal turned to me, his eyes serious and sober. ‘So, lad, just so you know, I can spot a clown.’
*
Early the following morning Corporal Longbone stalked up and down the line, his gaze wandering from the polish on someone’s boots to the sparkle of a belt buckle or the starched stiffness of a shirt collar. It was dawn, and despite having had his last drink only a few hours earlier, his eyes were alert and his voice loud and fully awake.
‘The good news is we will not be going on a run.’ The troop cheered. ‘The bad news is that instead we will find a quiet field and have a little fun.’ We cheered again. He smiled at a large, bulging canvas bag that he had dropped to the ground. ‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Corporal, sir.’
‘If any recruit does not want to take part in the fun he may take the run instead, with my assistant, Lance Corporal Bunce. But you should know that Lance Corporal Bunce was out dancing last night and at this very moment he is cleaning his cock and looking forward to an undisturbed breakfast of bacon and eggs. Does anybody require an escort from the Lance Corporal?’
‘No, Corporal, sir.’
We followed him to a field with rugby posts at each end. It was an unremarkable morning with a cool breeze and a mildly grey sky that grew lighter by the minute, almost daylight. We were instructed to form a circle about six yards in diameter and stood rubbing our bodies with our hands for warmth.
Longbone opened the bag and retrieved two pairs of sparring gloves, then threw them at two of our number, seemingly at random. ‘Fighting men, gentlemen, is what we are teaching you to become, and God help you if you lose your rifle, your bayonet, all your weaponry and don’t realize that you still have your God-given weapon. With our bare hands we can thrust, scrape, gouge, claw, squeeze, chop – and today, ladies, you will punch.’
The pair of recruits had already put on the gloves and begun to shadow box, dancing on their toes. Without prompting they seemed to be working their way into the middle of the circle.
‘Each pair will have only one three-minute round. You will find the time quite sufficient. On my first whistle, box. On my second whistle, stop. If I blow the whistle at any time before the three minutes are up you are to cease immediately and go to opposing corners.’ He signalled to opposite sides of the circle. ‘Understood, Recruit Company C?’
‘Yes, Corporal, sir.’
‘Are you fighting men, Recruit Company C?’
‘Yes, Corporal, sir.’
He blew the whistle, and the boxers, who were now eyeballing each other, got to work. Their leg movements seemed clumsy, and as they circled each other, neither threw a punch that made contact. Both snorted and panted, and after about thirty seconds their pace slowed.
‘Come on, ladies, we need a fight.’
Momentarily their punch rate quickened, although the efficiency of contact did not, and their blows barely scraped each other’s skin. Looking disgusted, the corporal consulted his watch and blew his whistle. ‘Get those gloves off and get out of my fucking sight.’
The second pair stood square on to each other and traded punches. They both bled from the mouth and nose, and their faces turned a purple-red I did not think it possible for a gora to be.
The corporal blew his whistle. ‘Time. Well done, but you could have circled a bit – the idea is to hit without being hit.’
As he looked around the circle, men shrank away from his gaze. ‘Khan and Hartley, you bum boys next.’
I stared at Adrian. Suddenly I saw an image of a boy of about eleven with a snub nose and a gentle face. A boy knocked to the ground, getting up,
and smiling as though to say, This will all be over in a second. Won’t it? Briefly and out of necessity, I hated Adrian. I stepped into the circle and slipped on the gloves. Adrian stood a couple of yards away. He put his gloves up to his face and punched them together, shuffling his feet neatly on the spot. The corporal blew his whistle.
I had barely got my hands up when I took a one-two and my head jerked back. Adrian pulled away, circling. He jumped in with another one-two.
The next time I saw his right coming and leant to my left, but he anticipated and his glove glanced across my brow. He was hitting hard but not as hard as I knew he could. I circled, jogging backwards, but Adrian cut me off, one-two-three, the last one to my body, hard enough to make a good sound but not enough to wind me. Adrian was a complete boxer, I thought, as he caught me again and again.
The corporal blew his whistle and we stopped. Panting, I stared at the grass. Longbone addressed me. ‘You fucking clown. If you don’t hit back, I’m going to put you on a fucking charge.’ He blew the whistle again.
I launched myself at Adrian, my arms flailing wildly. He stepped to one side and I stumbled past him into the surrounding circle of men. Half blind with sweat, I felt the hands of a recruit push me back into the middle. I could hear encouragement and obscenities. This, I thought, as I saw again the boy with the gentle face, is a scene from Dax’s murder. Rubbing the sweat from my eyes, I refocused on Adrian. He was smiling. His feet were no longer dancing. Instead, he was walking about, circling me with a swagger. It was the swagger of the skinheads outside the Mash Tun pub. He leant in once or twice, as though to throw a punch. He was teasing me. I could see the other men yelling, but the blows had now rendered me deaf, with only a loud, incessant buzzing in my ears. Adrian stepped forward again; this time he punched me neatly, a right cross in the face. Temporarily blinded, I saw a black background with horizontally moving stars, and it was silent, almost pleasing, like falling asleep. He stepped back and with a rolling haymaker, one I could see coming but do nothing to avoid, socked me in the belly. I doubled over, winded.
Longbone blew his whistle and looked at his watch. I panted, my eyes appealing to his wrist. He looked back up at me. ‘Khan, you’ve got one minute to make an impression, otherwise I’m going to fucking have you on a charge.’ I knew the minimum charge would be cancelled Sunday leave. ‘Hartley, you’re holding back – if you don’t fucking finish him off you will be offering him your arse in the jailhouse.’ He blew his whistle.