The Fighting Man (1993) (36 page)

A whining commune of prayer as the resin bled the life from the great pines, a cry for forgiveness as each blow had struck home. It had been Jorge’s decision. She could see the way he had sauntered among the men, new confidence, urging them and whispering encouragement to frantic effort.

The great pines had groaned, cracked, cried. They had fallen, slow at first, then rushing, down together across the width of the gorge, scattering the men from the path of their collapse. A tangle of men had run then to the pine trunks and slashed at the front branches as they had advanced above the roar of the water course.

The bridge was made.

The charge started.

A man fell. His scream was lost in the spume spray. Another man fell and went spreadeagled down to the white water, but the swarm rushed and clung and slipped and made good their grip.

She would go at the end when the women and the children crossed. Alex Pitt watched as the man mass wriggled on the bridge of the great pines, cutting from sight the branches and the foliage, a maggot motion going forward. Another man fell, spiralled down to the washed rocks, and the gap that he left was closed.

She saw that Gord now stood alone because the men who were always around him had gone across with the cart and the wheelbarrow. The swarm slackened.

He was going forward. Slow and tired drunk strides towards the rim. She could have shouted and she would not have been heard. Because so many had crossed the flow was sparser. She could have shouted the warning that he was to wait, that he could go across with the women and the children. She looked to the far side. The Academic was there, and the Archaeologist, good men and she liked to talk with them. The Fireman stood with the Street Boy in front of him, resting his hand as a father would on the mischief boy’s shoulder. The Civil Patroller was with them, the one whose friends had been shot down and who showed no hurt. She could have shouted the warning that would not have been heard. The fat man, the
Ladino
, agile despite the weight on him, the bully man, was halfway across. Gord going next, rocking on the branches and foliage, swaying as if he were a scarecrow in the wind. The bald man, the
Ladino
, bright head held high, shoulders back and confident and sure, stepped onto the bridge.

The fat man going tortoise slow and the bald man going crab quick.

Halfway across.

Gord was sandwiched between the fat
Ladino
and the bald
Ladino
.

She knew the hatred. The Archaeologist had told her of the spat fights in the core of the group around the young leader.

Gord looking up, and seeing the fat man. The hesitancy seemed to cloud Gord. Caught in the wind, lashed by the rain, a leg slipping into the pine frond mass that was treacherous. She wondered how deep was the hatred. She heard nothing over the thunder fall of the river, but she could see the mouth movement of the fat man who turned towards Gord and blocked his way. She had seen three men fall. He seemed to sneer and taunt. His foot had slipped and she saw that Gord used a big effort to drag his foot back up and he pulled at a branch and the branch broke clear in his hand. He dropped. He was astride the bridge mass. He would be looking down, down onto the tumble pace of the river, down onto the smoothed rocks, down onto the driven current.

There was the cry of a name.

The name cry grew to match the thunder noise of the river.

She heard the cry. ‘Gaspar . . . Gaspar . . . Gaspar . . .’

A thousand voices, more, willing him to cross.

‘Gaspar . . . Gaspar . . . Gaspar . . .’

The fat man was over, walking away onto the rim and not looking back.

Gord crawled forward.

‘Gaspar . . . Gaspar . . . Gaspar . . .’

The name cry carried him over, and died, and she was left with only the thunder noise of the river.

The bald man was across.

She hitched the child higher on her shoulder. She went towards the bridge. Ahead of her, over the gorge, the column was already on the move. New pace and new urgency, the march headed away into the cloud mist of the great pines.

She knew it, she had cared.

‘He is married to the daughter of my cousin.’

The general said, ‘I want Arturo to have command of the Kaibil battalion.’

‘It is an insult to the son-in-law of my cousin,’ the minister said.

‘I tell you two things . . . G-2 promises me that the Ramírez rabble is now blocked behind the Rio Negro, they must find a bridge and force it, they must search for that bridge, when they attack it we have located them . . . When they are located, I need the Kaibil battalion to be waiting for them . . . Arturo has the stomach for the work . . .’

