Stand By, Stand By

ONE

That night the dream came again. As usual I was being swept forward, unable to control my speed. I felt as though I was on a roller-coaster at a fairground, accelerating bumpily through the cold, dark air. But why were no other passengers riding with me? Why was I alone in this freezing night?

The ride was very rough. OK, I thought, the track’s buckled, but I can handle it — and I clung tight to the side-rails to stop myself being flung out. Then something began to drag at my left arm, holding it back, as if that side of the carriage was being left behind. Let go, dickhead! I told myself, but my fingers wouldn’t unclamp from the rail. Pain ripped through me. I thought, I’m going down here. I’m going to get torn in half.

The cold was horrendous. The air pouring past me was so frozen it was searing my skin. When I opened my mouth to yell, it drove a fierce pain into the roots of my teeth, so that I had to clamp my lips shut. Then over the black horizon ahead came a gleam of light. I was hurtling towards that bright rim, the rim of the world. All too well I knew what I’d see beyond it. Up and on I went, faster than ever, my arm being torn in half at the elbow.

Then in a split second I was over the top and into the light, diving towards an operating theatre as big as an airport. A wall of heat rushed up to meet me, so that in an instant I was pouring sweat, like down in the sands of Abu Dhabi. Brilliant lamps blazed on to the table, and life-support equipment was ranged alongside: drips, oxygen cylinders, white dishes full of instruments. Attendants in green gowns and masks were waiting, ready — and in the centre stood a tall surgeon with a hypodermic syringe the length of an AK 47, the point of its gleaming needle levelled at my eye. I longed for a gun so I could drop him at a distance, but no: I was going in close. ‘BASTARDS!’ I roared as I hurtled down towards him. ‘BASTARDS! BASTARDS!’

I woke up. Kath stood in the doorway, the light from the landing shining on her straight fair hair. In the background Tim was crying.

‘Geordie,’ she said quietly. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ I tried to turn over, but I found I’d got the bedclothes wound around me so I was trussed like an oven-ready chicken.

Kath came across and put her hand on my forehead. ‘You’re soaking. Better change the sheets. I’ll get you a clean pair.’

‘I’ll be OK, thanks. What time is it?’

‘Just after three.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed, silhouetted against the light. With one hand she drew her dressing-gown tight around her neck, and with the other she smoothed out the top sheet. ‘What time did you get to bed?’

‘Not sure. Maybe half one.’

‘How much did you drink?’

‘Not a lot. Two or three more Scotches.’

She knew perfectly well that I’d been hitting the booze far worse than I admitted, and going to ridiculous lengths to cover up. She knew that alcohol was becoming a serious problem for me, and several times she’d pleaded with me to seek professional advice.

Now she asked, ‘What happened? Was it the dream again?’

‘Yeah. Was I making a noise?’

‘I thought someone was killing you. You were yelling at the top of your voice. It woke Tim.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right. I meant to ask — did you hear any news about when Tony’s coming over to do selection?’

‘He’ll be here in June, I think. Why?’

‘Just wondered.’

I knew what she was thinking: that Tony had been my salvation in Iraq, and might again act as a stabilizing influence when he arrived in England. He might help me get the whole Gulf experience squared away. Possibly she was right — but how could anyone know?

‘Arm hurting?’ she asked.

‘No, it’s comfortable.’

‘Headache?’

‘A bit.’

‘Take some Paracetamol, then.’

‘OK.’

She punched a couple of tablets out of a pack on the bedside table and handed them to me, together with a glass of water. I propped myself on one elbow to get them down.

‘Thanks. I’ll be fine now.’

‘Sleep well, then.’

She ran a hand over my hair, got up, went back to the door and closed it softly. Soon the kid stopped crying, the landing light went out, and I heard the door of our bedroom click shut.

Our bedroom. I should have been sleeping there, in our big double bed. The fact that I was on my own summed everything up. The recurring nightmare was my excuse for sleeping alone; I’d said I’d move out to the spare room because I didn’t want to keep waking Kath with my bad dreams. But beneath the surface, something far deeper had gone wrong.

