The Fighting Man (1993) (33 page)

Later, after tea and biscuits, the invalid lance corporal limped on his stick to the front gate of the terraced house in east London, and he shook Cathy Parker’s hand.

‘You’ve been very kind, Francis.’

‘Call me Eff, Miss, that’s what Mr Brown called me . . . He’s the sort of man, Miss, you’d follow to hell.’

The Civil Patroller knew little of life outside his village. The village was astride the Sacapulas to Uspantán road. The two towns were eighteen miles apart and the Civil Patroller’s village was almost exactly halfway between them. The Civil Patroller sought only to survive. Survival was the yardstick by which he judged every act of his life.

Once, a foreign aid worker had come to the village, and the teacher had told the foreign aid worker, in the hearing of many men who had gathered around the stranger, of the life of the villagers under military rule. The teacher had said, ‘You lift your head and they break it. You open your mouth and they shut it. You take a step forward and they kill you.’ The teacher had indeed lifted his head and opened his mouth and taken the step forward, and he was dead in a dried ditch by the morning. The Civil Patroller had never, from that day, lifted his head nor opened his mouth nor taken the step forward. He sought to survive.

He would go twice a year with his brother and his cousin, and their wives, to Sacapulas to collect salt. He would go to Uspantán twice a year with his brother and his cousin, and their wives, to sell the
huipiles
blouses that the women had made and the panama hats of woven straw that the men had made, and they would coincide the journey to Uspantán with the fiestas when they would eat meat, chicken, and buy thread for making more
huipiles
.

All the men in the small village on the Sacapulas to Uspantán road were members of the Civil Patrol. They went out into the night, one week in four, and set up roadblocks. Sometimes, if there was an officer from the regular army with them, or an NCO, they would be awake and alert. Sometimes, if they were not supervised, they could make a shelter of palm fronds beside the road and sleep the night away.

It had been a difficult day for this Civil Patroller, an agony of a day. He needed the tree. There was no escape from the need of the tree as firewood. A beautiful tree, and he had prayed to the tree for its forgiveness. He had prayed alone through the morning for the forgiveness of the tree and then after the middle of the day, in the rain, he had started to hack at the tree’s life with his axe. He had hacked with ferocity at the tree’s trunk, just as he had seen the soldiers hack, with their machete blades, at the screaming body of his father.

The Civil Patroller sought only to survive.

He was issued with the old bolt-action rifle. He had the dried tortillas in his pocket and five rounds of ammunition. The patrol would not be accompanied by an officer or a regular NCO. They were told where they should go, what track they should watch. He neither lifted his head nor opened his mouth nor stepped forward.

Where he stood, the old rifle on his shoulder, listening to the officer, was only a few paces from where his father had been hacked to death by the machetes. It was said by his brother and his cousin, whispered, that there was rebellion. Gaspar had risen, come with fire, many soldiers had died. It was said by his brother and his cousin, muttered so that the words were beyond the hearing of informers, that the soldiers had been burned by Gaspar’s fire.

The wind tugged the clothes he wore, the rain dripped from the wide brim of his hat, and the Civil Patroller hoped that the beautiful tree had heard his prayer for forgiveness.

There were a thousand to feed.

It should have been Groucho’s work, but Groucho was half on his knees.

It should have been Zeppo’s work, or Harpo’s, or the Archaeologist could have helped and so could the Academic.

But it came down to Gord.

They had to be fed.

There were tins of food and condensed milk, taken from Nebaj barracks. There were tortillas, stale and hard, that had been carried from Playa Grande. Not possible to make a fire, not in the gale wind and the rain.

Groucho lay on the ground and Gord kicked him. Where were the tin-openers, who carried the bread, why had he not thought through the problem of food? Gord kicked him in frustration and Groucho just rolled away, disappeared.

They were down on the south side of the long ridge of the Cuchumatanes. The force of the weather hit them. The darkness was around them, pinpointed by torches and the flares of flame that men sheltered with their bodies. The darkness had come before they had reached the lower tree line. They had to be fed, a thousand souls, in the open. They would have to sleep in the open . . . Alex helped him, and the Street Boy. Christ, and he missed Eff and Vee and Zed, gone ahead . . . The Priest came to him, and helped. It was an hour after darkness that he found the tin-openers, and it was two hours after darkness before he had the lines in place, seven of them, waiting for food, and taking it away into the black night. They were wonderful, and he thought their patience was magnificent. He loved these people. Each man and each woman and each child, standing in the line, taking what they were given, bobbing their heads in gratitude, disappearing. No complaint from any man or woman or child that the food distribution was screwed up.

The Priest had them singing, as they waited in their lines, and away in the night was a guitar.

Hungry, himself . . .

Tired, himself . . .

Short-fused, himself . . . The lines were in place. The food was being given. The lights winked in the mist darkness. He made his way down, towards the head of the column, away from the singing and the guitar.

Gord found them in a shallow cave. His torch caught their faces. Jorge was at the back of the cave and there was a rain-damp blanket draped over his head and his shoulders as a tent. Harpo held the tin and the moment the torch was on them was as Zeppo gouged with his fingers into the tin. Groucho hissed at him, might have been a cat defending territory, couldn’t speak because his mouth was filled. He smelled it, long days since the taste had been in his throat and the smell on his clothes. Harpo was looking up at the torch beam, challenging him, holding up the tin for Gord to take his share.

Gord said, ‘Well, they’re only fucking Indians, aren’t they . . . ?’

Jorge’s head was down, shielded by the blanket, staring at his knees.

‘. . . Quite right, let the
Indians
sort themselves out. Top buggers first, eh . . . ?’

Harpo gazed back at him and did not flinch.