‘How long do I have, to weigh the insult to the son-in-law of my cousin?’

The general saw that the civilian minister wavered. ‘You have until tomorrow because you have the time that the Rio Negro has brought us . . . Understand me, I am not interested in the sensibilities of the son-in-law of your cousin. If you do not appreciate, minister, the consequences of failure to use that time bought us, then you should go to La Aurora and try to buy a ticket for a flight out . . . I must have Arturo.’

‘. . . It was disgusting what was done to him. If you’re trying to put it right, like you say, then it’s a bit bloody late. Okay, okay, I know where you want to pick it up. It was a big risk getting to the Yankee birdman and we took a casualty, had to fly them both out on a casevac in the evening. We got the hell out after that because the ’Raqs were alerted. We had another rendezvous with a bird that topped us with fuel and ammo and more grub, and brought us in a new radio because ours was blinking. It was a pretty lonely old world when the resupply bird left us . . . Our job was to report back rather than do demolition. We weren’t supposed to be identified, just to stooge around in the area where the north thrust was going to come in and report back on ground defences, artillery positions, tank movements. Wasn’t the death-or-glory stuff . . . You won’t want a bloody encyclopaedia of the war. The thrust came in. The ’Raqs didn’t stand and contest it. They were running and shitting, shitting and running. We were ahead of the push, and we got down to Karbala. Place was in uproar. I don’t know whether you know about Karbala, ma’am, but it’s big in the Shia religion. The ’Raq army was in full retreat, fast as they could bloody go. All the radios, BBC, Voice of America, Saudi radio, they were all telling the Shia guys that it was time to get off their arses and do the business. Uncle Saddam was a goner, that’s what the radios were telling them in Karbala . . . Then there was the ceasefire. The big politicals and the big generals, they let Uncle Saddam off the hook. Mr Brown, he was real mad, shouting and cursing and bollocking, because we got the message quick enough that the ’Raq armour was still intact, and was coming back into Karbala. They were good people there, Mr Brown became a sort of hero in that town, suppose it was because we were the only liberation troops they saw. We knew what they had to expect. They’d shown us the security police cells. You ever seen meat hooks set in the ceiling, ma’am? You ever seen an execution shed, ma’am? You ever seen a torture room? They’d kind of burned their boats because they’d strung up any of Uncle Saddam’s filth they could get their hands on. It was going to be bad for them, when the tanks came back in . . . Sold down the river. They thought, from what the radio said, that the Yankees were coming, or the Brits, or the French, coming all the way to Karbala . . . Mr Brown did what he could for them. About three days he had to train an army. They only had rifles. They hadn’t anti-tank, they hadn’t recoilless, they hadn’t mines. Mr Brown tried to show them how to block the streets, how to make Molotovs, where the armour was unprotected. They believed in him. He worked twenty hours a day for three days, and all through those fucking tanks were getting closer . . . I’m not saying that if we’d stayed, five of us, that it would have made a twopence damn of difference. What was such a bastard was that they trusted us, and they believed all those fucking lies from the radio. We had tanks, guns just a few miles up the road and Mr Brown was on the radio the last night before the ’Raq armour hit Karbala. He started sort of level, pretty cool, didn’t last. He was bloody yelling by the end . . . We were ordered out. What they actually told him, it would be the equivalent of desertion if we didn’t come out. It was a direct order, and you can’t buck a direct order. I suppose the bastards thought he’d gone native. At the forward barricades, all through that last night, we could hear the ’Raq armour warming up. We knew they’d come at dawn. He didn’t talk a lot that night, but he was round all the barricades and he was trying to give them some heart . . . We knew what was going to happen to them . . . He said we should leave the Land Rover behind. We kept our rifles, that was all, we left them our machine guns, all the belts for them, all the grenades. We smashed up the radio and we walked out on them. What hurt, they all said they understood, some fucking chance. We walked out of Karbala about an hour before the first attack came into the other side of the town . . . He was very bitter, he took it personal like it was his fault . . .’

