Forever the Colours (2 page)

‘I can't stand much more of that twat, you know, mate, and if he calls me shithouse once more, I swear to God, I'm gonna kick his head in.'

‘You shouldn't let him get to you, Jacko; he's just a bully. I just let it wash over me, mate, it's just bravado bullshit, that's all. Just try and picture me and his missus over the bonnet of that Passat.'

‘Yeah, I know.' Jacko's smile didn't last. ‘But the longer this tour goes on the more wound up I get, and I reckon I'm gonna end up knocking him out.' He laid his helmeted head back against the wall and sighed. ‘What we doing here, Tommy, eh? Nobody wants this place, apart from the smackheads, anyway, and no bleedin' army has ever won here.' He looked at his friend. ‘It's a shithole and a total waste of time.'

Tommy smiled. ‘Mate, we're freeing these people from the Taliban; al-Qaeda, the muja-whatyamacallits, and all those other mad mozzy bastards. We're the British Army, mate, freeing the world, protecting the innocent. Queen, country, honour, the regiment and all that jazz.'

‘The regiment? What, some poxy colours? You might wanna die for the flag, Tommy, but I fuckin' don't.' Jacko spat angrily into the sand at his boots.

‘I didn't mean it like that, mate. Calm down, eh.'

Jacko sighed again and nodded to Tommy. ‘I'm sorry, mate, I just have a real lousy feeling this time around, like it's gonna go properly tits up.'

‘Mate, we all think that at some point, it's normal. Listen, we get this tour out the way and we fuck off home.'

‘Yeah, but this time feels different…like something's gonna happen.' He sighed again and sat forward, took his helmet off and poured water from his canteen over his head. ‘Bollocks, I sound like a right nut job.' He looked at Tommy with a wry smile. ‘You know what, mate, me and her sister could see your arse pumping away like a jackhammer down that alley.'

Tommy was about to reply when they heard raised voices coming from the back of one of the dwellings on the opposite side of the road. And one of the raised voices was that of Adams himself.

‘That don't sound too brilliant, does it, mucka?' said Jacko as he put his helmet back on and started to get to his feet. ‘Think we best go see, eh?'

They stood, checked their rifles and hurried across the dusty road, covering each other at all times, and moved around a building that was probably the biggest in the village. They found a small enclosure with a few chickens in it – well, they looked like chickens, just more bone that meat – and a door to the rear of the property. They both went to different sides of the doorway, listening, and, after a moment or two, and feeling safe to enter, Jacko used hand signals to indicate that Tommy should enter first, with Jacko, rifle raised, following close behind.

To say the circumstances in which the two friends found themselves were awkward would possibly demean the situation. It was extreme shit. Adams was there, towering over an old white-bearded bloke, his fist pressed against the man's sunken cheek, and a young Afghan was doing a terrific impression of a dying fly while managing to piss blood all over somebody's prayer mat from a split lip. He looked at Tommy with pleading eyes.

The Sergeant was attempting to talk native, in a broad scouse accent.

‘You is fucking Taliban,' he screeched. ‘Where are the fucking boom booms?'

By ‘boom booms', it was assumed he was asking where the IEDs were hidden. Improvised Explosive Devices, scourge of the Allied troops, or rather the British, Commonwealth and US troops. The closest some of our European friends got to the action was a martini and a blow job from some dusky-skinned sexbomb.

To the left of Adams was Private Bell, aka ‘Dinga', who was pissing himself with laughter. To say that Dinga was dislikeable was probably unfair; he was an arse-kisser of the best sort and had attached himself to Adams's arse like a limpet. You could not speak about anything noteworthy in front of Dinga for fear of it getting back to the Sergeant. Plus he was a ginger, and the one thing Tommy knew for sure was that gingers were a different breed and could not, under any circumstances, be trusted.

There was also the problem of not being able to understand Dinga, as he was a foreigner, you see, from an exotic place called Newcastle
.
In fact, just as Tommy had entered the building, he heard Dinga say;

‘Wy man, gi it fuckin te im, da fuckin oold twet.'

