(2005) Rat Run by Gerald Seymour

listened as the corporal, reading off notes, told them what route they would take, on foot, out of Bravo. Two and a half hours of showing the presence. Baz, like every other Jock at the police station, knew a lift was coming the following morning, and that the patrol was going out that afternoon to give the impression that everything was normal, quiet, routine; a break in the patrolling pattern might sound a warning to those in the identified buildings who were to be lifted.
    Baz always liked to speak up, to show he was alert.
    'Excuse, Corp, aren't we short of an interpreter?'
    'Behind you. Mr Kitchen's coming with us.'
    He turned. Baz hadn't seen the officer, must have reached the briefing when the gats and the gimpy were being checked and armed. The officer was standing with Sergeant McQueen. He'd seen him arrive when the resupply convoy had come in from Battalion in the morning. Talk round the HQ platoon was that he was a desk driver, from Intelligence, and it had been overheard in the mess by a Jock doing officers' breakfasts that he was an Eternal Flame -
    'never went out'. Though he was alongside old Queenie, Baz was struck by his aloneness, like he didn't fit and knew it, seemed remote from them. A good-sized man, but his uniform was clean as if it was straight out of the dhobi line, his boots hadn't dirt on them, and his webbing was looser than it should have been. His flak jacket was not fastened across his chest, he had no cam-cream on his cheeks and forehead, and he held an SM80 as if it wasn't part of him.
    'Does he do worm-speak, Corporal?'
    'He reads Arabic writing and speaks Arabic lingo. He'll do any interpreting we need - and you'll watch his back, Baz.'
    'Be a pleasure, Corporal. Don't like his face, though.' Baz spat into his cupped hands, then crouched, scooped sand into his palms, then went the two strides to the officer.
    'Don't mind me, sir, but you've no cam-cream. This'll do.'
    He wiped the mess, spittle and sand on to the officer's cheeks, forehead and chin, smeared it good and hard right up to the rim of his helmet, which was askew, like he wasn't used to wearing one. He could sense the nervousness, like this was a new experience for a Rupert . . . All young officers were Ruperts, all Ruperts were fair game. There was a little wave of laughter behind him from the section, then old Queenie slapped his hand down.
    'Just trying to help - that's much better, sir.'
    They didn't have to be told what they might face when they were out in the village: it might be a scrum of cheerful, screaming kids, offers of God-awful sweet coffee from the stalls, an RPG round or a burst of automatic - might be a welcome or might be a full-blown ambush. Not knowing was what made it good for Baz.
    'Right, let's move.'The corporal was on his way. Baz was not surprised that the company commander and the platoon commander hadn't come out to hear the briefing and see them go. They'd have been working on the planning of the morning lift, heads down over the maps of the locations and where the block forces would be to stop the bastards legging it. At the weapons pit, a square metre of sand between three walls of sandbags, they armed the rifles and the gimpy, the machine-gun. He didn't hear the scrape of the mechanism behind him. Baz could always muster a nice smile. Didn't have to say anything. He smiled well as he took the officer's rifle, worked the bullet into the breech, checked the safety was on, murmured that they always had one up the spout when on patrol. He saw the blush on the officer's face -
    bloody Rupert, useless Rupert. The blush showed up through the smears of sand and spittle. All of the section's faces, everyone at Bravo's, was sunburned or tanned dark, but this man drove a desk and never went out. There ivas a whisper of thanks, barely heard, and Baz's smile was sweeter: he was in control, like he always wanted to be.
    There was banter among them, a few cracks as they tracked along the embankment towards the