Dougy
09-16-2011, 03:22 PM
There's some prose from Afghanistan. I plan to have several characters in this work but the POV is from you and you are passed on from character to character. I want a question of morality, a question of good and evil and the people out there dealing with their own situations. This is a work in progress. I just want to hear your thoughts and anything that might go wrong here.
Jane Lewthwaite....Medic. Realist and stubborn cow.
“Someone is stealing the drugs from my bag and I don’t know how to tell the Captain it’s the Sergeant...”
It’s Sunday morning in the Big Brother house and we should have about four guys from the guns. That’s what I usually get. Stomach ailments and I had a guy yesterday with Schermulie burns to his face. His muckah was gonna set one off, they heard movement outside the FOB and the silly bastard fired it into the sangar. The Poor bastard got it in his face. I think Captain Hutchinson wants to keep it quiet. Like the claymore incident and the grenade. Too many people ****ing around with stuff and I ain’t got enough stuff in my med box to sort them out with.
A yank patrol came by when we were out in the desert and they said they’d bring some more supplies for us if they ever swung by. I remember them driving off in their Humvee with two smiling Afghan soldiers, high as kites in the back, waving at me.
“Henry, isn’t it? How you doin’? What can I do for yer?” This is my usually response to anyone that visits me.
“I’m getting stomach cramps –“
“Stop there. Don’t come any closer,” I ain’t catching D&V off this ****er, “Wait,” I order and put a facemask and a pair of gloves on. It’s not D&V I find and probably a stomach bug, the usual order of things around here. You never get to hear of the D&V until it got so many of you. The marine over the other side of the FOB lost an entire platoon to the debilitating condition.
These ****ers are just the worst. They’re like babies and half of them don’t know what hygiene is. I wonder what sort of parents they’ve got. I dread.
I pull out my bag and begin to work on a guy’s gammy foot. Trench foot he reckons. In the height of summer in Afghanistan! Bloody moron. I’m still raking through my supplies, but something isn’t right. The creams are there, the bags of seyline... where’s my diazipan? I ****ing need me diazipan. They’re not there.
I look at the latest patient and grin. He gets thrown a tube of cream and told to apply some, liberally every 24 hours. That should keep the grotty ****er happy. Magic balms always works.
That can’t be right. Someone stealing drugs? I’m meant to do an inventory check every 48 hours on the bag. Half of the ****e in here would sort a junky out for a couple of days. I check again and I can feel beads of sweat on my brow. ****.
“J. J.” Someone is calling me and I’m in this bag like a ****ing ferret.
“What!?” It’s Fred. The other medic. He holds out a bag.
“I found this near the accommodation.” The bag is ripped and I can feel the bottom of my world flood out of me.
“I only found out this morning. We’ve got a junky on our hands somewhere.”
“Probably an afghani. They’re on the dope constantly.”
“Precisely. Which is why I’m not looking to them. If they’ve already got a substitute why would they go through my bags.”
We’ve got first aid training this afternoon and I’m not sure I can do it in this heat. You literally walk outside and your shoulders burn. I have to keep my body armour on to protect my shoulders. I’m sweating, but that doesn’t stop me pouring the coffee down my neck. I have a 20 minute snooze to myself and I can hear the chatter of soldiers in the gun pits. The gentle drone of a plane overhead helps me off.
When I’m awoken. It’s with screams and a heavy thud. Jesus. My ****ing head feels likes it’s been stuffed with jelly – I’m all over the ****ing place. I can hear people running around outside. Is that me being dizzy or am I being... ****! I’m in my body armour and grabbing my med bag. It took seconds for the message to get to me, a bit like the ****ing mail here. I hump my gear outside and the guns are blasting the **** out of somebody, the lads are screaming and throwing shells to breaches.
“Medic!” There it is. I perk up at that sound and I’m galloping to that sound. A gunner is waving me away, when I realise I’m running straight into the barrel of an artillery gun. The barrel is literally horizontal – bloody hell! They’re close to the FOB then. A soldier points me to a group of guys huddled over one. It looks bad. I go through checklist – it’s an automated task that is rebooted every time I get a major casualty. Seyline, Fluids, drip line, feeder....
