War Torn

Chapter Forty-seven

IN THE COOKHOUSE, FINN AND MARTYN ROBERTSON WERE TEACHING Angus to play blackjack. Dave always kept an eagle eye on these games but so far he had been unable to detect stakes that were anything higher than matchsticks.‘I bet you earn a lot of matchsticks in a week, working for an oil company,’ said Finn as they waited for Angus to decide whether to draw another card.‘More matchsticks than you could ever imagine, Huckleberry. But there’s not a lot of chance to spend it here.’‘What do you do with it then?’‘I got houses, I got ex-wives, that’s where most of it goes. But I’ve enjoyed our blackjack, and when I get out of here I think I might just take me to Vegas for a weekend.’‘We do a thing called decompression when our tour ends. We all go to Cyprus to get drunk.’‘Well, I’ll need a lot of decompression in Las Vegas after all these months with Emily the Enemy. I just wish she wasn’t coming to Jackpot tomorrow.’‘But you’re a lucky bastard,’ said Finn. ‘Money to blow in Vegas. Any chance of a job when I come out of the army?’Martyn smiled wearily.‘I get asked that every week.’‘Not by people as clever as me, Marty.’‘Maybe not . . . Come on, Angry, or we’ll have to set a time limit.’‘All right, then,’ said Angus. ‘Give me another card.’Martyn dealt him a card. Angus looked at the face value and thumped his cards down in disgust.‘Whooooar, that’s me out! Bust again!’Finn picked up the hand and looked at it.‘You need to think a bit more, mate. If you’d stuck at what you had you’d probably have been quids in.’‘He thinks way too much. It took him five minutes to go bust when others could have gone bust in five seconds,’ said Martyn.Angry got up.‘Well, that’s me out of matchsticks. It’s a stupid game, anyway.’Martyn raised his eyebrows but said nothing and at that moment Taregue Masud arrived with a cloth to wipe the tables.‘Excuse me, sir, I now ask you for permission to make this table very nice and clean for your game, sir.’ A demanding monster with his men, he had been instructed to treat the civilians with great respect.‘Don’t make it damp or the cards will get wet,’ Martyn told him.‘No, sir, they won’t get wet because I will use this towel, sir, to dry the table.’Angus was leaving. ‘I’m going to get my head down now because we’re off early tomorrow. So if Jamie Dermott’s recording that fucking hopping frog shit in our tent . . .’ He could be heard grumbling all the way across the cookhouse.‘That young man needs to get over himself,’ said Martyn.‘He’s not called Mr Angry for nothing.’‘He’s just like his father,’ said Masud. ‘Yes, oh yes, his father was just exactly the same. His name’s McCall, I believe?’Finn stared at Masud as the man dried the table with unnecessary zeal, his face frowning with concentration.‘You know his father?’Masud paused.‘I knew that boy when he walked in here the first day and I’ve spent these months, many long months, racking my brains to know how I know him. Finally one day I realized. He looks just like his father and his father worked for me in the Falklands. John McCall, I think his name was, yes I’m sure it was John McCall.’Finn leaned forward, his face all acute angles and his eyes narrow.‘His dad worked for you?’‘John McCall was one of my cooks. We had a tent in a field, gracious knows how many ration packs, not one ounce of fresh food and we had to open all the ration packs and cook for hundreds of men every day. It was a difficult time, an exceptionally difficult time, to tell you the truth, probably worse than Iraq. Because it was very, very cold and we are talking about very, very hungry men.’Finn said: ‘His dad was a cook?’Masud nodded extravagantly.‘Oh yes, oh yes. We were Army Catering Corps in those days. Then we were the Royal Logistic Corps and then soon after that I was a private company. Doing the same thing for the same boys but as a private company. Well, I ask you, how strange is the world?’But Finn did not answer this question. He had one of his own.‘So John McCall was a cook in the Army Catering Corps?’‘Oh yes, certainly. He was guaranteed to serve your sausages with a scowl, that was John McCall.’A huge grin spread across Finn’s face.‘So Angry’s dad was ACC. Not SAS. Did anyone ever go from being an army cook to fighting in the elite special forces?’Masud laughed. ‘I don’t believe that is very possible. To tell you the truth, I think John McCall was just a very grumpy cook, actually, and it seems to me his son is rather similar.’He wandered off to wipe down another table, chuckling to himself.‘SAS. ACC!’ Even Martyn had heard references to Angus’s dad in the cookhouse. ‘Well, I can see how you could get those two mixed up. Leave out the Cs. Add a few Ss. Yes, I can see how Angus might think his pa was in the SAS.’Finn started to laugh. He flung down his cards and his whole body shook with laughter.‘He was a fucking cook! I don’t believe it! What a Walt!’Martyn was laughing too, now.‘I mean,’ said Finn, ‘Mr Angry’s dad wasn’t just in the Regiment. He was a war hero who won back the Falklands single-handed! And you should have seen Angry with those SAS snipers! “Do you remember my father, do you recognize his name . . .?”’‘So is the father lying? Or the son?’‘Definitely, definitely the father. Angry believes every fucking word. You should see him when we’re out there fighting. Doing things that are so brave they’re insane. And then he goes all solemn and says: “It’s what my dad would have done.” For fuck’s sake! What his Dad would have done is turn the sausages over in the pan!’Martyn laughed again.‘I guess you’re not going to let him hear the end of this.’Finn’s face pulled itself back into something like its normal shape and he looked serious for a moment.‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Nah, I’m not going to tell him. Angry drives me insane with his dad talk. But he’s built his whole life on the back of his dad’s lies. I couldn’t take it all away from him.’