My sheets were clammy. Like most guys in the Regiment I sleep naked — so I got up, rubbed myself down with a towel, opened the window wider and let the cool night air flow in round my body, drying it off. I listened as the wind rustled through the oak tree at the back of the house. An owl hooted, close and loud. Lucky bird — that it should have so little to worry about. A mouse or two a night was all it needed to be happy, and it had no idea of war, no idea of captivity, no idea of death.

After a while I went back to bed, and lay staring upwards with the sheets pulled under my chin. I knew full well that my troubles stemmed from what had happened in the desert and in that shit-heap of a hospital in Iraq.

I thought of Tony; good, tough guy that he was. Tony, who had shared my captivity, and done so much to get me through it, with his indomitable spirit and unfailing sense of humour. His proper name was Antonio Lopez, but ever since he could remember he had been known by the easy abbreviation. As a SEAL (a member of the American Sea, Air and Land special forces unit), he had been through far worse ordeals than I had, especially when that operation had gone tits-up in Panama. He had come out of the Gulf very much in one piece, and now he was about to take the selection course, in the hope of joining the Regiment for a two-year tour. Was I so much inferior to him, that I couldn’t stand the strain?

I kept thinking back to what it had been like before, between me and Kath. If anyone had asked, I could have answered truthfully in one word: ‘Brilliant!’ We’d met four years earlier, and we’d been delighted to discover that our twenty-fifth birthdays were both coming up within a week of each other. Now, lying in the dark, I remembered the day we found the house. We’d seen a photo in an estate agent’s window, and arranged to borrow the key. The price was right on the limit of what we could afford, but thanks to the generosity of my in-laws we had enough cash for the deposit. The agent warned us that the place was way off the beaten track. ‘It’s another world out there,’ he said. ‘Not to worry,’ I told him, ‘that’s what we’re after.’

He handed us the keys and we drove out, only fifteen minutes from town. When we saw the house, we looked at each other and grinned. It was old, 150 years at least, and it stood in a perfect position at the end of a lane, in a hollow surrounded by fields. A spinney of oaks ran away up a little valley at the back, with a trickle of water coming down between the trees. Even in winter, with the branches bare, it looked a dream. What would it be like in high summer?

Keeper’s Cottage was its name, and that’s what it had been: the home of a gamekeeper. Before long we came to call it KC. Over the years the brickwork had mellowed to a soft red — typical Herefordshire — and the previous owners had worked hard to restore and improve the house, so that we were able to move straight in. Outside, the garden had gone to seed, but Kath, who had green fingers, got stuck into that as soon as spring came. Under her direction I did the heavy digging, but it was she who planned and planted everything. She was thrilled to find that several of the trees in the spinney were rowans, or mountain ash — her favourites — which put on a tremendous show of brightred berries in the autumn. The place and its associations reminded me of my childhood home in the north, where as a boy I was forever ferreting rabbits and walking the hedgerows.

In KC we were as happy as anybody could have been. It was the first time that either of us had lived in a house without a number — in our eyes a big plus, as it made us feel we had the edge over our friends living in towns. The house and rooms were exactly the right size for us, neither too big nor too small. The place was so private that in summer we could sunbathe stark naked on the lawn. Kath got a vegetable patch going, and grew some cracking beans, peas, potatoes and lettuces, and herbs galore. We ate so many fresh salads that our ears started turning green. In winter we were snug as squirrels, because I got permission from the neighbouring farmer to collect firewood from the spinney, and in the living room we kept a Norwegian log-burner on the go day and night. The stove had a back-boiler for boosting the hot water; if I opened up the draught, I could get the tank boiling.

The footpaths and woodland tracks were ideal for running, and I could do my phys — physical training — at home just as well as round the camp. Soon I had two circuits worked out — one of six miles, one of eight. Kath talked of getting a horse… if we could persuade the farmer to rent us a paddock, and after the baby had arrived.

Tim was born, on time, in the County Hospital in Hereford. I watched him come into the world, holding Kath’s hand and trying to share her pain. He weighed 8 lbs 2 oz, and once he was cleaned up we could see he was going to have hair even fairer and eyes even bluer than his mother’s. Kath’s parents were so chuffed with their first grandchild that they came straight over from Belfast to see him; they stayed in the cottage, and Meg helped with the baby for a few days, until Kath got her strength back. Den, a retired doctor, didn’t do much except offer medical tips — and I don’t think he did much at home either, except watch television.

