Sing Like You Know the Words (16 page)

-Look at this, your man has left
the keys in. Very obliging of him. I suppose you have people
looking out for my car, so we’ll leave it here for now. If I don´t
collect it in the morning, your boys can keep whatever the street
rats leave of it

Billy wasn’t saying anything.
Hawkins showed him the gun.

He made the drive as short as
possible to a place that he thought was outside of hostile
territory and deserted, and then it was time to talk.

-Tell me the story Billy.
There’s something badly wrong here. I make a friendly offer to sell
you all that stuff you say you need. No rubbish. Armalites, nine
millimetres and plenty of rounds. But then you arrange the meet in
a place where we could never make the trade and it turns out you’ve
got someone waiting outside for me. And I find out he’s carrying
this crappy pistol, with a cheap looking silencer on it. I was
forced to assume that your intentions were not friendly.

-You’re no arms dealer, Captain
whatever your name is, you’re a fucking para.

-You could be right, though this
arms dealing seems like easy work when you get into it. Maybe I
should give it a try. Learning on the job is the best way to start,
they say. I’m not Captain anybody though. They don’t send
commissioned officers to deal with low level scum like you. I’m
only a sergeant. And tell you what, I volunteered for this as well.
Can you believe it? What could I have been thinking of?

-We know all about you

-So I’m not as clever as I
thought. But here I am and there you are, and what does that make
you? Anyway I’ll be out of this shit tip in a few weeks, I’ve done
my time

-You won’t ever have done your
time as far as I’m concerned.

-Rash words. And by the way
Billy, I know your real name. Couldn’t you have chosen an alias
that was less orange?

-You’ll be looking over your
shoulder for the rest of your sad life mister

-Well I’ll not be looking for
you at least

He shot the man in the spine,
then dragged him out of the car and put two more in the head.
Orders were to observe only, and if appropriate to detain for
questioning, but so far as Hawkins could see this was a war, which
meant that they weren’t orders so much as guidelines. By all
accounts most of the loyalists hated Billy as much as the Provos
did, and with reason, so it was not likely he’d be missed, and
fortunately the weapon couldn’t be traced back to Ray.

All in all, a good night’s work,
except that now he had to dump the car and take the long walk home,
in the freezing cold through the watery bloody snow.

***

Just before the war got properly
started, Matthew got a call to meet Tim after work. They hadn’t
spoken for a while, but he knew that Tim’s life was chaotic as
always. He was finished with the service, but since escaping the
army he’d been in no hurry to start anything else. Tim’s excuse was
that he didn’t want to end up like his dad, who’d moved the whole
family away from their home in Wales to work for a Manchester firm.
His father had been fifteen years in the company before they made
him redundant. Now he was on the dole, without a chance of a decent
job, living in a place where he had no roots.

Tim never said much about it,
but they knew that the father had suffered some kind of breakdown
and found it difficult to set foot outside the house. Tim blamed it
on the family uprooting, but so far as Matthew could see it was Tim
himself who was most in need of ties. At some point in his teens he
had become a patriotic Welshman, though he’d only set foot in the
principality on day trips to Llandudno. He seemed to think that if
it were not for the family moving house, he would have been living
in an imagined Celtic paradise where everyone was his friend and
all his weekends would be spent singing his heart out at Cardiff
Arms Park, drinking and complaining about the English. It was a
dream of home that could only be sustained by permanent exile.

Tim had been drinking before
Matthew arrived. He had kept his army haircut, which made him look
more aggressive than at college: a loud little man with a big nose
and short hair. People who didn’t know him, and some who did,
tended to keep their distance.

-You took your time.

-Some of us have to work for a
living.

-But not you, you’re a
journalist. That means you live in a pub, right?

Matthew let it pass.

-Is tonight a big night or an
ordinary night? He asked.

-Big night.

-What are we celebrating?

-I got my call up today. Back to
join my mates in the Welsh Guards boyo.

-Don’t boyo me, you Manc Taff.
What are you talking about?

-There’s going to be a war,
haven’t you heard?

-You mean the Malvinas?

-I mean the bloody Falkland
Islands. One of Her Majesty’s territories isn’t it? Don’t give me
Malvinas.

-Well you talk as if Wales was
an occupied country, so I’m surprised to hear that your sympathies
are with the Empire. Anyway, what has it got to do with you? You’re
finished with all that.

-Reservist mate, they don’t let
you off that easy. They can still call on us when the country has
need. Like bloody King Arthur in his tomb we are. Get me a pint,
heroes don’t buy their own.

But Matthew had become
serious.

-Tim, they can’t make you go. I
mean you can’t go.

-Now I don’t understand you.

-This war, if it happens. It
won’t happen, it’s too stupid. But if it does: there’s no
justification for it. You know those Argentine generals just want
to fight someone to divert attention from the mess they made of
their country. And Maggie Thatcher wants war for the same reason.
It would be, well, immoral. And there’s nothing there but some
sheep and a few crazy farmers who don’t want to learn Spanish. It’s
just some rock off the coast of South America, thousands of miles
away from us.

-The Argentines want the islands
badly enough.

-Well let them have them, if
they feel so strongly. It’s not a war for that: it’s only to keep a
conservative government in office, all wrapped up in the Union Jack
like Winston bloody Churchill.

Tim at least heard him out
without interruption.

-I don’t know about any of that,
but even if you were right, it wouldn’t make any difference. I’m
still a soldier. You don’t ask questions like that and you don’t
let your mates down. What do you want me to do - give them a call
and say sorry lads; I’m sitting this one out? My mate says this war
is no good, but I’ll be with you for the next one provided it’s one
we approve of. It’s like any time when someone gives you an order;
if you stop to argue about whether it’s the right one, somebody
gets killed. A soldier has to do what the next man up the chain
tells him, or everything falls apart.