‘. . . Filling your guts with salmon. A good tin of salmon liberated from the officers’ mess at Nebaj, not put in the pool, not put in the pot, kept for the big bastards, right . . . ?’

Zeppo’s defiance, feeding from his fingers, then pulling the tin back from Harpo for more.

‘. . . Back there, they’re half dead for lack of food – only Indians – they’re not sitting down, not in shelter, waiting to be fed – only Indians. Right . . . ?’

Groucho cringed from him, swallowing.

‘. . . You’re not fit to lead, but then they’re only Indians, eh?’

Harpo said, ‘When I lived in Guatemala City we employed a maid. It was the one
luxury
we allowed ourselves. We employed the maid to do the work that was dirty. The maid lived in a shed at the back of the house, in the yard, because we did not have a big enough house for her to have a room inside. The maid knew her place. She did not expect to join the debate in the family when there was a matter to be decided. She was content with her position.’

‘I am not your fucking maid.’

He heard Harpo’s dry laugh. He stepped between Harpo and Zeppo, and Groucho wriggled fast away from his boots, and he settled beside Jorge.

‘Can we have the map? Can we plan tomorrow?’

Jorge shrugged, as if it was not important, lethargically pulled the map from the wide pocket of his trousers.

Gord jabbed at the map. ‘Where we are, good? Early start in the morning, moving at six. Straight across the Sacapulas – Uspantán road, no stopping for a bath and coffee . . . Need someone local to get us across the Negro river, all the bridges will be defended, and I don’t want to fight again just for a bridge. I want them not knowing where the hell we are . . . Then, straight south . . . I want to get into that high ground by night, no roads and no villages. Great, and the day after it will be Santa Cruz del Quiché, right? Departmental capital, right? Is that straight, Jorge?’

He cuffed the wet blanket over Jorge’s shoulder, encouragement.

‘They tell me we have gone far enough.’

‘What?’ Like he had not heard the voice muffled in the blanket depths.

‘They say we cannot go further.’

The silence hung on them. Jorge’s head was bowed. He thought that Jorge was beaten by the bastards. He shone his torch into their faces.

Deliberate, quiet. ‘Who says we have gone far enough? Who says we can go no further?’

Groucho said, ‘You have pushed us too hard, beyond the limit of what is possible for us . . .’

‘You should take a bus down to the airport and present yourself at the ticket counter, cash, one way to Havana.’

Harpo said, ‘We are exhausted and sick and ill. We should go back to the triangle.’

‘Where they can surround you, mince you, as they did before.’

Zeppo said, ‘We should stand our ground here. We should tell them that we demand political negotiation, a cease-fire in exchange for dialogue.’

‘They will laugh at you, and know that you are beaten.’

Groucho shouted, ‘Can you not understand, we have no strength left . . .’

Harpo spat, ‘You have pushed us too hard, broken us . . .’

Zeppo cried, ‘It is one thing to fight, another to go in a place fit only for goats . . .’

‘There are a thousand people behind you. They are not in a cave. They are not eating salmon. They are marching to Guatemala City. They will tell you about
strength
, and about
negotiation
and about
retreat
. Go and ask them, and tell them that you are not feeling well, and want to run away, and want to talk. Only fucking Indians, of course. Perhaps they don’t have opinions. We can get to Guatemala City, I promise you, if . . .’

‘If.’ Zeppo rolled the word.

‘. . . if the weather holds for us . . . Why have we not met a blocking force? Because the weather helps us, they do not know where we are. Why must we force the march? Because they do not believe we are capable of crossing this ground at this speed.’

‘We should consolidate,’ Harpo said.

‘Coward’s talk.’

‘We should negotiate,’ Zeppo said.

‘Failure’s talk.’

‘We should quit while we have the strength,’ Groucho said.

Gord had hold of Jorge’s shoulders. He shook the young man. He shook him as a cat shakes a rat, cruel.

‘What do you say?’

Hands off Jorge’s shoulders. His fists grasped Jorge’s beard. He pulled Jorge’s head up. Cavern eyes staring up at him. Slow words.

‘In the morning . . . I decide in the morning . . . the morning will be time . . .’

‘Oh, no, no way . . .’ Gord dragged Jorge to his feet. ‘With me now. You come back with me now, and you tell a thousand fucking Indians, and a few others, that you’ve had enough. You tell them, men from Nebaj and Acul and Playa Grande, that you’re chucking it. You tell them that you’re going for retreat or negotiation. You tell them they can go back to where the army’s waiting for them, at Playa Grande or Acul or Nebaj, or whatever bloody hole they came out of . . .’

‘Thank you,’ Jorge said hoarsely.

Gord growled, ‘For nothing.’

They went together back up the mountain slope.

‘I apologize.’

‘You don’t have to apologize to me, Jorge.’

‘I apologize because I have abused you, Gord, and because I have failed those who follow me. Because it will not happen again I can, in sincerity, apologize.’

Never explain and never
apologize
, what they taught the officer entrants at Sandhurst Academy, what they spelled out on the regiment’s induction course. The anger ran from him. He wondered what they would make of Rodolfo Jorge Ramírez, the instructors at the academy who knew it all, and the officers at Hereford who had seen it all. Leadership material or wet shit? Well, Gord Brown, if he were asked, could tell them that Rodolfo Jorge Ramírez could lead several hundreds of men on a journey of madness into the mouth of bad hell.

After Gord had dropped down, drained, he watched Jorge’s light move amongst the huddled, sitting men. He heard the low voice, calm. He heard the chuckled laughter. He saw the figure shrouded by the blanket slip forward, then settle again. His stomach groaned for food, too tired to go and look for it. He lay on his side on hard rock and the rain beat on him. He was asleep before the singing had died.

Chaos swirling in the terminal.

The morning light not yet on the avenue in front of his home, Colonel Arturo had started out for the airport.