So we carried on, happy with each other. In the summer of 1990 I went to Africa with the squadron, on team training. We were away two months, but I got back to find everything just the same, and Kath and I carried on where we’d left off. It was only when Saddam invaded Kuwait, and D Squadron was deployed to the Gulf, that things began to go belly-up.

Leaving was tough. Before we flew out from Brize Norton at the start of January ‘91, Kath and I had some emotional moments trying to plan a future for her and Tim, in case I didn’t come back. The house would be hers, of course, and she would be free to sell it if she wanted. But I told her it would be my wish that she should marry again, and that the kid should be educated as well as she could afford, at some fee-paying school if no good state school was available. Such thoughts brought with them many tears, but we did our best to look the future in the face.

Next day we were gone. Before the war started I was able to phone Kath from time to time, from the R & R centres established in the desert, and everything was OK. The satellite connections were perfect, and it was like talking to her in the room next door. But once we deployed across the border into Iraq at the end of January there was no chance of further communication, and it wasn’t until the ninth of April, when members of D Squadron were reunited in Cyprus on our way home, that I spoke to her again. And as it turned out, during those ten weeks — in the desert, in hospital, in prison — I’d been through quite a bit.

On the line to Akrotiri, Kath sounded very much herself — worried about me, lively, loving, full of news about Tim. It was I who had changed.

Like everyone else I looked forward to getting home; for weeks I’d yearned to be back in England. Yet when I reached Hereford, there was something wrong. I didn’t go straight home. I didn’t want to — couldn’t face it. To my shame, I went out on the piss with a couple of the single lads who lived on the block. All they wanted was to have a few beers and go downtown to see if they could pick up a girl for the night. For me, things weren’t so simple.

By the time I reached the cottage I wasn’t making much sense. Kath looked terrific — I could see that in an objective sort of way — but she also looked shocked that I had arrived back in such a state. Tim had grown inches and was starting to talk. She’d taught him to say ‘Dad’, and he brought the word out on cue. I should have been bowled over. Instead I felt nothing. It was extraordinary, but I didn’t even feel randy. By then the other guys would have been randy as hell; during the flight they hadn’t been able to stop talking about how they were going to screw their bollocks off the moment the Herc touched the tarmac. I should have been the same, but I didn’t seem to fancy Kath any more. I couldn’t make love to her; I could hardly kiss her on the cheek, or even look her in the eye. As for telling her what had happened to me — I just explained a bit about my arm, and skirted round the rest.

She was hurt, of course. Although she played it down, she couldn’t conceal her worry and unhappiness. I think she hoped that time would heal the trouble between us, whatever it was, and after a while things would return to normal.

All along I knew that the fault lay with me, not her, and I tried to say so. But then began the nightmares and the headaches started. I started on the booze — something I’d never much bothered with before — and instead of mending, our relationship went further downhill, until we were making space round each other as we moved about the house, and hardly speaking.

When I went to the Med Centre in camp for checks on my arm I should have told the doc what was happening. But naturally I didn’t want to reveal what seemed to be weaknesses. Like everyone in the Regiment, I wanted to get sent on operations: that was the whole point of life. To admit one had psychological problems was the surest way of missing some good trip, or even of blighting one’s career completely and being put on the back burner. When the head-shed offered us the services of a shrink, nobody wanted to go near him.

The Paracetamol was starting to take effect. Slowly my head eased and some of the anxieties fell away. I heard the clock in the living room strike four, and that was all.

Next day was bright and brilliant, a glorious May morning. When I came into the kitchen, sunlight was already streaming across the table, and Tim’s face, plastered with porridge, was such a sight I couldn’t help smiling. But I felt terrible, hung over from the mixture of drinks that I’d poured down myself the night before.

As always, Kath had made proper coffee, and, as I got myself a cup, I announced, ‘I’ve come to a decision. I’m going to see the doc.’

‘Great!’ Kath’s face lit up. ‘See what he says. It can’t do any harm.’