Jesus Syron... Marine . Sceptic and Jesus.
"That hurt. I’ve got blokes on top of me and I think I’ve struck one. I’ve got another by the throat."
One minute I’m on the GPMG giving it 1000 round bursts to the bad boys in front, then I’m on my back. A crack, I think I remember. A loud crack that shook my head. I remember being wrestled to the ground by bouncers in a Southampton nightclub and I managed sort out two of them and a third ran off. I’m in Southampton again, the world is filled with the smash, bang and wallop of rounds and explosions.
“Jesus! Jay! For **** sake stay still!” Someone shouts. I’ve got blokes on top of me and I think I’ve struck one. I’ve got another by the throat.
“Knock the ****er out!” I hear. Then I’ve thrown one off.
****. My face. What’s happened to my ****ing face!? I can feel it burning up. Then I feel the pin prick of something going into my arm. I’m off. ****. I’m off. See you later......s
The next thing I see is Marky Mark grinning at me. He’s always ****ing grinning the lunatic. My face ****ing hurts. Jesus. Yes. That me.
“You’re out of here, Jesus,” I can hear his voice. It’s a dull background noise and I raise a hand to my face.
“Nah. Leave it, mate. You know what happened, right?” He asks. “You don’t, do you? ****in’ hell. You were ****ing out of it back there, mate. You got Hicks in the nose and you were strangling me.” He chuckles.
There’s life in my legs, I can feel them. I realise the surroundings. I’m in my own tent.
He sees me looking around. “Nah not Bastion yet, mate. Give it another hour. Choppers been on and off for the past three hours. We smashed those ****ers out there proper. Three one thousand pounders on top of them.”
I try to speak. What the **** happened to my mouth? Oh ****. He can see the look in my face. “Your face. You probably can’t speak. You were on the receiving end of an RPG round. You’ve got some metal in your face.”
A ****ing robot.
He leaves me to deal with the concept of metal in face and I’m stuck for ideas. What the **** do I do now? How the **** will get through airport terminals? Try explaining that to the twat with the metal detector. I can hardly blamed it on fillings.
The doc walks in and she looks worse than me. She throws away a cigarette and pulls a blood pressure thing from her shoulder.
“I could have done with that,” I say but she shushes me and straps on the bandage guage to my arm. She pumps it up and looks blankly at me.
“You’ve got lacerations to your face. Consider your modelling career over.” She gets up and walks out.
“How bad is it?” I ask and this stops her before she departs into the stinging light.
“It’s not that bad. At least your alive.” She answers me before leaving.
Doctor – Captain Penelope Hudson
I wrestle my thoughts to the ground and ask them to subside. My feelings have been dampened, quelled by this place and the people around me. I can hardly remember what she looks like. Susanna, my baby girl. I pull out the photograph and rub away the dust. I make sure I’m alone before I smile. It’s the only chance I get. She is a world away and I’m pleased Rick and his parents are looking after her for me. Maybe Rick and I will get back together. I often sleep and I can see them at the canal near Bridgewater. We’re sitting in the shade of a favourite oak tree. I’m listening to the rush of the wind between the boughs and dream of the sea. Rick walks up the bank with her, the sun is highlighting their hair and it shines right into her face.
I swivel myself to the bed edge and rest my head in my hands. I wonder what delights the day has for us in Helmand, Upper Sangin valley. The ****ing sharp end. Ha.
I hear the distant rattle of gunfire. Could be playing, but then again that’s how these things happen. I put Susanna back in my pocket. I hear the distant percussion of the launch of a rocket and wait for it to land. Somebody, somewhere might be getting the good news.
Firing Sergeant – It’s all about being correct.
"A digit out and you’ve gone and killed a family. I can’t be responsible for that. So I enforce a 2 man check."
“That’s a fire mission, people! FIRE MISSION!” I yell and I’m looking at Brad, “Grid?”
He reads back, “Grid Five, Seven, Zero, Zero.... One, One, Eight, Five... Direction three four hundred. Out!”