Across the cookhouse, Asma was eating alone because Jean was saying goodbye to Iain Kila. Her friend arrived breathlessly and grabbed the last meal.‘Won’t you see him in the morning?’ asked Asma.‘They’re leaving at 0400. So I kissed him goodbye. In a sangar.’Asma raised her eyebrows.‘Just a minute. Last time I asked you if you liked him you said yuck, yuck, yuck.’Jean blushed. ‘Well, I still think he’s a bit yuck. But they’re going away to this flimsy camp made out of barbed wire for a whole week. And right after we’ve shot the local warlord. So I thought I should kiss him in case he doesn’t come back.’Asma shrugged and said nothing.‘You’re not saying goodbye to Gordon, then?’‘Nope.’‘He came in here earlier. He was looking around for you, I’m sure.’Asma stabbed her food with her fork.‘He can look all he likes. I’m still fucking angry with him.’Jean caught her eye.‘Asma. You’re angry with the British Army for shooting your bonny blue-eyed boy and you’re taking it out on Gordon. And why on earth did you have to bring farmhouses and polo into it?’Asma put down her fork and sighed.‘I shouldn’t have said that. I really had a go at him just because he’s posh. So I expect he thinks I’m jealous.’‘Are you?’‘I wouldn’t want his big house and all his fields and horses. What would I do with them? I can’t even imagine going home and meeting his mum. For drinks in the drawing room. I just couldn’t do it, Jean.’‘You’re prejudiced,’ said Jean.‘I am not.’‘Has he invited you home to meet his mum?’‘Well . . . yes.’‘Asma, you’re a sad cow. He’s got over his prejudice. You just can’t get over yours.’But Asma shook her head.‘I don’t buy into their crap. I don’t buy into who they are or how they think. I know he was a bit wahabi and probably a Pashtun nationalist and you thought it was suspicious the way he rubbished the local shrine, but you can say what you like about Asad, he probably had more in common with me than Gordon does.’In the night, when she woke up and heard the first men up preparing for their departure, Asma felt a small twinge of guilt and regret. She turned over. She tried to go back to sleep.Then she remembered that Asad was dead and she felt a renewed surge of anger. Someone who had never met him and didn’t understand his cause had ordered his death and the SAS had appeared from nowhere and shot him and had now evaporated back to Hereford.Probably the suspicious officers, Gordon Weeks among them, would offer a different interpretation but she knew that, in the meetings with Asad, human relationships nurtured on the carpet over cups of sweet tea had triumphed briefly over weapons. And what had they done? Shot him.She had not been inside a mosque for many years and she looked on Islam with the cold distance of a divorcee. She was a member of the British Army. No one had coerced her into joining. But the British Army had killed Asad. For the second time on this tour she had the uncomfortable feeling that she had personally shot her Moslem brother.She did not open her eyes but lay in bed listening for the sound of the departing convoy.