‘That’s right. If I don’t like it, I don’t need to take any notice.’

I was soon away, driving into town. She’d gone back to her job at the bank in the mornings, and was putting Tim into a tots’ playschool. At lunchtime a friend gave them both a lift home, so all I had to do was drop them off on my way to the camp.

At Stirling Lines — named after David Stirling, who founded the SAS as a long-range desert group in Africa during World War Two — the usual two MoD Plods in uniform were on the gate. As I drove towards them they recognized me, waved and raised the barrier. In the car-park I found myself next to a mate from D Squadron, Pat Martin, who was just locking his Scorpio.

‘Hi, Pat,’ I said. ‘Listen, will you tell Tom that I’m going to the Med Centre? I’ll be up the Squadron later.’

‘No bother. Something the matter?’

‘Just checking my arm.’

It was coming up to 8.30. The rest of the guys would already be assembling in the Squadron Interest Room for Prayers — properly, roll-call and morning briefing. I knew that Tom Dawson, the sergeant major, would accept my message, and that I could square him later. One of the Old and Bold, he’d done more than fifteen years in the Regiment, and had seen it all — the tail-end of the Dhofar campaign, the Falklands, the Gulf. In the Falklands he’d been one of the few who survived the Sea King crash. Seventeen members of D and G Squadrons and half a dozen others were killed when the chopper went down in the sea on a cross-decking sortie. He’d told me he too suffered nightmares. He’d been unable to sleep in a dark room with the door shut; if ever he woke to find the door closed he’d leap up in a frenzy. His own experiences had made him sympathetic, and I knew he’d support me.

I headed straight for the Med Centre, hoping that Tracy Jordan would be on duty. There were two girls who took turns at the front desk, week on, week off. Sheila was small and dumpy, about as lively as a suet pudding, but Tracy was something else. Nearly six feet in her socks, with wild coppery curls tied in a top-knot that made her look even taller, she was all arms and legs, and at twenty-three or — four, still seemed like an overgrown filly. She was quite a well-known figure about camp because she was athletic, and was often to be seen running with a girl friend in the lunch hour. Rumour had it that she was a demon at squash; apart from being fit, she could stand in the centre of the court and scoop the ball out of the corners without having to move very far.

I knew practically nothing else about her. But I’d often noticed that her eyes carried a hint of suppressed merriment; this, combined with a tendency to make mildly piss-taking remarks, made a lot of the guys fancy her. But she had rumbled the bonk-and-be-off tactics of the Regiment long ago, and stuck to a boyfriend from outside. All the same, reporting sick was less of a drag if Tracy was on duty.

My luck was in. There she sat at her desk, in a snowy sweatshirt and pale blue jeans. Today the ribbon holding her top-knot was emerald green. Did her eyebrows go up as she saw me come in?

‘Sergeant Geordie Sharp!’ she announced in that faintly mocking voice. ‘What can I do for you today?’

‘Watch yourself,’ I told her.

‘What do you mean?’ She wriggled her slim little behind around on her chair in mock indignation.

‘Just that,’ I said. ‘I need to see Doc Anderson.’

‘Major Anderson’s off. It’s Captain Lester.’

‘OK then.’

‘There’s only one ahead of you. Take a seat. Shouldn’t be long.’

She rummaged in a filing cupboard for my documents, and handed me the brown manila packet. It didn’t worry me that Anderson was away — I’d never got much change out of him. Maybe this new guy would be better.

I waited a couple of minutes, then the light above the door changed from red to green and I went in to find a young, fit-looking man with prematurely grey hair cut very short. He took a quick look at the outside of my packet and said, ‘Hello, George.’

‘It’s Geordie,’ I told him. ‘My Christian name’s George, but I never use it. Everyone calls me Geordie. My accent and all.’

‘OK.’ He gave a twitch of a grin, opened the packet and began to read the papers. ‘Injury to your left arm,’ he said. ‘Compound fractures of the humerus. Pinned and plated in an Iraqi hospital.’

He pulled out an X-ray, fitted it into the front of a light-box on the wall, and studied it for a moment.

‘Is that what’s giving you trouble?’