I’m checking the grid on the map. It’s a compound and I’m not going to do the collateral damage thing. That’s his job. The man calling the mission in. I can hear the chattering small arms fire over the fire orders the Observer was calling out.
We called check fire and gave out a 60 second count down to the 1000 pounder that an F-16 was dropping on a position. The enemy position was about 400 metres away from the FOB so we waited for the inevitable large boom. The Officer put fingers in his ears and winced at the five second point.
That was the way it went on some days. One minute we’re playing Monopoly or Risk, the next we’re scrabbling for the radio and running to the CP like fighter pilots being scrambled for the battle of Britain.
It was the boredom that got to you. Sometimes you just wished the baddies out the front would throw a rocket at you to break it up. We didn’t think that in November when it was literally every day they were bombarding us with rockets and grenades. At the time the troops were taking Musa Qaleh back from Taliban control and I’m not so sure why we were getting so much attention.
On Christmas day the Times Newspaper decided to pay us a visit. When they want the helicopters to get somewhere they’ll send them. I bet those ****ing pen pushers wished they never came here. No sooner had they turned up, they got caught up in an attack on the base. They were manhandled to our command post and told to stay ‘put’ as the rockets slammed into the camp.
“Does this happen a lot?” The cameraman asked.
“Only between 2 and 4 in the afternoon, but that’s an early one because it’s Christmas.”
He scribbled into a notebook as if it were scoop of the month.
Gunner Jerry Can run today and the feeling is good. Migs and me are gonna bust some iron in the iso. Get ****ing massive for the lasses back home.
“So Greg. What can you tell us about the FOB and all its delights?” I ask Peter who’s just come out of the solar shower. I’m using a proper microphone, I nicked it from an ITN news crew who were lucky enough to escape a rocket attack.
“Well. Apart from the ‘kiddy ****’”, he began referring to his shrunken penis, “The food is absolutely out of this world, Pete. It is phenomenal. The corn beef hash is out of this ****ing world... oh sorry. I swore. Can you edit that.”
“I certainly can Greg. Now moving onto Chadders the Gun Number One. Good afternoon Chadders, how are you today?”
Chadders lowers the newspaper he is reading, “**** off.”
“Moving on.” I say and find two of our guys playing cards. The microphone is lowered and I flop down and join the guys. “Anyone for a game of volleyball?”
“You do know what time it is?” One of the guys asks me.
“Oh right.” It’s the afternoon and we usually had a rocket or two thrown at us at this time. Yesterday someone got hit by one while having a ****. Unlucky that’s what I say. We sat outside in the shade or we we’re preparing the shells for the mission that would be called that day. I’m sure they were testing us out. We knew what charge and fuze to set the shell to, they were using the same firing point day in, day out. Then one day, out of the blue, they fire an SPG-9 round at us from our rear, where the farms are. Nowhere near the green zone. We had a drama with that one, the CP told us that we couldn’t fire on it due to the collateral damage issue. **** the collateral damage issue. What happens if I get ****ing hit by one of those things. What about the collateral damage at home. Twats!
Chef – That ****er is going to get a ****ing spanking. Sgt Hammond only turned up last week and he’s got me on earlys. I’ve done earlys for the passed month. It’s probably because I’m black. I can tell, the racist trash that he is.
Oh here they come. That lot from Kajaki. They’ll be spraffing ****e about how many they’ve killed and what they got up to. I’ve got to stand here and make sure one of them doesn’t take too many potatoes or carrots. How can I do that? These guys are the fighters and I can’t just tell them put a piece of vegetable back. They’re awfully quiet. They file in. Not a word.
Dave, my Corporal pulls me to one side. “They had a guy killed this morning, so let them have what they want.” I nod.
The group of men shamble through and sit and eat in silence. I think I see blood on a jacket. Then I see a soldier come in, but
he’s different from the rest. There’s something on his head I can’t tell what it is. It’s like a...
“What the **** are you looking at?”