-You’re no soldier Tim. You’ve
said as much yourself. That’s not your nature. It’s killing or
being killed, not some game. It might be you who gets killed, have
you thought about that?

-I might be killed crossing the
road when I leave this pub. I might die of thirst before you buy me
another bloody pint. Anything could happen. And I’m a soldier. I’ve
got a gun and a uniform like the others. What do you think is the
nature of most of them?

There was no point arguing so
they drank themselves stupid instead. The next day Matthew went
down to the station to see Tim off. He was wearing uniform, though
he said that some little tosser would probably spit at it or say
something that was out of order. Bring it on, he said. He didn’t
look as hung over as Matthew felt, but neither of them had much to
say. If David had been there he would have found the right words,
but as he was in London working on some deal there were just the
two of them together with the awkward silences that each hoped the
other understood.

Matthew was upset for days
afterwards. He couldn’t even explain to David why it had all hit
him so hard, and that inability gave him a superstitious dread that
something bad was going to happen. He couldn’t even express his
thoughts, as if for fear that to do so might make them come
true.

His consolation was the
unreality of it all. Matthew couldn’t believe that at this stage in
history, the end of the twentieth century, two civilised countries
would make war on each other over something as trivial as who had
the biggest flag. Certainly the crisis would to come to nothing.
There would be a few weeks of nationalistic posturing with
negotiations going on quietly behind the scenes, and then a
peaceful resolution that pleased no-one. But even so, in the part
of him that was not amenable to such reason, the sense of dread
remained.

***

Tim remembered the next few
weeks as mostly boring: stuck on a boat all that time; moving, but
really in the same place, and with the same people. It was
incredible that people paid to go on holidays like this, though
they would have a bit more room, probably. All the panic to get
ready before they sailed; and then it was such a long way and
nothing to do in the meantime. The on-board conditions were cramped
and there was no privacy, but he was with his mates so he didn´t
mind that too much. Worse was that there was plenty of time to
spend wondering why he was there at all.

They all heard enough of what
was going on in the world to know that the make believe war was
drifting towards a real conflict. The talking was going nowhere,
and all the while, slowly but inexorably, they were getting closer
to the physical point of no return, where talking stopped and the
momentum of events would take over. It seemed to Tim like a strange
nightmare, a battle of wills between two equally petulant children.
Neither had anything to gain, but both were unwilling to lose face.
The men told each other that there was some undeclared reason why a
piece of rock in the South Atlantic might be worth them dying for.
Oil reserves or something as valuable must lie in the territorial
waters. But regardless of the reason, if you believed them, the men
could not wait to see action. It was a stupid eagerness but Tim was
not immune to it, though he was one of those who argued that a
peaceful outcome to the mission was most likely. Now that the
Argentines had seen their bluff called they would back down.

-We’re like the Grand Old Duke
of York and his men, he said. We march up to the top of the hill
and we march back down again. By the time we get there, the
politicians will have sorted it out.

-Better for us, said one of the
other junior officers. I don’t mind marching back when it could be
a bloody long drop down the other side of the hill.

But whatever they said between
themselves, when Tim thought about the size of the deployment that
they had only glimpsed when leaving England and what it must have
cost, he couldn’t see how they could be recalled without a fight.
The nearer they came to their destination, the further away a
peaceful outcome seemed.

Who knew what the other officers
were thinking, behind all the smiles? Most of them seemed to be as
desperate as the men to see action. Tim supposed that it was from
all the time they had spent training, never expecting to do the job
for real, and now it didn’t seem so childish or like they were only
pretending. All of them, himself included, got excited thinking and
talking about it. Matthew and David would have laughed out loud if
they could hear some of the things he had said.

If it´s a phony war, he thought,
then I suppose we can brag and boast all we like: and if it´s not
then we´ll find out soon enough. But still I look around this ship
and I know I don’t really belong. I’ve done the training, but I´m
here on false pretences. It was only the money I wanted, not to be
a soldier. I suppose I shall do my duty, but will it show? Calm
down. Just keep steady and don’t let anyone down.

But then again, he noticed that
most of them, even the shouters and brawlers, had some quiet
moments, just sitting on their own; or as near as you could be to
on your own in this floating sardine can. You noticed it more the
further south they sailed.

That was the real problem on a
boat: too much time to think.

***

While the task force maintained
its steady progress towards the islands, further to the south, the
cruiser ARA General Belgrano (formerly USS Phoenix) accompanied by
two destroyers, was making way easily on a calm sea at a good rate
of knots. The light winds offered no cause for concern, although
the forecast threatened deteriorating weather by close of day.

In other times it would be a joy
to be at sea on a day like today, but now Captain Bonzo’s thoughts
were fixed on the action that they seemed certain to face soon;
even though he knew that, for the moment he was out of range of the
British aircraft carrier. He had no suspicion that a British
submarine had been shadowing them for the last three days, but he
was painfully aware at all times that his ship was in a theatre of
war. A threat could come unexpectedly from any direction.

-It’s always the same. The
generals send us to be killed, and afterwards no-one can remember
why.

He knew that some of his
officers were frustrated by the futility of it. Of course the other
ranks were full of enthusiasm, as they should be; and none of his
officers would dream of discussing their doubts, even between
themselves. The Captain was confident that they would all do their
duty whatever happened; even the new young men. You could see it in
their eyes: this was their ship, and they loved her as sailors
must.

However, a captain must not let
his love of ship blind him. He must be aware of her weaknesses too.
She was old and she was vulnerable: he was particularly concerned
about attacks from the air. Without those Sea Cat missile launchers
they would be sitting ducks for aircraft. He only hoped that they
lived up to the promises of the Englishmen who sold them to his
government. The helicopters must be kept operational too: much
depended on that.