‘No, no. My arm’s fine.’

‘Can I have a look?’

‘Sure.’ I pulled up the sleeve of my sweater and laid my arm on the desk. He felt it carefully along the line of the scar and looked back at the X-ray.

‘Tender?’

‘Not too bad.’

‘Can you use it all right?’

‘No bother.’

‘Turn your hand back and forth… open and close your fingers… Weights?’

‘I’ve started again with light ones. Just building up.’

‘I see. How did you do it?’

‘Came off my motor bike.’

‘Ah!’ He took my wrist and sat silent for a moment, counting my pulse rate. I liked his direct, no-nonsense manner. Then he asked, ‘What’s the matter, then?’

‘Headaches,’ I said. ‘They’re getting really bad. And I’m having nightmares that scare the shit out of me.’

‘Did you hit your head in the crash?’

‘No — not that I know of. My head never gave any trouble at the time. This only started recently.’

‘Have you been taking anything?’

‘Only the odd aspirin and Paracetamol.’

‘You’re sure you haven’t been concocting things out of your med pack? Some of you fellows are buggers for self-help, I know.’

‘No, no. I don’t touch any of that.’

‘What about booze?’

‘Well…’

‘Are you drinking a lot?’

‘A bit.’

‘How much?’

‘Too much.’

‘OK.’

He put me on the couch, brought out his stethoscope and listened to my heart. Then he took my blood pressure with the old arm clamp, looked into my ears and shone lights in my eyes. As he was working he said casually, ‘How did you come to fall off the bike?’

‘It was at night. We were 150 kilometres inside Iraq, behind enemy lines, hitting the comms towers and blowing up fibre-optic lines. And we were on the lookout for mobile Scud launchers. That night the squadron was tasked to move up and find a new lying-up position in which to hide the following day. I was recceing forward on a motorbike. The ground was very rough — a lot of rocks and loose gravel, with sudden deep ditches. We started to see lights in the distance ahead — vehicles moving — and we accelerated to cut them off. I dropped into a bloody great hole — never saw it — and the bike came down on top of me. Smashed my arm against a rock.’

‘Then what?’

‘If you’re interested?’

‘Sure.’

‘The guys picked me up and splinted the arm as best they could. Not a pretty sight. One end of the bone was sticking out through the muscle. They put me in the back of a Land Rover and called for a medevac. The head-shed in Saudi was co-ordinating rescue efforts with the Americans. They sent a message to say that a joint operation would be diverted to pick me up. A chopper would come in the following night, to lift me out along with two American casualties.’

I paused and looked sideways at the doctor. He still seemed to be interested, so I went on. ‘That worked fine. We spent the day lying up in a wadi, and soon after dark the heli picked us up on time, with some SEAL guys riding security. But we’d been flying for no more than ten minutes when we were targeted by a SAM. One moment we were cruising steadily, then suddenly everything went crazy. Sirens blasted off, the chopper began to dive and twist in violent evasive manoeuvres, the pilot fired off his chaff in the hope of decoying the missile — but no luck. Suddenly there was this almighty bang. It felt as if the chopper had been hit sideways like a tennis ball. The next thing I knew there was another terrific impact, and we were on the ground. Tony, one of the SEALs, was dragging me out of the wreckage. When we made a check, we found we were the only two alive. The co-pilot had been decapitated. The pilot had lost both arms. What we couldn’t understand was how the chopper hadn’t caught fire. Soon we saw lights coming at us. Before we could get ourselves together we’d been surrounded by fifty or sixty Iraqis. We could have dropped one or two, but not dozens. So that was us captured.’

I stopped. I was still lying on my back on the couch, talking up to the ceiling. I seemed to be out of breath. I realized that I’d been speaking faster and faster. I turned my head to the right and looked at the doc again. He was watching me carefully.

‘Carry on,’ he said.

I looked back at the ceiling.

‘I don’t remember too much about the next bit. I already had a fever — must have got dirt into my arm, the wound was infected. Also I’d banged one of my morphine syrettes into my leg, and got some more from other guys, so I was quite dopey. They threw us into the back of a truck and drove for the rest of that night. We got to some military camp. They tried to interrogate me — I got slapped around the head a bit — but they could see I wasn’t making much sense, and I didn’t give them anything but my name and number. I stuck to my prearranged cover-story — that I was a medic, and I’d come out as part of a joint Anglo-US team to recover downed air-crew.