I wipe my hands on my apron and turn away. The man moves on. My mouth is dry and I can feel a pulse throbbing in my fingers. I steady myself on the hotplate before realising I’m burning my hand. I remember seeing that fine trace of blood pulsing down Harold’s face before he was killed in a car accident at high school.
Jane Lewthwaite....Medic. Realist and stubborn cow.
“Someone is stealing the drugs from my bag and I don’t know how to tell the Captain it’s the Sergeant...”
It’s Sunday morning in the Big Brother house and we should have about four guys from the guns. That’s what I usually get. Stomach ailments and I had a guy yesterday with Schermulie burns to his face. His muckah was gonna set one off, they heard movement outside the FOB and the silly bastard fired it into the sangar. The Poor bastard got it in his face. I think Captain Hutchinson wants to keep it quiet. Like the claymore incident and the grenade. Too many people ****ing around with stuff and I ain’t got enough stuff in my med box to sort them out with.
A yank patrol came by when we were out in the desert and they said they’d bring some more supplies for us if they ever swung by. I remember them driving off in their Humvee with two smiling Afghan soldiers, high as kites in the back, waving at me.
“Henry, isn’t it? How you doin’? What can I do for yer?” This is my usually response to anyone that visits me.
“I’m getting stomach cramps –“
“Stop there. Don’t come any closer,” I ain’t catching D&V off this ****er, “Wait,” I order and put a facemask and a pair of gloves on. It’s not D&V I find and probably a stomach bug, the usual order of things around here. You never get to hear of the D&V until it got so many of you. The marine over the other side of the FOB lost an entire platoon to the debilitating condition.
These ****ers are just the worst. They’re like babies and half of them don’t know what hygiene is. I wonder what sort of parents they’ve got. I dread.
I pull out my bag and begin to work on a guy’s gammy foot. Trench foot he reckons. In the height of summer in Afghanistan! Bloody moron. I’m still raking through my supplies, but something isn’t right. The creams are there, the bags of seyline... where’s my diazipan? I ****ing need me diazipan. They’re not there.
I look at the latest patient and grin. He gets thrown a tube of cream and told to apply some, liberally every 24 hours. That should keep the grotty ****er happy. Magic balms always works.
That can’t be right. Someone stealing drugs? I’m meant to do an inventory check every 48 hours on the bag. Half of the ****e in here would sort a junky out for a couple of days. I check again and I can feel beads of sweat on my brow. ****.
“J. J.” Someone is calling me and I’m in this bag like a ****ing ferret.
“What!?” It’s Fred. The other medic. He holds out a bag.
“I found this near the accommodation.” The bag is ripped and I can feel the bottom of my world flood out of me.
“I only found out this morning. We’ve got a junky on our hands somewhere.”
“Probably an afghani. They’re on the dope constantly.”
“Precisely. Which is why I’m not looking to them. If they’ve already got a substitute why would they go through my bags.”
We’ve got first aid training this afternoon and I’m not sure I can do it in this heat. You literally walk outside and your shoulders burn. I have to keep my body armour on to protect my shoulders. I’m sweating, but that doesn’t stop me pouring the coffee down my neck. I have a 20 minute snooze to myself and I can hear the chatter of soldiers in the gun pits. The gentle drone of a plane overhead helps me off.
When I’m awoken. It’s with screams and a heavy thud. Jesus. My ****ing head feels likes it’s been stuffed with jelly – I’m all over the ****ing place. I can hear people running around outside. Is that me being dizzy or am I being... ****! I’m in my body armour and grabbing my med bag. It took seconds for the message to get to me, a bit like the ****ing mail here. I hump my gear outside and the guns are blasting the **** out of somebody, the lads are screaming and throwing shells to breaches.
“Medic!” There it is. I perk up at that sound and I’m galloping to that sound. A gunner is waving me away, when I realise I’m running straight into the barrel of an artillery gun. The barrel is literally horizontal – bloody hell! They’re close to the FOB then. A soldier points me to a group of guys huddled over one. It looks bad. I go through checklist – it’s an automated task that is rebooted every time I get a major casualty. Seyline, Fluids, drip line, feeder....
Jesus Syron... Marine . Sceptic and Jesus.
