Poppy #2
Poppy #2
In the kitchen I gulp down the tea Maggie has made for me, then grab the keys to the van and head out. I glance at my watch and am relieved to see there is plenty of time. Squadron always was a stickler for punctuality.
Squadron was born to be a soldier, just like his dad before him and his dad before that. He was given his nickname by a mate in school because all he ever talked about was joining the army. He loved everything about it – the marksmanship, the fitness, the discipline. It really mattered to him.
He made it matter to me too.
‘See,’ I tell him silently as I push open the door to the tattoo parlour with time to spare. If only he were still here for me to impress.
Barry is waiting for me. ‘Ready for poppy number two?’
I nod and follow him into his room.
‘So, what music choice will it be today?’ Barry asks as he snaps on his gloves.
‘“Oliver’s Army” by Elvis Costello,’ I tell him, before taking a deep breath and lowering my face down on to the pillow.
Squadron’s favourite song. It was his dad’s too – killed on the streets of Northern Ireland before he ever got a chance to meet his son. Another generation cursed by war. Wasn’t it meant to be different for us?
Behind me, above my ear, I hear the needle start to vibrate, then I feel the familiar sharp sting of its tip biting into my skin. I focus on the song and, like the lyrics say, my mind sleepwalks. Back to the day we first met, the very first day of basic training. A bunch of us were waiting outside the train station – you could spot the new recruits from the frightened looks on our faces. When a bus finally pulled up to collect us, the man who was to be our sergeant jumped out. He was terrifying. All angry, writhing muscle, like a pit bull.
‘I don’t give a rat’s arse who you are,’ he screamed into the ear of one unfortunate lad who had stepped forward, reached out his hand and politely introduced himself as Michael.
‘Well, what are you waiting for? Put your bags in the back and get on the bloody coach.’
While we all immediately reached down to pick up our luggage, the traumatized kid froze. Without saying a word, Squadron picked up his bag for him and hoisted it across his shoulder. He nudged him in the direction of the bus.
‘Don’t let him get to you,’ I heard him whisper into the lad’s ear.
That lad was Cherub – so named because of his mass of blond curls. Ironic, given the brutally efficient soldier he turned into. One of the best. Not the best though. That was always going to be Squadron.
He was one of those men built like mountains, with ridiculously long limbs and massive feet and hands. He had deep-set brown eyes and long, thick black lashes that he hated, because everyone always commented on them. He told me once that when he was a little boy he was so sick of his teacher going on about them that he cut them off with his mum’s nail scissors. But he couldn’t prevent them growing back again.
He was a beast of an athlete – strong and fast. During those first weeks of training he demolished me relentlessly in all the physical challenges. The runs, the bag lifts, the jerrycan tests. Squadron made them look easy – powering ahead of us all with his two cans full of water dangling easily at his sides. He never spilled a drop.
After leaving school, Fridge had gone to work for his dad for a bit – he didn’t join up until the Afghan war started. By then, I had come to rely on Squadron in the way I had previously relied on Fridge. We ate together, trained together, practised our change steps and front salutes together.
He taught me how to dismantle and assemble a rifle. Doing it blindfolded was his party piece.
I taught him how to read a map, something that came easily to me after orienteering training. I can see him now, a comically puzzled look on his face as those great big hands of his endlessly rotated the map, trying to make sense of it.
God, those weeks of training were tough. But whenever I complained about Sarge being an unhinged psychopath who had it in for me, Squadron would talk me down.
‘It may not feel like it now, but it’s how they make us a unit. It’s us against them. Every time he has a go at you, at any of us, we all bond together and become that much stronger. You need to think about the bigger picture.’
As training progressed, the possibility of seeing action abroad loomed closer. Some of our boys were already in Afghanistan, and it was a strong possibility that we would be sent out there too.
There was talk of helping the Afghan people against a resurgent Taliban. About winning over the hearts and minds of the population, helping them build schools and hospitals and roads.
I started to understand what Squadron was saying about the bigger picture and began to feel a pride in what I was doing and what I might be able to do for others.
I stopped caring about Sarge shouting at me, about sleeping in barracks that were freezing cold, about sharing my space and a bathroom with thirty other men.
Squadron taught me to keep my rage in check too. He put a stop to a pointless bar fight I got into on a night’s leave towards the end of our training. I don’t even remember what the guy in the pub had done to annoy me, but I know I was about to land him one when suddenly Squadron was standing between us.
‘Don’t,’ was all he said. His physical presence was enough.
The next morning, his mum left early for work and Squadron cooked me breakfast. As he fried the bacon, without turning to look at me, he said, ‘What were you thinking? Someone with your training having a go at him? And what if they kicked you out of the army? Would it have been worth it?’
I realized then that it wasn’t. That none of the fights I’d endlessly provoked at school had been worth it either.
I’d always told myself that I was better than my dad, who’d done time for a drunken brawl, but what had I become? I didn’t want to be a man like my father. I wanted to be a man like Squadron.
He never stopped offering me bits of wisdom and advice. That very first tour, as the Hercules began its steep descent towards Camp Bastion, I glanced at the helmets stowed around the plane, as if seeing them for the first time, and suddenly it hit me, really hit me.
Squadron must have noticed my anxiety. He tapped me reassuringly on my leg. ‘Get your body armour on. It’s time to do some good.’
He said that every single time we went out on patrol. Like a prayer that would protect us. It didn’t protect him in the end – and neither did I.
But then none of us saw it coming.
We’d just made it back from a patrol. I clocked Squadron’s face and he was grinning with relief, grateful to have survived another mission. We all felt the same – every patrol since Fridge’s death had been freighted with an extra level of tension.
I watched as he took off his helmet. It was the first thing we all did when we came back through the camp gates. Telling ourselves we could start to relax.
Then he put down his weapon.
And that’s how the sniper got him. He waited until we’d all put down our weapons and taken off our helmets, and then the Afghan ‘policeman’ on the roof of the checkpoint opened fire.
Squadron was killed instantly, six weeks after we lost Fridge.
And somehow, his death was even more shocking to me than Fridge’s. Not just the manner of his death, at the hands of someone we thought we could trust, but because I just never envisaged him going before me. He was too good a soldier.
Even now, I struggle to accept the injustice of it. The fact that he was never given a chance to defend himself. That this most honest of men wasn’t given an honest death.
Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I remember how soundly Squadron always slept. ‘Contented exhaustion,’ he used to call it. ‘The exhaustion that means we know we’ve done a tiny bit of good.’
And I ask myself, did we? Did we do good? It’s hard to know in a world where a man you think is on your side waits for you to lay down your weapons and then opens fire …
‘All done,’ Barry says.
I can’t believe he’s finished already – I had completely disappeared into my head.
Barry holds up the mirror, and I study the fresh art on my back. I feel tears welling up and, embarrassed at my emotion, look away.
‘People often react like this,’ Barry says kindly. ‘It’s the endorphins. Your body is flooded with them while you’re having the tattoo done, which can lead to a bit of a crash after. Or it could just be that the tattoo really means something to you.’
He smiles and says no more, busying himself pasting ointment over my back and putting on a dressing.
As he works I think about what he said. I hadn’t expected to feel so overwhelmed, but already this tattoo means a great deal to me. It’s as if my body, which has felt redundant for so long, has a new purpose.
A memorial to my friends.
For you, Squadron. The most unselfish, decent man I ever knew. You were such a big character in my life, the hole you’ve left will be impossible to fill. But this tattoo, well, maybe it can fill a tiny part of it.