‘Then we were rolling again, in some other wagon. That part’s even hazier. I think I was delirious by that stage. The next thing I remember is lying on an operating table, with guys in green gowns and masks standing round. Jesus! I thought. What are they going to do to me? I tried to get up, but couldn’t. I seemed to be strapped to the table. I was fucking terrified.

‘Then this tall guy appeared beside me. He had no mask on, so I could see he had a thick, black moustache, just like Saddam. Under it he was smiling — a nasty, thin kind of smile. When he started to talk I was amazed, because he spoke fluent English.

‘ “I’m going to operate on your injured arm,” he said. “But don’t worry. I know what I am doing. I was trained in England at one of your best hospitals — the John Radcliffe, in Oxford.”

‘For a moment I was reassured. I knew the Radcliffe, and I reckoned the Iraqi must have been there; he couldn’t have invented that name out of the blue. I think I said, “Great!”.

‘ “Your English medical system is very good,” he went on. “What is not so good is that you tell us lies about yourself. It is important for us to know which unit you belong to, Sergeant Sharp. Come now — we need to know.”

‘I repeated my spiel about being a medic belonging to 22 Para Field Ambulance, the unit I’d invented. I could see he didn’t believe me, and after a few other questions he asked sarcastically, “Where is it based, this famous unit?”

‘ “Wroughton,” I replied, referring to the tri-service hospital in Wiltshire.

‘He’d heard of Wroughton, because he’d been there while at Oxford. It made him pause, but not for long. All this time the lights were blazing down into my face. I was shuddering and sweating with the fever. Then with a sudden movement the Iraqi picked something up from a trolley beside him and held it over me.

‘ “You see this?” he said, and the half-smile had died from under his black moustache. “This is a hypodermic syringe, full of anaesthetic. If I plunge the needle into your arm, it will put you out. But if I touch your eyeball with it, you will never see again.”

‘ “Bastard!” I told him.

‘ “So, what is your real unit, please?”

‘ “Bastard!” I shouted again.

‘ “Sergeant Sharp, this needle is very sharp. You like my little joke? You should laugh, to show you appreciate Iraqi humour. We are a very humorous people. Now — if the needle goes into your eye, you will not feel much. But afterwards, I promise you, you will not see anything at all. Which is your master eye?”

‘I knew what was coming next, so I held my mouth shut.

‘ “You don’t know? Or you won’t say? It doesn’t matter. We’ll assume your right eye is master, and start with that. Perhaps when that is gone, you will see sense with your left.”

‘He held the syringe so close in front of my face that I couldn’t focus on it any more. I struggled and fought to free my good arm and my legs. I think I shat myself. I yelled at the top of my voice, “BASTARDS! The whole fucking lot of you are BASTARDS!’ ”

A noise somewhere close to me brought me back to Hereford. A loud knock had sounded on the door, which now burst open. Tracy’s head appeared in the gap. The saucy look had gone from her face, and she was looking quite scared. ‘You lot all right in here?’ she asked. ‘I thought the doc was getting attacked.’

‘It’s OK.’ Doc Lester smiled. ‘The devils are coming out of him.’

Tracy withdrew, and I apologized for making such a noise. Once again I was soaked in sweat.

‘Go on,’ the doctor said again.

‘He did it three or four times. I don’t know what happened in the end — whether I passed out, or whether he stuck the needle in my arm. I came round to find the operation done, and my arm in plaster.’

‘Whoever he was, he did a good job,’ said the doc. ‘Plated it, too. The X-rays show a perfect union.’

‘If ever I see him again I’ll make the shit fly out of him.’

Doc Lester took my wrist again and counted. ‘Your pulse-rate’s gone from 64 to 180,’ he remarked. He looked once more at the X-ray. ‘And then you were in gaol?’

‘Yes. Two weeks or so in the hospital, then five weeks in one prison or another, eating crap and feeling like death.’