"That hurt. I’ve got blokes on top of me and I think I’ve struck one. I’ve got another by the throat."
One minute I’m on the GPMG giving it 1000 round bursts to the bad boys in front, then I’m on my back. A crack, I think I remember. A loud crack that shook my head. I remember being wrestled to the ground by bouncers in a Southampton nightclub and I managed sort out two of them and a third ran off. I’m in Southampton again, the world is filled with the smash, bang and wallop of rounds and explosions.
“Jesus! Jay! For **** sake stay still!” Someone shouts. I’ve got blokes on top of me and I think I’ve struck one. I’ve got another by the throat.
“Knock the ****er out!” I hear. Then I’ve thrown one off.
****. My face. What’s happened to my ****ing face!? I can feel it burning up. Then I feel the pin prick of something going into my arm. I’m off. ****. I’m off. See you later......s
The next thing I see is Marky Mark grinning at me. He’s always ****ing grinning the lunatic. My face ****ing hurts. Jesus. Yes. That me.
“You’re out of here, Jesus,” I can hear his voice. It’s a dull background noise and I raise a hand to my face.
“Nah. Leave it, mate. You know what happened, right?” He asks. “You don’t, do you? ****in’ hell. You were ****ing out of it back there, mate. You got Hicks in the nose and you were strangling me.” He chuckles.
There’s life in my legs, I can feel them. I realise the surroundings. I’m in my own tent.
He sees me looking around. “Nah not Bastion yet, mate. Give it another hour. Choppers been on and off for the past three hours. We smashed those ****ers out there proper. Three one thousand pounders on top of them.”
I try to speak. What the **** happened to my mouth? Oh ****. He can see the look in my face. “Your face. You probably can’t speak. You were on the receiving end of an RPG round. You’ve got some metal in your face.”
A ****ing robot.
He leaves me to deal with the concept of metal in face and I’m stuck for ideas. What the **** do I do now? How the **** will get through airport terminals? Try explaining that to the twat with the metal detector. I can hardly blamed it on fillings.
The doc walks in and she looks worse than me. She throws away a cigarette and pulls a blood pressure thing from her shoulder.
“I could have done with that,” I say but she shushes me and straps on the bandage guage to my arm. She pumps it up and looks blankly at me.
“You’ve got lacerations to your face. Consider your modelling career over.” She gets up and walks out.
“How bad is it?” I ask and this stops her before she departs into the stinging light.
“It’s not that bad. At least your alive.” She answers me before leaving.
Doctor – Captain Penelope Hudson
I wrestle my thoughts to the ground and ask them to subside. My feelings have been dampened, quelled by this place and the people around me. I can hardly remember what she looks like. Susanna, my baby girl. I pull out the photograph and rub away the dust. I make sure I’m alone before I smile. It’s the only chance I get. She is a world away and I’m pleased Rick and his parents are looking after her for me. Maybe Rick and I will get back together. I often sleep and I can see them at the canal near Bridgewater. We’re sitting in the shade of a favourite oak tree. I’m listening to the rush of the wind between the boughs and dream of the sea. Rick walks up the bank with her, the sun is highlighting their hair and it shines right into her face.
I swivel myself to the bed edge and rest my head in my hands. I wonder what delights the day has for us in Helmand, Upper Sangin valley. The ****ing sharp end. Ha.
I hear the distant rattle of gunfire. Could be playing, but then again that’s how these things happen. I put Susanna back in my pocket. I hear the distant percussion of the launch of a rocket and wait for it to land. Somebody, somewhere might be getting the good news.
Firing Sergeant – It’s all about being correct.
"A digit out and you’ve gone and killed a family. I can’t be responsible for that. So I enforce a 2 man check."
“That’s a fire mission, people! FIRE MISSION!” I yell and I’m looking at Brad, “Grid?”
He reads back, “Grid Five, Seven, Zero, Zero.... One, One, Eight, Five... Direction three four hundred. Out!”
I’m checking the grid on the map. It’s a compound and I’m not going to do the collateral damage thing. That’s his job. The man calling the mission in. I can hear the chattering small arms fire over the fire orders the Observer was calling out.