The one-time trooper in the regiment walked Cathy Parker to the gate of the building site. He left behind him the pile of bricks to be laid. Civilian life had come hard to him.

‘I’m really grateful, Vernon, for your help, your time.’

‘It’s Vee, that’s what he told me my name was . . . I had the gut rot and a lift out on a Frenchy bird, only one place going. They came on after. I tell you the last thing he said to me. Mr Brown said that he’d never walk out again, not if any other poor little beggar shouted to him for help.’

‘I’ll have one more . . .’

‘Heh, Tom, wrap it, man, you’ve had your share,’ the Intelligence Analyst wheedled.

‘I said I’d have one more . . .’

‘No call for being sparky, Tom, but you’re full,’ the Treasurer slurred.

‘What’s up with you guys . . . ?’

‘We’ve got the little woman at home, and more’s the pity you haven’t,’ the Chemist grunted.

Tom shouted over the music. ‘Barman, come here, runt-face. Barman, whisky double . . . I’ll see you guys in the morning . . .’

‘There’s work in the morning, Tom.’ The Intelligence Analyst tried to pull Tom up and was shaken off.

‘Always fucking work in the morning . . . Piss off, guys.’

They did. They left a heap of quetzal notes on the table, their share. They left him . . . The paperclip team had gone out on the evening flight and the guys had taken to the bars. He reckoned the paperclip team had turned DEA Guatemala over, good and hard. He would hand it, Tom would, to the bossman and the Intelligence Analyst and the Chemist and the Treasurer. They had done well to keep the paperclip team at arm’s length. Right down to Guatemala City they had come, right back to Washington, DC, they were going, and damn nothing to complain of. Worth celebrating, worth leaving the little women at home, worth getting pissed up on fuck-awful Guatemala City. Started on the La Quinta, place for geriatrics, on to La Zocala, all kids posing, hitting Las Vegas and the music was hammering and the whores at the tables were watching the guy who was now alone. His whisky was brought him. That, man, was a hell of a thin double. He pushed notes towards the barman, couldn’t count. He drained the whisky. Shit place, no life, wanted some action, needed a little woman at home, fuck . . . Out into the rain on the street that ran behind the train station. There was a bar with a dwarf girl who scratched his thigh, ugly as a pig, two drinks and he was gone. There was a clip house with an Indian woman, fat and old as his mother would have been, who tried to hold his privates, one drink and he was gone. Needed a little woman at home, fuck . . . Needed love, like the Intelligence Analyst had love and the Chemist and the Treasurer. They pushed him out of the clip house, and they’d snatched what had been on the table, the quetzal notes. The rain ran on his face. The other guys would have been all tucked up, all nice, with their little women. Shit . . . Not a cab in sight. He started to walk. He thought he knew where the embassy was. There were bars and kids and whores around him. He was sobering. Just a guy who had wanted a drink . . . Shit . . .

Didn’t happen quick, but then his mind wasn’t going fast. Didn’t happen so that he could see when it started.

A couple of kids following him, and another kid ahead of him, and more kids around him. Cold-faced kids.

There was the music beat of a dozen bars, and there were whores tugging at him and leering at him and thrusting at him the heavy lipstick mouths and the painted faces.

Last time drunk was the night he had come out of the army. Last time drunk was the night after the day on which he had signed the forms and handed in the kit and uniforms. Last time drunk was the night when he had scratched around for some new pilots, without little women at home, to come share the loneliness of no longer belonging. A kid had a hand in his hip pocket. He wasn’t carrying the Glock automatic. His fold-over wallet was in his hip pocket. A hand going for his wallet, and a shoulder jostling him, and the faces close, and Tom Schultz was sobering.

He lashed around him, he lurched to turn. He had the wrist of the kid whose hand had been in his hip and the wallet fell.

The wallet lay in the rain on the broken pavement. The wallet was half covered in the puddle pool.