‘But no torture?’

‘It depends what you mean by torture. There was no systematic interrogation, but every now and then the guards would give us a kicking or a beating. And they’d hit us around with whips. There was one who’d come and tap on my plaster cast with a wooden stick, harder and harder, until I yelled. The worst thing was that we hadn’t a clue about what was happening — in the war or anywhere else. The Iraqis kept giving us a load of shit about how the Coalition was losing, but we never heard any proper news.’

‘Who’s “we”?’

‘Myself and Tony Lopez, the American SEAL on the medevac chopper that got shot down. His cover story was similar to mine, and when he stuck to it, the Iraqis eventually put us together. He’s a great guy, Tony. Bags of guts. As it happens, he’s coming here on selection any time now.’

The doctor thought for a minute, then asked, ‘So now you’re getting headaches? When did they start?’

‘A couple of weeks ago. Also, I started getting this recurrent nightmare. It’s always more or less the same — a version of that scene in the hospital.’

‘I’m not surprised.’ The doc got up and walked to the window, looking out. ‘I think you’re suffering from delayed shock. It’s stress brought on by what you went through. People in our profession are starting to talk about something called post-traumatic stress. It’s to do with the after-effects of wounds and captivity — though nobody knows much about it yet. Have you seen a shrink?’

‘No. They offered us one, but none of the guys fancied it.’

‘How about taking your troubles home? Have you talked to your mum, for instance?’

‘I don’t have one.’

‘Or your dad?’

‘No. I’m an orphan.’

‘Oh.’ He picked up a sheet of paper from the desk and looked at it again. ‘I see. I’m sorry.’

‘No sweat.’

‘What about your wife?’

‘That’s the trouble.’ I sat up. ‘This is it, Doc. I can’t talk to her.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know. It’s not her fault, it’s mine. She hasn’t changed, but I have. Could they have given me something in the prison?’

‘Like what?’

‘Something that would put me off her… that would kill my sex drive? Bromide or something?’

The doctor laughed, but not unkindly. ‘If they did they’ve got drugs the West has never heard of

‘So what’s happened, then? I don’t even fancy her any more. She gets on my nerves. Everything she says or does seems to jar. I used to love her, but I don’t now.’

‘As I said, it’s all down to delayed shock. The stress is catching up on you.’

‘So what can I do about it? The worst of it is, she’s busting herself to look after me, but that only seems to make things worse. I don’t want her around the place.’

‘You need a break. Do you have any children?’

‘One. Tim — he’s coming up for three.’

‘Does your wife have a family?’

‘Yes. They’re across the water, near Belfast.’

‘Could she go and stay with them for a while?’

‘Well, I suppose so.’ I thought about it for a moment, and asked, ‘You mean, we have a trial separation?’

‘That would make it into a bit of a drama. I wouldn’t call it that. Just call it a break. You could try it for two or three weeks. It would give you a chance to sort yourself out. Meanwhile, I’ll give you something to take. Two a day.’ He scribbled out a prescription and handed me the chit. ‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘You’ll be OK in a while. Try and ease off the booze, as well. That’ll help.’

‘Thanks, Doc. Thanks for listening.’

‘It was a pleasure,’ he said. ‘I enjoyed hearing your story.’

I stood up and headed for the door.

‘That’ll be £57 .50,’ Tracy said as I came out.

‘I’ll send a cheque.’

‘Seriously, are you OK?’ She uncrossed her long legs and stood up. She was almost as tall as me.

‘More or less. I’ve been getting these headaches.’

She came and stood close to me, looking into my face. ‘It’s what happened over there, isn’t it?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Well — I’m sorry. I hope you’re better soon. You probably need time to get over it.’

‘That’s what the doc said.’

‘Good luck, then.’

‘Thanks, Tracy. Your medicine’s as good as anybody’s.’ I was going to give her a peck on the cheek, but at that instant the telephone rang.