We called check fire and gave out a 60 second count down to the 1000 pounder that an F-16 was dropping on a position. The enemy position was about 400 metres away from the FOB so we waited for the inevitable large boom. The Officer put fingers in his ears and winced at the five second point.
That was the way it went on some days. One minute we’re playing Monopoly or Risk, the next we’re scrabbling for the radio and running to the CP like fighter pilots being scrambled for the battle of Britain.
It was the boredom that got to you. Sometimes you just wished the baddies out the front would throw a rocket at you to break it up. We didn’t think that in November when it was literally every day they were bombarding us with rockets and grenades. At the time the troops were taking Musa Qaleh back from Taliban control and I’m not so sure why we were getting so much attention.
On Christmas day the Times Newspaper decided to pay us a visit. When they want the helicopters to get somewhere they’ll send them. I bet those ****ing pen pushers wished they never came here. No sooner had they turned up, they got caught up in an attack on the base. They were manhandled to our command post and told to stay ‘put’ as the rockets slammed into the camp.
“Does this happen a lot?” The cameraman asked.
“Only between 2 and 4 in the afternoon, but that’s an early one because it’s Christmas.”
He scribbled into a notebook as if it were scoop of the month.
Gunner Jerry Can run today and the feeling is good. Migs and me are gonna bust some iron in the iso. Get ****ing massive for the lasses back home.
“So Greg. What can you tell us about the FOB and all its delights?” I ask Peter who’s just come out of the solar shower. I’m using a proper microphone, I nicked it from an ITN news crew who were lucky enough to escape a rocket attack.
“Well. Apart from the ‘kiddy ****’”, he began referring to his shrunken penis, “The food is absolutely out of this world, Pete. It is phenomenal. The corn beef hash is out of this ****ing world... oh sorry. I swore. Can you edit that.”
“I certainly can Greg. Now moving onto Chadders the Gun Number One. Good afternoon Chadders, how are you today?”
Chadders lowers the newspaper he is reading, “**** off.”
“Moving on.” I say and find two of our guys playing cards. The microphone is lowered and I flop down and join the guys. “Anyone for a game of volleyball?”
“You do know what time it is?” One of the guys asks me.
“Oh right.” It’s the afternoon and we usually had a rocket or two thrown at us at this time. Yesterday someone got hit by one while having a ****. Unlucky that’s what I say. We sat outside in the shade or we we’re preparing the shells for the mission that would be called that day. I’m sure they were testing us out. We knew what charge and fuze to set the shell to, they were using the same firing point day in, day out. Then one day, out of the blue, they fire an SPG-9 round at us from our rear, where the farms are. Nowhere near the green zone. We had a drama with that one, the CP told us that we couldn’t fire on it due to the collateral damage issue. **** the collateral damage issue. What happens if I get ****ing hit by one of those things. What about the collateral damage at home. Twats!
Chef – That ****er is going to get a ****ing spanking. Sgt Hammond only turned up last week and he’s got me on earlys. I’ve done earlys for the passed month. It’s probably because I’m black. I can tell, the racist trash that he is.
Oh here they come. That lot from Kajaki. They’ll be spraffing ****e about how many they’ve killed and what they got up to. I’ve got to stand here and make sure one of them doesn’t take too many potatoes or carrots. How can I do that? These guys are the fighters and I can’t just tell them put a piece of vegetable back. They’re awfully quiet. They file in. Not a word.
Dave, my Corporal pulls me to one side. “They had a guy killed this morning, so let them have what they want.” I nod.
The group of men shamble through and sit and eat in silence. I think I see blood on a jacket. Then I see a soldier come in, but
he’s different from the rest. There’s something on his head I can’t tell what it is. It’s like a...
“What the **** are you looking at?”
I wipe my hands on my apron and turn away. The man moves on. My mouth is dry and I can feel a pulse throbbing in my fingers. I steady myself on the hotplate before realising I’m burning my hand. I remember seeing that fine trace of blood pulsing down Harold’s face before he was killed in a car accident at high school.