Which, roughly translated, probably meant, ‘I say old boy, now don't make it hard on yourself.'

He managed to say this while flicking spit all over the old man.

Given the size of Adams, and the temper he was in, the old geezer, with the imposing Santa beard and skin like leather, was doing an admirable job of not shitting himself; he was just smiling benignly back at the hulking Sergeant, which was winding him up even more. The old man looked at Tommy and held his gaze for a few moments. What Tommy felt right then, he could not explain: understanding, maybe sorrow. And not for himself.

‘I'm not gonna ask you again, Abdul,' exploded Adams. ‘I know you can speaky de English, shithouse.'

Tommy attempted to defuse the situation. ‘What's up, Sar'nt,' he asked, in a pleasant voice, though he knew only too well the methods of questioning Adams used, especially when he was convinced the person he was talking to was related to the Bin Liner
himself. Tommy smiled at the old man, to try and reassure him, and the old man smiled back.

‘I am asking this wrinkled old fart, lad, where he has hidden those nasty little things that separate your legs from your body.' He walked over to Tommy and Jacko and put his nose tipto-tip with Tommy's. The hatred in Adams's eyes right then confirmed to Tommy that the Sergeant knew he had bumped his wife. ‘Now while me and Dinga sort this out,' he growled, ‘you and your mate shithouse there, go and sweep the rest of the buildings, savvy? Now, chop chop.' And with that he turned and walked back to the old man, who was still on his knees, and fetched a hard slap to his leathery cheek.

Weak as he knew he could sometimes be, Tommy turned, grabbed Jacko's arm and pulled him through the doorway back into the street. They stood facing each other in the heat and dust, and listened as another slap resounded through the doorway, accompanied by a muffled squeal, which was possibly Dinga laying the boot into the young Afghan.

Tommy was breathing hard. What he had just witnessed wasn't nice and he wished he were someplace else. ‘You alright, Jacko? You look pale,' Tommy said with concern, because Jacko had indeed lost all colour in his face. ‘Jacko, are you alright?'

Jacko was staring straight into Tommy's eyes, though not seeming to see him, and his lips were trembling slightly. ‘I can't leave it like this, Tommy,' Jacko said. ‘We can't leave that poor old bastard in there with those fuckers. They'll kill him.'

SLAP!

Jacko shivered.

‘What exactly do you think we can do? Oh, I know! We'll just walk right in there and ask him to stop, eh? Get a fucking grip, mate, you can't touch him. We're losing too many guys out in this shithole. Do you think the brass are gonna worry about one old man and a kid? Just do your job, don't get killed and go home. Don't try to be a fucking hero.'

SLAP!

‘I can't take this, mate. I'm gonna have him, sorry.' And with that he turned round to re-enter the building.

Tommy, seeing his friend was about to pop, jumped in front of him and placed a hand on his chest. ‘Hang on, hang on, stop, wait. Listen, you fucking idiot, we do it our way and we survive.'

He was shoved to the side as Jacko stormed through the door.

‘Oh, sod it!' he said, and quickly followed behind.

As Tommy entered, his friend was nose-to-nose with Dinga, who, with a smirk on his face, had stepped in front of Adams and squared up to Jacko.

‘Wots ya fuc'in problam meet?' Dinga said to Jacko. ‘If ye fuc'in want sum, am reet ear.'

Tommy quickly surveyed the scene. The old man was pushing himself up off the floor.

‘So what you two love birds back for then, eh?' said the Arsehole. ‘Well??? Oh, it's like that is it, a fuckin' rescue mission. Well why don't ya piss off and mind ya fuckin' business?' Adams
waited for any reaction from the two friends. ‘Nothing to say, no? Didn't think so.' As he ended this sentence, he pulled back to strike the old man again, and the man, already bleeding from the nose, was still looking him straight in the eye, smiling. So it was then that Tommy, who wasn't the one threatening to pop, stepped in.