After so much emotion, my Spanish course seemed deadlier than ever. There were eight of us studying, and the bait was the possibility that a team job might come up in Colombia, where the forces of law and order were fighting the drug barons in the war against cocaine. The thought of a trip to South America was certainly an incentive, but when it came down to the nitty-gritty — Jesus Christ! (Or, as they would say down there, ¡JesuCristo!) There I sat, struggling to concentrate on the strange words and pronunciation, while all the time my mind was on Kath and what I was going to tell her. What would my mates in the Squadron say if she went home? Would they write me off as a wanker? I supposed we could invent some problem — it was true that her mother was soon going into hospital for a hip replacement, and would need looking after for a while afterwards…

Our instructor was a flabby-looking major from the Education Corps, with thin, fair hair and a poncified accent. He could speak Spanish all right, but it was quiero hablar this and más desfacio, por favor that, until my headache was worse than ever, in spite of Doc Lester’s magic pills. I stuck out the day, but only because the thought of facing Kath was worse.

When I got home that evening, I didn’t say much at first. I repeated what the doc had told me about delayed reaction and the after-effects of stress, but I waited till Kath had tucked Tim up in bed before I nerved myself to put the knife in.

I was just going to get another Scotch, but stopped myself. She was standing at one of the units in the kitchen, chopping vegetables on a wooden board. I sat down at the table behind her and said, ‘Kath, I’ve had an idea.’

‘Oh yes?’

I told her what the doc had suggested. For a while she continued chopping. Then the movement of her hand ceased, but she didn’t turn round. I thought she was crying. I knew I should go over and comfort her, take her by the shoulders, but the great block that had stifled my emotions wouldn’t allow it. I sat there in agony until suddenly she turned on me, eyes blazing.

‘So, it’s a separation you want,’ she said bitterly.

‘No, no. Just a break.’

‘A trial separation is what they call it.’

‘Well — whatever.’

‘There’s only one thing I want to know.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Is there someone else?’

I was so taken aback I hesitated before answering and, naturally, that made things worse. ‘No, no!’ I insisted. ‘There’s nobody.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course. For God’s sake!’

I can’t deny that my mind flew straight to Tracy — but nevertheless what I’d said was true.

Kath waited a moment, chopping away again at her vegetables, before she asked, ‘How do I know Mum will have us? You realize she’s going into the Musgrave any moment? She can’t put it off — she’s been waiting for years.’

‘Of course. I know. I thought maybe it would be a good idea if you were there to give her a hand when she comes out.’

‘Big deal! How long am I supposed to go for?’

‘It depends. Maybe a month.’

‘What’s everyone going to say?’

‘We’ll put it round that your mum needs help after her operation.’

‘I can see you’ve thought it all out.’

‘Kath — it’s my fault, I know. I’m not blaming you. It’s all down to me.’

She gave me a strange look. I think she was more scared than angry.

‘I’ll have to hand in my notice at the bank.’

‘I know. But that’s not the end of the world. I’ll be able to send money.’

‘Who’ll look after you if I go?’

‘I’ll manage. I can get most meals in camp.’

When she looked round again, her eyes were full of tears, and she said, half in pity, half in contempt, ‘You poor old thing!’

The bank took her resignation in good part, and we arranged for her to go the following Saturday. Her mother positively welcomed the plan, although she didn’t know what was behind it, of course. The movements clerk in camp booked air tickets — two out of my allocation of three — so that there was no cost to us. Kath didn’t take much luggage — one suitcase for herself and a holdall for Tim. As for Tim, if he’d cried as they were leaving, I think I’d have cracked up; thank God he didn’t. We’d told him he was going for a holiday with his Gran, and that chuffed him no end. He began packing his favourite teddies and telling everyone how the aeroplane would lift them up over the water and come down in Gran’s house.

We left KC at 6.30 on another lovely morning. Both of us were holding emotion at bay by keeping up a strictly practical front. As Kath got into the car she said, ‘Don’t forget to single the carrots when they’re big enough, in about a week. Leave them spaced at one every couple of inches, and push the earth well down afterwards. Otherwise carrot fly will get in.’

As we headed for Birmingham, our side of the motorway was almost empty; at the weekend, most people were going south. We didn’t talk much, and when I set the two of them down at the departure door of the terminal building, it was just a quick kiss on the cheek and, ‘We’ll speak soon, then.’ As I drove away I turned my head and saw little Tim waving.