Before anyone knew what was happening, Tommy had covered the prayer rug in two strides and placed himself in front of the old man as Adams's backhand connected with his right temple. He staggered slightly and saw little lights dancing in front of his eyes, but he didn't go down. After this, it all became rather chaotic. Jacko's helmeted forehead connected with Dinga's nose and mouth just as he was about to utter another incomprehensible mouthful, and a second later Tommy's right boot went into the ascent and squeezed Adams's left testicle against his inner thigh. The noise he made as he dropped to his knees was like air escaping from a punctured inner tube. On his way down he was rewarded with a knee to the forehead, which flicked his head back, and he tumbled onto his arse. Meanwhile Jacko was attempting to remould Dinga's Playdough face with his right fist into something more attractive to the animal kingdom.

Luckily for the two friends, a few of the platoon, on hearing the raised voices, entered the room as the scene was reaching its climax, and managed to jump on the two before they could seriously put the boot in. With both of them now restrained, Adams attempted, in a crab like fashion, to get out of the door, whilst making veiled threats of death at Tommy. But nobody was taking him seriously when he was talking like Joe Pasquale, so he was promptly ignored.

‘Hthou futhin nick'ed, ye broork thme futhin nors ye naa,' was all anybody could make out of the ramblings of Dinga as he staggered after the Sergeant.

It all went quiet for a few moments.

‘Well, that's you two fucked when we get back to camp, boys,' said the thickset lad called Terry, from Coventry. ‘The Arsehole
ain't gonna let this one go.'

‘Fuck him, he's just a bully, him and that fucking dickhead Bell. He's been pushing us all around for too long, and you lot would have done the same given the chance.'

‘Wanting and doing are totally feckin' different, ye eejits,' drawled Private Kerr, from Northern Ireland who everybody called Wayne even though his first name was Ian. ‘We would all love to kick the shite outta those two, but rules is rules and all dat.'

With that statement left hanging in the air, the other soldiers turned and went out the door, leaving the Tommy and Jacko alone.

Tommy was gutted. ‘Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,' he kept saying, over and over. ‘How the hell did that happen? Jesus Christ, we're finished, Jacko, it's all over. Shit, bollocks, twat.'

Tommy slumped onto an old crate and hung his head in his hands, knowing without a doubt that his career was over, as was Jacko's. As soon as he could manage, Adams would report to the Lieutenant, who in turn would report to the CO back at the base. Before anyone could say ‘court martial', they would be on their way home and to the nearest unemployment office.

The old man was kneeling on his rug and chattering away in Pashto to the young Afghan, whose nose was now swelling, courtesy of Dinga, and was gesturing towards Tommy.

‘My grandpa wishes to thank you, soldier, for helping him,' said the young Afghan.

‘Yeah, well, tell him bollocks in buggi buggi
'
cos that's me job gone down the swanee, mate,' replied Tommy.

Unperturbed, the young man continued translating into English what the old man was saying. ‘My grandpa says that your journey is about to be cut short, but he will help.' The old man moved closer to Tommy and held out both his hands toward him.

‘What's he gonna do, give him a job?' said Jacko, who was standing by the door.

Tommy stood and stepped backwards involuntarily. He didn't know what it was about this guy, but he gave him the creeps. He looked about a hundred years old.

The old man continued gesturing to Tommy to take his hands. ‘What's
'
e bloody after, money or what?' he said to the young Afghan. He tried to sound confident, but he couldn't understand why he was so spooked. It's his eyes, he thought, bright blue and piercing
.

The old man continued to chatter on, looking at Tommy and gesturing and doing little hand signals.

‘My grandfather says a real friend is one who takes the hand of his friend in times of distress and helplessness. He says he will guide you through what will be.'

The old man fell silent and gave Tommy a beatific smile.

Softening, Tommy sighed and held out his hand for the old man, though it was shaking slightly. The old man gripped the outstretched hand in both of his, which were surprisingly hot and strong, and, again speaking in Pashto, he stared straight into Tommy's eyes. These were not the eyes of an old man any more. There was fire in them, and passion, a knowing look that had seen much, travelled far and could tell many a story.